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https://hackaday.com/2025/01/16/fighting-to-keep-bluetooth-thermometers-hackable/ | Fighting To Keep Bluetooth Thermometers Hackable | Tom Nardi | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth low energy",
"custom firmware",
"thermometer",
"xiaomi"
] | Back in 2020, we first brought you word of the Xiaomi LYWSD03MMC — a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) temperature and humidity sensor that could be had from the usual sources for just a few dollars each. Capable of being powered by a single CR2032 battery for up to a year, the devices looked extremely promising for DIY smart home projects. There was only one problem, you needed to use Xiaomi’s app to read the data off of the things.
Enter [Aaron Christophel], who created an open source firmware for these units that could easily be flashed using a web-based tool from a smartphone in BLE range and opened up all sorts of advanced features. The firmware started getting popular, and a community developed around it. Everyone was happy. So naturally, years later,
Xiaomi wants to put a stop to it
.
The good news is, [Aaron] and [pvvx] (who has worked on expanding the original custom firmware and
bringing it to more devices
) have found a workaround that opens the devices back up. But the writing is on the wall, and there’s no telling how long it will be until Xiaomi makes another attempt to squash this project.
We can’t imagine why the company is upset about an extremely popular replacement firmware for their hardware. Unquestionably, Xiaomi has sold more of these sensors thanks to the work of [Aaron] and [pvvx]. This author happens to have over a dozen of them all over the house,
spitting out data in a refreshingly simple to parse format
. Then again, the fact that you could use the devices without going through their software ecosystem probably means they lose out on the chance to sell your data to the highest bidder…so there’s that.
The duo aren’t releasing any information on how their new exploit works, which will hopefully buy them some time before Xiaomi figures out how to patch it. In the short video below, [Aaron] shows the modified installation process that works on the newer official firmware. Unfortunately you now have to connect each unit up to the Xiaomi app before you can wipe it and install the open firmware, but it’s still better than the alternative. | 39 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083618",
"author": "Rust Cans",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T12:25:26",
"content": "but it’s still better than the alternative.It’s not better than supporting the myriad of open source climate monitoring options available.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,666.784235 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/16/simple-hardware-store-hack-keeps-your-pcbs-right-where-you-want-them/ | Simple Hardware Store Hack Keeps Your PCBs Right Where You Want Them | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"clamp",
"fixturing",
"jig",
"magnetic",
"pcb",
"vise",
"work holding"
] | Sometimes it’s the simplest hacks that make the biggest impact.
Take
these DIY magnetic PCB vises
for example. Sure, you can go out and buy purpose-built tools, but [Dylan Radcliffe] just made a trip to the hardware store for some nuts and bolts. He chose 3/8″-16 bolts, which would probably be around M10 for the rest of the world. The head of each bolt is ground flat so a ceramic disc magnet can be attached to it with CA glue, while the head of the bolt gets a plastic washer glued to it. Another plastic washer gets glued to a nut, which when threaded onto the bolt provides the light clamping force needed to hold a PCB. Make four of those and stick them to a steel plate with the magnets, and you can stop chasing your boards around the bench with a soldering iron.
As much as we like this idea — and we do; we’re heading to Home Depot to buy the needed parts this very evening — we can think of a few useful modifications. With a long bolt and two nuts rather than one, you could make a set of vises that are easily adjustable along the Z-axis. This could prove useful to those of us working under a microscope. Also, rather than making the bolts the magnetic part we bet you could lay down a flexible magnetic sheet, the kind you can feed into a printer to roll your own fridge magnets. We suspect that would hold the bolts firmly enough for most work while still allowing easy repositioning. We’d also favor flange nuts over plain hex nuts, to give a larger clamping area. We’d still include the plastic washers, though, or possibly switch to rubber ones.
There’s more than one way to skin this cat, of course, especially if you’ve got
a Harbor Freight nearby and a well-stocked Lego bin
. | 30 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083562",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T09:25:09",
"content": "I find it funny that whenever a project is presented on Hackaday, there is always someone who thinks they can make a better version of it. Today I experienced that I didn’t need to wait for the comments but c... | 1,760,371,667.424604 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/piezo-buzzer-makes-a-drum/ | Piezo Buzzer Makes A Drum | Jenny List | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"drum",
"piezo buzzer"
] | The humble piezo disc buzzer is much more than something that makes tinny beeps in retro electronic equipment, it can also be used as a sensor. Tapping a piezo buzzer gives an interesting waveform, with a voltage spike followed by an envelope, and then a negative rebound voltage. It’s something [Igor Brichkov] is using,
to make a simple but effective electronic drum
.
First of all, the output of the buzzer must be tamed, which he does by giving it a little impedance to dissipate any voltage spikes. There follows some simple signal conditioning with passive components, to arrive at an envelope for the final drum sound. How to turn a voltage into a sound? Using a voltage controlled amplifier working on a noise source. The result is recognizably the drum sound, entirely in electronics.
In a world of digital music it’s easy to forget the simpler end of sound synthesis, using circuits rather than software. If you hanker for the Good Old Days, we have an entire series on logic noise,
doing the job with 4000 series CMOS logic
. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083523",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T06:26:45",
"content": "Syntom lives again!http://davethompson.co.nz/syntom.htm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8083532",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T... | 1,760,371,667.357776 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/a-direct-conversion-receiver-anyone-can-build/ | A Direct Conversion Receiver Anyone Can Build | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"direct conversion",
"HF receiver"
] | A couple of years ago one of the Hackaday Prize finalists was a project to take highschoolers through building a direct conversion radio receiver for the 40 metre amateur band. It was originated by the SolderSmoke podcast, and we’re pleased to see that they’ve recently put up
an overview video taking the viewer through the whole project in detail
.
It’s a modular design, with all the constituent building blocks broken out into separate boards on which the circuitry is built Manhattan style. Direct conversion receivers are pretty simple, so that leaves us with only four modules for oscillator, bandpass filter, mixer, and audio amplifier. We particularly like that it’s permeability tuned using a brass screw and an inductor, to make up for the once-ubiquitous variable capacitors now being largely a thing of the past.
A point that resonated was that most radio amateurs never make something like this. Arguments can be made about off-the-shelf rigs and chequebook amateurs, but we’d like to suggest that everyone can benefit from a feel for analogue circuitry even if they rarely have a need for a little receiver like this one. We like this radio, and we hope you will too after seeing the video below the break.
Need reminding? See
the Hackaday.io project page
, and
the Hackaday Prize finalists from that year
. | 28 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083484",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T03:48:05",
"content": "That variable inductor is not “permeability tuned” by the brass. The permeability of brass is pretty much the same as air, and changing the amount of brass inside the coil won’t change the permeability of ... | 1,760,371,666.855208 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/all-the-attacks-on-the-rp2350/ | All The Attacks On The RP2350 | Elliot Williams | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"chip glitching",
"raspberry pi",
"security"
] | Raspberry Pi’s new microcontroller, the RP2350, has a small section of memory that is meant for storing secrets. It’s protected by anti-glitching and other countermeasures, and the Raspberries wanted to test it. So this summer, they gave them out, pre-programmed with a secret string, as part of the badge for DEFCON attendees.
The results of the cracking efforts are in
, and it’s fair to say that the hackers have won.
First place went to [Aedan Cullen], who also
gave a great talk about how he did it at 38C3
. One of the coolest features of the RP2350, from a hacker perspective, is that it has dual ARM
and
dual RISC-V cores onboard, and they can be swapped out by multiplexers. The security module has a critical register that has disable bits for both of these processors, but it turns out that the ARM disable bits have priority. When [Aedan] glitched the security module just right, it disabled the ARM cores but left the RISC-V cores running in the secure context, with full debug(!), and the game was over. As of yet, there is no mitigation for this one, because it’s baked into the secure boot module’s silicon.
[Marius Muench] managed to pre-load malicious code into RAM and glitch a reboot-out-of-secure-mode on the USB module. This one is possibly fixable by checking other reboot flags. [
Kévin Courdesses] has a sweet laser fault-injection rig
that’s based on the 3D-printable
OpenFlexure Delta Stage
, which we’ve seen used for microscopy purposes, but here he’s bypassing the anti-glitching circuitry by exposing the die and hitting it hard with photons.
Finally, [Andrew Zonenberg] and a team from IOActive went at the RP2350 with a
focused ion beam
and just read the memory, or at least the pairwise-OR of neighboring bits. Pulling this attack off isn’t cheap, and it’s a more general property of all anti-fuse memory cells that they can be read out this way. Chalk this up as a mostly-win for the offense in this case.
If you want to read up on voltage glitching attacks yourself, and we promise we won’t judge, [Matthew Alt]
has a great writeup on the topic.
And ironically enough, one of his tools of choice is [Colin O’Flynn]’s RP2040-based Chip Shouter EMP glitcher, which he showed us
how to make and use in this 2021 Remoticon talk
. | 30 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083460",
"author": "Grawp",
"timestamp": "2025-01-16T01:07:49",
"content": "Hopefully they now have enough of reasons to hurry up a new stepping. I do care about the secure storage but I care about fixing up that massive GPIO current leak infinite times more.",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,371,667.165618 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/forget-the-coax-wire-up-your-antennas-with-cat-6-cable/ | Forget The Coax, Wire Up Your Antennas With Cat 6 Cable | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"balun",
"beverage",
"Cat 6",
"coaxial",
"combiner",
"feeedline",
"transimpedance",
"UTP"
] | These days, anything with copper in it is expensive. If you doubt that, a walk into any Home Depot electrical department, where the wire is locked up tighter than Fort Knox, will prove otherwise. Coaxial cable is a particularly expensive species, which is a pity for hams and other radio enthusiasts since it’s the only thing we can use for antenna feedlines.
Or is it? [Steve (VE6WZ)] has found a way to use
ordinary Cat 6 Ethernet cable for antenna feed lines
that seems pretty clever. As he points out, Ethernet cables are designed to handle frequencies that coincide nicely with most of the interesting amateur radio bands, and their insertion losses are acceptably low, especially for Cat 6 cable. The twisted pairs are also a balanced system that’s good at rejecting common mode noise. Cat 6 cable also has four pairs of conductors, allowing you to feed multiple antennas with one cable, or to distribute power to amplifiers and switches along with antenna feeds.
The downside? Cat6 conductor pairs have a characteristic impedance of around 100 ohms, which isn’t a match for the 50-ohm feedline impedance universally expected by ham radios. Also, the relatively small wires probably aren’t up to the job of carrying much current, limiting their use to feedlines for receive-only antennas. That works for [Steve] since he uses Cat 6 to support his massive Beverage antenna farm (Beverage antennas are non-resonant horizontal antennas that live close to the ground and point in the direction of the signal, rather than broadside to the signal as with a resonant antenna like a dipole.) Each antenna in his farm has a transimpedance amplifier that needs to be powered, plus switching relays so he can turn the correct antennas on for the signals he wants to receive. He describes the amps in detail in the video below, along with the custom impedance-matching transformers he uses and the combining gear.
Coax will probably still be the cable of choice for most feedline applications, but it’s nice to know there are alternatives. And who knows—if you stick to
QRP work
, maybe Cat 6 could even be used for transmitting. | 65 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083410",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T21:27:11",
"content": "Oh the irony: For some microwave-and-shorter applications, you put the radio and the antenna in the same place, then run CAT5/6 (plus power) back to the shack where your laptop is controlling the radio.Als... | 1,760,371,667.095971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/new-frontiers-for-nissan-leaf-motor/ | New Frontiers For Nissan Leaf Motor And Battery | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"conversion",
"drivetrain",
"frontier",
"Leaf",
"nissan",
"truck"
] | Nissan started off with a massive lead in the electric vehicle industry — their Leaf was the first mass-market EV available and the highest-selling EV until 2020. But the company has begun to lag behind other automotive manufacturers and their more diverse, modern offerings. As an example, the Leaf still doesn’t have active cooling for its battery packs. On the plus side, though, these cars are pretty easy to work on and parts for them are widely available. This includes the battery pack and motor,
which can be dropped in to other non-EV Nissan products like this Nissan Frontier
.
For conversions using the Leaf battery pack and motor, [Paul] points out that it’s important to find the motor with the inverter and power distribution unit all integrated together, rather than sourcing them all separately since they don’t always mix-and-match well. There are several third-party parts available for getting these motors running in other applications, including a coupler to mate the motor to a transmission. However, this still needs some custom fabrication to properly attach to the Frontier’s drivetrain. With a new controller as well, the Frontier engine can be pulled, the Leaf engine dropped in, and the battery set into the bed and connected.
A followup video
shows [Paul] driving his new EV down a neighborhood street, but it looks like there are still a few things to polish up before it’s ready to hit the open highway including a more robust housing for the battery. But, if donor vehicles can be found like a truck body and Leaf drivetrain components, this type of modification can be done for a surprisingly small cost.
These EV batteries can also be put to work as home power banks as well
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082741",
"author": "WonkoTheSaneUK",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T09:45:26",
"content": "Nissan also repurpose “old” LEAF battery packs to run the parts-shuttling robots at their assembly plants.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "808... | 1,760,371,667.209094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/homebrew-retro-console-runs-on-pic32/ | Homebrew Retro Console Runs On PIC32 | Lewin Day | [
"Games",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"console",
"emulator",
"game boy",
"microcontroller",
"pic32"
] | [Chad Burrow] decided to take on a noble task—building a “retro” style computer and video game console. Only, this one is built using somewhat modern hardware—relying on the grunt of the PIC32MZ2048EFH144 to get the job done. Meet the
Acolyte Hand PIC’d 32
.
It’s name might be a mouthful, but that chip can pull off some great feats! With a clock speed of 200 MHz, it’s not short on processing power, though RAM and flash storage are somewhat limited at just 512 KB and 2MB respectively. [Chad] was able to leverage those constraints to get a VGA output working at a resolutions up to 800 x 600, with up to 65,000 colors—though 256 colors is more practical due to memory concerns. The Acolyte Hand also rocks two 8-bit audio channels. It has a pair of Genesis-compatible controller ports as well as PS/2 and USB for keyboards and mice, along with more modern Xbox 360 controllers.
[Chad] cooked up some software to put it through its paces, too. It’s got a Tetris clone on board, and can also run Game Boy games at full speed via the Peanut-GB emulator. That provides for a pretty rich game library, though [Chad] notes he plans to develop more native video games for his system to demo at his local college.
Design files are on Github for the curious.
This project is a great example of just how powerful modern microcontrollers have become. Once upon a time, just driving a simple
black-and-white graphical LCD
might have taken some real effort, but today,
there are pixels and clock cycles to spare in projects like these
. Truly a wonderous world we live in! | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082693",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T06:24:32",
"content": "Very well done, the sample games look promising! 😃👍That being said, I can’t help but have to mention to the laymen here that newer tech isn’t automatically “superior” to an 8/16-Bit game console from 80s... | 1,760,371,666.906255 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/selectively-magnetizing-an-anti-ferromagnet-with-terahertz-laser/ | Selectively Magnetizing An Anti-Ferromagnet With Terahertz Laser | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"anti-ferromagnet",
"ferromagnetic"
] | It’s a well-known fact that anti-ferromagnetic materials are called that way because they cannot be magnetized, not even in the presence of a very strong external magnetic field. The randomized spin state is also linked with any vibrations (phonons) of the material, ensuring that there’s a very strong resistance to perturbations. Even so, it might be possible to at least briefly
magnetize small areas through the use of THz-range lasers
, as they disrupt the phonon-spin balance sufficiently to cause a number of atoms to ‘flip’, resulting in a localized magnetic structure.
The research by [Baatyr Ilyas] and colleagues was
published
in
Nature
, describing the way the 4.8 THz pulses managed to achieve this feat in FePS
3
anti-ferromagnetic material. The change in spin was verified afterwards using differently polarized laser pulses, confirming that the local structures remained intact for at least 2.5 milliseconds, confirming the concept of using an external pulse to induce phonon excitation. Additional details can be found in the
supplemental information
PDF for the (sadly paywalled with no ArXiv version) paper.
As promising as this sounds, the FePS
3
sample had to be cooled to 118K and kept in a vacuum chamber. The brief magnetization also doesn’t offer any immediate applications, but as a proof of concept it succinctly demonstrates the possibility of using anti-ferromagnetic materials for magnetic storage. Major benefit if such storage can be made more permanent is that it might be more stable and less susceptible to outside influences than traditional magnetic storage. Whether it can be brought out of the PoC stage into at least a viable prototype remains to be seen. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082744",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T10:37:24",
"content": "One guy:This object can’t be destroyed with a hammer.Other guy:Finds a bigger hammer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8082758",
"author": "... | 1,760,371,666.992148 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/fluid-simulation-pendant-teaches-lessons-in-miniaturization/ | Fluid Simulation Pendant Teaches Lessons In Miniaturization | Dan Maloney | [
"LED Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ADXL362",
"charlieplexing",
"fluid dynamics",
"jewelry",
"led",
"mcp73832",
"metalworking",
"simulation",
"stm32"
] | Some projects seem to take on a life of their own. You get an idea, design and prototype it, finally build the thing and — it’s good, but it’s not quite right. Back to the drawing board, version 2, still not perfect, lather, rinse, repeat. Pretty soon you look around to discover that you’ve built ten of them. Oops.
That seems to be the arc followed by [mitxela] with
this very cool fluid simulation pendant
. The idea is simple enough; create a piece of jewelry with a matrix of tiny LEDs that act like the pendant is full of liquid, sloshing about with the slightest movement. In practice, though, this project was filled with challenges. Surprisingly, [mitxela] doesn’t seem to number getting a fluid dynamics simulation running on a microcontroller among those problems, at least not to a great degree. Rather, the LED matrix seemed to cause the most problems, both in terms of laying it out on the 25-mm diameter PCB and how to address the LEDs with relatively limited GPIO on the STM32 microcontroller. The solution to both was diagonal charlieplexing, which reduces the number of vias needed for the 216-LED matrix and allows the 0402 to be densely packed, along with providing some tolerance for solder bridging.
And then there’s the metalworking heroics, which no [mitxela] project would be complete without. This seems to be where a lot of the revisions come from, as the gold-plated brass case kept not quite living up to expectations. The final version is a brass cup containing the LiR2450 rechargeable battery, a magnetic charging connector, and the main PCB, all sealed by a watch crystal. The fluid simulation is quite realistic and very responsive to the pendant’s position. The video below shows it in action along with a summary of the build.
If you want to catch up on [mitxela]’s back catalog of miniaturized builds, start with
his amazing industrial ear adornments
or
these tiny matrix earrings
. We’re also fond of
his incredible shrinking MIDI builds
. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082682",
"author": "Dylan Turner",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T05:20:43",
"content": "This is some of the best PCB design I’ve ever seen. Truly masterful work. This thing is art",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8082762",
"autho... | 1,760,371,666.94713 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/electromechanical-7-segment-display-is-high-contrast-brilliance/ | Electromechanical 7-Segment Display Is High Contrast Brilliance | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"flip-dot",
"seven segment",
"seven segment display"
] | The seven-segment display is most well known in LED form, but the concept isn’t tied to that format. You can build a seven-segment display out of moving parts, too. [tin-foil-hat] has achieved just that
with a remarkably elegant design.
As you might expect, the build relies heavily on 3D-printed components—produced in white and black plastic to create a high-contrast display. It’s a simple choice that makes the display easy to read in a wide variety of lighting conditions, and far less fussy than toying with LEDs and diffusers and all that.
Actuation of each display segment is achieved electromagnetically. Effectively, each segment behaves like a flip dot, with the orientation controlled by energizing one of two electromagnets per segment. Controlling the electromagnets is an ESP32, which is hooked up to the various segments via a Darlington transistor array, with multiplexing used to minimize the number of IO pins required. A shift register was also employed to let the microcontroller easily drive four of these electromechanical digits.
It’s a simple build, well explained—and the final result is aesthetically pleasing. We’ve seen a few builds along these lines before,
albeit using altogether different techniques.
Lots of different techniques
, in fact! Video after the break.
[Thanks to Archivort for the tip!] | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082658",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T01:35:08",
"content": "so i watched this one. He stated that it was much easier to design a pcb that only pushed current in one direction, but had to do it twice for each segment. Is it really easier than using a bidirectional moto... | 1,760,371,667.471856 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/clever-pcbs-straighten-out-the-supercon-sao-badge/ | Clever PCBs Straighten Out The Supercon SAO Badge | Tom Nardi | [
"cons"
] | [
"badge",
"badgelife",
"sao",
"Simple Add-On",
"Supercon badge"
] | When we decided that Simple Add-Ons (SAOs) would be the focus of Supercon 2024, it was clear the badge would need to feature more than just one or two of the requisite connectors. We finally settled on six ports, but figuring out the geometry of getting all those ports on the badge in such a way that the SAOs wouldn’t hit each other was a bit tricky. In early concept drawings the badge was just a big rectangle with the ports along the top, but it was too ugly.
In the end we went with a somewhat organic design — an electronic “flower” with the radially arranged SAOs forming the petals, but this meant that that none of the SAOs were in the traditional vertical orientation. Luckily,
[Adrian Studer] designed a couple of PCBs
that not only resolve this issue, but add a seventh SAO port for good measure.
In the project repository you’ll find two PCB designs. The first, “SAO Up” is essentially a little arm that turns the SAO port 90 degrees. This doesn’t exactly get them vertical, in fact, whether or not the new orientation is actually an improvement for the top two SAOs is perhaps debatable. But it definitely helps on the lower SAOs, which are essentially upside down in their original configuration.
The real star of the show is “SAO Bridge”, a wavy board that connects across the two midline SAO ports on the Supercon badge and turns it into a set of three (nearly) horizontal connectors across the front. The center port is particularly helpful in that it gives you a place to put unusually wide SAOs.
As a reminder the
Supercon SAO badge
, and the
winners of the 2024 SAO Contest
, will be making the trip across the pond for
Hackaday Europe in just a few months.
That means you’ve still got plenty of time to have a few of these CERN-OHL-P licensed boards made up. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,667.518644 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/raspberry-pi-hack-chat-with-eben-upton/ | Raspberry Pi Hack Chat With Eben Upton | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, January 15 at noon Pacific for the
Raspberry Pi Hack Chat
with Eben Upton!
The Hack Chat has been on an extended hiatus, but we’re back for 2025 and coming strong out of the gate! We’ve been trying to get Raspberry Pi co-founder and CEO Eben Upton on the chat for a while, but there was that whole thing of taking the company public that probably distracted him a wee bit. That’s fine though, because we know he loves getting in the trenches with the hacker community and talking about the things we all love to talk about. It’s not often that you get a chance for a one-on-one like this, so make sure you join us with all your Pi-related questions.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, January 15 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
.
[Image credit:
Sniper Zeta
, CC BY-SA 4.0] | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082600",
"author": "gr",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T17:50:13",
"content": "That’s 17:00 UTC for those who don’t live in the Pacific.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8082651",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"times... | 1,760,371,667.699754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/repairing-a-real-and-broken-apollo-era-dsky/ | Repairing A Real (and Broken) Apollo-era DSKY | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"apollo",
"DSKY"
] | Presumably the same DSKY unit installed in the simulator at MIT.
The Display/Keyboard unit – DSKY for short – is the primary way that Apollo-era astronauts communicated with the onboard computers. Not all DSKYs ended up in space, however, with the MIT hosting a simulator that features one of these units. Unfortunately the unit that ended up
at [CuriousMarc]’s lab had seen better days
, with the assumption being that it was the same DSKY that was installed in a photo of the old simulator. In addition to the busted EL display and two (improper) replacement keys, the insides show signs of damaged modules and possibly worse.
Without bothering to hook the unit up to the (previously restored) guidance computer, a full teardown was begun to assess the full extent of the damage. Considering that the DSKY uses latching relays for memory and two modules were ominously marked as being defective, this made for a tense wait as the unit was disassembled.
Fortunately making new DSKY-style EL displays has first been replicated in 2019, meaning that a replacement is possible. Perhaps surprisingly, the busted display still fires up in the test rig, as a testament to how robust the technology is. At the end of the teardown, the assessment is that the unit can be restored to its original condition, which will be done in the upcoming videos in this series. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083115",
"author": "airinvestigator",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T14:50:51",
"content": "Old school. 👍👍👍",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8083192",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T15:46:40",
... | 1,760,371,667.644154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/head-to-head-servos-vs-steppers/ | Head To Head: Servos Vs Steppers | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"motors",
"servo motors",
"stepper motors"
] | You have a project that needs something to move. Should you use a stepper motor or a servo motor? [Matthias]
has an opinion
, and you can hear his thoughts in the video below. One tip we’ll take away from the video: when working with motors, shoot some high-frame-rate video and slow it down to see what’s really happening.
The initial tests looked fine at normal speed. But increasing the frame rate and decreasing the playback speed showed some very interesting things like how much each motor was overshooting. The ability to control this sort of thing is a key differentiator for these kinds of motors.
In addition to a regular stepper, he also looks at a closed-loop stepper, which has some benefits and drawbacks, too, of course. The motors with the encoders were sensitive to magnetic fields, for example.
There is plenty to see in the video, but the bottom line is that your choice of motor will depend on a lot of interlocking factors including how fast you need, how much torque you require, and your desired accuracy. You could probably have guessed that but it is still very illustrative to see them on the bench and get a feel for just how these motors work and how to solve some common issues with them.
If you want to learn more
about stepper motors
, you are on the right site.
Servos
, too. | 12 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083030",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T05:47:28",
"content": "For reasons I don’t understand, even somewhat expensive servos often use brushed motors and old school resistor and wiper potentiometers. A lot of them don’t specify any particular cycle life either.I... | 1,760,371,667.587605 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/audio-on-a-shoestring-diy-your-own-studio-grade-mic/ | Audio On A Shoestring: DIY Your Own Studio-Grade Mic | Heidi Ulrich | [
"News",
"PCB Hacks",
"Portable Audio Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"audio",
"INA217",
"JL-2555",
"mic",
"microphone",
"Mike",
"THAT1512"
] | When it comes to DIY projects, nothing beats the thrill of crafting something that rivals expensive commercial products. In
the microphone build video below
, [Electronoobs] found himself inspired by DIY Perks earlier efforts. He took on the challenge of
building a $20 high-quality microphone
—a budget-friendly alternative to models priced at $500. The result: an engaging and educational journey that has it’s moments of triumph, it’s challenges, and of course, opportunities for improvement.
The core of the build lies in the JLI-2555 capsule, identical to those found in premium microphones. The process involves assembling a custom PCB for the amplifier, a selection of high-quality capacitors, and designing lightweight yet shielded wiring to minimize noise. [Electronoobs] also demonstrates the importance of a well-constructed metal mesh enclosure to eliminate interference, borrowing techniques like shaping mesh over a wooden template and insulating wires with ultra-thin enamel copper. While the final build does not quite reach the studio-quality level and looks of the referenced
DIY Perks’ build
, it is an impressive attempt to watch and learn from.
The project’s key challenge here would be achieving consistent audio quality. The microphone struggled with noise, low volume, and single-channel audio, until [Electronoobs] made smart modifications to the shielded wiring and amplification stages. Despite the hurdles, the build stands as an affordable alternative with significant potential for refinement in future iterations. | 14 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082915",
"author": "brutek",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T21:20:23",
"content": "Neat looking project. Any test data to back up claims of quality to the $500 microphone? I could not find any.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "80829... | 1,760,371,667.785767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/hackaday-europe-2025-tickets-on-sale-and-cfp-extended-until-friday/ | Hackaday Europe 2025 Tickets On Sale, And CFP Extended Until Friday | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"2025 Hackaday Europe",
"berlin",
"convention",
"hackaday europe",
"Supercon"
] | We’re opening up shop for Hackaday Europe,
so get your tickets now
! We’ve managed to get the ticket price down a bit this year, so you can join in all the fun for $145. And if you’re reading this right now, snap up one of the $75 early bird tickets as fast as you can.
Hackaday Europe is going down again in Berlin this year, on March 15th and 16th at
MotionLab
. It’s going to be a day and a half of presentations, lightning talks, badge hacking, workshops, and more. This is where Hackaday hangs out in person, and it’s honestly just a great time – if your idea of a great time is trading favorite PCB design tricks, crafting crufty code, and generally trading tales of hardware derring-do.
In short, it’s the best of Hackaday, live and in person. Throughout the weekend, all the meals are catered, we’ve got live music at night, and the soldering irons will be warmed up for you. It’s going to be great!
If you’re in town on Friday the 14th, we’ll be meeting up in the evening to get together over some pre-event food and drink, sponsored by Crowd Supply. It’s a nice opportunity to break the ice, get to know the people you’re going to be spending the next 48 hours with, and just mingle without missing that great talk or wonderful workshop.
The Badge
The badge is a showpiece of SAOs – the
simple add-ons
that we were cheekily calling “Supercon Add Ons” a couple months ago. For Supercon, we just exposed the I2C busses and GPIOs, flashed Micropython on the thing, and let you go wild. For Europe, the badge is going to have re-vamped firmware, and the range of SAOs that we’re including in the bag has gone bonkers.
You see,
we held this Supercon Add-On Contest
, and the winners were insane. Plus, we’ve got the Supercon-issue touch wheel, LED spiral, and CH32V003 prototyping boards. Did we mention that the badge can flash them through the SAO port?
And we would be remiss if we didn’t encourage you to take the step into making your own SAO to bring and trade with others.
An SAO doesn’t have to be complicated to be cool
. Just a good idea, and some time spent designing a PCB, getting it fabricated, assembling it, programming it, maybe debugging it, perhaps making a jig and some tooling to help you with the short production run… OK, who are we kidding? It’s a low-stakes, lighthearted look at the full-stack of hardware creation. Pick a meme, or do something unique, and get a small batch made. The experience is worth even more than the smiles you’ll put on all of our faces.
CFP Extended
Procrastineers, rejoice! Today marks the official end of the call for proposals, but since we
always
do, we’re extending it a bit. If you’ve been thinking about giving a talk, and just never reached activation energy, it’s now or never!
Draft up an abstract and get it in
before the clock strikes metaphorical midnight on Friday.
Everyone Can Participate
But it’s not just speakers who can bring something to show off at Hackaday Europe 2025. We’ve got lightning talks going on Sunday morning after brunch and before the badge hack showcase. The whole event is an informal show-and-tell anyway, because people always bring whatever they’re working on, or have just finished, to demo to a like-minded crowd. And on that note, if you want to bring something that’s cool but takes up more space than a breadbox, let us know by sending an e-mail to editor@Hackaday.com with [Hackaday Europe] in the subject line. We’ll try to find space for you.
But to join in, you’ve got to be there.
Get your tickets now
and we’ll see you in Berlin! | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082856",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T18:50:26",
"content": "Wow … got an email about this and saw the article at the same time. And yes, as of 1:49 EST Jan 14, early bird tickets are still available 🤣",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,667.991004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/procedurally-generated-terrain-in-openscad/ | Procedurally Generated Terrain In OpenSCAD | Tom Nardi | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"openscad",
"procedurally generated",
"terrain"
] | We’re big fans of OpenSCAD here at Hackaday — it’s free and open source software, runs on pretty much anything, and the idea of describing objects via code seems like a natural fit for producing functional parts. Rather than clicking and dragging elements on the screen, you can knock out a quick bracket or other simple component with just a few lines of code. But one of the things we don’t often get a chance to showcase is the incredible potential of generating 2D and 3D objects algorithmically.
In a recent Reddit post,
[ardvarkmadman] dropped an extremely impressive snippet of OpenSCAD code
that he calls TerrainGen. In fewer than fifteen lines of code, it’s able to create randomized “islands” which range from simple plateaus to craggy mountain ranges. After dropping the code in the OpenSCAD editor, you can just keep hitting F5 until you get a result that catches your eye. This seems like an excellent way to generate printable terrain elements for gaming purposes, but that’s just one possibility.
r1=rands(0,1,1)[.1];
r2=rands(0,1,1)[.2];
for (j=[1:.25:10])
color(c=[j/10,r2,r1,1])
linear_extrude(j/r2)
offset( -j*2)
for(i=[1:.25:20]){
random_vect=rands(0,50,2,i/r2);
translate(random_vect*2)
offset(i/j)
square(j*1.5+i/1.5,true);
}
So what’s happening here? The code generates several random numbers and uses those to define the height and position of an array of points that are used to make the final piece of terrain. When creating functional parts in OpenSCAD, we’re almost elusively dealing with very specific parameters, so it’s interesting to see how easily you can tweak objects just by sprinkling in some random values.
Inspired by the positive response to TerrainGen received, another user by the name of
[amatulic] chimed in to share a similar project they’ve been working on
. The code is able to generate blocks of terrain based on the dimensions and seed value provided by the user, and even simulates realistic weathering and erosion. This approach is far more computationally intensive, and requires a few hundred lines of code, but the results are undeniably more realistic.
There’s a blog post that deep-dives into the math behind it all
, if you’re looking for some light reading.
Although it’s probably not something we’d personally get much use out of, we think the ability to randomly generate 3D models like this is absolutely fascinating. We’d love to hear what readers think about these techniques, especially in regards to potential applications for them. | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082817",
"author": "Greg",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T16:52:32",
"content": "It’s for minigurines, we all know it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8082818",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T16:58:14",
"con... | 1,760,371,668.061002 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/the-many-leaning-towers-of-santos-brazil/ | The Many Leaning Towers Of Santos, Brazil | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"brazil",
"building",
"engineering",
"santos"
] | If you’ve ever gazed at the shoreline of Santos, Brazil, and felt like something was tugging at your inner eye level, you’re not alone. In fact, you’ve spotted one of the world’s most bizarre architectural phenomena.
Santos is an interesting contradiction—it’s a sunny coastal city with pristine beaches that also plays host to a bustling port. What draws the eye, however, is the skyline—
it’s decidedly askew
. This isn’t a Photoshop job or some avant-garde urban planning experiment, either. It’s a consequence of engineering hubris, poor planning, and geology just doing its thing.
Side to Side
It’s easy to spot the lean on the buildings in Santos. Credit:
janhamlet
, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Leaning Tower of Pisa is celebrated for being a building that somehow tilted over without collapsing. In Santos, though, that sort of thing barely raises an eyebrow. The city is dotted all over with buildings on the tilt. From 2004 to 2012, all 651 beachfront buildings were measured, and all were off-kilter to some degree. Some are just barely leaning over, maybe a couple of inches out of level. A more extreme example, like the Excelsior, measures 1.8 meters out of level. It’s a severe tilt that you can spot at an instant.
Santos didn’t set out to create its very own gallery of modern Leaning Towers. Most of the city’s lopsided skyscrapers were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s, during a period when Brazil’s building codes were more permissive.
It’s not just one building, either, it’s around 100 or so. Credit:
janhamlet
, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Developers eager to cash in slapped together high-rise buildings with foundations only a few meters deep. This is perfectly valid when construction takes place directly on solid bedrock, but Santos sadly lacks such a convenient base. The ground is instead a bed of sand, seven meters deep, which sits upon a deeper bed of clay. Constructing the buildings with deep foundations down to the bedrock below would have avoided this problem, albeit at some expense. Instead, developers just pushed forward with the cheaper option.
Fast forward a few decades, and the problems are obvious. Over time, the towers weight tended to push out water from the clay below, leading to the buildings sinking somewhat, and often quite unevenly. The result is a skyline that looks like it’s leaning with the wind, with around 100 buildings visibly off-kilter to the naked eye. It’s a unique sight—and a rare one at that. Where else will you see modern skyscrapers looking like they’re about to fall right over?
The geology of Santos, combined with engineering decisions, lead to the problem. Credit:
“Innovative techniques…”
Despite the lean, many of these buildings are still in use, most of them as residential housing. The buildings are regularly inspected and maintained, a sage decision given the ominous angles of lean. So far, there haven’t been any major catastrophies, so much as minor inconveniences. Problems with stuck doors and windows are common, and in many cases there’s an easily-detectable lean when walking around inside. Some owners choose to compensate by levelling their floor, though it’s usually still obvious there’s a problem whenever looking at the walls.
Over the years, there’s been talk of fixing the leaning buildings. Engineers have explored various means of jacking them back upright. Sadly, the cost of leveling even a single building is astronomical, and so far,
only two have been corrected
. Getting the buildings back into plumb involved huge hydraulic jacks, and the construction of new subfoundations able to properly support the building without further subsidence. This cost was, at the very least, offset to some degree by the fact the value of the apartments in the buildings rose significantly after correction. Still, for the rest of the buildings in Santos, though, it’s pretty much lean or bust.
These two towers were the subject of extensive works to return them to plumb.were
Tower A was restored first, receiving a whole new foundation.
Tower B was fixed some years later.
It’s perhaps odd that Santos hasn’t become a global tourist trap like Pisa. Perhaps the answer lies in the scale of the leaning problem. Pisa’s single iconic tower is a historical oddity, a relic of medieval miscalculation. Santos’ slanting skyline, on the other hand, is a modern engineering mistake that doesn’t have the same romantic aura. Nor are the leaning building suitable as a tourist attraction, given the residents wouldn’t appreciate the intrusion of visitors marvelling at their wonky stairwells. Still, if you’re in the neighborhood, it’s worth a look. The beachfront is lined with these leaning giants, creating a surreal backdrop that’s equal parts charming and unsettling.
For now, Santos’ leaning towers stand as a cautionary tale. Cutting corners in construction can leave a lasting mark—sometimes a very obvious one. Next time you’re marveling at a city’s skyline, spare a thought for the ground beneath it. You never know what secrets it’s hiding—or how much it’s shifting underfoot. | 55 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082794",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T15:40:47",
"content": "I think you are getting confused. Why would a hospital have nuclear fuel? I think you are talking about the radioactive source from a radio therapy machine. Still dangerous, but its not nuclear fuel from a r... | 1,760,371,668.16416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/its-a-doughnut-in-hardware/ | It’s A Doughnut, In Hardware | Jenny List | [
"hardware"
] | [
"donut",
"ray tracing",
"tiny tapeout"
] | Making a physical doughnut is easy enough, given a good dough recipe and a nice hot deep fat fryer. But have you ever considered
making a one in physical electronic hardware, on an ASIC
? [A1k0n] has, at least in terms of making a virtual doughnut. It’s a hardware implementation of a ray tracer which renders a rotating doughnut to a VGA screen, and it comes courtesy of around 7000 logic cells on the latest iteration of
Tiny Tapeout
.
We will not pretend to be mathematical or ray tracing experts here at Hackaday so we won’t presume to explain in detail the circuitry, suffice to say that the clever hack here lies in a method using only shift and add operations rather than the complex trigonometry we might expect. It uses a slightly esoteric VGA mode to work with the device clock, so while CRT monitors have no problems it can have artifacts on an LCD. The full explanation goes into great detail, for the math heads among you.
We’ve reported on
quite a few Tiny Tapeout projects over the years
, as the many-ASICs-on-a-chip extends its capabilities. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082766",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-01-14T13:48:12",
"content": "Amazing. As the summary implies, the real hack here is math behind the ASIC. Hats off to all the mathematicians that made this trigonometric feat possible!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,371,667.936632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/floss-weekly-episode-816-open-source-ai/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 816: Open Source AI | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"FLOSS Weekly",
"FRRouting"
] | This week,
Jonathan Bennett
and
Aaron Newcomb
chat with
Simon Phipps
and
Stefano Maffulli
about Open Source AI. Why did we need a new definition? Has it been controversial? And why did OSI step into this particular conversation?
https://opensource.org/ai
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show Right on
our YouTube Channel
? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us!
Take a look at the schedule here
.
Direct Download
in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along,
here’s the transcript for this week’s episode
.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:
Spotify
RSS
Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,668.208476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/avian-inspired-drones-how-studying-birds-of-prey-brings-more-efficient-drones-closer/ | Avian-Inspired Drones: How Studying Birds Of Prey Brings More Efficient Drones Closer | Maya Posch | [
"drone hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"avian",
"drone"
] | The EPFL LisRaptor with adjustable wings and tail.
Throughout evolution, the concept of powered flight has evolved and refined itself multiple times across both dinosaurs (birds), mammals (bats) and insects. So why is it that our human-made flying machines are so unlike them? The field of nature-inspired flying drones is a lively one, but one that is filled with challenges. In a recent video on the
Ziroth
YouTube channel,
[Ryan Inis] takes a look at these efforts
, in particular those of EPFL, whose recent RAVEN drone we
had a look at recently
already.
Along with RAVEN, there is also another project (LisRaptor) based on the Northern Goshawk, a bird of prey seen in both Europe and North-America. While RAVEN mostly focused on the near-vertical take-off that smaller birds are capable of, this project studies the interactions
between the bird’s wings and tail
, and how these enable rapid changes to the bird’s flight trajectory and velocity, while maintaining efficiency.
The video provides a good overview of this project. Where the LisRaptor differs from the animal is in having a rudder and a propeller, but the former should ideally not be necessary. Obviously the kinematics behind controlled flight are not at all easy, and the researchers spent a lot of time running through configurations aided by machine learning to achieve the ideal – and most efficient – wing and tail configuration. As these prototypes progress, they may one day lead to drones that are hard to differentiate from birds and bats. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083294",
"author": "Paul A LeBlanc",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T18:29:07",
"content": "Everyone knows Birds Aren’t Real – they’re just copying existing (and better) robots.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8083369",
"aut... | 1,760,371,668.275233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/a-gameboy-speedometer-just-because-you-can/ | A Game Boy Speedometer, Just Because You Can | Heidi Ulrich | [
"car hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"can-bus",
"canbus",
"game boy",
"gameboy",
"nintendo",
"pcb",
"speedometer"
] | From a practical standpoint, [John] may be correct that his recent creation is the “world’s worst digital dash”, but we’re still oddly enamored with the idea of
using a Nintendo Game Boy as a digital speedometer
. Pulling it off meant interfacing the handheld with the vehicle’s CAN bus system, so whether you’re into retro gaming or car hacking, this project has something to offer.
Showing real-time vehicle speed on the Game Boy sounds like it should be relatively easy, but the iconic game system wasn’t exactly built for such a task. Its 2 MHz CPU and 160×144 pixel dot-matrix screen were every kid’s dream in 1989, but using it as a car dashboard is pushing it. To bridge that gap, [John] designed two custom circuit boards. One interfaces with the Game Boy, intercepting its memory requests and feeding it data from a microcontroller. The other processes the CAN bus signals, translating speed information into a form the Game Boy can display. [John] used inexpensive tools and software to read the CAN bus data, and used GBDK-2020 to write the software in C. His video goes in great detail on how to do this.
Months of work have gone into decoding the Game Boy’s data bus and creating a schematic for the interface board. Tricking the Game Boy into thinking it was loading a game, while actually displaying incoming speed data. The screen’s low resolution and slow refresh rate rendered it barely readable in a moving vehicle. But [John]’s goal wasn’t practicality — it was just proving it could be done.
Want to dive deep into the Game Boy? Have you seen
the Ultimate Game Boy talk
? | 10 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083243",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T16:37:33",
"content": "Much easier with a GPS module.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8083270",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T17:15:32",
... | 1,760,371,668.320073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/no-ham-license-listen-anyway-in-your-browser/ | No Ham License? Listen Anyway In Your Browser | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"internet hacks",
"Radio Hacks",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"brandmeister",
"dmr",
"ham radio"
] | Full disclosure: ham radio isn’t for everyone, and there are many different facets to it. What appeals to one person might bore another to death. One area of ham radio that has changed a lot in the last few years is more or less local and typically mobile operation on VHF or UHF. Not long ago, hams used HTs (walky-talkies or handi-talkies) or mobile radios via repeaters to talk to each other and — the golden prize back then — make phone calls from their cars. Cell phones have made that much less interesting, but there is still an active community of operators talking on repeaters. However, the traffic has gone digital, the Internet is involved, and people with inexpensive, low-powered radios can talk to each other across the globe. This is nothing new, of course. However, having digital services means that operators with special interests can congregate in what amounts to radio chat rooms organized by region or topic.
There’s a long history of people listening to ham radio conversations with shortwave radios, SDRs, and scanners. But with so much activity now carried on the Internet, you can listen in using nothing more than your web browser or a phone app. I’ll show you how. If you get interested enough, it is easy enough to get your license. You don’t need any Morse code anymore, and a simple Technician class license in the United States is all you need to get going.
A Quick DMR Primer
There are several digital ham networks around and like real networks, you can have different physical transport layers and then build on top of that. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on DMR (digital mobile radio) on the Brandmeister network which is very large and popular ham network. You won’t need a license nor will you need to sign up for anything as long as you are content to just listen.
Here’s how it works:
Brandmeister operates a large number of servers worldwide
that communicate with each other and provide calling services, including group calls. So, if we set up a Hackaday talk group (fictitious, by the way) on group 1337, interested people could connect to that talk group and have a conversation.
Since we are just going to listen, I’m going to skip some of the details, but the trick is how people get to talk to these networks. In general, there are three ways. The classic way is to use a digital radio to talk to a repeater that is connected to the network. The repeater may have one or more talk groups on all the time, or you might request access to one.
However, another way to connect your radio to a “hotspot” connected to the Internet. That is, more or less, a special form of repeater that is very low power, and you have complete control over it compared to a repeater on some faraway hill. However, if you don’t mind operating using just a computer, you don’t need a radio at all. You simply talk directly to the nearest server, and you are on the network. Some of your audio will go to other computers, and it may go over the airwaves via someone else’s hotspot or repeater.
Talk Groups
Just a few of the 1,600+ talkgroups available on the network
The Brandmeister website has a lot of info and you don’t need to be logged in to see it. Head over to their site and you’ll see a lot of info including a network map and statistics about repeaters and hotspots. You can get an idea of who has been talking lately by clicking
Last Heard
link. While this is interesting, it isn’t as interesting as you’d think, because you really want to focus on talk groups, not individual users.
To see a list of all the talk groups on the system, you can click Information and then
Talkgroups
. You can filter the list and you can also download the dataset in different formats if you want to browse it in a different format.
The hoseline shows you all the activity across the network and lets you listen in, too.
There are three buttons on each row of the database. The LH button shows you the last heard stations for that group. The Wiki button takes you to a Wiki page that, for some groups, has more information about it. But the really interesting button is the one marked Hoseline. You can also open the
Hoseline directly
which is what I usually do.
What’s the Hoseline? It shows activity across the network as a bunch of boxes indicating recently active talk groups. Boxes with red lines around them have people actively talking on them. The others have been recently active. It is visually interesting, yes, but that’s not the big selling point.
If you click on a box, you will hear the activity on that talk group. That’s all there is to it.
Overwhelming
There are a lot of talk groups. You can filter at the top left part of the page where it says “Everything.” You’ll have to drop the list down and unselect Everything. Then, you can select any countries or areas you want to follow. If you are brave, you can click RegEx mode and enter regular expressions to match talk group numbers (e.g. ^310.*).
The “Player” button at the top right gives you more control. You can add multiple groups from a list, see information about who is talking, and stop or start the audio.
The hose is available on Android, too.
If you prefer to do your listening mobile, you can also get the hoseline on your Android device. Just install
the app
, and you’ll find it works the same way.
Finding Something Interesting
Lord Nelson once said, “The greatest difficulty in war is not to win the battle, but to find the enemy.” That’s accurate here, too. Finding an interesting conversation out of all those talk groups is somewhat a needle in a haystack. A quick look around at the talk group lists might help.
The 91 and 93 groups stay busy but generally with short exchanges since they cover a wide area. The USA bridge at 3100 sometimes has traffic, too.
Talk group 31484 (SE Texas) has 66 devices attached, some of which you can see here.
If you look at the
group’s listing on the Web
, you can click the group number and see what stations are connected to it. Keep in mind, some of these may be repeaters or gateways that could have no one on the other side, or could have dozens of people on the other side. But it can give you an idea if the talkgroup has any users at all.
You can also search the Internet for DMR nets and repeaters. Sometimes, it is interesting to listen to local repeaters. Sometimes, it is fun to listen to repeaters in other places. Want to find out what’s going on at your next vacation spot? Practice your French?
You can find many DMR repeaters using the
RepeaterBook search page
. There are also man lists of
DMR nets
.
Next Steps
There are many other similar networks, but they may not have a way to listen that doesn’t require some software, registration, or licenses. There’s plenty on Brandmeister to keep you busy. If you worry about people listening in, that’s no different than regular radio has been since the beginning.
You can always get your ham license and join in. Even without a radio, there are ways to talk on the network. [Dan Maloney] has advice for
getting your “ticket.”
It is easier than you think, and you can do a lot more with a license, including talking through satellites, sending TV signals over the air, and bouncing signals of meteors or the moon. If you want to listen to more traditional ham radio in your browser, try
a Web-based SDR
. | 53 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083133",
"author": "Moi",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T15:05:12",
"content": "I don’t know in other countries, but in France, if you have no HAM licence, you can also buy HAM tranceiver to listen all bands (HAM or other), or use scanner all frequency. This is a goof thing.",
"paren... | 1,760,371,668.601977 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/using-the-esp8266-for-low-cost-fault-injection/ | Using The ESP8266 For Low-Cost Fault Injection | Tom Nardi | [
"Security Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"fault injection",
"voltage glitching"
] | As a general concept, fault injection is a technique that studies how a system reacts to unusual or unexpected external forces. The idea is that, if you can trigger a glitch at the precise moment, you might be able to use that to your advantage in disabling security features or otherwise gaining further access to the device in question. In the hardware world, this could be achieved by fiddling with the power going into the device, or subjecting it to extreme temperatures.
We’ve covered voltage glitching attacks on these pages in the past, but most of the tools used are fairly expensive if you’re not doing this kind of thing professionally. Luckily for us,
[Aditya Patil] has developed a fault injection tool that can run on a standard ESP8266 development board
. Obviously it’s not as capable as a bespoke device costing hundreds of dollars, but if you just want to experiment with the concept, it’s a fantastic way to wrap your head around it all.
Now to be clear, the ESP8266 alone isn’t able to generate the sort of high-voltage spikes that are often used to glitch out a chip. The idea with this project is that the ESP would serve as the programmable timer used to
trigger
a high voltage generator or other nefarious piece of kit. That said, if you’ve got something low power enough that could get confused by rapidly having ~3 V applied to its power rails, in theory you could use the dev board without any additional hardware — though we’d strongly recommend at least throwing a MOSFET between the ESP and whatever you’re harassing.
With the firmware flashed to the ESP8266, plugging the board into your computer will provide you with a serial interface through which the software can be configured and attacks can be launched. While this interactive menu system is nice, and
reminds us a bit of the Bus Pirate
, [Aditya] also provides an example Python script that will let you fire commands at the system far faster than you could type them out.
If you’re looking for more capability,
something like the PicoGlitcher
would probably be the next step up, but if you want to really dive into the deep-end, the ChipWhisperer line of devices from [Colin O’Flynn] are really where it’s at. Check out the fascinating
talk he gave about voltage glitching during the 2021 Remoticon
if you’d like to learn more about the technique. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083056",
"author": "Jan-Willem",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T12:45:11",
"content": "I applaud [Aditya Patil] for creating his own fault injection circuit. This isn’t easy, and I’d be interested in what was managed to be glitched with this setup.The Github page explanation of the devic... | 1,760,371,668.728448 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/15/nice-pdf-but-can-it-run-doom-yup/ | Nice PDF, But Can It RunDOOM? Yup! | Donald Papp | [
"Games",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"ASCII",
"doom",
"pdf"
] | DOOM
is a classic game to implement on a variety of platforms, but
doompdf
by [ading2210] is one we didn’t see coming. It runs a bit slow and controls are a little awkward but it does run. Entirely within a PDF file, at that.
How is this possible? PDFs are technically capable of much more than just displaying static content, and support JavaScript with their own library of functions. Adobe Acrobat implements the full spec, but modern web browsers implement at least a subset of the functionality in a sandboxed JavaScript runtime environment. Input and output are limited to things one might expect from a fancy PDF form (text input boxes, clickable buttons, things of that nature) but computation-wise, just about anything goes.
The playable
DOOM
PDF therefore implements keyboard input by reading characters typed into a text entry box, or has the user click buttons with the mouse. It’s not the smoothest of input methods but it’s gloriously hacky. What’s even better is the video output, which is essentially ASCII-art video frames. Zoom in and you’ll see for yourself! It’s not the fastest frame rate, but it’s fantastic all the same.
As shown by zooming in, video frames are rendered as rows of ASCII. It’s enough to implement 6-color monochrome and make in-game text legible.
This project was partly inspired by
Tetris in a PDF
which demonstrated a lot of the concepts used, and if you like electronic document related shenanigans, be sure to check out
playing chess against your printer with PostScript
. PostScript is actually a fully functional interpreted language, but unlike JavaScript it was never intended to be used directly by humans.
Thanks to everyone who sent this to our
tips line
! | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083047",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T09:45:49",
"content": "ISTR PDF is at it’s core Postscript which is, as the article states, a fully functional interpreted language so it’s not really a surprise that you can port Doom to it but it’s impressive all the same.",
... | 1,760,371,668.877298 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/14/turning-glados-into-ted-a-tale-of-a-talking-toy/ | Turning GLaDOS Into Ted: A Tale Of A Talking Toy | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"bear",
"ESP32",
"glados",
"robot",
"speech",
"touch"
] | What if your old, neglected toys could come to life — with a bit of sass? That’s exactly what [Binh] achieved when he
transformed his sister’s worn-out teddy bear into ‘Ted’
, an interactive talking plush with a personality of its own. This project, which combines the GLaDOS Personality Core project from the
Portal
series with clever microcontroller tinkering, brings a whole new personality to a childhood favorite.
[Binh] started with the basics: a teddy bear already equipped with buttons and speakers, which he overhauled with an ESP32 microcontroller. The bear’s personality originated from GLaDOS, but was rewritten by [Binh] to fit a cheeky, teddy-bear tone. With a few tweaks in the Python-based fork, [Binh] created threads to handle touch-based interaction. For example, the ESP32 detects where the bear is touched and sends this input to a modified neural network, which then generates a response. The bear can, for instance, call you out for holding his paw for too long or sarcastically plead for mercy. I hear you say ‘but that bear Ted could do a lot more!’ Well — maybe, all this is
just
what an innocent bear with a personality should be capable of.
Instead, let us imagine future iterations featuring capacitive touch sensors or accelerometers to detect movement. The project is simple, but showcases the potential for intelligent plush toys. It might raise some questions, too. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8083057",
"author": "bart",
"timestamp": "2025-01-15T12:59:23",
"content": "It’s called a furby…. so i has already been made into a toy. jeez, where was this guy living the last decades.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8083113... | 1,760,371,668.770018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/how-nyan-cat-was-ported-to-uefi/ | How Nyan Cat Was Ported To UEFI | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"nyan",
"nyan cat",
"UEFI"
] | The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) took over from the classical BIOS some years into the new millenium. It’s typically used for running a computer at the basic pre-OS level, and most of us don’t even notice it past boot time. However, you can do some neat things in this space—
you can even port over Nyan Cat if you’re talented like [Cornelius]
.
That’s fun. Set your friend’s computer to boot into this instead of their OS by default and see how long it takes them to figure it out.
Yes, Nyan Cat is now available as a UEFI application, running via the EFI Simple Text Output Protocol. [Cornelius] approached this creation by first
learning Rust
, before progressing to the
Hello World
stage. Before long, the computer was booting up to display a simple text message with no OS required.
From there, creating the Nyan Cat animation required figuring out how to display it as a bunch of dancing characters, which is where the Simple Text Output Protocol came in. Nyan Cat was really the perfect animation for the UEFI environment, since its simple pixel art style was easily recreated with text. With a bit of work, the animation came together, with a remarkable resemblance to
the original artwork.
All that’s missing is a routine to
play the music over a PC speaker
; only, those are hardly a thing anymore. A pity! In any case, if you’ve been cooking up your own nifty UEFI hacks, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082598",
"author": "Duck Hunter",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T17:29:22",
"content": "I consider UEFI a major security threat. My rig uses Gigabyte EP45-DS3L mobo and C2D E8400 CPU. It’s still more than enough to run web browser, gcc, CLISP (LISP intrerpreter for Windows), Red Faction ... | 1,760,371,668.821355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-holey-and-wholly-expensive-keyboard/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Holey And Wholly Expensive Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"DCS windbreaker",
"flatiron building",
"Icebreaker keyboard",
"Sho SRX",
"UHK",
"ultimate hacking keyboard"
] | Image by [jwr] via
reddit
The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard (UHK) line is, as the name suggests, a great choice for a lot of people. They’re each a toe-dip into the ergonomic waters with their split-ability and those beginner thumb clusters.
However, [jwr] was not completely satisfied and
decided to make a custom set of keycaps
. The idea was to create ‘caps without the “annoyingly abrasive texture of PBT”, that are larger than average for larger-than-average fingers. Finally, [jwr] wanted the Function row to tower over the number row a little, so these have a taller profile.
So, what are they made of? The look kind rubbery, don’t they? They are cast of pigmented polyurethane resin. First, [jwr] designed five molds in Fusion360, one for each row. Then it was time to machine master molds via CNC in foam tooling board. These were filled with silicone along with 3D-printed inserts, which produced silicone molds for casting keycaps four at a time in resin.
Keyboard’s Cost Matches Skyscraper Looks
The Icebreaker doubles as a handy bludgeoning device. Image by [Serene Industries] via
ArsTechnica
Looks like the perfect accessory for a
Deplorean
Cybertruck owner, doesn’t it? At $2,100,
the Icebreaker keyboard
, which incidentally is just a kit (!), seems to occupy the same headspace. Oh, and you don’t even get keycaps for that price — those are another $415. More on that later.
Inspired by New York City’s Flatiron building, this functional wedge is priced more for looks than capability. The chassis is CNC’d from a solid block of 6061 aluminium alloy and purportedly appears completely flat from the right angle. (Is that a feature? I don’t know.)
The legends do look pretty cool. Image by [Serene Industries] via
ArsTechnica
Back to those keycaps. They are also completely aluminium, and — get this — feature around 800 micro-perforations that make up the legends. But hey, this is a mechanical keyboard. You gotta let the light through one way or another.
I seriously hope that there is some sheer layer of
something
beneath those holes that will keep finger oils and other assorted nastiness out of the switches. Because eww.
So here’s how the pricing breaks down. There’s a bare-bones version for a cool $1,500. If you want black, that’s another $500. But then you have to make a choice between Bluetooth connectivity and Hall-effect switches, because you can’t have both for some reason. And yeah, that’s a rotary encoder, which is programmable along with the keys. At least there’s that?
The Centerfold: Windbreaker Caps Make For a Nice ‘Fit
Image by [kopiummm] via
reddit
Remember those swishy-sounding two-piece trash-bag outfits people wore at the end of the 80s and into the early 90s? While many opted for
the windbreaker by itself
, the truly fashionable donned the entire track suit. This keycap set, DCS Windbreaker, hearkens back to a brighter time.
As with many of my centerfolds, I don’t know a whole lot about this other than a few of the surface details. All else I can tell you is that the keyboard is a Sho SRX, and that the classic children’s city map rug is a great substrate for any keyboard.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: the Lambert
This totally looks like another index typewriter, doesn’t it? But it isn’t like that at all. One uses both hands on the circular keyboard just like a regular typewriter. But instead of typebars,
the Lambert
used a type stamp.
Image via
The Antikey Chop
Although it wasn’t put into production until 1900, the Lambert typewriter was patented in 1883 and
awarded in 1884
. You see, prolific French-American inventor Francoise (Frank) Lambert was just busy with other things and spent that time developing a successful water meter manufacturing concern with his business partner, John Thomson.
Right before the turn of the century, Lambert threw himself into the typewriter and the machine went into production right there at the water meter factory. Unfortunately, by this time, most typewriters had taken on the front-striking, four-row, single-shift model. Still, the Lambert, with its low part count and affordable price tag, did well in Western Europe due to aggressive marketing.
Lambert produced three models total, and there weren’t many differences between them. Most notable for No. 1 is that it could produce a crude version of an italic typeface by slightly rotating the keyboard. The No. 1 also came with an attractive domed wooden case emblazoned with a Saturn logo. Don’t you love how prominently the name is featured?
Introducing the MantaRay
What do you do when you see a keyboard that you love, but it’s just not right for you for one reason or another? If you’re [hawkwoodwork] and that keyboard is the ZSA Voyager, then you build
a non-split version with the same features
and call it MantaRay.
Image by [hawkwoodwork] via
reddit
Now don’t go running off just yet — this is not quite open-source, but will be once [hawkwoodwork] validates that everything works and has the time to put together a build guide for YouTube.
Here’s what we know so far: this will be a column-staggered ortholinear board with hot-swap support for Kailh chocs, an OLED display. The idea is to make something ultra low-profile.
The top requests for V2 include wireless support and a split version that can join together with magnets, and the plans already include expansion accessories like a magnetic encoder, thumb sticks, and a multi-axis encoder for CAD work. What would you add to the mix?
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082560",
"author": "JD",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T15:08:37",
"content": "No disrespect, but why does this topic persist so much in comparison with others?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8082589",
"author": "KIM TAE",... | 1,760,371,668.936181 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/using-audio-hardware-to-drive-neopixels-super-fast/ | Using Audio Hardware To Drive Neopixels Super Fast | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"I2S",
"led"
] | Here’s the thing about running large strings of Neopixels—also known as WS2812 addressable LEDs. You need to truck out a ton of data, and fast. There are a dozen different libraries out there to drive them already, but [Zorxx] decided to strike out with a new technique—
using I2S hardware to get the job done.
Fast!
Microcontrollers traditionally use I2S interfaces to output digital audio. However, I2s also just happens to be perfect for driving tons of addressable LEDs. At the lowest level, I2S hardware is really just flipping a serial data line really fast with a clock line and a word select line for good measure. If, instead of sound, you pipe a data stream for addressable LEDs to the I2S hardware, it will clock that data out just the same!
[Zorxx] figured that at with an ESP32 trucking out I2S data at a rate of 2.6 megabits per second on the ESP32, it would be possible to update a string of 256 pixels in just 7.3 milliseconds. In other words, you could have a 16 by 16 grid updating at over 130 frames per second. Step up to 512 LEDs, and you can still run at almost 70 fps.
There’s some tricks to pulling this off, but it’s nothing you can’t figure out just by looking at the spec sheets for the WS2812B and the ESP32. Or, indeed,
[Zorxx’s] helpful Github page.
We’ve featured some other
unorthodox methods of driving these LEDs before
, too! Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own ideas on how to datablast at ever greater speeds, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082507",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T12:38:58",
"content": "Uhm … whut?WS2812’s are afixedtime protocol. Either they update or they don’t – there’s no slow or fast – so all the “fps” stuff is exactly the same with any other driver. Even my 6502 updates WS28... | 1,760,371,668.997215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/13/modern-ai-on-vintage-hardware-llama-2-runs-on-windows-98/ | Modern AI On Vintage Hardware: LLama 2 Runs On Windows 98 | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"ai",
"llama",
"LLM",
"local AI",
"vintage"
] | [EXO Labs] demonstrated something pretty striking: a modified version of
Llama 2 (a large language model) that runs on Windows 98
. Why? Because when it comes to personal computing, if something can run on Windows 98, it can run on anything. More to the point: if something can run on Windows 98 then it’s something no tech company can control how you use, no matter how large or influential they may be. More on that in a minute.
Ever wanted to run a local LLM on 25 year old hardware? No? Well now you can, and at a respectable speed, too!
What’s it like to run an LLM on Windows 98? Aside from the struggles of things like finding compatible peripherals (back to PS/2 hardware!) and transferring the required files (FTP over Ethernet to the rescue) or even compilation (some porting required), it works maybe better than one might expect.
A Windows 98 machine with Pentium II processor and 128 MB of RAM generates a speedy 39.31 tokens per second with a 260K parameter Llama 2 model. A much larger 15M model generates 1.03 tokens per second. Slow, but it
works
. Going even larger will also work, just ever slower. There’s
a video on X
that shows it all in action.
It’s true that modern LLMs have billions of parameters so these models are tiny in comparison. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. Models can be shockingly small and still be perfectly coherent and deliver surprisingly strong performance if their training and “job” is narrow enough, and the tools to do that for oneself are
all on GitHub
.
This is a good time to mention that this particular project (and its ongoing efforts) are part of a set of twelve projects by EXO Labs
focusing on ensuring things like AI models can be run anywhere, by anyone
, independent of tech giants aiming to hold all the strings.
And hey, if local AI and the command line is something that’s up your alley, did you know
they already exist as single-file, multi-platform, command-line executables
? | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082469",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T10:42:38",
"content": "Hi, Windows 98SE still has a small community.There are things like VBE9x, KernelEx, unicows.dll and gdiplus.dll and the R. Loew Windows 98 Patches that keep Windows 98SE current.DirectX 9c and .Net Framewo... | 1,760,371,669.067084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/custom-case-turns-steam-deck-into-portable-workstation/ | Custom Case Turns Steam Deck Into Portable Workstation | Donald Papp | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"cyberdeck",
"k380s",
"portable",
"steam deck"
] | DIY portable computing takes many forms, and doesn’t always require getting down and dirty with custom electronics. [Justinas Jakubovskis]’s
Steam Deck Play and Work case
demonstrates this with some really smart design features.
It’s primarily a carrying case for Valve’s Steam Deck portable PC gaming console, but the unit also acts as a fold-out workstation with keyboard. Add a wireless mouse to the mix and one can use it much like a mini laptop, or just pull the Steam Deck out and use it in the usual way.
The case is 3D printed and while the model isn’t free (links are in the video description) some of the design features are worth keeping in mind even if you’re not buying. The top clasp, for example, doubles as a cover for the buttons and exhaust vents and the kickstand at the rear covers the cooling intake when closed, and exposes it when deployed. We also really like the use of thick fabric tape lining the inside of the case to support and cushion the Steam Deck itself; it’s an effective and adjustable way to provide a soft place for something to sit.
The case is intended to fit a specific model of keyboard, in this case the Pebble Keys 2 K380s (also available as a combo with a mouse). But if you want to roll your own Steam Deck keyboard and aren’t afraid of some low-level work, check out the
Keysheet
. Or go deeper and get some guidance on
modding the Steam Deck itself
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082396",
"author": "Björn",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T06:53:23",
"content": "This is one of the things “why didn’t I thought about that!”.Now I have got more ideas I can’t realize.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8082417",
"... | 1,760,371,669.259801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/carnarvons-decommissioned-nasa-satellite-dish-back-in-service-after-40-years/ | Carnarvon’s Decommissioned NASA Satellite Dish Back In Service After 40 Years | Maya Posch | [
"History",
"Space"
] | [
"satellite tracking"
] | The OTC Station 29.8 meter dish at Carnarvon, Australia, in need of a bit of paint. (Credit:
ABC News Australia
)
Recently the 29.8 meter parabolic antenna at the Australian OTC (overseas telecommunications commission) station
came back to life again
after nearly forty years spent in decommissioning limbo.
This parabolic dish antenna shares
an illustrious history
together with the older 12.8 meter Casshorn antenna in that together they assisted with many NASA missions over the decades. These not only include the Apollo 11 Moon landing with the small antenna, but joined by the larger parabolic dish (in 1969) the station performed tracking duty for NASA, ESA and many other missions. Yet in 1987 the station was decommissioned, with scrapping mostly averted due to the site being designated a heritage site, with a local museum.
Then in 2022 the 29.8 meter parabolic dish antenna was purchased by by ThothX Australia, who together with the rest of ThothX’s world-wide presence will be integrating this latest addition into a satellite tracking system that seems to have the interest of various (military, sigh) clients.
Putting this decommissioned dish back into service wasn’t simply a matter of flipping a few switches. Having sat mostly neglected for decades it requires extensive refurbishing, but this most recent milestone demonstrates that the dish is capable of locking onto a satellites. This opens the way for a top-to-bottom refurbishment, the installation of new equipment and also a lick of paint on the dish itself, a process that will still take many years but beats watching such a historic landmark rust away by many lightyears.
Featured image: OTC Earth Station. (Credit:
Paul Dench
) | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082371",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T03:24:36",
"content": "So, uh… Not sure if this is a Freudian slip or not, but it’s not ThotX, but ThothX… That first one will likely lead to some interesting search results.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,371,669.137509 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/hackaday-links-january-12-2025/ | Hackaday Links: January 12, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"atlas",
"aviation",
"california",
"drone",
"enforcement",
"fcc",
"fire",
"firestorm",
"hackaday links",
"ham",
"interactive",
"jpl",
"lab coat",
"pasadena",
"space",
"Super Scooper",
"WheelChair"
] | The big news story of the week of course has been the wildfires in California, which as of Saturday have burned over 30,000 acres, destroyed 12,000 structures, caused 150,000 people to evacuate, and killed eleven people. Actually, calling them wildfires underplays the situation a bit because there are places where they’ve clearly become firestorms, burning intensely enough to create their own winds, consuming everything in their path in a horrific positive feedback loop. We’ve even seen
fire tornados caught on video
. We’ve got quite a few connections to the affected area, both personally and professionally, not least of which are all our Supplyframe colleagues in Pasadena, who are under immediate threat from the Eaton fire. We don’t know many details yet, but we’ve heard that some have lost homes. We’ve also got friends at the Jet Propulsion Labs, which
closed a few days ago
to all but emergency personnel. The fire doesn’t seem to have made it down the mountain yet, but it’s very close as of Saturday noon.
Unfortunately, there’s not much any of us can do except watch and wait and hope for the best. But there is one thing we can not do, and that’s try to fly our drones around to get some video of the fire. That’s probably what some knucklehead was up to when a Canadian aerial tanker fighting the Palisades fire
sustained wing damage from a drone strike
. The drone apparently hit the leading edge of one wing on the Canadair CL-145 Super Scooper, caving it in and grounding the plane. Taking an indispensable aerial asset like that out of the fight and endangering the lives of the crew and the firefighters working on the ground in close proximity to it is unforgivable, and the culprits better hope the authorities catch up to them before the justifiably angry victims of the fire do.
Speaking of other things not to do during a wildfire, you might want to think twice before keying up that Baofeng to call in a custom aerial water attack. That’s what the Federal Communications Commission accuses an Idaho amateur radio operator of doing during a 2021 fire near Elk River, Idaho, a stunt that’s going to cost him a cool $34,000 in fines. The FCC recently issued
a forfeiture order
that affirms the original judgment against Jason Frawley (WA7CQ). Our friend Josh (KI6NAZ) over at Ham Radio Crash Course has
a great rundown on the FCC ruling and its implications
, but the short story is that Frawley operated a radio outside of the bands he’s licensed to use to talk to US Forest Service aerial assets, apparently to call in a water drop in the area of a mountaintop repeater site. This created a dangerous enough situation that the incident commander left the fireground to find him and tell him to stop. Forest Service law enforcement officers later found Frawley and interviewed him, whereupon he admitted making the transmissions but said he was only trying to help. The FCC didn’t buy it, so now he’s on the hook for a huge fine. The lesson is simple — the FCC doesn’t mess around with enforcement, especially where public safety is involved.
On to more pleasant distractions! We got a tip on a fun website called
Atlas of Space
that you’ll want to check out. It’s an interactive visualization of the solar system which lets you see the current orbital locations of pretty much all the interesting stuff going around the sun. You can control which classes of objects are displayed, from the inner planets to the trans-Neptunian objects. There’s even a callout for Elon’s Roadster, which is currently outside the orbit of Mars, in case you wanted to know. The thing that’s nice is that you can control the view in three dimensions, which makes it easy to appreciate the complexity of our system. We never realized just how weird Pluto’s orbit was; it’s highly elliptical and very steeply inclined relative to the ecliptic. And that’s another thing — the plane of the ecliptic isn’t all that planar. The universe is a messy place, and
our little corner of it is quite a bit more untidy than simple textbook illustrations would lead you to believe
.
And finally, while a lot of progress has been made in making public places accessible to people in wheelchairs, there can still be significant barriers once they get inside a place. One we never thought of was the laboratory, where wheelchair users can face a slew of problems. Chief among them can be finding effective PPE like lab coats, which as any “lab rat” can tell you aren’t the easiest garments to sit down in. To remedy that, a group at University College London has come up with
a prototype lab coat adapted for wheelchair use
. It’s not clear what the modifications are, but if we had to guess we’d say it’s more or less a standard lab coat with the tails cut off, making it more like an apron from the waist down. The design group is currently testing the prototype and needs people to give it a try, so if you’re a wheelchair user working in a lab, drop them a line and let them know what you think. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082359",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T01:25:00",
"content": "Assume drone wasn’t media. A favorite tool of theirs.Good video explaining why the hydrants ran dry.https://youtu.be/T6_F3iVUh6A",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,371,669.214692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/ifixit-releases-command-line-docs-for-fixhub-iron/ | IFixit Releases Command Line Docs For FixHub Iron | Tom Nardi | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"command line interface",
"documentation",
"FixHub",
"ifixit",
"soldering station"
] | When we reviewed the iFixit FixHub back in September, one of the most interesting features of the portable soldering station was the command line interface that both the iron and the base station offered up once you connected to them via USB. While this feature wasn’t documented anywhere, it made a degree of a sense, as the devices used WebSerial to communicate with the browser. What was less clear at the time was whether or not the user was supposed to be fiddling with this interface, or if iFixit intended to lock it up in a future firmware update.
Thanks to a
recent info dump on GitHub
, it seems like we have our answer. In the repo, iFixit has provided documentation for each individual command on both the iron and base, including some background information and application notes for a few of the more esoteric functions. A handful of the commands are apparently disabled in the production version of the firmware, but there’s still plenty to poke around with.
A note at the top of the repo invites users to explore the hardware and to have fun, but notes that any hardware damage caused by “inventive tinkering” won’t be covered under the warranty. While it doesn’t look to us like there’s much in here that could cause damage, there’s one or two we probably wouldn’t play with. The command that writes data to the non-volatile storage of the MAX17205 “Fuel Gauge” IC is likely better left alone, for example.
Some of the notes provide a bit of insight into the hardware design of the FixHub, as well. The fact that there are two different commands for reading the temperature from the thermocouple and thermistor might seem redundant, but it’s explained that the value from the thermistor is being used for cold junction compensation to get a more accurate reading from the thermocouple in the iron’s tip. On the other hand, one can only wonder about the practical applications of the
tip_installed_uptime
command.
The potential for modifying and repairing the FixHub was
one of the things we were most excited about in our review
, so we’re glad to see iFixit releasing more documentation for the device post-release. That said, the big question still remains: will we eventually get access to the firmware source code? | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081942",
"author": "rasz_pl",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T02:08:53",
"content": "Did iFixit fix it yet? or is it still as broken as when EEVblog tested ithttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1646-ifixit-fixhub-portable-usb-soldering-station-review/and couldnt get more than 40W o... | 1,760,371,669.445052 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/blinkenlights-first-retrocomputer-design/ | Blinkenlights-First Retrocomputer Design | Elliot Williams | [
"computer hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"blinkenlights",
"front panel",
"retrocomputing"
] | [Boz] wants to build a retrocomputer, but where to start? You
could
start with the computery bits, like say the CPU or the bus architecture, but where’s the fun in that?
Instead, [Boz] built a righteous blinkenlights array
.
What’s cool about this display is that it’s ready to go out of the box. All of the LEDs are reverse-mount and assembled by the board maker. The 19″ 2U PCBs serve as the front plates, so [Boz] was careful not to use any through-hole parts, which also simplified the PCB assembly, of course. Each slice has its own microcontroller and a few shift registers to get the bits lit up, and that’s all there is to it. They take incoming data at 9600 baud and output blinkiness.
Right now it pulls out its bytes from his NAS. We’re not sure which bytes, and we think we see some counters in there. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s so pretty. And maybe someday the prettiness will lure [Boz] into building a retrocomputer to go under it. But honestly,
we’d just relax and watch the blinking lights
. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081842",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T21:16:44",
"content": "Thinking Machines homage! There’s one (not powered, sadly) at the NSA Museum in Virginia. ALL the blinkenlights!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,371,669.333386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/in-praise-of-simple-projects-2/ | In Praise Of Simple Projects | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"beginner projects",
"learning",
"newsletter"
] | Hackaday was at Chaos Communication Congress last week, and it’s one of those big hacker events that leaves you with so much to think about that I’m still processing it. Just for scope, the 38th CCC is a hacker event with about 15,000 attendees from all around Europe, and many from even further. If I were to characterize the crowd on a hardware-software affinity scale, I would say that it skews heavily toward the software side of the hacker spectrum.
What never ceases to amaze me is that there are a couple of zones that are centered on simple beginner soldering and other PCB art projects that are completely full 20 hours of the day. I always makes me wonder how it is possible to have this many hackers who haven’t picked up a soldering iron. Where do all these first-timers come from? I think I’m in a Hackaday bubble where not only does everyone solder at least three times a day, some of us do it with home-made reflow ovens or expensive microscopes.
But what this also means is that there’s tremendous reach for interesting, inviting, and otherwise cool beginner hardware projects. Hands-on learning is incredibly addictive, and the audience for beginner projects is probably ten times larger than that for intermediate or advanced builds. Having watched my own son putting together one of these kits, I understand the impact they can have personally, but it’s worth noting that the guy next to him was certainly in his mid-30s, and the girl across the way was even a few years younger than my son.
So let’s see some cool beginner projects! We’d love to feature more projects that could lure future hackers to the solder-smoky side.
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
! | 34 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081779",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T18:05:31",
"content": "how it is possible to have this many hackers who haven’t picked up a soldering ironI would say you experience if you enjoy soldering vastly depends on how good your iron, station, tips and solder are. ... | 1,760,371,669.816726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/comparing-ways-to-add-threads-to-your-3d-prints/ | Comparing Ways To Add Threads To Your 3D Prints | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"printed threads",
"threaded inserts"
] | Adding threads to your 3D prints is a life-changing feature, but obviously there are a lot of trade-offs and considerations when deciding on how to go about this exactly. Between self-tapping screws, printed threads, heat inserts and a dozen other options it can be tough to decide what to go with. In a recent video [Thomas Sanladerer]
runs through a few of these options
, including some less common ones, and what he personally thinks of them.
Confounding factors are also whether you’re printing on an FDM or resin printer, what size thread you’re targeting and how often the screw or bolt will be removed. The metal heat inserts are generally a good option for durability, but when you have big bolts you get a few other metal-based options too, including thread repair inserts and prong nuts. Tapping threads into a print can also be an option, but takes a fair bit of patience.
Slotted nuts can be an idea if you don’t mind carving a space into your model, and the comments dove on embedding nuts in the print by pausing during printing. Ultimately [Thomas] really likes to use a type of self-forming threads with just three protruding sections into the hole that the bolt taps into, which reduces the stress on the part and works well enough for parts that only have to be screwed down once or twice. | 33 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081728",
"author": "ooooooooooo",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T15:35:55",
"content": "Me unga bunga caveman. Me cut small hole and use regular M3 screws as redneck self tappers. Ug print many things like this",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,371,669.601949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/embedding-lenticular-lenses-into-3d-prints/ | Embedding Lenticular Lenses Into 3D Prints | Donald Papp | [
"Art"
] | [
"3d printed",
"lenticular",
"polyjet"
] | A research project shows that it’s possible to
create complex single-piece lenticular objects
, or objects that have lenticular lenses built directly into them. The result is a thing whose appearance depends on the viewer’s viewpoint. The object in the image above, for example, is the same object from five different angles.
What’s really neat is that these colorful things have been 3D printed as single objects, no separate lenses or assembly required. Sure, it requires equipment that not just everyone has on their workbench, but we think a clever hacker could put the underlying principles to work all the same.
This lampshade (which was 3D printed as a single object) changes color and displays
Good Day
or
Good Night
depending on viewing angle.
The effect is essentially the same as what is sometimes seen in children’s toys and novelties — where a perceived image changes depending on the viewing angle. This principle has been used with a lenticular lens sheet to create
a clever lenticular clock
, but there’s no need to be limited by what lenses are available off the shelf. We’ve seen
a custom 3D printed lenticular lens
slapped onto a mobile device to create a 3D screen effect.
Coming back to the research, the objects researchers created go beyond what we’ve seen before in two important ways. First is in using software to aid in designing the object and it’s viewpoints (the plugin for Rhino 3D is
available on GitHub
), and the second is the scale of the effect. Each lens can be thought of as a pixel whose color depends on the viewing angle, and by 3D printing the lenses, one can fit quite a lot of them onto a surface with a high degree of accuracy.
To make these objects researchers used PolyJet 3D printing, which is essentially UV-cured resin combined with inkjet technology, and can create multi-color objects in a single pass. The lenses are printed clear with a gloss finish, the colors are embedded, and a final hit of sprayed varnish helps with light transmission. It sure beats placing hundreds of little lenses by hand. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081763",
"author": "mew.cx",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T17:22:04",
"content": "this is wonderful! def enabling tech for lightfield displays, like my nascent ProjectAzide on GitHub",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8085370",
... | 1,760,371,669.655982 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/tactility-the-esp32-gets-another-os/ | Tactility; The ESP32 Gets Another OS | Jenny List | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"operating system",
"tactility"
] | Doing the rounds this week is a new operating system for ESP32 microcontrollers, it’s called
Tactility
, and it comes from [Ken Van Hoeylandt]. It provides a basic operating system level with the ability to run apps from an SD card, and it has the choice of a headless version or an LVGL-based touch UI.
Supported devices so far are some Lillygo and M5Stack boards, with intriguingly, support in the works for the Cheap Yellow Display board that’s caught some attention recently. The term “ESP32” is now a wide one encompassing Tensilica and RISC-V cores and a range of capabilities, so time will tell how flexible it is for all branches of the family.
We find this OS to be interesting, both in its own right and because it joins at least two others trying to do the same thing. There’s [Sprite_TM]’s
PocketSprite
mini console, and the operating system used by
the series of Netherlands hacker camp badges,
We’ll be trying to get a device running it, in order to give you a look at whether it’s suitable for your projects. If it runs well on the cheaper hardware, it could be a winner! | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081675",
"author": "Thomas Anderson",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T10:54:32",
"content": "Really cool, it all depends on if it catches on and people make apps for it. Seems pretty well thought out at the moment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,371,669.533186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/aa-battery-performances-tested-so-get-the-most-for-your-money/ | AA Battery Performances Tested, So Get The Most For Your Money | Donald Papp | [
"Battery Hacks",
"Reviews"
] | [
"aa",
"battery",
"price",
"testing"
] | [Project Farm] has a video in which a
wide variety of AA cells are analyzed and compared
in terms of capacity, internal resistance, ability to deliver voltage under load, and ability to perform in sub-freezing temperatures. Alkaline, lithium, and even some mature rechargeable cells with a couple thousand cycles under their belt were all compared. There are a few interesting results that will can help you get the most from your money the next time you’re battery shopping.
The video embedded below demonstrates a set of tests that we recommend you check out, but the short version is that more expensive (non-rechargeable) lithium cells outperform their alkaline peers, especially when it comes to overall longevity, ability to perform under high-drain conditions, and low temperatures. Lithium cells also cost more, but they’re the right choice for some applications.
Some brands performed better and others worse, but outside of a couple stinkers most were more or less comparable. Price however, was not.
As for how different brands stack up against one another, many of them are more or less in the same ballpark when it comes to performance. Certainly there are better and worse performers, but outside of a couple of stinkers the rest measure up reasonably well. Another interesting finding was that among rechargeable cells that were all several years (and roughly 2,200 charge-discharge cycles) old, a good number of them still performed like new.
Probably the single most striking difference among the different cells is cost — and we’re not just talking about whether lithium versus alkaline AAs are more cost-effective in the long run. Some brands simply cost twice as much (or more!) than others with comparable performance. If you’re in a hurry, jump to [Project Farm] presenting the
final ranked results at 19:45 in
.
Relying on brand recognition may save you from buying complete junk, but it’s clearly not the most cost-effective way to go about buying batteries. These findings are similar to
an earlier effort at wide-scale battery testing
which also determined that factoring in price-per-cell was too significant to ignore. | 39 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081634",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T06:13:39",
"content": "18650’s are even more variable… Probably more outright fakes as well..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8081641",
"author": "Nathan",
... | 1,760,371,669.902864 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/gaming-table-has-lights-action/ | Gaming Table Has Lights, Action | Al Williams | [
"Games"
] | [
"Dungeons and Dragons",
"ESP-Now",
"ESP32",
"gaming table"
] | We couldn’t decide if [‘s] Dungeons and Dragons
gaming table
was a woodworking project with some electronics or an electronics project with some woodworking. Either way, it looks like a lot of fun.
Some of the features are just for atmosphere. For example, the game master can set mood lighting. Presets can have a particular light configuration for, say, the woods or a cave.
But the table can also be a game changer since the game runner can send private messages to one or more players. Imagine a message saying, “You feel strange and suddenly attack your own team without any warning.”
A series of ESP32 chips makes it possible. The main screen has an IR touch frame, and the players have smaller screens. The main screen shows an HTML interface that lets you set initiatives, send messages, and control the lighting. Each player also has an RFID reader that the players use to log in.
The ESP32 chips use ESP-NOW for simplified networking. Of course, you could just have everyone show up with a laptop and have some web-based communications like that, but the table seems undeniably cool.
Usually, when we see a gaming table, the
table itself
is the game. If we were building a D&D table, we might consider
adding a printer
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082366",
"author": "Jack Dansen",
"timestamp": "2025-01-13T02:58:48",
"content": "This looks really cool. I’m definitely gonna check out the screen message thing for my next upgrade. I recently built and documented an initiative tracker project that uses one of those little compu... | 1,760,371,669.93783 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/usagis-pdp-11-supercomputer-and-appeal-for-floating-point-systems-info/ | Usagi’s PDP-11 Supercomputer And Appeal For Floating Point Systems Info | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"DEC PDP-11",
"MIMD",
"PDP-11/44"
] | With an exciting new year of retrocomputing ahead for [David Lovett] over at the
Usagi Electric
YouTube channel,
recently some new hardware arrived at the farm
. Specifically hardware from a company called
Floating Point Systems
(FPS), whose systems provide computing features to assist e.g. a minicomputer like [David]’s PDP-11/44 system with floating point operations. The goal here is to use a stack of 1980s-era FPS hardware to give the PDP-11/44 MIMD (multiple instructions, multiple data) computing features, which is a characteristic associated with supercomputers.
The FPS hardware is unfortunately both somewhat rare and not too much documentation, including schematics, has been found so far. This is where [David] would love some help from the community on finding more FPS hardware, documentation and any related information so that it can all be preserved.
FPS itself was acquired by Cray in 1991, before SGI took over Cray Research in 1996. As is usual with such acquisitions, a lot of older information tends to get lost, along with the hardware as it gets tossed out over the years by companies and others. So far [David] has acquired an FPS-100 array processor, an interface card for the PDP-11 and an FPS-3000, the latter of which appears to be a MIMD unit akin to the FPS-5000.
Without schematics, let alone significant documentation, it’s going to be an uphill battle to make it all work again, but with a bit of help from us retrocomputer enthusiasts, perhaps this might not be as impossible after all. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082071",
"author": "Tomsz",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T18:54:51",
"content": "12 Mflops? Is that downhill with a tail wind? A Ryzen 9950 will do 560 Giga flops.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8082074",
"author": "TG"... | 1,760,371,669.996762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/second-cnc-machine-is-twice-as-nice/ | Second CNC Machine Is Twice As Nice | Elliot Williams | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"build",
"CNC machine",
"fluidnc"
] | [Cody Lammer] built a sweet CNC router. But as always, when you build a “thing”, you inevitably figure out how to build a better “thing” in the process, so here we are with
Cody’s CNC machine v2.0
. And it looks like CNC v1.0 was no slouch, so there’s no shortage of custom milled aluminum here.
The standout detail of this build is that almost all of the drive electronics and logic are hidden inside the gantry itself, making cabling a
lot
less of a nightmare than it usually is. While doing this was impossible in the past, because everything was just so bulky, he manages to get an ESP32 and the stepper drivers onto a small enough board that it can move along with the parts that it controls.
FluidNC
handles the G-Code interpretation side of things, along with providing a handy WiFi interface. This also allows him to implement a nice jog wheel and a very handy separate position and status indicator LCD on the gantry itself.
When you’re making your second CNC, you have not only the benefit of hindsight, but once you’ve cut all the parts you need, you also have a z-axis to steal and just bolt on. [Cody] mentions wanting a new z-axis with more travel – don’t we all! – but getting the machine up and running is the first priority. It’s cool to have that flexibility.
All in all, this is a very clean build, and it looks like a great improvement over the old machine. Of course, that’s the beauty of machine tools: they are the tools that you need to make the next tool you need. Want more on that subject? [Give
Quinn Dunki
’s machining series a read]. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082045",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T15:36:23",
"content": "That’s a link to a video, which itself has no link to the project. It would be really nice to have more info. Is there any repo of real information on this somewhere?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,371,670.0935 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/fraens-new-loom-and-the-limits-of-3d-printing/ | Fraens’ New Loom And The Limits Of 3D Printing | Elliot Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"design",
"loom",
"mechanical",
"model",
"weaving"
] | [Fraens] has been re-making industrial machines in fantastic 3D-printable versions for a few years now, and we’ve loved watching his creations get progressively more intricate. But with
this nearly completely 3D-printable needle loom
, he’s pushing right up against the edge of the possible.
The needle loom is a lot like
the flying shuttle loom
that started the Industrial Revolution, except for making belts or ribbons. It’s certainly among the most complex 3D-printed machines that we’ve ever seen, and [Fraens] himself says that it is pushing the limits of what’s doable in plastic — for more consistent webbing, he’d make some parts out of metal. But that’s quibbling; this thing is amazing.
There are mechanical details galore here. For instance, check out the
cam-chain
that raises, holds, and lowers arms to make the pattern. Equally important are the adjustable friction brakes on the rollers that hold the warp, that create a controlled constant tension on the strings. (Don’t ask us,
we had to Wikipedia it
!) We can see that design coming in handy in some of our own projects.
On the aesthetic front, the simple but consistent choice of three colors for gears, arms, and frame make the build look super tidy. And the accents of two-color printing on the end caps is just the cherry on the top.
This is no small project, with eight-beds-worth of printed parts, plus all the screws, bearings, washers, etc. The models are for pay, but if you’re going to actually make this, that’s just a tiny fraction of the investment, and we think it’s going to a good home.
We are still thinking of making [Fraens]’s
vibratory rock tumbler design
, but
check out all of his work
if you’re interested in nice 3D-printed mechanical designs. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082061",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T17:41:09",
"content": "That is really cool! I love visiting industrial musea and looms and other textile machines are amongst the most complex machines to see and understand.However, there is a LOT of wear going on in all those re... | 1,760,371,670.046673 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/12/its-a-bench-but-its-not-benchy/ | It’s A Bench, But It’s Not Benchy | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"Benchy",
"boaty",
"Stress test"
] | Whatever the nuances are surrounding the reported taking down of remixes derived from the famous Benchy 3D printer stress test, it was inevitable that in its aftermath there would be competing stress tests appear under more permissive licensing. And so it has come to pass, in the form of [Depep1]’s
Boaty, a model that’s not a boat, but a bench
. Sadly this is being written away from a 3D printer so we can’t try it, but we can immediately see that its low bed contact area from having spindly legs would be a significant test for many printers’ bed adhesion, and it has overhangs and bridges aplenty.
It’s always interesting to see new takes on a printer stress test, after all we can all use something to check the health of our machines. But the Benchy saga isn’t something we think should drive you away from the little boat we know and love, as it remains an open-source model as it always has been. We don’t know the exact reasons why the derivatives were removed, but we understand from Internet scuttlebut that the waters may be a little more cloudy than at first supposed. If there’s any moral at all to the story, it lies in reading and understanding open source licences, rather than just assuming they all allow us to do anything we want.
Meanwhile it’s likely this model will be joined by others, and we welcome that. After all, innovation should be part of what open source does.
Missed the Benchy takedown story?
Catch up here
.
Thanks [Jeremy G] for the tip. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081998",
"author": "Jonathan Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T09:29:18",
"content": "My understanding is that the original 3D model was released under a Creative Commons no-derivatives license and that the removals are not because the copyright holder of the original 3D model has ... | 1,760,371,670.158098 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/bad-apple-but-its-6500-regex-searches-in-vim/ | Bad Apple But It’s 6,500 Regex Searches In Vim | Maya Posch | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"bad apple",
"regex",
"vim"
] | In the world of showing off, there is alongside ‘Does it play Doom?’ that other classic of ‘Does it play Bad Apple?’. Whereas either would be quaint in the context of the Vim editor, this didn’t deter [Nolen Royalty] from
making Vim play the Bad Apple video
. As this is a purely black and white video, this means that it’s possible to convert each frame into a collection of pixels, with regular expression based search and custom highlighting allowing each frame to be rendered in the Vim window.
The fun part about this hack is that it doesn’t require any hacking or patching of Vim, but leans on its insane levels of built-in search features by line and column, adjusting the default highlight features and using a square font to get proper pixels rather than rectangles. The font is (unsurprisingly) called
Square
and targets roguelike games with a specific aesthetic.
First 6,500 frames are fed through ffmpeg to get PNGs, which are converted these into pixel arrays using scripts on the
GitHub project.
Then the regex search combined with Vim macros allowed the video to be played at real-time speed, albeit at 120 x 90 resolution to give the PC a fighting chance. The highlighting provides the contrast with the unlit pixels, creating a rather nice result as can be seen in the embedded video.
https://eieio.games/images/bad-apple-with-regex-in-vim/badapple-optimized-1500-small.mp4 | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8082056",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T17:29:13",
"content": "Sometimes I idly wonder what it would be like to be a person who knows absolutely anything about Touhou project",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8082089"... | 1,760,371,670.200074 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/11/retrotechtacular-the-1951-telephone-selector/ | Retrotechtacular: The 1951 Telephone Selector | Al Williams | [
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider"
] | [
"bell",
"dial phone",
"telephone"
] | Telephone systems predate the use of cheap computers and electronic switches. Yesterday’s phone system used lots of stepping relays in a box known as a “selector.” If you worked for the phone company around 1951, you might have seen the
Bell System training film
shown below that covers 197 selectors.
The relays are not all the normal ones we think of today. There are slow release relays and vertical shafts that are held by a “dog.” The shaft moves to match the customer’s rotary dial input.
Be sure to check out
part two
to get the whole story. Actually, we think [Periscope] switched the videos, so maybe start with part two. It sort of gives an overview and more of a mechanical perspective. Part one shows the schematic and assumes you know about some things covered in what they are calling part two.
You have to wonder who designed these to start with. Seems hard enough to follow when someone is explaining it, much less dreaming it up from scratch. Like most things,
many people contributed
to the development of the technology, and we are pretty sure the type 197 selector wasn’t the first device to appear.
Watching the current flow through the wires in the video reminded us of the
Falstad
circuit simulator. | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081956",
"author": "Sok Puppette",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T03:20:22",
"content": "I believe step by step starts with this guy:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Brown_Strowger",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8081958",
... | 1,760,371,670.259816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/the-engineer-behind-mine-detection/ | The Engineer Behind Mine Detection | Al Williams | [
"History",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Inventor",
"metal detector",
"mine detector",
"world war 2"
] | According to [Joanna Goodrich] in
IEEE Spectrum
, prior to World War II, soldiers who wanted to find land mines, simply poked at the ground with pointed sticks or bayonets. As you might expect, this wasn’t very safe or reliable. In 1941, a Polish signals officer, [Józef Stanislaw Kosacki], escaped to Britain and created an effective portable mine detector.
[Kosaci] was an electrical engineer trained at the Warsaw University of Technology. He had worked as a manager for the Polish National Telecommunication Institute. In 1937, the government tasked him with developing a machine that could detect unexploded grenades and shells. The machine was never deployed.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, [Kosacki] returned to military service (he had done a year of compulsory service earlier). He was captured and kept in a prison camp in Hungary. But he managed to escape in late 1939 and joined the Polish Army Corps in Britain, teaching Morse code to soldiers.
Britain buried landmines along their coastline to thwart any invasion. Unfortunately, they failed to notify allied forces about it and several Polish soldiers were killed. In response, the British Army set a challenge to develop a mine detector and, as a test, the device had to locate some coins on a beach.
There were seven devices entered, and [Kosacki’s] won. As a military secret, there isn’t much detail, but it sounds like it was the (now) usual BFO metal detector affair with two coils at the end of a bamboo pole. With the tech of the day, the whole affair came in at around 30 pounds. We’d bet a lot of that was in batteries.
By 1942 during the second battle of El Alamein, the new detectors allowed mine clearing operations to happen twice as fast as before. Our engineer didn’t get much recognition. Just a letter from King George. Part of that was due to fear that his family in Poland would suffer.
While land mines aren’t as common for most people as
FM radios
, we love to meet inventors. Even when it
isn’t a very happy story
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081620",
"author": "BobH",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T04:48:02",
"content": "While land mines aren’t as common for most people as FM radios,That may be, but I doubt many people have been killed by FM radios :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,670.307358 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/springs-and-things-make-for-a-unique-timepiece/ | Springs And Things Make For A Unique Timepiece | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"cam",
"clock",
"follower",
"hair tie",
"spring"
] | You never know when inspiration is going to strike, and for [Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi], it struck while he was playing with one of his daughter’s hair ties. The result is
a clock called “Bezicron”
and it’s a fascinating study in mechanical ingenuity.
The hair ties in question are simple objects, just a loose polymer coil spring formed into a loop that can be wrapped around ponytails and the like. In Bezicron, though, each digit is formed by one of these loops fixed to the ends of five pairs of arms. Each pair moves horizontally thanks to a cam rotating between them, changing the spacing between them and moving the hair tie. This forms each loop into an approximation of each numeral, some a little more ragged than others but all quite readable. The cams move thanks to a geared stepper motor on the rightmost digit of the hours and minutes section of the clock, with a gear train carrying over to the left digit. In between is the colon, also made from springy things pulsing back and forth to indicate seconds. The video below shows the clock going through its serpentine motions.
For our money, the best part of this build is the cams. Coming up with the proper shape for those had to be incredibly tedious, although we suspect 3D printing and rapid iterative design were a big help here. Practice with cam design from his earlier
Eptaora
clock probably helped too.
Thanks to [Hari Wiguna] for the tip. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081583",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2025-01-11T00:52:06",
"content": "Very clever, might look nice with EL wire, but still very clever. Also does the multicam view from above around 20 seconds in look like an octopus making taffy or is it just me?",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,371,670.366746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/bit-banging-the-usb-pd-protocol/ | Bit-Banging The USB-PD Protocol | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"bit bang",
"ch224k",
"ESP32",
"pcb",
"power delivery",
"USB-PD"
] | For one-off projects, adding a few integrated circuits to a PCB is not too big of a deal. The price of transistors is extremely low thanks to Moore and his laws, so we’re fairly free to throw chips around like peanuts. But for extremely space-constrained projects, huge production runs, or for engineering challenges, every bit of PCB real estate counts. [g3gg0] falls into the latter group, and this project aims to remove the dedicated USB-PD module from a lighting project and instead
bit-bang the protocol with the ESP32 already on the board
.
The modern USB power delivery (PD) protocol isn’t quite as simple as older USB ports that simply present a 5V source to whatever plugs itself into the port. But with the added complexity we get a lot more capability including different voltages and greater power handling capabilities. The first step with the PD protocol is to communicate with a power source, which requires a 1.2V 600kHz signal. Just generating the signal is challenging enough, but the data encoding for USB requires level changes to encode bits rather than voltage levels directly. With that handled, the program can then move on to encoding packets and sending them out over the bus.
After everything is said and done, [g3gg0] has a piece of software that lets the ESP32 request voltages from a power supply, sniff and log PD communication, and inject commands with vendor defined messages (VDM), all without needing to use something like a CH224K chip which would normally offload the USB-PD tasks. For anyone looking to save PCB space for whatever reason, this could be a valuable starting point. To see some more capabilities of the protocol,
check out this USB-PD power supply that can deliver 2 kW
. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081548",
"author": "Tim McNerney",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T21:51:15",
"content": "This comment is intended to start adiscussionrather than to criticize anyone, and especially not the project’s author, who, on the contrary,deserves praisefor doing so much diligent research, and the... | 1,760,371,672.114924 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/life-without-limits-a-blind-makers-take-on-3d-printing/ | Life Without Limits: A Blind Maker’s Take On 3D Printing | Heidi Ulrich | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"blind",
"blindness",
"cad",
"openscad",
"text-based",
"text-based modeling",
"visual impairment",
"visually impaired"
] | In the world of creation, few stories inspire as much as [Mrblindguardian], a 33-year-old who has been blind since the age of two, but refuses to let that hold him back. Using OpenSCAD and a 3D printer,
[Mrblindguardian] designs and prints models independently
, relying on speech software and touch to bring his ideas to life. His story,
published on his website Accessible3D.io
, is a call to action for makers to embrace accessibility in their designs and tools.
[Mrblindguardian]’s approach to 3D printing with OpenSCAD is fascinating. Without visual cues, he can still code every detail of his designs, like a tactile emergency plan for his workplace. The challenges are there: navigating software as a blind user, mastering 3D printers, and building from scratch. His tip: start small. Taking on a very simple project allows you to get accustomed to the software while avoiding pressure and frustation.
His successes highlight how persistence, community support, and creativity can break barriers. His journey mirrors efforts by others, like 3D printed braille maps or accessible prosthetics, each turning daily limitations into ingenious innovations. [Mrblindguardian] seems to be out to empower others, so bookmark his page for that what’s yet to come.
Accessible tech isn’t just about empowering. Share your thoughts in the comments if you have similar experiences – or good solutions to limitations like these! As [Mrblindguardian] says on his blog: “take the leap. Let’s turn the impossible into the tangible—one layer at a time”.
I am fully blind, and this is how I 3d design and print independantly
by
u/Mrblindguardian
in
prusa3d | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081531",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T20:07:34",
"content": "Direct link to video:[https://www.reddit.com/link/1hrr8nu/video/n88yhbdpakae1/player]",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8081563",
"author": "lig... | 1,760,371,672.276283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/hackaday-podcast-episode-303-the-cheap-yellow-display-self-driving-under-1000-and-dont-remix-that-benchy/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 303: The Cheap Yellow Display, Self-Driving Under $1000, And Don’t Remix That Benchy | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | As the holiday party season fades away into memory and we get into the swing of the new year, Elliot Williams is joined on the Hackaday Podcast by Jenny List for a roundup of what’s cool in the world of Hackaday. In the news this week, who read the small print and noticed that Benchy has a non-commercial licence? As the takedown notices for Benchy derivatives fly around, we muse about the different interpretations of open source, and remind listeners to pay attention when they choose how to release their work.
The week gave us enough hacks to get our teeth into, with Elliot descending into the rabbit hole of switch debouncing, and Jenny waxing lyrical over a crystal oscillator. Adding self-driving capability to a 30-year-old Volvo caught our attention too, as did the intriguing Cheap Yellow Display, an ESP32 module that has (almost) everything. Meanwhile in the quick hacks, a chess engine written for a processor architecture implemented entirely in regular expressions impressed us a lot, as did the feat of sending TOSLINK across London over commercial fibre networks. Enjoy the episode, and see you again next week!
Download the podcast for your own bad self!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 303 Show Notes:
News:
3DBenchy Starts Enforcing Its No Derivatives License
2025 Hackaday Europe CFP: We Want You!
What’s that Sound?
Think you know what this week’s nature sound is?
Fill out this form
with your best guess!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Self Driving Like It’s 1993
Is A Cheap Frequency Standard Worth It?
Button Debouncing With Smart Interrupts
More Things To Do With Your Cheap Yellow Display
All-Band Receiver Lets You Listen To All The Radio At Once
Pi Pico Makes SSTV Reception A Snap
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Regular (Expression) Chess
Try A PWMPot
Gaze Upon This Omni-directional Treadmill’s Clever LEGO Construction
Jenny’s Picks:
A New Life For A Conference Badge, Weighing Bees
38C3: It’s TOSLINK, Over Long Distance Fibre
A Street For Every Date
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Running AI Locally Without Spending All Day On Setup
One Small Step: All About Stepper Motors | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081506",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T17:56:23",
"content": "Hey folks! There was some problem at Libsyn, our podcast syndicator, but it looks like it’s resolved. If you still haven’t received your podcast this week, let us know.(Or just download it yours... | 1,760,371,671.990813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/serenityos-on-real-hardware/ | SerenityOS On Real Hardware | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"chromebook",
"SerenityOS"
] | One of the problems facing any developer working on their own operating system is that of hardware support. With many thousands of peripherals and components that can be found in a modern computer, keeping up requires either the commercial resources of Microsoft or the huge community of Linux.
For a small project such as SerenityOS this becomes a difficult task, and for that reason the primary way to run that OS has always been in an emulator. [Sdomi] however has other ideas, and has put a lot of effort to
getting the OS to run on some real hardware
. The path to that final picture of a laptop with a SerenityOS desktop is long, but it makes for a fascinating read.
The hardware in question is an Intel powered Dell Chromebook. An odd choice you might think, but they’re cheap and readily available, and they have some useful debugging abilities built in. We’re treated to an exploration of the hardware and finding those debug ports, and since the USB debugging doesn’t work, a Pi Pico clone is squeezed into the case. We like that it’s wired up to the flash chip as well as serial.
Getting access to the serial port from the software turned out to be something of a pain, because the emulated UART wasn’t on the port you’d expect. Though it’s an Intel machine it’s not a PC clone, so it has no need. Some epic hackery involving rerouting serial to the PC debug port ensued, enabling work to start on an MMC driver for the platform. The eventual result is a very exclusive laptop, maybe the only one running SerenityOS on hardware.
We like this OS, and we hope this work will lead to it becoming usable on more platforms.
We took a look at it back in 2023,
and it’s good to hear that it’s moving forward. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081507",
"author": "kołtun",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T17:59:17",
"content": "I want one. All in all, I don’t see a problem with it being one piece of equipment.I’ve been advocating for years that Linux should do that too. Picked one hardware, e.g. old IBM laptops (no chines) and op... | 1,760,371,671.942282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/this-week-in-security-backdoored-backdoors-leaking-cameras-and-the-safety-label/ | This Week In Security: Backdoored Backdoors, Leaking Cameras, And The Safety Label | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Backdoors",
"IoT",
"This Week in Security"
] | The mad lads at watchTowr are back with their unique blend of zany humor and impressive security research. And this time, it’s
the curious case of backdoors within popular backdoors
, and the list of unclaimed domains that malicious software would just love to contact.
OK, that needs some explanation. We’re mainly talking about web shells here. Those are the bits of code that get uploaded to a web server, that provide remote access to the computer. The typical example is a web application that allows unrestricted uploads. If an attacker can upload a PHP file to a folder where .php files are used to serve web pages, accessing that endpoint runs the arbitrary PHP code. Upload a web shell, and accessing that endpoint gives a command line interface into the machine.
The quirk here is that most attackers don’t write their own tools. And often times those tools have special, undocumented features, like loading a zero-size image from a .ru domain. The webshell developer couldn’t be bothered to actually do the legwork of breaking into servers, so instead added this little dial-home feature, to report on where to find all those newly backdoored machines. Yes, many of the popular backdoors are themselves backdoored.
This brings us to what watchTowr researchers discovered — many of those backdoor domains were either never registered, or the registration has been allowed to expire. So they did what any team of researchers would do: Buy up all the available backdoor domains, set up a logging server, and just see what happens. And what happened was thousands of compromised machines checking in at these old domains. Among the 4000+ unique systems, there were a total of 4
.gov.
domains from governments in Bangladesh, Nigeria, and China. It’s an interesting romp through old backdoors, and a good look at the state of still-compromised machines.
The Cameras are Leaking
One of the fun things to do on the Internet is to pull up some of the online video feeds around the world. Want to see what Times Square looks like right now? There’s a website for that. Curious how much snow is in on the ground in Hokkaido? Easy to check. But it turns out that there are quite a few cameras on the Internet that probably shouldn’t be. In this case,
the focus is on about 150 license plate readers
around the United States that expose both the live video stream and the database of captured vehicle data to anyone on the Internet that knows where and how to look.
This discovery was spurred by
[Matt Brown]
purchasing one of these devices, finding how easy they were to access, and then checking a service like Shodan for matching 404 pages. This specific device was obviously intended to be located on a private network, protected by a firewall or VPN, and not exposed to the open Internet. This isn’t the first time we’ve covered this sort of situation, and suggests an extension to Murhpy’s Law. Maybe I’ll refer to it as Bennett’s law: If a device can be put on the public Internet, someone somewhere inevitably will do so.
Some related research is available from RedHunt Labs,
who did a recent Internet scan on port 80
, and the results are a bit scary. 42,000,000 IP addresses, 1% of the IPv4 Internet, is listening on port 80. There are 2.1 million unique favicons, and 87% of those IPs actually resolve with HTTP connections and don’t automatically redirect to an HTTPS port. The single most common favicon is from a Hikvision IP Camera, with 674,901 IPs exposed.
The Big Extension Compromise
One of the relatively new ways to deploy malicious code is to compromise a browser plugin. Users of the Cyberhaven browser plugin received a really nasty Christmas present, as
a malicious update was pushed this Christmas
. The Cyberhaven extension is intended to detect data and block ex-filtration attempts in the browser, and as such it has very wide permissions to read page content. The malicious addition looked for API keys in the browser session, and uploaded cookies for sites visited to the attacker. Interestingly the attack seemed to be targeted specifically at OpenAI credentials and tokens.
This started with an OAuth phishing attack, where an email claimed the extension was in danger of removal, just log in with your Chrome Developer account for details. The Cyberhaven clicked through the email, and accidentally gave attackers permission to push updates to the extension. This isn’t the only extension that was targetted, and there are other reports of
similar phishing emails
. This appears to be a broader attack, with the first observed instance being in May of 2024, and some of the affected extensions used similar techniques. So far just over 30 compromised extensions have been discovered to be compromised in this way.
And while we’re on the topic of browser extensions, [Wladimir Palant]
discovered the i18n trick
that sketchy browser extensions use to show up in searches like this one for Wireguard.
The trick here is internationalization, or i18n. Every extension has the option to translate its name and description into 50+ languages, and when anyone searches the extension store, the search term can match on any of those languages. So unscrupulous extension developers fill the less common languages with search terms like “wireguard”. Google has indicated to Ars Technica that it is aware of this problem, and plans to take action.
Safety Labels
The US has announced the U.S. Cyber Trust mark,
a safety label that indicates that “connected devices are cybersecure”
. Part of the label is a QR code, that can be scanned to find information about the support timeline of the product, as well as information on automatic updates. There are some elements of this program that is an obviously good idea, like doing away with well known default passwords. Time will tell if the Cyber Trust mark actually makes headway in making more secure devices, or if it will be just another bit of visual clutter on our device boxes? Time will tell.
Bits and Bytes
SecureLayer7
has published a great little tutorial on using metasploit
to automatically deploy known exploits against discovered vulnerabilities. If Metasploit isn’t in your bag of tricks yet, maybe it’s time to grab a copy of Kali Linux and try it out.
Amazon, apparently, never learns, as
Giraffe Security scores a hat trick
. The vulnerability is Python pip’s “extra-index-url” option preferring to pull packages from PyPi rather than the specified URL. It’s the footgun that Amazon just can’t seem to avoid baking right into its documentation. Giraffe has found this issue twice before in Amazon’s documentation and package management, and in 2024 found it the third time for the hat trick.
It seems that there’s yet another way to fingerprint web browsers,
in the form of dynamic CSS features
. This is particularly interesting in the context of the TOR browser, that turns off JavaScript support in an effort to be fully anonymous.
And finally, there seems to be
a serious new SonicWall vulnerability that has just been fixed
. It’s an authentication bypass in the SSLVPN interface, and SonicWall sent out an email indicating that
this issue is considered likely to be exploited in the wild
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081475",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T15:59:08",
"content": "Fun domain takeover for those backdoors. RATs and crypters are commonly backdoored as well. I remember one that would wait days or weeks before activating in order to fool the buyer. But I imagine desktop i... | 1,760,371,672.054513 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/writing-a-risc-v-os-from-scratch/ | Writing A RISC-V OS From Scratch | Al Williams | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"operating system",
"RISC-V"
] | If you read Japanese, you might have seen the book “
Design and Implementation of Microkernels
” by [Seiya Nuda]. An appendix covers how to write your own operating system for RISC-V in about 1,000 lines of code. Don’t speak Japanese? An
English version
is available free on the Web and on
GitHub
.
The author points out that the original Linux kernel wasn’t much bigger (about 8,500 lines). The OS allows for paging, multitasking, a file system, and exception handling. It doesn’t implement interrupt handling, timers, inter-process communication, or handling of multiple processors. But that leaves you with something to do!
The online book covers everything from booting using OpenSBI to building a command line shell. Honestly, we’d have been happier with some interrupt scheme and any sort of crude way to communicate and synchronize across processes, but the 1,000 line limit is draconian.
Since the project uses QEMU as an emulation layer, you don’t even need any special hardware to get started. Truthfully, you probably won’t want to use this for a production project, but for getting a detailed understanding of operating systems or RISC-V programming, it is well worth a look.
If you want something more production-ready, you have
choices
. Or,
stop using an OS at all
. | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080977",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T17:58:51",
"content": "“Truthfully, you probably won’t want to use this for a production project…”Honestly, somebody will attempt to do so anyway.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comme... | 1,760,371,672.233289 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/physical-media-is-dead-long-live-physical-media/ | Physical Media Is Dead, Long Live Physical Media | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [] | Much has been written about the demise of physical media. Long considered the measure of technological progress in audiovisual and computing fields, the 2000s saw this metric seemingly rendered obsolete by the rise of online audiovisual and software distribution services. This has brought us to a period in time where the very idea of buying a new music album, a movie or a piece of software in a physical, or even online, retail store has become largely impossible amidst the rise of digital-only media.
Even so, not all is well in this digital-only paradise, as the problems with having no physical copy of the item which you purportedly purchased are becoming increasingly more evident. From increases in monthly service costs, to items being removed or altered without your consent, as well as concerns over privacy and an inability to resell or lend an album or game to a buddy, there are many reasons why having the performance or software on a piece of off-line, physical media is
once again increasing in appeal
.
Even if the demise of physical data storage was mostly a trick to extract monthly payments from one’s customer base, what are the chances of this process truly reverting, and to what kind of physical media formats exactly?
The End Of Ownership
The concept of having audiovisual performances on physical media which you can play at will within the confines of your own abode is relatively new, first brought to the masses by inventions such as the phonograph, starting with wax cylinders, followed by shellac and vinyl records. This brought everything from concerts to stage performances to the home, where the proud owner of this piece of physical media could play it back on its corresponding playback device. This set the trend that would persist until the dominance of CDs.
Similarly, movies would at first be just something that you’d watch in the cinema, then you could catch it on broadcast TV along with an increasing number of series. Owning a copy of your favorite series or movie became possible with VHS, Laserdisc and so on. When home computer systems became prevalent, the software for them was found in magazines, on tapes, diskettes, CDs, etc., with in-store displays using their box art to entice potential buyers.
Yet at all of this has effectively come to an end. LG recently announced that they’ll
stop making new Blu-ray players
, following the recent decision by Best Buy and other stores to quit selling Blu-rays and DVDs. Optical drives are now firmly considered a legacy feature on laptops and desktop systems, with only a subset of game consoles still featuring this feature and thus doubling as a Blu-ray player with compromises.
Unlike our parents and their grandparents, it looks like today’s generations will not leave behind a legacy of (physical) media that their children and grandchildren can peruse, often not even for books, as these are equally becoming tied into online subscription services. In this Digital Media Age, it seems that the best we can hope for is to temporarily lease an ethereal digital copy by the grace of media corporate overlords.
Digital Media Is Terrible
There are many reasons to mourn the death of physical media, with some pertinent ones laid out for DVDs and Blu-rays in
this
AV Club
article
by Cindy White:
Permanence
: you purchase the copy and as long as you take good care of it, it’s yours to do with as you please.
Better quality
: owing to the video compression of digital streaming services, you’ll get a worse audiovisual experience.
Portability
:
you can take the physical media with you, lend it to a friend, or even sell it.
Better for artists
: the system of residuals with DVD/BD sales was much more fair to artists.
Extras
: DVD and BD releases would come with extra content, like soundtracks, behind the scenes, interviews, and much more.
Some are beginning to feel uneasy in the face of this dawning realization that before long all our movies, series, books, games and software will be locked behind what are essentially leasing services on our (ad-sponsored) smart TVs, smart phones, smart books and smart computers/consoles in increasingly barren rooms.
Take for example
this article
by Amelia over at
IGN
on physical vs digital media and ownership and the lack thereof. An aspect raised in it is preservation in general, as a streaming platform could decide to put the proverbial torch to (part of) its library and that would be the end of that content, barring any Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)-busting copies. Even so, Amelia finds it hard to ignore the convenience of watching something on these streaming services.
The lack of visual quality is a view that
Henry T. Casey over at
CNN Underscored
shares,
with over at
The National
Faisal Salah and William Mullally advocating for
starting that physical media collection
. The permanence argument is prevalent here, while the latter article pointing out the hopeful signs of a revival of physical media by smaller (boutique) distributors, but this leaves much of mainstream content firmly digital-only, including recent games like
Alan Wake 2
which only
got a physical version after fans insisted
.
Shallow Libraries
The convenience of flicking on the smart appliance and tuning out on-demand without having to go to a store is a tempting feature that physical media cannot really compete with, yet there’s an argument to be made that physical media sales complement streaming, not unlike how those same sales complemented broadcast TV and cinemas in the past. In fact, as a corollary one could state that digital streaming services have replaced broadcast TV, rather than physical media. This would make the latter collateral damage, whether intentional or not.
A strong advantage of physical media is also that it’s not limited to being sold by a single store, while digital (streaming) services have very shallow libraries that can make finding a specific piece of content or game a complete nightmare. So the conclusion that people seem to be increasingly coming to is that while digital media isn’t bad by itself, there is a lot of value in physical media that we’re now at risk of losing forever.
Yet if CDs and Blu-rays are dying a slow death today, and the next Microsoft and Sony game consoles may not have an optical drive option any more, is there any hope for a physical media revival?
It’s The Business Model
As alluded to already, digital media-as-a-service will not go away, as it has too many advantages. Especially in terms of low distribution costs, as the logistics of physical media can get rather convoluted. Where the real business case for physical media may be is in the added value. This is something which is observed with a platform like
Bandcamp
, which is an online music distribution platform via which artists can sell their music and merchandise, including CDs or vinyl records.
All of which points to that the physical formats of the future will likely remain CDs, Blu-rays and even vinyl records and cassette tapes as the most popular formats. Meanwhile for video games on PCs at least there are stores like Good Old Games, who recently launched their
Preservation Program
that seeks to keep older titles playable on modern systems. This in addition to allowing customers to download the installer for any game they purchase and put it on any kind of physical media which they desire, courtesy of their lack of DRM.
Yet the ticking timebomb under this revival of physical media may be that good players are becoming scarce. Cassette tapes and records increasingly are being played on the same cheap mechanisms, like the
Tanashin clones,
that are still being churned out by factories in China as Sony and others have abandoned the market. Now it seems that optical drives are facing the same race to the bottom, until one day the only physical media players and readers can be found used for exorbitant prices.
After all, what use is physical media if you have no way to play it?
Featured image: Front panel of a GPO Brooklyn with cassette player (Credit: VSchagow,
Wikimedia
) | 132 | 46 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080874",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T15:06:35",
"content": "I’m not shedding tears over the loss of Blu-Ray.$ony sucks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080877",
"author":... | 1,760,371,672.800168 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/3dbenchy-starts-enforcing-its-no-derivatives-license/ | 3DBenchy Starts Enforcing Its No Derivatives License | Maya Posch | [
"News"
] | [
"3dbenchy",
"Benchy",
"creative commons",
"licensing"
] | [Editor’s note: A few days later, it looks now like Prusa pulled the models of their own accord, because of
their
interpretation of the copyright law. Creative Tools and NTI claim that they were not involved.]
Nobody likes reading the fine print, least of all when you’re just downloading some 3D model. While printing a copy for personal use this is rarely an issue, things can get a lot more complicated when you make and distribute a derived version of a particular model.
Case in point the ever popular 3DBenchy model, which was intended to serve as a diagnostic aid by designer [Creative Tools] (recently acquired by [NTI Group] ). Although folks have been spinning up their own versions of this benchmark print for years, such derivative works were technically forbidden by the original model’s license — a fact that the company is now starting to take seriously,
with derivative models reportedly getting pulled from Printables
.
The license for the 3DBenchy model is (and always has been) the
Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0
, which requires attribution and forbids distributing of derivative works. This means that legally any derived version of this popular model being distributed on Thingiverse, Printables, etc. is illegal, as already
noted seven years ago
by an observant user on Reddit. According to the message received by a Printables user, all derived 3DBenchy models will be removed from the site while the license is now (belatedly) being enforced.
Although it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment with this license enforcement, ultimately the idea of Creative Commons licenses was that they set clear rules for usage, which become meaningless if not observed.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip. | 105 | 42 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080816",
"author": "Bastet",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T12:05:22",
"content": "In before 3DFreechy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080966",
"author": "Weasel",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T17:21:06",
"cont... | 1,760,371,672.518684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/all-band-receiver-lets-you-listen-to-all-the-radio-at-once/ | All-Band Receiver Lets You Listen To All The Radio At Once | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"air traffic control",
"all-band",
"atc",
"aviation",
"detector",
"modulation",
"radio",
"receiver",
"schottky"
] | There are many ways to build a radio receiver, but most have a few things in common, such as oscillators, tuned circuits, detectors, mixers, and amplifiers. Put those together in the right order and you’ve got a receiver ready to tune in whatever you want to listen to. But if you don’t really care about tuning and want to hear everything all at once, that greatly simplifies the job and leaves you with something like
this homebrew all-band receiver
.
Granted, dispensing with everything but a detector and an audio amplifier will seriously limit any receiver’s capabilities. But that wasn’t really a design concern for [Ido Roseman], who was in search of a simple and unobtrusive way to monitor air traffic control conversations while flying. True, there are commercially available radios that tune the aviation bands, and there are plenty of software-defined radio (SDR) options, but air travel authorities and fellow travelers alike may take a dim view of an antenna sticking out of a pocket.
So [Ido] did a little digging and found
a dead-simple circuit
that can receive signals from the medium-wave bands up into the VHF range without regard for modulation. The basic circuit is a Schottky diode detector between an antenna and a high-gain audio amplifier driving high-impedance headphones; [Ido] built a variation that also has an LM386 amplifier stage to allow the use of regular earbuds, which along with a simple 3D-printed case aids in the receiver’s stealth.
With only a short piece of wire as an antenna, reception is limited to nearby powerful transmitters, but that makes it suitable for getting at least the pilot side of ATC conversations. It works surprisingly well — [Ido] included a few clips that are perfectly understandable, even if the receiver also captured things like cell phones chirping and what sounds like random
sferics
. It seems like a fun circuit to play with, although with our luck we’d probably not try to take it on a plane. | 52 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080797",
"author": "Then",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T09:31:42",
"content": "LM386 does this sorta on its own sometimes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080811",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T11:31:... | 1,760,371,672.605881 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/retro-big-iron-for-you/ | Retro Big Iron For You | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"ibm",
"mainframe",
"retrocomputing"
] | Many of us used “big iron” back in the day. Computers like the IBM S/360 or 3090 are hard to find, transport, and operate, so you don’t see many retrocomputer enthusiasts with an S/370 in their garages. We’ve known for a while that the Hercules emulators would let you run virtual copies of these old mainframes, but every time we’ve looked at setting any up, it winds up being more work than we wanted to spend. Enter [Ernie] of [ErnieTech’s Little Mainframes]. He’s started a channel to show you how to
“build” your own mainframe
— emulated, of course.
One problem with the mainframe environment is that there are a bunch of operating system-like things like MVS, VM/CMS, and TSO. There were even custom systems like MUSIC/SP, which he shows in the video below.
On top of that, you have to learn a lot of new software. Scripting? Rexx. Editing? Several choices, but none you are likely to know about if you haven’t used a mainframe before. Programming languages? You can find C sometimes, but it might not be a modern dialect. You might have more luck with FORTRAN or COBOL.
In addition, IBM has specific terms for things we don’t use in the rest of the world. Boot? IPL (initial program load). Disk? DASD. Security? RACF.
So far, [Ernie] only has an overview and a short demo. If you can’t wait, cruise over to the
Hercules
page and see how far you can get. You may decide to wait for [Ernie’s] next video.
If you want to shortcut, there are entire
environments in Docker
that can be handy. If your IBM nostalgia runs to the smaller System/3, AS/400, or POWER systems, someone already has something
ready for you to use
. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080780",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T07:16:03",
"content": "As it happens I already do that. Typically running a (prebuilt) VM/370 Release 6 setup on Hercules, and typically running it inside a WSL defined image of Slackware Linux, and using an IBM terminal emulato... | 1,760,371,672.180581 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/a-street-for-every-date/ | A Street For Every Date | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"autorouting",
"maps",
"routing",
"street names"
] | Different cultures have their own conventions for naming locations, for example in the United Kingdom there are plenty of places named for monarchs, while in many other countries there are not. An aspect of this fascinated [Ben Ashforth], who decided to find all the streets in Europe named after auspicious dates, and then visit enough to make a calendar.
He gave a lightning talk about it at last year’s EMF Camp
, which we’ve embedded below.
Starting with an aborted attempt to query Google Maps, he then moved on to the OpenStreetMap database. From there he was able to construct a list of date-related street name across the whole of Europe, and reveal a few surprising things about their distribution. He came up with a routing algorithm to devise the best progression in which to see them, and with a few tweaks to account for roads whose names had changed, arrived at an epic-but-efficient traversal of the continent. The result is
a full year’s calendar of street names
, which you can download from his website.
Being used to significant Interrail travel where this is written, we approve of an algorithmically generated Euro trip. We’re indebted to [Barney Livingstone] for the tip, and we agree with him that 150 slides in a 5 minute talk is impressive indeed. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080794",
"author": "Zamorano",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T08:47:16",
"content": "Impressive! Data processing, planning and executionandthe presentation. Genius!Btw I cheated and watched at 0.75x.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8... | 1,760,371,672.844012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/try-a-pwmpot/ | Try A PWMPot | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"digital potentiometer",
"pwm"
] | [Stephen Woodward] is familiar with digital potentiometers but is also familiar with their limitations. That spurred him to create the
PWMPot
which performs a similar function, but with better features than a traditional digital pot. Of course, he admits that this design has some limitations of its own, so — as usual — you have to make your design choices according to what’s important to you.
Perhaps the biggest limitation is that the PWMPot isn’t useful at even moderately high frequencies. The circuit works by driving two CMOS switches into an RC circuit. The switches’ inverted phase tends to cancel out any ripple in the signal.
The RC circuit is selected to trade response time with the precision of the final voltage output. The CMOS switches used are part of a 74HC4053B IC. While it might not solve all your digital potentiometer problems, there are cases where it will be just what you need.
We’ve looked at traditional
digital pots before
. If you prefer the hard way, grab a regular pot and
a motor
. | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080751",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T03:06:43",
"content": "Interesting. I found a different approach which uses an opamp via stackexchange:https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/1844/how-to-emulate-an-analog-potentiometer-with-pwm/13850#13850Both seem to need... | 1,760,371,672.896941 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/risc-v-microcontroller-lights-up-synth-with-led-level-meter/ | RISC-V Microcontroller Lights Up Synth With LED Level Meter | Dan Maloney | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"audio",
"CH32V003",
"level",
"lm3914",
"lm3915",
"RISC-V",
"synth",
"VU meter"
] | The LM3914 LED bar graph driver was an amazing chip back in the day. Along with the LM3915, its logarithmic cousin, these chips gave a modern look to projects, allowing dancing LEDs to stand in for a moving coil meter. But time wore on and the chips got harder to find and even harder to fit into modern projects, what with their giant DIP-18 footprint. What’s to be done when a project cries out for bouncing LEDs? Simple — get a RISC-V microcontroller and
roll your own LED audio level meter
.
In fairness, “simple” isn’t exactly what comes to mind while reading [svofski]’s write-up of this project. It’s part of a larger build, a wavetable synth called
“Pétomane Ringard”
which just screams out for lots of blinky LEDs. [svofski] managed to squeeze 20 small SMD LEDs onto the board along with a CH32V003 microcontroller. The LEDs are charlieplexed, using five of the RISC-V chip’s six available GPIO lines, leaving one for the ADC input. That caused a bit of trouble with programming, since one of those pins is needed to connect to the programmer. This actually bricked the chip, thankfully only temporarily since there’s a way to glitch the chip back to life, but only after pulling it out of the circuit. [svofski] recommends adding a five-second delay loop to the initialization routine to allow time to recover if the microcontroller gets into an unprogrammable state. Good tip.
As for results, we think the level meter looks fantastic. [svofski] went for automated assembly of the 0402 LEDs, so the strip is straight and evenly spaced. The meter seems to be quite responsive, and the peak hold feature is a nice touch. It’s nice to know there’s a reasonable substitute for the LM391x chips, especially now that all the hard work has been done. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081445",
"author": "Panondorf",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T14:31:30",
"content": "“harder to fit into modern projects, what with their giant DIP-18 footprint. ”Young Me: Yah, I know I need to upgrade to SMD but I already have loads of old through-hole parts waiting to go into project... | 1,760,371,672.939733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/10/a-low-effort-low-energy-doorbell/ | A Low Effort, Low Energy Doorbell | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ble",
"bluetooth",
"doorbell"
] | Bluetooth is a good way to connect devices that are near each other. However, it can drain batteries which is one reason Bluetooth Low Energy — BLE — exists. [Drmph] shows how easy it is to deploy BLE to make, in this case,
a doorbell
. He even shows how you can refit an existing doorbell to use the newer technology.
Like many projects, this one started out of necessity. The existing wireless doorbell failed, but it was difficult to find a new unit with good review. Cheap doorbells tend to ring spuriously due to interference. BLE, of course, doesn’t have that problem. Common BLE modules make up the bulk of the project. It is easy enough to add your own style to the doorbell like a voice announcement or musical playback. The transmitter is little more than a switch, the module, a coin cell, and an LED.
It is, of course, possible to have a single receiver read multiple doorbells. For example, a front door and back door with different tones. The post shows how to make a remote monitor, too, if you need the bell to ring beyond the range of BLE.
A fun, simple, and useful project. Of course, the cool doorbells now have
video
. Just be careful
not to get carried away
. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081351",
"author": "Bob the builder",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T09:12:50",
"content": "“Cheap doorbells tend to ring spuriously due to interference”Yes. I bought one from the Lidl many years ago. It lasted a week. It kept ringing at random times but no one was ever at the door. Afte... | 1,760,371,673.184944 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/its-ip-over-toslink/ | It’s IP, Over TOSLINK! | Jenny List | [
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"ip",
"network",
"toslink"
] | At the recent 38C3 conference in Germany, someone gave a talk about sending TOSLINK digital audio over fiber optic networks rather than the very low-end short distance fibre you’ll find behind your CD player. This gave [Manawyrm] some ideas, so of course
the IP-over TOSLINK network was born
.
TOSLINK is in effect I
2
S digital audio as light, so it carries two 44.1 kilosamples per second 16-bit data streams over a synchronous serial connection. At 1544 Kbps, this is coincidentally about the same as a T1 leased line. The synchronous serial link of a TOSLINK connection is close enough to the High-Level Data Link Control, or HDLC, protocol used in some networking applications, and as luck would have it she had some experience in using PPP over HDLC. She could configure her software from that to use a pair of cheap USB sound cards with TOSLINK ports, and achieve a surprisingly respectable 1.47 Mbit/s.
We like this hack, though we can see it’s not entirely useful and we think few applications will be found for it. But she did it because it was
there
, and that’s the essence of this game. Now all that needs to happen is for someone to use it in conjunction with
the original TOSLINK-over network fiber
, for a network-over-TOSLINK-over-network abomination. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081327",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T07:39:51",
"content": "That’s horrendous, I love it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8081330",
"author": "Olliver",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T07:48:49",
... | 1,760,371,673.132124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/engineering-lessons-from-the-super-kamiokande-neutrino-observatory-failure/ | Engineering Lessons From The Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Observatory Failure | Dan Maloney | [
"Science"
] | [
"cascade",
"engineering",
"implosion",
"neutrino",
"photomultiplier",
"PM",
"science",
"shock wave"
] | Every engineer is going to have a bad day, but only an unlucky few will have a day so bad that it registers on a seismometer.
We’ve always had a morbid fascination with engineering mega-failures, few of which escape our attention. But we’d never heard of
the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector implosion
until stumbling upon [Alexander the OK]’s video of the 2001 event. The first half of the video below describes neutrinos in some detail and the engineering problems related to detecting and studying a particle so elusive that it can pass through the entire planet without hitting anything. The Super-Kamiokande detector was built to solve that problem, courtesy of an enormous tank of ultrapure water buried 1,000 meters inside a mountain in Japan and lined with over 10,000 supersized photomultiplier tubes to detect the faint pulses of Chernkov radiation emitted on the rare occasion that a neutrino interacts with a water molecule.
Those enormous PM tubes would be the trigger for the sudden demise of the Super-K , which is covered in the second half of the video. During operations to refill the observatory after routine maintenance, technicians noticed a bang followed by a crescendo of noise from the thirteen-story-tall tank. They quickly powered down the system and took a look inside the tank to find almost every PM tube destroyed. The resulting investigation revealed that the tubes had failed in sequence following the sudden implosion of a single tube at the bottom of the tank. That implosion caused a shock wave to propagate through the water to surrounding tubes which exceeded their design limits, causing further implosions and further destruction. The cascading implosion took a full ten seconds to finish its wave of destruction, which destroyed $7 million worth of tubes.
The interesting part about this is the root cause analysis, which boils down to the fact that you shouldn’t stand on 50-cm photomultiplier tubes. Also at fault was the testing regimen for the tubes, which the project engineers anticipated could cause a cascading implosion. They tested this but were unable to cause a cascade failure, leading them to the conclusion it wasn’t likely to happen. But analysis of the destruction revealed a flaw in the testing, which should give pause to anyone who ever had to design a test like this before.
Luckily, nobody was killed or even hurt during the Super-K incident. The observatory was repaired with upgraded tubes and remains in service to this day, with an even bigger Hyper-Kamiokande detector in the works. We’ve covered
neutrino observatories
before, so check that out if you want more background on the science. | 48 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081225",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T03:25:02",
"content": "Insert “series of tubes” and “they should’ve used transistors” jokes here.—On a serious note, high-cost engineering failures like this need to be studied so they don’t happen again.",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,371,673.077297 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/sheet-metal-forming-with-3d-printed-dies/ | Sheet Metal Forming With 3D Printed Dies | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"FDM",
"hydraulic press",
"sheet metal"
] | Sheet metal is very easy to form, including the pressing in of intricate shapes with dies and a hydraulic press, but the dies themselves are slightly harder to come by. What if we could 3D print custom dies to stamp logos and more into sheet metal? This is the premise of
a recent video by the
Stick Shift Garage
channel on YouTube
in which dies are printed in PLA+ (solid infill) and used to stamp 1 and 2 mm thick sheet metal with the channel’s logo.
As can be observed in the video, the results aren’t bad at all after a couple of tweaks and adjustments to the pressure, but of course there is room for improvement. Some helpful commentators suggest improving the dies with properly rounded edges on the die’s shape and paying attention to
K-factors
and kin so as not to overstress or tear the sheet metal. In terms of die longevity, the PLA+ dies began to wear out after about a dozen tries but not the point of failure. Here other filament types might work even better, maybe even to the point of competing with a CNCed metal die.
Considering that this was a first attempt without a lot of pre-existing knowledge it went pretty well, and a future video was promised in which improvements will be shown off. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081148",
"author": "Reg",
"timestamp": "2025-01-10T00:10:57",
"content": "If the PLA is used to make a mold for a plaster pattern for casting zinc alloy dies, many thousands can be made from a single die. The printer sidesteps the WW II wooden pattern making. Such dies would make... | 1,760,371,672.993975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/toner-transfer-but-not-for-pcbs/ | Toner Transfer, But Not For PCBs | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"toner transfer"
] | It is old news that you can print PCB artwork on glossy paper and use a clothes iron to transfer the toner to a copper board, which will resist etchant. But [Squalius] shows us how to
do a similar trick
with 3D prints in a recent video, which you can see below.
The example used is a QR code, although you can use anything you can print in a mirror image. Of course, heat from a clothes iron isn’t going to be compatible with your 3D-printed plastic. The trick is to use some acrylic medium on the part, place the print face down, and apply more medium to the back of the paper.
Once the acrylic dries, you can use water to remove the paper, but the toner pattern will remain. Once it dries, you’ll need to remove bits of paper still left. Be careful, though. The image is now pretty fragile. To make it more durable, the process calls for a clear varnish overcoat. Some commenters on the video mentioned that a UV clear coat would probably work, too.
This is an easy technique to experiment with, and the results look great. Seems perfect for
keycaps
or
front panels
. Let us know
how it goes
! | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081073",
"author": "aleksclark",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T21:03:02",
"content": "didn’t we just see this? Also, what got me thinking was: “you can use anything you can print in a mirror image” – what CAN’T you print in a mirror image?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,371,673.292496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/retrotechtacular-soldering-the-tek-way/ | Retrotechtacular: Soldering The Tek Way | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"assembly",
"desoldering",
"eutectic",
"flux",
"pcb",
"retrotechtacular",
"soldering",
"Tek",
"tektronix",
"through hole",
"tinning"
] | For a lot of us, soldering just seems to come naturally. But if we’re being honest, none of us was born with a soldering iron in our hand — ouch! — and if we’re good at soldering now, it’s only thanks to good habits and long practice. But what if you’re a company that lives and dies by the quality of the solder joints your employees produce? How do you get them to embrace the dark art of soldering?
If you’re Tektronix in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the answer is simple: make
in-depth training videos that teach people to solder the Tek way
. The first video below, from 1977, is aimed at workers on the assembly line and as such concentrates mainly on the practical aspects of making solid solder joints on PCBs and mainly with through-hole components. The video does have a bit of theory on soldering chemistry and the difference between eutectic alloys and other tin-lead mixes, as well as a little about the proper use of silver-bearing solders. But most of the time is spent discussing the primary tool of the trade: the iron. Even though the film is dated and looks like a multi-generation dupe from VHS, it still has a lot of valuable tips; we’ve been soldering for decades and somehow never realized that cleaning a tip on a wet sponge is so effective because the sudden temperature change helps release oxides and burned flux. The more you know.
The second video below
is aimed more at the Tek repair and rework technicians. It reiterates a lot of the material from the first video, but then veers off into repair-specific topics, like effective desoldering. Pro tip: Don’t use the “Heat and Shake” method of desoldering, and wear those safety glasses. There’s also a lot of detail on how to avoid damaging the PCB during repairs, and how to fix them if you do manage to lift a trace. They put a fair amount of emphasis on the importance of making repairs look good, especially with bodge wires, which should be placed on the back of the board so they’re not so obvious. It makes sense; Tek boards from the era are works of art, and you don’t want to mess with that. | 40 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081036",
"author": "Joey",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T19:58:30",
"content": "Love to see old videos like this especially when the practices still apply today.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8081039",
"author": "QBFreak",
... | 1,760,371,673.445164 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/38c3-its-toslink-over-long-distance-fibre/ | 38C3: It’s TOSLINK, Over Long Distance Fibre | Jenny List | [
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"fiber",
"Fibre",
"sfp",
"toslink"
] | If you’ve owned a CD player or other piece of consumer digital audio gear manufactured since the 1980s, the chances are it has a TOSLINK port on the back. This is a fairly simple interface that sends
I
2
S
S/PDIF digital audio data down a short length of optical fibre, and it’s designed to run between something like a CD player and an external DAC. It’s ancient technology in optical fibre terms, with a lowish data rate and plastic fibre, but consider for a minute whether it could be adapted for modern ultra-high-speed conenctions.
It’s what [
Ben Cartwright-Cox] has done
, and he delivered a talk about it at the recent 38C3 event in Germany.
if you’ve cast you eye over any fibre networking equipment recently, you’ll be familiar with SFP ports. These are a standard for plug-in fibre terminators, and they can be had in a wide variety of configurations for different speeds, topographies, and wavelengths. They’re often surprisingly simple inside, so he wondered if he could use them to carry TOSLINK instead of a more conventional network. And it worked, with the simple expedient of driving an SFP module with an LVDS driver to make a differential signal. There follows a series of experiments calling in favours from friends with data centre space in various locations around London, finally ending up with a 140 km round trip for CD-quality audio.
It’s an interesting experiment, but perhaps the most value here is in what it reveals to us about the way optical networking systems work. Most of us don’t spend our days in data centres, so that’s an interesting technology to learn about. The video of the talk itself is below the break. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080685",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T21:36:42",
"content": "Why? Becauseyou can?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080694",
"author": "Cogidubnus Rex",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T22:01:17",
... | 1,760,371,673.501436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/floss-weekly-episode-815-you-win-some-you-lose-some/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 815: You Win Some, You Lose Some | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"FLOSS Weekly",
"FRRouting"
] | This week,
Jonathan Bennett
and
Randal
chat with
Matija Šuklje
about Open Source and the Law! How do Open Source projects handle liability, what should a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) look like, and where can an individual or project turn for legal help?
https://matija.suklje.name/
https://openchainproject.org
https://matija.suklje.name/fiduciary-license-agreement-20
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show Right on
our YouTube Channel
? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us!
Take a look at the schedule here
.
Direct Download
in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along,
here’s the transcript for this week’s episode
.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:
Spotify
RSS
Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080805",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-01-09T10:42:05",
"content": "It’s hard to imagine the FSF being relevant for anything anymore. Free software has moved on without them.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8080983",
"a... | 1,760,371,673.612207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/running-ai-locally-without-spending-all-day-on-setup/ | Running AI Locally Without Spending All Day On Setup | Al Williams | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [] | There are many AI models out there that you can play with from companies like OpenAI, Google, and a host of others. But when you use them, you get the experience they want, and you run it on their computer. There are a variety of reasons you might not like this. You may not want your data or ideas sent through someone else’s computer. Maybe you want to tune and tweak in ways they aren’t going to let you.
There are many more or less open models, but setting up to run them can be quite a chore and — unless you are very patient — require a substantial-sized video card to use as a vector processor. There’s very little help for the last problem. You can farm out processing, but then you might as well use a hosted chatbot. But there are some very easy ways to load and run many AI models on Windows, Linux, or a Mac. One of the easiest we’ve found is
Msty
. The program is free for personal use and claims to be private, although if you are really paranoid, you’ll want to verify that yourself.
What is Msty?
Talkin’ about Hackaday!
Msty is a desktop application that lets you do several things. First, it can let you chat with an AI engine either locally or remotely. It knows about many popular options and can take your keys for paid services. For local options, it can download, install, and run the engines of your choice.
For services or engines that it doesn’t know about, you can do your own setup, which ranges from easy to moderately difficult, depending on what you are trying to do.
Of course, if you have a local model or even most remote ones, you can use Python or some basic interface (e.g., with
ollama
; there are plenty of
examples
). However, Msty lets you have a much richer experience. You can attach files, for example. You can export the results and look back at previous chats. If you don’t want them remembered, you can chat in “vapor” mode or delete them later.
Each chat lives in a folder, which can have helpful prompts to kick off the chat. So, a folder might say, “You are an 8th grade math teacher…” or whatever other instructions you want to load before engaging in chat.
MultiChat
What two models think about 555s
One of the most interesting features is the ability to chat to multiple chatbots simultaneously. Sure, if it were just switching between them, that would be little more than a gimmick. However, you can sync the chats so that each chatbot answers the same prompt, and you can easily see the differences in speed and their reply.
For example, I asked both Google Gemini 2.0 and Llama 3.2 how a 555 timer works, and you can see the answers were quite different.
RAGs
The “knowledge stack” feature lets you easily grab up your own data to use as the chat source (that is RAG or Retrivial Augmented Generation) for use with certain engines. You can add files, folders, Obsidian vaults, or YouTube transcripts.
Chatting about the podcast
For example, I built a Knowlege Stack named “Hackaday Podcast 291” using the
YouTube
link. I could then open a chat with Google’s Gemini 2.0 beta (remotely hosted) and chat with the podcast. For example:
You:
Who are the hosts?
gemini-2.0-flash-exp:
Elliot Williams and Al Williams are the hosts.
You:
What kind of microscope was discussed?
gemini-2.0-flash-exp:
The text discusses a probe tip etcher that is used to make tips for a type of microscope that can image at the atomic level.
It would be easy to, for example, load up a bunch of PDF data sheets for a processor and, maybe, your design documents to enable discussing a particular project.
You can also save prompts in a library, analyze result metrics, refine prompts and results, and a host of other features. The prompt library has quite a few already available, too, ranging from an acountant to a yogi, if you don’t want to define your own.
New Models
The chat features are great, and having a single interface for a host of backends is nice. However, the best feature is how the program will download, install, run, and shut down local models.
Selecting a new local model will download and install it for use.
To get started, press the Local AI Model button towards the bottom of the left-hand toolbar. That will give you several choices. Be mindful that many of these are quite large, and some of them require lots of GPU memory.
I started on a machine that had an NVidia 2060 card that had 6GB of memory. Granted, some of that is running the display. But most of it was available. Some of the smaller models would work for a bit, but eventually, I’d get some strange error. That was a good enough excuse to trade up to a 12GB 3060 card, and that seems to be enough for everything I’ve tried so far. Granted, some of the larger models are a little slow, but tolerably so.
There are more options if you press the black button at the top, or you can import GGUF models from places like
huggingface
. If you’ve already loaded models for something like ollama, you can point Msty at them. You can also point to a local server if you prefer.
The version I tested didn’t know about the Google 2.0 model. However, when adding any of the Google models, it was easy enough to add the (free)
API key
and the model ID (models/gemini-2.0-flash-exp) for the new model.
Wrap Up
You can spend a lot of time finding and comparing different AI models. It helps to
have a list
, although you can wait until you’ve burned through the ones Msty already knows about..
Is this the only way to run your own AI model? No, of course not. But it may well be the easiest way we’ve seen. We’d wish for it to be open source, but at least it is free to use for personal projects. What’s your favorite way to run AI? And, yes, we know the answer for some people is “don’t run AI!” That’s an acceptable answer, too. | 34 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080604",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T18:27:56",
"content": "The corporate stewardship of AI is whats untrustworthy. Someone building AI at home, training on handwriting or thermostat data, sounds great! A giant multibillion dollar industry trying to convince us tha... | 1,760,371,673.758809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/tech-in-plain-sight-security-envelopes/ | Tech In Plain Sight: Security Envelopes | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"confetti",
"document security",
"Letterlocking",
"pattern",
"security envelope",
"security envelopes"
] | You probably get a few of these things each week in the mail. And some of them actually do a good job of obscuring the contents inside, even if you hold the envelope up to the light. But have you ever taken the time to appreciate the beauty of
security envelope patterns
? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
The really interesting thing is just how many different patterns are out there when a dozen or so would probably cover it. But there are so, so many patterns in the world. In my experience, many utilities and higher-end companies create their own security patterns for mailing out statements and the like, so that right there adds up to some unknown abundance.
So, what did people do before security envelopes? When exactly did they come along? And how many patterns are out there? Let’s take a look beneath the flap.
Before Envelopes, There Was Letterlocking
Pretend it’s 1525 and you have some private correspondence to send. Envelopes won’t come along for another three hundred years, at least not on a commercial scale. So what do you do? A common practice since the end of cuneiform tablets was a technique called
letterlocking
. This is a method of folding the paper of your letter in such a way that it becomes its own envelope, often using slits and tabs running throughout the creased letter. A wax seal was often employed for good measure.
The completed letter packet. Image via
YouTube
The video below shows a model of Mary Queen of Scots’ last letter, written a few hours before she was beheaded, being letterlocked. Many say that writing this missive was her last act, but after that, it was performing this spiral letterlock to ensure the contents reached her brother-in-law without obvious tampering.
The letter is written on a large sheet of paper folded in half, with plenty of space in the left and right margins. This is where the slits and the tab that binds it all together will end up. Once written, the sender starts by folding a narrow spine into the left margin where the sheet is connected, then cutting a long, thin slice, leaving one short end attached.
Then the letter is then folded top to bottom twice, minus the slice. Then a hole is cut through all the layers and the the slice is pushed through the hole, wrapped around the letter packet and stuck through again until none remains. Finally, the slit and slice are coated with a bit of water so that the paper swells, sealing the lock. This is where sealing wax would come in handy.
The point of letterlocking is that it was impossible to open the letter without causing a least a little bit of damage. So, if you received a tampered-with letter, it should have been quite obvious.
Today we can see through locked letters without opening them thanks to x-rays
. If you don’t like this method,
here are step-by-step instructions for three different letterlocking methods
.
The Rise of Security Envelopes
The mass-produced envelope came along in 1830. They started out thick enough to write addresses on and subsequently obscure the contents, but eventually got thinner and thinner as paper advanced. When
the windowed envelope
was invented by Americus F. Callahan in 1901 and
patented 1902
, envelopes became a real problem.
Fortunately, one Julius Regenstein of the Transo Envelope Company would invent the security tint just two years later in 1903. And that’s about all we know about the origin story, unfortunately. There isn’t even a Wikipedia page for security envelopes. Can you believe that?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
In the biz, they’re called security tints, and there are a few companies like
SupremeX
out there generating new ones. The two most common tints you’re likely to see are confetti and some variation of the crosshatch pattern, which is just a bunch of intersecting lines. Both of these do a fine job of obscuring the contents of letters.
A variation of the common confetti pattern for security envelopes. Image by [Dan Schreck] via
Abstract Collage
Other tints are comprised of things like heavily overlapped circles and weird repeated shapes, or some form of television snow. I have nice wood grain envelopes in both black and blue, but my personal favorite resembles a field of asteroids.
The most common tints I’ve seen are black on white. Blue on white is a close second, but only represents maybe a third of my own personal collection. Red seems to be pretty rare except for mailings from the Red Cross , and I only have one lone envelope in green so far. I do have one highlighter-green return envelope from Globe Life with small black dots in overlapping concentric circles. It’s pretty hard to look at, honestly, but it’s still beautiful.
Usually the tints you see are some kind of abstract, entropic pattern, but sometimes a phrase like
THANK YOU
or
PLEASE RECYCLE THIS ENVELOPE
is repeated instead. And then of course, there are all the individual company tints. You can see many, many examples of these and more in the worldly collections of both [
Dan Schreck
] and [
Joseph King
], but some of my own collection are below.
Asteroids!
I really like this one.
Woodgrain to honor the trees from which it came!
This is a fun confetti variant.
I promise it’s green!
I feel like you don’t see this one often, especially in blue.
For Your Own Security
Of course, you can pick up a box of security envelopes from the drugstore. But if you want to generate and print your own,
have at it here
or just
run it in the browser
. There’s a pattern generator in 12 colors plus grayscale, you can change the size of the pattern repeat, and there’s a randomizer if you’re not artistically inclined.
I hope you look at security envelopes a little differently now. Maybe you’ll start collecting them. If so,
here are a bunch of ideas for using them
. Or, you could send them to me. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080502",
"author": "i",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T15:51:18",
"content": "Was really hoping for a discussion of what does and doesn’t work for security tints. For instance, have there been any designs that were abandoned because they were determined to be ineffective? Was there a pro... | 1,760,371,673.573914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/remotely-controlled-vehicles-over-starlink/ | Remotely Controlled Vehicles Over Starlink | Tom Nardi | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"bandwidth",
"Starlink",
"Starlink Mini"
] | Modern remote control (RC) radios are capable of incredible range, but they’re still only made for line-of-sight use. What if you want to control a vehicle that’s 100s of kilometers away, or even on the other side of the planet? Cellular is an option, but is obviously limited by available infrastructure — good luck getting a cell signal in the middle of the ocean.
But what if you could beam your commands down from space? That’s what [Thingify] was looking to test when they put together an
experimental RC boat using a Starlink Mini for communications
. Physically, there was no question it would work on the boat. After all, it was small, light, and power-efficient enough. But would the network connection be up to the task of controlling the vehicle in real-time?
During early ground testing, the Mini version of the Starlink receiver worked very well. Despite being roughly 1/4 the size of its predecessor, the smaller unit met or exceeded its performance during benchmarks on bandwidth, latency, and signal strength. As expected, it also drew far less power: the Mini’s power consumption peaked at around 33 watts, compared to the monstrous 180 W for the larger receiver.
On the water, there was even more good news. The bandwidth was more than enough to run a high-resolution video feedback to the command center. Most of the time the boat was moving autonomously between waypoints, but when [Thingify] switched over to manual control, the latency was low enough that maneuvering wasn’t a problem. We wouldn’t recommend manually piloting a high-speed aircraft over Starlink, but for a boat that’s cruising along at 4 km/h, the lag didn’t even come into play.
The downside? Starlink is a fairly expensive proposition; you’d need to have a pretty specific mission in mind to justify the cost. The Mini receiver currently costs $599 USD (though it occasionally goes on sale), and you’ll need at least a $50 per month plan to go with it. While this puts it out of the price range for recreational RC, [Thingify] notes that it’s not a bad deal if you’re looking to explore uncharted territory. | 35 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080419",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T13:02:22",
"content": "DeMoCrACy. This has nothing to do with politics man",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8080425",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T13:32... | 1,760,371,673.683474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/08/making-sure-your-patch-cables-are-ready-for-rf-work/ | Making Sure Your Patch Cables Are Ready For RF Work | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"coaxial",
"Patch cable",
"radio frequency",
"RF",
"tdr",
"testing",
"time-domain reflectometry",
"vna"
] | How do you know that your patch cables are good? For simple jumper wires, a multimeter is about all you need to know for sure. But things can get weird in the RF world, in which case you might want to keep
these coaxial patch cable testing tips
in mind.
Of course, no matter how high the frequency, the basics still apply, and [FesZ] points out in the video below that you can still get a lot of mileage out of the Mark 1 eyeball and a simple DMM. Visual inspection of the cable and terminations can reveal a lot, as can continuity measurements on both the inner and outer conductors. Checking for shorts between conductors is important, too. But just because the cable reads good at DC doesn’t mean that problems aren’t still lurking. That’s when [FesZ] recommends breaking out a vector network analyzer like the
NanoVNA
. This tool will allow you to measure the cable’s attenuation and return loss parameters across the frequency range over which the cable will be used.
For stubborn problems, or just for funsies, there’s also time-domain reflectometry, which can be done with a pulse generator and an oscilloscope to characterize impedance discontinuities in the cable. We’ve covered
simple TDR measurement techniques
before, but [FesZ] showed a neat trick called time-domain transformation, which uses VNA data to visualize the impedance profile of the whole cable assembly, including its terminations. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080695",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T22:02:54",
"content": "You can also do TDR with the NanoVNA and the NanoVNASaver software.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080699",
"author": "Paul",
"times... | 1,760,371,673.910655 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/toot-b-gone-with-the-fartmaster-3000/ | Toot-B-Gone, With The FartMaster 3000 | Jenny List | [
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"fart",
"shop vac",
"workshop"
] | Face it, we’ve all been there, in a crowded workshop building something, and horror of horrors, things are going to get a little…
windy
. Do you try to drop it quietly and hope nobody says the rhyme, do you bolt for the door, or can you tough it out and hold it in? Never fear, because [Roman_2798881] has got your back,
with the FartMaster 3000
.
No doubt born of urgent necessity, it’s a discreet wall-mounted fixture for a shop vac line which allows a casual activation of the shopvac as if some sawdust needed removing, and backing up for a safe disposal of any noxious clouds under cover of the vacuum’s whirring.
We have to admit, this one gave us something of a chuckle when we saw it in the Printables feed, but on closer inspection it’s a real device that by our observation could have been useful in more than one hackerspace of our acquaintance. There’s a square funnel in front of a piece of ducting, with a rotary valve to divert the vacuum in an appropriate direction to conceal the evidence.
Then simply turn it back to straight through, vac your pretend sawdust, and nobody’s the wiser. Unless of course, you also integrated
a fart-o-meter
. | 19 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080361",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T06:15:14",
"content": "I do hope we get a boatload of things like this on March 32nd: Real devices that sound like jokes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8080379",
"auth... | 1,760,371,673.867133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/regular-expression-chess/ | Regular (Expression) Chess | Al Williams | [
"Games",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"chess",
"cpu",
"regular expressions"
] | [Nicholas Carlini] found some extra time on his hands over the holiday, so he decide to do something with “entirely no purpose.” The result: 84,688
regular expressions that can play chess
using a 2-ply minmax strategy. No kidding. We think we can do some heavy-duty regular expressions, but this is a whole other level.
As you might expect, the code to play is extremely simple as it just runs the board through series of regular expressions that implement the game logic. Of course, that doesn’t count the thousands of strings containing the regular expressions.
How does this work? Luckily, [Nicholas] explains it in some detail. The trick isn’t making a chess engine. Instead, he creates a “branch-free, conditional-execution, single-instruction multiple-data CPU.” Once you have a CPU, of course it is easy to play chess. Well, relatively easy, anyway.
The computer’s stack and registers are all in a long string, perfect for evaluation by a regular expression. From there, the rest is pretty easy. Sure, you can’t have loops and conditionals can’t branch. You can, however, fork a thread into two parts. Pretty amazing.
Programming the machine must be pretty hard, right? Well, no. There’s also a sort-of language that looks a lot like Python that can compile code for the CPU. For example:
def fib():
a = 1
b = 2
for _ in range(10):
next = a + b
a = b
b = next
Then you “only” have to write the chess engine. It isn’t fast, but that really isn’t the point.
Of course,
chess doesn’t have to be that hard
. The “assembler” reminds us a bit of our
universal cross assembler
. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080352",
"author": "EDJ",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T05:27:24",
"content": "This is so creative wow. Making a cpu using regex is not something I’d thought I would ever see.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8092240",
"aut... | 1,760,371,673.967753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/bending-light-bending-time-a-diy-polarizer-clock/ | Bending Light, Bending Time: A DIY Polarizer Clock | Heidi Ulrich | [
"clock hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"birefringence",
"clock",
"color",
"colour",
"polariscope",
"polarize"
] | Imagine a clock where the colors aren’t from LEDs but a physics phenomenon – polarization. That’s just what [Mosivers], a physicist and electronics enthusiast,
has done with the Polarizer Clock
. It’s not a perfect build, but the concept is intriguing: using polarized light and stress-induced birefringence to generate colors without resorting to RGB LEDs.
The clock uses white LEDs to edge-illuminate a polycarbonate plate. This light passes through two polarizers—one fixed, one rotating—creating constantly shifting colours. Sounds fancy, but the process involves more trial and error than you’d think. [Mosivers] initially wanted to use polarizer-cut numbers but found the contrast was too weak. He experimented with materials like Tesa tape and cellophane, choosing polycarbonate for its stress birefringence.
The final design relies on a mix of materials, including book wrapping foil and 3D printed parts, to make things work. It has its quirks, but it’s certainly clever. For instance, the light dims towards the center, and the second polarizer is delicate and finicky to attach.
This gadget is a splendid blend of art and science, and you can see it in the video below the break. If you’re inspired, you might want to look up
polariscope projects,
or other birefringence hacks on Hackaday. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080405",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-01-08T11:01:37",
"content": "The Dutch word of the year 2024 is “polarisatie” (polarisation) – in the political sense – hence all the video suggestions after this one where of very polarizing moments in Dutch politics…",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,371,674.012283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/gaze-upon-this-omni-directional-treadmills-clever-lego-construction/ | Gaze Upon This Omni-directional Treadmill’s Clever LEGO Construction | Donald Papp | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"omnidirectional",
"treadmill"
] | Want to see some wildly skillful LEGO construction? Check out [Banana Gear Studios]’
omni-directional treadmill
which showcases not only how such a thing works, but demonstrates some pretty impressive problem solving in the process. Construction was far from straightforward!
A 9×9 grid of LEGO shafts all turning in unison is just one of the non-trivial design challenges.
In principle the treadmill works by placing an object on a bed of identical, rotating discs. By tilting the discs, one controls which edge is in contact with the object, which in turn controls the direction the object moves. While the concept is straightforward, the implementation is a wee bit more complex. LEGO pieces offer a rich variety of mechanical functions, but even so, making a 9×9 array of discs all rotate in unison turns out to be a nontrivial problem to solve. Gears alone are not the answer, because the shafts in such a dense array are a bit too close for LEGO gears to play nicely.
The solution? Break it down into 3×3 self-contained chunks, and build out vertically with gimbals to take up the slack for gearing. Use small elastic bands to transfer power between neighbors, then copy and paste the modular 3×3 design a few times to create the full 9×9 grid. After that it’s just a matter of providing a means of tilting the discs — which has its own challenges — and the build is complete.
Check out the video below to see the whole process, which is very nicely narrated and illustrates the design challenges beautifully. You may see some similarities to
Disney’s own 360° treadmill
, but as [Banana Gear Studios] points out, it is a technically different implementation and therefore not covered by Disney’s patent. In an ideal world no one would worry about getting sued by Disney over an educational LEGO project posted on YouTube, but perhaps one can’t be too careful. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080283",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T22:16:22",
"content": "It’s interesting but calling it a treadmill is problematic as there is no tread component. It is however, definitely a conveyor system.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,674.074762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/the-helicone-toy-or-mathematical-oddity/ | The Helicone: Toy Or Mathematical Oddity? | Al Williams | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"golden ratio",
"helicone",
"mathematics"
] | We always enjoy videos from the [Mathologer], but we especially liked the
recent video on the Helicone
, a toy with a surprising connection to mathematics. The toy is cool all by itself, but the video shows how a sufficiently large heliocone models many “natural numbers” and acts, as [Mathologer] puts it, acts as “microscope to probe the nature of numbers.”
The chief number of interest is the so-called golden ratio. A virtual model of the toy allows easy experimentation and even some things that aren’t easily possible in the real world. The virtual helicone also allows you to make a crazy number of layers, which can show certain mathematical ideas that would be hard to do in a 3D print or a wooden toy.
Apparently, the helicone was [John Edmark’s] sculpture inspired by DNA spirals, so it is no surprise it closely models nature. You can 3D
print a real one
.
Of course, the constant π makes an appearance. Like fractals, you can dive into the math or just enjoy the pretty patterns. We won’t judge either way.
We’ve seen math sequences in
clocks
that remind us of [Piet Mondrian]. In fact, we’ve seen
more than one of those
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080246",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T20:51:36",
"content": "Mathematics were always meant to be interpreted visually",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080401",
"author": "Frank Wilhoit",
"timestamp... | 1,760,371,674.119245 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/cleaning-up-bhopal-the-worlds-worst-industrial-disaster/ | Cleaning Up Bhopal: The World’s Worst Industrial Disaster | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [] | Forty years ago, on the night of Sunday 2 December of 1984, people in the city of Bhopal and surrounding communities were settling in for what seemed like yet another regular night. The worst thing in their near future appeared to be having to go back to school and work the next day. Tragically, many of them would never wake up again, and for many thousands more their lives would forever be changed in the worst ways possible.
During that night, clouds of highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas rolled through the streets and into houses, venting from the Bhopal pesticide plant until the leak petered out by 2 AM. Those who still could wake up did so coughing, with tearing eyes and stumbled into the streets to escape the gas cloud without a clear idea of where to go. By sunrise thousands were dead and many more were left severely ill.
Yet the
worst was still to come
, as the number of casualties kept rising, legal battles and the dodging of responsibility intensified, and the chemical contamination kept seeping into the ground at the crippled plant. Recently there
finally seems to be progress
in this clean-up with the removal of 337 tons of toxic waste for final disposal, but after four decades of misgivings and neglect, how close is Bhopal really to finally closing the chapter on this horrific disaster?
Chemistry Of A Disaster
Tank 610, the source of the lethal cloud in Bhopal. (Credit:
Julian Nyča, Wikimedia
)
The Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal was built in 1969 to produce the pesticide Sevin (
carbaryl
) which uses
MIC
(CH
3
NCO) as an intermediate. By the time the plant was operating, there were ways to produce carbaryl without MIC as intermediate, but this was more costly and thus UCIL kept producing the pesticide using the MIC-based process. This is why by the early 1980s MIC was still being produced at the UCIL plant, with multiple on-site MIC storage tanks.
The process used to create the carbaryl at UCIL was quite straightforward, involving the direct reaction of 1-naphtol with MIC:
C
10
H
7
OH + CH
3
NCO → C
10
H
7
OC(O)NHCH
3
This is similar to the MIC-free process, which uses the same precursors (phosgene and 1-naphtol) to produce 1-naphthylchloroformate. After this product reacts with methylamine, it too produces carbaryl, but avoids the creation of MIC and the hazards posed by this substance. The counterpoint here is that MIC is easy to manufacture through the reaction of phosgene and monomethylamine, and MIC is highly reactive, ergo easy to use.
Unfortunately this high reactivity adds to the hazards already posed by the chemical itself. It will readily react with just about anything containing an N-H or O-H group in a strongly exothermic reaction. In the case of the UCIL plant, a large amount of water (H
2
O) had been accidentally introduced to a MIC storage tank, resulting in a violent exothermic reaction that caused 42 tons of MIC to be released into the atmosphere.
Which brings us to the clean-up of such a disaster.
Everything Is Toxic
Unlike with a nuclear accident where you can use a Geiger counter to be quite certain that you won’t come into contact with any hazardous materials, a disaster site like that at the UCIL plant offers no such comforts. The US (NIOSH) health
exposure limits for MIC
are set at
0.12 ppm
on skin for the IDLH (immediately dangerous to life or health), prescribing supplied-air respirators when entering areas with MIC contamination. The exact mechanism behind MIC’s toxicity isn’t known yet, and there is no known treatment following fatal exposure.
In addition to MIC, the now abandoned UCIL plant and its surroundings have been
found to be contaminated
with other chemicals that were present at the time of the disaster, along with additional toxic waste that was dumped after the closure of the plant. These contaminants include various heavy metals (lead, mercury), carbaryl, 1-naphtol, chlorinated solvents and much more. Ground water contamination
has been established
at a few kilometers from the UCIL site, as well as in soil, well water and locally grown vegetables, all of which has led to a quiet human tragedy among the (generally poor) population living in the area.
What complicates matters here is that there’s strong disagreement on
the exact scope of the contamination
. The contamination of the aquifer and groundwater is often disputed by officials, even as epidemiological studies
show the clear health impact
on the local population across multiple generations. These impacts include cancer, developmental issues and cognitive impairments. People who moved into the area long after the disaster – lured by the cheap land – found the soil to be heavily contaminated and causing health issues. In an admission of the poisoned ground water, the local government has since put a clean water supply in place, using pipes that carry in clean outside water.
Meanwhile, at the former UCIL site, there are multiple 1970s-era (mostly unlined) solar evaporation pits which were used for storing chemical waste. These pits were never emptied, unlike the storage tanks and vats elsewhere on the terrain. This means that these abandoned pits have to be fully decontaminated somehow to prevent even more of the waste that’s still in them from leaking into the groundwater.
Then there are the hundreds of tons of hazardous waste that have been stored without clean plan on what to do with them. The 337 tons in leak-proof containers that have now been moved for incineration are the first major step after a trial run with a batch of 10 tons in 2015, with the emissions from this incineration deemed to be acceptable. In addition to these thousands more tons have been buried or stored elsewhere on the plant’s site.
An Exclusion Zone That Isn’t
Aerial photograph of the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash spill. (Credit:
Tennessee Valley Authority
)
A mostly appropriate response to a toxic spill is exemplified by the
2008 fly ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant
in Tennessee. After a coal ash pond ruptured and spilled heavy metal-laden fly ash into the adjoining Emory River, 40 homes were destroyed and covering 300 acres (121.4 hectares) in toxic sludge. This was the largest industrial spill in US history.
These fly ash pools used to be unlined pits, not unlike those at the UCIL plant. Those involved in the clean-up suffered a range of health-effects, with dozens dying. The plant owner – TVA – ended up having to purchase the contaminated land, with the clean-up resulting in
a partial recovery of the area
by 2015 and by 2017 the river was deemed to have ‘recovered’. The home owners in the area did not have to live in the sludge, TVA was on the hook for remediation and payment of compensation.
Remediation mostly involved removing the countless tons of sludge and disposing of it. Current and new fly ash ponds had to be fitted with a liner, or be shut down, along with a string of new safety measures to prevent this type of accident.
In the case of the UCIL plant at Bhopal, the affected area should have been turned into an exclusion zone, and inhabitants relocated, pending environmental assessment of the extent of the contamination. Even in the Soviet Union this was possible after the RBMK core steam explosion near Pripyat, which resulted in today’s Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Unlike radioactive isotopes, however, heavy metals and toxins do not quietly go away by themselves if left alone.
Considering the sheer scope of the contamination around the former UCIL plant in Bhopal, it does seem realistic that this area will not be suitable for human habitation again within the next hundreds to thousands of years, barring a thus far unimaginable clean-up effort.
Featured image: Deteriorating section of the UCIL plant near Bhopal, India. (Credit: Luca Frediani,
Wikimedia
) | 44 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080188",
"author": "BrendaEM",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T18:42:54",
"content": "In the form of polyurethane, Gorilla Glue, Imron airplane paint, we consume isocynates without even thinking about their effects, yet we vilify lacquer because of its VOCs.Even ordinary non-catalyzed pol... | 1,760,371,674.20959 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/more-things-to-do-with-your-cheap-yellow-display/ | More Things To Do With Your Cheap Yellow Display | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"Cheap Yellow Display",
"CYD",
"ESP32",
"GPS receiver",
"mp3 player"
] | The Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) is an ESP32 development board that’s been making the rounds for a while now, thanks to its value and versatility. For around $10 USD, you get a nicely integrated package that’s perfect for a wide array of projects and applications. Toss a couple in on your next AliExpress order, and all you need to do is come up with an idea. [Craig Lindley] had two ideas, and maybe they will help get those gears turning in your head. Even if you don’t need a
network-connected MP3
player or GPS information display, we bet browsing the source code would be useful.
There are plenty of opinions about listening to music, but this first project is particularly interesting for those who like to keep their collection locally. [Craig]’s code can read the MP3s stored on the SD card and present the user with a menu system for browsing them by artist or album.
Should you want to add more music to the collection, you can connect to the player over FTP and directly upload it to the SD card. But perhaps the real kicker is that the audio playback is done over Bluetooth, so you can rock out wirelessly. While we don’t necessarily have a problem with the sparse UI, it seems like with a little sprucing up (album art, graphical menus), this would be a fantastic framework for open-source personal audio players.
The second project is perhaps most interesting because it brings some new hardware to the table, namely a serially connected GPS module. In its current state, we’d probably classify this one as more of a tech demo. Still, it can already show the device’s current coordinates, altitude, and speed. In addition, it can pull the current time and date from the GPS stream, which could have some interesting applications for those working on custom clocks.
We’ve had our eye on the CYD community for a while now
and love the creativity that we’ve been seeing. We thank [Craig] for sending these projects our way, and as a reminder, if you’ve got something you’d like to show off to a global audience of hackers and makers,
don’t hesitate to drop us a line
. If you’ve got a thing for MP3 players, we’ve
seen a ton
. As for GPS trackers, we like to put them on
our pets
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080181",
"author": "Miles Archer",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T18:14:35",
"content": "I bought one of these, pretty much because how cheap it was. I’m currently using it to display the temperature inside and outside my house and the local weather forecast from the NWS.The hardest thin... | 1,760,371,674.759841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-circuit-sculpture-keyboard/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Circuit Sculpture Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Circuit Sculpture",
"Incase",
"microsoft 4000",
"microsoft ergonomic keyboard",
"round display"
] | Image by [New-Concentrate6308] via
reddit
Don’t worry, [New-Concentrate6308] is working on the GitHub for this final build of 2024, dubbed
the GEMK_47
. That stands for Grid Ergo Magnetic Keyboard, but I swear there are 48 keys.
What we’ve got here is a split ergo with an ortholinear layout. There’s a round screen and encoder on the left side, and a 35 mm trackpad on the right. There’s also space for some other round thing on this side, should you want another rotary encoder or whatever fits in place of the spacer.
Internally, there’s a Waveshare RP2040 Tiny and a mixture of Gateron Oil Kings and Gateron Yellow V3 switches. That lovely case is printed in silk silver PLA, but [New-Concentrate6308] wants to try metal-filled PLA for the next version. Although the original idea was to go wireless, ZMK didn’t play nicely with that round display, which of course is non-negotiable.
Hello Banana Katana! Goodbye Copper? :(
So this beauty is
Banana Katana
, a work in progress by [leifflat]. The bad news is that [liefflat] is probably gonna ditch the copper even though it looks
sick
here in circuit sculpture mode. Apparently it types nicely, but just doesn’t feel right overall.
Image by [leifflat] via
reddit
The story is that [leifflat] saw a Katana layout a few months ago and fell in love. After having this idea kicking around the brain, he decided to just go for it and built this from scratch.
First order of business was to design the layout in Keyboard Layout Editor (
KLE
), then transfer that to a plate generator. Then
that
was imported into Fusion360 and messed around with a bit to get the final result.
The coolest thing aside from the obvious is that there’s a 3D-printed plate with hot swap sockets mounted on it. How? [leifflat] used sacrificial switches and super glue, then took the switches out when it was dry.
Here’s a picture of the underside
. So why is the bottom row of keys upside down? Because it’s more comfortable that way for some thumbs. You should try it.
The Centerfold: This Delicious Panorama
Image by [Local-Tip-3552] via
reddit
It’s a good day when you find a subreddit you can call home.
[Local-Tip-3552] recently found r/mechanicalheadpens
, which is the place for crossover fans of mechanical keyboards, headphones, and fountain pens. (They’re on the far right.)
I won’t list all the details of the setup; you can find those in the reddit post. Apparently [Local-Tip-3552] handles wrongfully-denied Medicaid claims all day and uses the macro pad to quickly fill out forms. Unfortunately, that rad super 10-key on the right doesn’t see much action anymore since the split keyboard has a num pad layer.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: the Yost Line of Typewriters
The New Yost, which was the third model produced by the Yost concern. Image via
The Antikey Chop
Perhaps the most striking thing about any of
the early entries in the Yost line of machines
(1887-1924) is the large double keyboard, which makes them resemble adding machines, at least to my eyes.
According to The Antikey Chop, every model up to the no. 10 “had typebars that kicked like grasshopper legs” and were hung in a circular, up-striking arrangement.
Overall, the Yost company produced 20 models, the first three of which are not terribly distinguishable from one another. In fact, the design wasn’t significantly altered until the no. 10 typewriter, which came along in 1905. With the 10, more of the mechanisms were enclosed within the frame, which made for a bulkier build.
By 1915, pressure from the typewriter market forced George Washington Newton Yost to produce a standard four-bank typewriter instead. The no. 15, which came about in 1908 was quite modern, but at least it had its “grasshopper” type bars to distinguish it from the others. By the 20th version however, the grasshoppers had been replaced with modern front-striking ones.
Just Incase™ You Miss Your Curvy Microsoft Keyboard
I recently told you that Kinesis are releasing a keyboard that could potentially fill that Microsoft 4000-sized hole in your life
. If you don’t like that one, I have good news:
Incase bought the manufacturing rights from Microsoft in 2024
and are set to produce
a curvy split keyboard
that’s $9 cheaper than Kinesis’ mWave at
$120
.
Image via
Incase
What’s interesting is that this is a keyboard that Microsoft designed and never released. Despite spending years developing this presumable successor to the 4000, they exited the peripherals market in 2023 to focus on Surface computers and such. Incase are calling this the Compact Ergonomic Keyboard. It has multi-device connectivity, and, for some reason, a dedicated Copilot key.
What’s weird is that it runs on two AAA batteries that can’t be charged via ports on the keyboard. Even so, they are supposed to last around 36 months. I don’t think these low-profile scissor keys look very nice to type on for long periods of time. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be comfortable, just that it might not be
nice.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080193",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T18:51:35",
"content": "Chicklet keys on the Incase.I’ll pass…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8080748",
"author": "crispernaki",
"timest... | 1,760,371,674.37118 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/one-to-watch-for-in-2025-tanmatsu/ | One To Watch For In 2025: Tanmatsu | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"ESP32-P4",
"palmtop",
"tanmatsu"
] | If you’ve used the Espressif series of processors, perhaps you’ll have heard of their upcoming ESP32-P4. This is an application processor, with dual RISC-V cores at 400 MHz, and save for a lack of an MMU, a spec sheet much closer to the kind of silicon you’d find in single board computers with pretensions towards being a mini-PC.
It was announced a year ago and there have been limited numbers of pre-release versions of the chip available to developers, but thus far there have been very few boards featuring it. We’re excited then to note that
a P4-based board we’ve been watching for a while is finally breaking cover
, and what’s more,
you can now pre-order one
.
The Tanmatsu (Japanese for “Terminal”) is an all-in-one palmtop computer for hackers, with a QWERTY keyboard and an 800×480 DSI display. It’s designed with plenty of expansion in mind, and it’s got space on board for a LoRa radio. The reason we’re interested is that it comes from some of our friends in the world of event badges, so we’ve seen and handled real working prototypes, and we know that its makers come from a team with
a proven record in manufacture and delivery of working hardware
. The prototype we saw had hardware that was very close to the final version, and an operating system and software that was still under development but on track for the April release of the device. It will be
fully open-source
in both hardware and software.
We liked what we saw and have pre-ordered one ourselves, so we’ll be sure to bring you a closer look when it arrives. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080150",
"author": "Feinfinger (M-x totally-tame-mode)",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T16:06:07",
"content": "Did I hear someone whisper “Meshtastic”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080213",
"author": "Jenny List",
... | 1,760,371,674.594343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/07/logging-babys-day-in-linux/ | Logging Baby’s Day In Linux | Tom Nardi | [
"home hacks",
"Linux Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"apache",
"baby",
"database",
"infant",
"systemd",
"tracker"
] | There’s plenty of surprises to be had when you become a parent, and one of the first is that it’s suddenly your job to record the frequency of your infant’s various bodily functions in exacting detail. How many times did the little tyke eat, how long did they sleep, and perhaps most critically, how many times did they poop. The pediatrician will expect you to know these things, so you better start keeping notes.
Or, if you’re
[Triceratops Labs], you build a physical button panel
that will keep tabs on the info for you. At the press of each button, a log entry is made on the connected Raspberry Pi Zero W, which eventually makes its way to a web interface that you can view to see all of Junior’s statistics.
In terms of hardware, this one is quite simple — it’s really just an array of arcade-style push buttons wired directly into the Pi’s GPIO header. Where it shines is in the software. This project could have been just a Python script and a text file, but instead it uses a MariaDB database on the back-end, with Apache and PHP serving up the web page, and a custom Systemd service to tie it all together. In other words, it’s what happens when you let a Linux admin play with a soldering iron.
It probably won’t come as much surprise to find that hackers often come up with elaborate monitoring systems for their newborn children, after all, it’s a great excuse for a new project.
This machine learning crib camera comes to mind
. | 39 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080044",
"author": "Jouni",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T10:18:35",
"content": "After few days they are tired of pressing buttons.Paper and pen.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8080111",
"author": "shinsukke",
"ti... | 1,760,371,674.95027 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/thirty-years-later-the-windows-3-1-video-driver-you-needed/ | Thirty Years Later, The Windows 3.1 Video Driver You Needed | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"SVGA",
"vesa",
"windows",
"windows 3.1"
] | Over the course of the 1990s we saw huge developments in the world of PC graphics cards, going from little more than the original IBM VGA standard through super VGA and then so-called “Windows accelerator” cards which brought the kind of hardware acceleration the console and 16 bit home computer users had been used to for a while. At the end of the decade we had the first generation of 3D accelerator chipsets which are ancestors of today’s GPUs.
It was a great time to be a hardware enthusiast, but as anyone who was around at the time will tell you, the software for the drivers hadn’t caught up. Particularly for Windows 3.1 it could be something of a lottery, so
[PluMGMK]’s modern generic SVGA driver
could have been extremely useful had it appeared at the time.
As many of you will be aware, there is a set of VESA standardized BIOS extensions for video modes. There were generic VESA drivers back in the day, but they would only provide a disappointing selection of options for what the cards could do even then. The new driver provides support for all the available modes supported by a card, at all color depths. Windows 3.1 in true-color full HD? No problem!
It’s unexpected to see Program Manager and a selection of windows spread across so much real-estate, almost reminiscent of the uncluttered desktops from early ’90s workstations if you disregard the bright colors. We can’t help noticing it wins in one way over even the latest version of MacOS at these resolutions though, as anyone who has ever used a 4K screen on a Mac and found the menus remain miles away up in the top corner will tell you. Meanwhile if you’ve not had your fill of 16-bit Windows,
how about sticking it in a ThinkPad BIOS
? | 52 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080029",
"author": "Petter",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T09:03:06",
"content": "Who would have thought it, 3.1 looking good!Or rather, looks as it used to but with a higher resolution it really makes a difference. My guess is that the hardware of yesteryear would not be very happy kee... | 1,760,371,674.856062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/rethinking-your-jellybean-op-amps/ | Rethinking Your Jellybean Op Amps | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts",
"Rants"
] | [
"741",
"design",
"jellybean parts",
"lm324",
"op-amp",
"OPA 2323",
"Operational amplifier",
"rail-to-rail"
] | Are your jellybeans getting stale? [lcamtuf] thinks so, and his
guide to choosing op-amps
makes a good case for rethinking what parts you should keep in stock.
For readers of a certain vintage, the term “operational amplifier” is almost synonymous with the LM741 or LM324, and with good reason. This is despite the limitations these chips have, including the need for bipolar power supplies at relatively high voltages and the need to limit the input voltage range lest clipping and distortion occur. These chips have appeared in countless designs over the nearly 60 years that they’ve been available, and the Internet is littered with examples of circuits using them.
For [lcamtuf], the abundance of designs for these dated chips is exactly the problem, as it leads to a “copy-paste” design culture despite the far more capable and modern op-amps that are readily available. His list of preferred jellybeans includes the OPA2323, favored thanks to its lower single-supply voltage range, rail-to-rail input and output, and decent output current. The article also discussed the pros and cons of FET input, frequency response and slew rate, and the relative unimportance of internal noise, pointing out that most modern op-amps will probably be the least thermally noisy part in your circuit.
None of this is to take away from how important the 741 and other early op-amps were, of course. They are venerable chips that still have their place, and we expect they’ll be showing up in designs for many decades to come. This is just food for thought, and [lcamtuf] makes a good case for rethinking your analog designs while cluing us in on what really matters when choosing an op-amp. | 44 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080002",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T06:56:11",
"content": "Ahh the LM324, my first op amp.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8080009",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T07:37:17",
"content": "... | 1,760,371,675.042375 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/is-a-cheap-frequency-standard-worth-it/ | Is A Cheap Frequency Standard Worth It? | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"crystal oscillator",
"crystal oven",
"Frequency Standard"
] | In the quest for an accurate frequency standard there are many options depending on your budget, but one of the most affordable is an oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO). [RF Burns]
has a video looking at one of the cheapest of these
, a sub ten dollar AliExpress module.
A crystal oven is a simple enough device — essentially just a small box containing a crystal oscillator and a thermostatic heater. By keeping the crystal at a constant temperature it has the aim of removing thermal drift from its output frequency, meaning that once it is calibrated it can be used as a reasonably good frequency standard. The one in question is a 10 MHz part on a small PCB with power supply regulator and frequency trimming voltage potentiometer, and aside from seeing it mounted in an old PSU case we also are treated to an evaluation of its adjustment and calibration.
Back in the day such an oscillator would have been calibrated by generating an audible beat with a
broadcast standard such as WWV
, but in 2024 he uses an off-air GPS standard to calibrate a counter before measuring the oven crystal. It’s pretty good out of the box, but still a fraction of a Hertz off, thus requiring a small modification to the trimmer circuit. We’d be happy with that.
For the price, we can see that one of these makes sense as a bench standard, and we say this
from the standpoint of a recovering frequency standard nut
. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079960",
"author": "Bruce",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T02:29:19",
"content": "Is the board mislabelled? Both when he first shows the board as well as when describing the switching of the sinusoidal output, he points to the left output and for TTL he points to the right. However, the ... | 1,760,371,675.106176 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/no-frills-pcb-brings-usb-c-power-to-the-breadboard/ | No Frills PCB Brings USB-C Power To The Breadboard | Tom Nardi | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"breadboard",
"power supply",
"USB C"
] | At this point, many of us have gone all-in on USB-C. It’s gotten to the point that when you occasionally run across a gadget that
doesn’t
support being powered USB-C, the whole experience seems somewhat ridiculous. If 90% of your devices using the same power supply, that last 10% starts feeling very antiquated.
So why should your breadboard be any different?
[Axiometa] has recently unveiled a simple PCB
that will plug into a standard solderless breadboard to provide 3.3 and 5 VDC when connected to a USB-C power supply. The device is going to start a crowdfunding campaign soon if you want to buy a completed one — but with the
design files and Bill of Materials already up on GitHub
, nothing stops you from spinning up your own version today.
What we like about this design is how simple it is. Getting the 5 V is easy, it just takes the
proper resistors on the connector’s CC line
. From there, a TPS63001 and a handful of passives provide a regulated 3.3 V. As you can see in the video, all you need to do when you want to change the output voltage for either rail is slide a jumper over.
Sure, it wouldn’t be much harder to add support the other voltages offered by USB-C Power Delivery, but how often have you really needed 20 volts on a breadboard? Why add extra components and complication for a feature most people would never use?
As an aside, we were very interested to see the torture test of the SMD pin headers at the end of the video. There’s considerable debate in the
world of badge Simple-Add Ons (SAOs)
about whether or not surface mount headers are strong enough to hold up to real-world abuse, and apparently similar concerns were raised about their usage here. But judging by the twisting and wrenching the pins withstood in the video, those fears would appear unwarranted. | 30 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079871",
"author": "Russ Wizinsky",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T21:36:11",
"content": "Bravo 👏 great way to supply breadboards!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8079872",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T21:39... | 1,760,371,675.219049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/growing-semiconductor-layers-directly-with-tmds/ | Growing Semiconductor Layers Directly With TMDs | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"semiconductor"
] | Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are a class of material that’s been receiving significant attention as a possible successor of silicon. Recently, a team of researchers has demonstrated the use of TMDs as an alternative to through-silicon-vias (TSV), which is the current way that multiple layers of silicon semiconductor circuitry are stacked, as seen with, e.g., NAND Flash ICs and processors with stacked memory dice. The novelty here is that the new circuitry is grown directly on top of the existing circuitry, removing the need for approaches like TSV to turn 2D layers into 3D stacks.
As reported in the
paper in
Nature
by [Ki Seok Kim]
and colleagues (
gift article
), this technique of monolithic 3D (M3D) integration required overcoming a number of technological challenges, most of all enabling the new TMD single-crystals to grow at low enough temperatures that it doesn’t destroy the previously created circuitry. The progress is detailed in the paper’s schematic (pictured above): from TSV to M3D by transfer of layers and high- and low-temperature growth of single-crystal layers.
Ultimately, the demonstration device with vertically grown transistor arrays (nMOS and pMOS) on a silicon substrate was grown at 385℃, which, if commercially developed, could mean a significant boost in transistor density and possibly the development of
3D semiconductor circuit
s rather than stacked 2D ones. We are still worried about making them the
old-fashioned way
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079847",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T20:30:43",
"content": "So this is a technique to crystallize arrays of gates on top of existing layers as just new steps in the process so you can just keep building up and up? Is that right?",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,675.147218 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/hackaday-links-january-5-2025/ | Hackaday Links: January 5, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"apple",
"APU",
"auxiliary power unit",
"boeing",
"captcha",
"Deep Space Network",
"doom",
"DSN",
"Eben Upton",
"Hack Chat",
"hackaday links",
"landmarks",
"lawsuit",
"Parker",
"raspberry pi",
"siri",
"solar",
"sun"
] | Good news this week from the Sun’s far side as
the Parker Solar Probe checked in after its speedrun through our star’s corona
. Parker became the fastest human-made object ever — aside from
the manhole cover
, of course — as it fell into the Sun’s gravity well on Christmas Eve to pass within 6.1 million kilometers of the surface, in an attempt to study the extremely dynamic environment of the solar atmosphere. Similar to how manned spacecraft returning to Earth are blacked out from radio communications, the plasma soup Parker flew through meant everything it would do during the pass had to be autonomous, and we wouldn’t know how it went until the probe cleared the high-energy zone. The probe pinged Earth with a quick “I’m OK” message on December 26, and checked in with the Deep Space Network as scheduled on January 1, dumping telemetry data that indicated the spacecraft not only survived its brush with the corona but that every instrument performed as expected during the pass. The scientific data from the instruments won’t be downloaded until the probe is in a little better position, and then Parker will get to do the whole thing again twice more in 2025.
Good news too for Apple users, some of whom stand to get a cool $100 as part of
a settlement into allegations that Siri-enabled devices “unintentionally” recorded conversations
. The $95 million agreement settles a lawsuit brought by users who were shocked — SHOCKED! — to see ads related to esoteric subjects they had recently discussed, apparently independently of uttering the “Hey, Siri” wake phrase. Apple seems to acknowledge that some recordings were made without the wake word, characterizing them as “unintentional” and disputing the plaintiffs’ claims that the recordings were passed to third parties for targeted advertising. The settlement, which may be certified in February, would award the princely sum of $20 to claimants for each Apple device they owned over a ten-year period, up to five devices total.
In related news, Apple is also getting some attention for
apparently opting users into its Enhanced Visual Search system
. The feature is intended to make it easier to classify and search your photos based on well-known landmarks or points of interest, so if you take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower or Grand Canyon, it’ll recognize those features visually and record the fact. It does so by running your snapshots through a local AI algorithm and then encrypting the portion of the image it thinks contains the landmark. The encrypted portion of the image then goes to the cloud for analysis, apparently without getting decrypted, and the suggested location goes back to your device in encrypted form. It’s possible to turn the feature off, but you have to know it’s there in the first place, which we imagine not a lot of Apple users do. While there’s no sign that this new feature leaks any user data, there are a lot of moving pieces that sure seem ripe for exploitation, given enough time.
Are you as sick of counting the numbers of bridges or traffic lights in potato-vision images or trying to figure out if that one square has a few pixels of the rear-view mirror of a motorcycle to prove you’re human? We sure are, and while we’d love to see CAPTCHAs go the way of the dodo, they’re probably here to stay. So, why not have fun with the concept and
play a round of DOOM on nightmare mode
to prove your non-robotness? That was Guillermo Rauch’s idea, and we have to say it’s pretty cool. You’ve got to kill three monsters to solve the puzzle, and we found it pretty difficult, in part because we’re more used to the WASD layout than using the arrow keys for player movement. Just watch out if you give it a try with headphones on — it’s pretty loud.
And finally, if you feel like your life is missing in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of a Boeing 777’s auxiliary power unit, we’ve got good news for you. We stumbled across
this playlist of excellent animations
that shows every nook and cranny of the APU, and how it operates. For the uninitiated, the APU is basically a gas turbine engine that lives in the tail of jetliners and provides electrical and pneumatic power whenever the main engines aren’t running. It sounds simple, but there’s so much engineering packed into the APU and the way it integrates into the aircraft systems. We’ve always known that jets have a lot of redundancy built into them, but this series really brought that home to us. Enjoy!
And finally finally, we generally don’t like to plug the Hack Chat here in this space, but we thought we’d make an exception since we’re kicking off the 2025 series in a big way with
Eben Upton
! The co-founder and CEO of Raspberry Pi will stop by the Hack Chat on January 15 at noon Pacific time, and we just want to get the word out as soon as possible. Hope to see you there! | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079676",
"author": "Anonymus",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T12:11:53",
"content": "But what about the people that don’t own an apple device but who’s conversations were recorded due to being in the same room as one?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,675.263704 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/reverse-engineering-the-polynomial-constants-in-the-pentiums-fpu/ | Reverse-Engineering The Polynomial Constants In The Pentium’s FPU | Maya Posch | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"pentium",
"polynomial"
] | Die photo of the Intel Pentium processor with the floating point constant ROM highlighted in red. (Credit: Ken Shirriff)
Released in 1993, Intel’s Pentium processor was a marvel of technological progress. Its floating point unit (FPU) was a big improvement over its predecessors that still used the venerable CORDIC algorithm. In a recent blog post [Ken Shirriff] takes an
up-close look at the FPU and associated ROMs
in the Pentium die that enable its use of polynomials. Even with 3.1 million transistors, the Pentium die is still on a large enough process node that it can be readily analyzed with an optical microscope.
In the blog post, [Ken] shows how you can see the constants in each ROM section, with each bit set as either a transistor (‘1’) or no transistor (‘0’), making read-out very easy. The example looks at the constant of pi, which the Pentium’s FPU has stored as a version with no fewer than 67
significand
bits along with its exponent.
Multiplexer circuitry allows for the selection of the appropriate entry in the ROM. The exponent section always takes up 18 bits (1 for the significand sign). The significand section is actually 68 bits total, but it starts with a mysterious first bit with no apparent purpose.
After analyzing and transcribing the 304 total constants like this, [Ken] explains how these constants are used with polynomial approximations. This feature allows the Pentium’s FPU to be about 2-3 times faster than the 486 with CORDIC, giving even home users access to significant FPU features a few years before the battle of MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, and today’s AVX extensions began.
Featured image: A diagram of the constant ROM and supporting circuitry. Most of the significand ROM has been cut out to make it fit. (Credit:
Ken Shirriff
) | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079666",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T11:07:57",
"content": "Amazing article and thanks for telling us Ken’s work! The comments on this site are slowly filling with information about how some constants came to be. Hope soon all ROM entries and how they were gene... | 1,760,371,675.312348 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/stacys-computer-has-got-it-going-on/ | Stacy’s Computer Has Got It Going On | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Teardown"
] | [
"atari",
"luggable",
"stacy"
] | According to [ClassicHasClass], the best way to open an Atari Stacy is to
not open an Atari Stacy
. Apparently, these old computers were not pleasant to work on. The cables were not keyed and were prone to short against things. Screws easily strip out plastic holes. Of course, there wouldn’t be a story if there wasn’t a teardown and an upgrade that you can check out in the post.
The Stacy was one of Atari’s earliest portable systems and the first ST portable (that is, STacy). There’s a backlit LCD, a keyboard and trackball, and the usual ports. You could make do with a single floppy or spring for a second floppy or an internal SCSI hard drive. The 8 MHz 68000-based machine would set you back north of $2,300 back in 1989.
The original plan was to run the thing on C-cell batteries, but that would give you about 15 minutes of operation. They finally decided it was a luggable — you’d have to plug it into the wall. The battery compartment was there, but empty and glued shut.
Apparently, there were about 35,000 of these made, but they seem somewhat rare. But we do like
a rare retrocomputer
. Or even some that aren’t
so rare
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079511",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-01-05T19:08:51",
"content": "Self tapping screws destroy the threads in the hole unless you know how to put them back in correctly.Put the screw in the hole. Use a screwdriver to turn the screw backwards – like you are loosening... | 1,760,371,675.36446 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/atari-65xe-in-laptop-form/ | Atari 65XE In Laptop Form | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"3d printed",
"65xe",
"atari",
"laptop",
"pc",
"retro",
"retrocomputing",
"xegs"
] | For better or worse, Atari is no longer a household name in computing, but for a time in the 1980s, it was a huge mover in the industry. They not only produced PCs but also a huge number of video game consoles. Although they were a major contributor to the video game crash of the 1980s, they managed to limp along a few more years afterward and produce some interesting machines in the following years, even though they weren’t ultimately able to compete with Nintendo or Sega. One of those computers from that era was a PC-console hybrid of sorts called the Atari XE, and
[Sideburn] was able to turn one into a laptop
.
The retro laptop began life as an Arabic PAL version of the 65XE, the PC version of the ubiquitous 65-series computer. A large portion of the computer was reworked, including the removal of the power supply in favor of a rechargeable battery with a 6-hour life. Also among the list of scrapped components was the video and sound connectors as well as the RF modulator, which would have been common for displays at the time, but this laptop is getting a 1920×1080 LCD panel to replace all of that old hardware. A 1MB memory upgrade, new speakers and amp, a WiFi card, and an SD floppy card emulator round out the build.
The final part of the build is assembling it all into a custom 3D printed case, and the resulting laptop that [Sideburn] calls the XE Book is a faithful adaptation of this niche computer into what could have been a laptop we would have seen in the late 80s or early 90s
similar to the Toshiba T3200SXC
. It matches the original’s footprint and still uses all of the core components, so it’s not too difficult to imagine something like this having existed in the past. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8080134",
"author": "A Texan",
"timestamp": "2025-01-07T15:15:37",
"content": "Wow! No comments on this one. An Atari 800XL with the 1050 drive was my first system. Bought it as Sears for my birthday or Christmas.Nice project!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,371,675.407832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/16-bit-linux-like-goodness/ | 16-bit Linux-like Goodness | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"linux",
"retrocomputer"
] | We see many 16-bit retrocomputers around here based on Intel and Intel-like chips such as the 8086, 8088, V20, and similar. While they don’t seem very powerful by today’s standards, they were perfectly capable machines and, thanks to
Elks
(Embeddedable Linux Kernel Subset), you can run something fairly Linux-like on these devices.
The requirements are light: 512K of RAM is desirable, but you can do something with 256K. If you have ROM, you can even get by with 128K. Most importantly, the system doesn’t require a memory management unit to remap memory like many operating systems.
The project has been around for a bit, but has had some recent updates both for the runtime and the build system. For example, you can now build under WSL or using the Open Watcom C compiler. Executables are now compressed, and there’s a new cache system. The kernel and standard library no longer use long division, to improve perfomance.
If you want to try the system, you can boot it in an emulator on your
browser
. Just log in as “root.” There’s even a fake serial port available. Plus you can play Adventure. Or Doom.
We’ve seen Elks in some
very strange places
.
Really strange
. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079434",
"author": "Alex Holden",
"timestamp": "2025-01-05T12:22:06",
"content": "You can also play a simple graphical Tetris clone. The command to start it is ‘nxtetris’. Press N to start a new game, Q to quit, P to pause, C to continue, S/D to rotate the piece, J/K to move it lef... | 1,760,371,675.504514 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/05/e-bike-motor-gets-new-life-as-hydro-plant/ | E-Bike Motor Gets New Life As Hydro Plant | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"ebike",
"generator",
"hub motor",
"hydro",
"hydroelectric",
"impeller",
"off grid",
"paddlewheel",
"power"
] | For economic reasons, not every lake with a dam can support a hydroelectric power plant. Some rivers or creeks are dammed for flood control or simply for recreation, and don’t have the flow rate or aren’t deep enough to make the investment of a grid-scale generation facility worthwhile. But for those of us with a few spare parts around and access to a small lake,
sometimes it’s possible to generate a usable amount of energy with just a bit of effort
.
[Beyond the Tint] is building this mostly as a proof-of-concept, starting with a 1,000W hub motor from an e-bike that’s been removed from its wheel. A 3D-printed waterwheel attachment is installed in its place, and the fixed shaft is attached to a homemade ladder-looking mechanism that allows the entire generator to be lowered into the flow of a moving body of water, in this case, a small stream. A bridge rectifier converts the AC from the hub motor (now a generator) into DC, and after a few measurements and trials, [Beyond the Tint] produced over 30W with the first prototype.
A second prototype was made with feedback from the first video he produced, this time with an enclosed paddlewheel. This didn’t appear to make much difference at first, but a more refined impeller may make a difference in future prototypes. Small-scale hydropower is
a fairly popular challenge to tackle
, especially in the off-grid community. With access to even a small flowing stream and enough elevation change, it’s possible to build something
like this generator out of parts from an old washing machine
. | 54 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079433",
"author": "nobody",
"timestamp": "2025-01-05T12:21:48",
"content": "Great project but cant help wondering how long before water gets into the hub?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8079441",
"author": "H Hack",... | 1,760,371,676.044507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/04/all-aboard-the-hack-train-nottinghams-led-revival/ | All Aboard The Hack Train: Nottingham’s LED Revival | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Hackerspaces",
"LED Hacks",
"News",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Uno",
"departure board",
"Discord",
"led",
"mqtt",
"Nottingham",
"nottingham hackspace",
"railway"
] | Hackerspaces are no strangers to repurposing outdated tech, and Nottingham Hackspace happens to own one of those oddities one rarely gets their hands on: a railway departure board. Left idle for over a decade, it was brought back to life by [asjackson]. Originally salvaged around 2012, it remained unused until mid-2024, when [asjackson] decided to reverse-engineer it. The board now cycles between displaying Discord messages and actual train departures from Nottingham Railway Station every few minutes. The full build story can be found in this
blog post
.
The technical nitty-gritty is fascinating. Each side of the board contains 4,480 LEDs driven as two parallel chains. [asjackson] dove into its guts, decoding circuits, fixing misaligned logic levels, and designing custom circuit boards in KiCAD. The latest version swaps WiFi for a WizNet W5500 ethernet module and even integrates the Arduino Uno R4 directly into the board’s design. Beyond cool tech, the display connects to MQTT, pulling real-time train data and Discord messages via scripts that bridge APIs and custom Arduino code.
This board is a true gem for any hackerspace, even more so now it’s working. It waited for the exact mix of ingredients why hackerspaces exist in the first place: curiosity, persistence, and problem-solving. Nottingham Hackspace is home to a lot more, as we once wrote in
this introductory article
.If you don’t have room for the real thing, maybe set your sights
a bit smaller
.
Do you have a statement piece this cool in your hackerspace or your home?
Tip us! | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079392",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-01-05T08:45:31",
"content": "Nice project but what a shame they didn’t have the original controller still in it, they were quite interesting to play with.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,371,675.952915 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/before-gps-there-was-loran/ | Before GPS There Was LORAN | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"LORAN",
"Loran-A",
"navigation"
] | We found it nostalgic to watch [ve3iku] fire up an old Loran-A receiver and, as you can see in the video below,
he got it working
. If you aren’t familiar with LORAN, it was a common radio navigation technique before GPS took over everything.
LORAN — an acronym for Long Range Navigation — was a US byproduct of World War II and was similar in many ways to Britain’s Gee system. However, LORAN operated at lower frequencies to improve its range. It was instrumental in helping convoys cross the Atlantic and also found use in the Pacific theater.
How it Worked
The video shows a Loran-A receiver, which, in its day, would have been known as LORAN. The A was added after versions B and C appeared. Back in the 1940s, something like this with a CRT and precision electronics would have been very expensive.
Unlike GPS, keeping a highly synchronized clock over many stations was impractical at the time. So, LORAN stations operated in pairs on different frequencies and with a known distance between the two. The main station sends a blip. When the secondary station hears the blip, it sends its own blip. Sometimes there were multiple secondaries, too.
If you receive both blips, you can measure the time between them and use it to get an idea of where you are. Suppose the stations were 372 miles apart. That means the secondary will hear the blip roughly 2 milliseconds after the primary sends it (the speed of light is about 186 miles per millisecond). You can characterize how much the secondary delays, so let’s just say that’s another millisecond.
Reception
Now both transmitted blips have to make it to your receiver. Let’s take a sill example. Suppose you are on top of station B. You’ll hear station A at the same time station B hears it. Then, when you subtract out the delay for station B, you’ll hear its blip immediately. You could easily guess you were 372 miles from station A.
It is more likely, though, that you will be somewhere else, which complicates things. If you find there is a 372-mile difference in your distance from station A to station B, that could mean you were 186 miles away from each station. Or, you could be 202 miles from station A and 170 miles from station B.
If you plot all the possibilities, you’ll get a hyperbolic curve. You are somewhere on the curve. How do you know where? You take a reading on a different pair of transmitters, and the curves should touch on two points. You are on one of those points.
This is similar to stellar navigation, and you usually have enough of an idea where you are to get rid of one of the points as ridiculous. You do, however, have to take into account the motion of your vehicle between readings. If there are multiple secondary stations, that can help since you can get multiple readings without switching to an entirely new pair. The Coast Guard video below explains it graphically, if that helps.
Receiver Tech
The receiver was able to inject a rectangular pulse on both channels to use as a reference, which is what the video talks about being the “pedestal” (although the British typically called it a cursor).
LORAN could operate up to 700 nautical miles in the day, but nighttime propagation would allow measurements up to 1,400 nautical miles away. Of course, the further away you are, the less accurate the system is.
During the day, things were simple because you typically just got one pulse from each station. But at night, you could get multiple bounces, and it was much more difficult to interpret.
If you want to dive really deep into how you’d take a practical fix, [The Radar Room]
has a very detailed video
. It shows multiple pulses and uses a period-appropriate APN-4 receiver.
In Care Of…
The U.S. Army Air Force originated LORAN. The Navy was working on Loran-B, but later gave up on it and took over an Air Force project with similar goals. In 1957, the Coast Guard took over both systems and named them Loran-A and Loran-C and decided they weren’t acronyms anymore. Loran-A started going away in the mid-1970s, although some overseas systems were active well into the 1990s. Loran-C survived even longer than that.
Oddly, the development of LORAN took place
in a radiation laboratory
.
GPS
isn’t that different other than having super synchronized clocks, many transmitters, and some very fancy math.
Featured Image: Detail of
USAF special Loran chart. (LS-103)
from the
David Rumsey Map Collection
, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries. | 38 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079784",
"author": "Jon Mayo",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T18:07:13",
"content": "You had to have books of tables and charts to do it. Or be good at doing trigonometry on a slide rule. The basic technique still has application today, but on a smaller scale you need some really precise... | 1,760,371,676.232131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/cassette-tape-plays-mp3s/ | Cassette Tape Plays MP3s | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"battery",
"bluetooth",
"car",
"cassette",
"music",
"stereo",
"tape",
"tape deck"
] | Cassette tapes were a major way of listening to (and recording) music througout the 1980s and 1990s and were in every hi-fi stereo, boom box, and passenger vehicle of the era. Their decline was largely as a result of improvements in CD technology and the rise of the MP3 player, and as a result we live in a world largely absent of this once-ubiquitous technology. There are still a few places where these devices crop up, and
thanks to some modern technology their capabilities as a music playback device can be greatly enhanced
.
The build starts, as one might expect, by disassembling the cassette and removing the magnetic tape from the plastic casing. With the interior of the cassette empty it’s capable of holding a small battery, USB-C battery charger, and a Bluetooth module. The head of an old tape deck can be wired to the audio output of the Bluetooth module and then put back in place in the housing in place of the old tape. With the cassette casing reassembled, there’s nothing left to do but pair it to a smartphone or other music-playing device and push play on the nearest tape deck.
As smartphones continue to lose their 3.5 mm headphone jacks, builds like this can keep lots of older stereos relevant and usable again, including for those of us still driving older vehicles that have functioning tape decks. Of course, if you’re driving a classic antique auto with a tape technology even older than the compact cassette,
there are still a few Bluetooth-enabled options for you as well
. | 66 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079761",
"author": "Consulting Joe",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T17:19:05",
"content": "Thats pretty cool!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8079764",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T17:22:57",
"content... | 1,760,371,676.338104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/06/one-small-step-all-about-stepper-motors/ | One Small Step: All About Stepper Motors | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Parts",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"how-to",
"skills",
"stepper motor",
"stepper motor driver"
] | The primary feature of stepper motors is listed right within their name: their ability to ‘step’ forwards and backwards, something which they (ideally) can do perfectly in sync with the input provided to their distinct coils. It’s a feature that allows the connected controller to know the exact position of the stepper motor, without the need for any sensor to provide feedback after a movement, saving a lot of hardware and effort in the process.
Naturally, this is the optimal case, and there are a wide number of different stepper motor configurations in terms of coil count, types of rotors and internal wiring of the coils, as well as complications such as skipped steps due to mechanical or driver issues. Despite this, in general stepper motors are quite reliable, and extremely versatile. As a result they can be found just about anywhere where accurate, step-based movement is desirable, such as (3D) printers and robotics.
For each application the right type of stepper motor and driving circuit has to be determined, of course, as they also have many reasons why you’d not want to use them, or just a particular type. When diving into a new stepper motor-based project, exactly what are the considerations to pay attention to?
Stepper Motor Types
Exploded view of a 28BYJ-48 stepper motor. (Credit:
Cookie Robotics
)
Every stepper motor has a stator and rotor, effectively like any other electric motor. Their unique feature is the segmented nature of the stator, forming what are commonly referred to as ‘teeth’. These stator teeth are used for the coils, which align with either a permanent magnet ring, a soft iron core or both on the rotor. Much like with other electric motors the stator coils rotate the rotor, but due to this segmented design activating one coil can make the rotor progress one step in a very deterministic fashion. By successively activating these coils, the rotor will follow the magnetic field being generated and ‘stepping’ forward by a set amount on the output shaft.
As an example of a basic form you got a unipolar coil design with a permanent magnetic (PM) core, such as the
very common 28BYJ-48
. This stepper motor features 8 ‘teeth’ on the stator, driven by two coils wound as two levels (top and bottom) with a common center tap, giving a total of five control lines. This makes it a four-phase design, with four lines, two of which are energized in turn to move the rotor and one common line.
Although many schematic diagrams show pronounced teeth on the stator and/or rotor, this doesn’t have to be the case, as evidenced by e.g.
this teardown of a 28BYJ-48
stepper motor by Cookie Robotics. The stator and its teeth are here formed by two coils, each encased in a metal plate with ‘claws’, as is typical for a tin-can stepper motor design. The metal claws are magnetized when the corresponding coil is energized, creating the north and south poles affecting the smooth permanent magnet rotor. This latter rotor’s magnet has a total of 8 alternating north-south pairs.
Single coil and claws section of a 28BYJ-48 stepper motor illustrated with current direction and resulting claw magnetization. (Credit:
Cookie Robotics
)
The choice for a PM rotor in this particular stepper motor is likely due to simplicity, while also providing decent torque when moving as well as when unpowered. Also known as
cogging torque
, detent torque is a property of PM rotor electric motors where the interaction between the stator and PM rotor resists movement of the latter. While useful in stepper motors with resisting a position change, it also means a lower speed and resolution compared to the alternatives, being:
Variable reluctance core
(VRC) in which the soft iron rotor has temporary magnetism due to the powered stator coils. This provides a faster speed and higher precision, but lower torque and no detent torque.
Hybrid
form, where the rotor has both PM and VRC elements, combining their advantages. The main disadvantage is the much more complex rotor construction and thus higher stepper motor cost.
What is also of note here is the gear train on the 28BYJ-48. While a stepper motor can have a gear train, it’s an optional trade-off between speed and torque. Confusingly, the 28BYJ-48 appears to come with a wide range of gear ratios, ranging from 1/64 to 1/16 and so on. This is likely due to how there is not a single manufacturer for this stepper motor, and thus a single model name covers both the 5V and 12V version, and a wide spectrum of gear ratios. Ergo, caveat emptor.
Uni- And Bipolar
Bipolar Stepper Motor Driving Circuit (Credit:
Monolithic Power
)
The difference between unipolar and bipolar design is covered in
this stepper motor overview
by Monolithic Power. A unipolar stepper motor like the 28BYJ-48 has four phases, each of which is controlled by turning the coil on or off, requiring quite basic circuitry. This means that the current in each coil will always only travel in a single direction, ergo unipolar.
This contrasts with bipolar stepper motors, which do not have the common line and only half the coils, but which can power each coil with the current travelling either direction, ergo bipolar. Naturally, this precludes using a simple unipolar driver like an ULN2003 Darlington array, as these cannot invert the current.
The trade-off between uni- and bipolar stepper motors is thus basically one between driver and stepper motor complexity. Yet as bipolar stepper motor drivers become more affordable and prevalent, the disadvantage of a unipolar stepper motor’s requirement to have twice as much copper in coils and thus weight and bulk is unlikely to ever improve significantly.
Driver Circuits
At this point we have established that driving stepper motors requires activation of their coils in a sequence and manner that produces the desired effect on the output shaft. Here we have effectively four techniques to pick from:
Wave
mode: activate just one phase in sequence.
Full-step
mode: activate two phases adjoining the rotor’s orientation. Increases torque due to activation of two phases at the same time.
Half-step
mode: combines wave and full-step to half the size of steps. Has irregular torque as sometimes two, and sometimes one phase is active.
Microstepping
: evolution of half-step whereby the current and thus the intensity of the magnetic field from one phase is varied.
Unsurprisingly, each change to a simple wave mode requires a more complex controller, and also increases the chance of skipping a step. When picking a ready-made stepper motor driver, these can be controlled in a wide range of ways, from instructing it to step forwards/backwards, to controlling stator’s phases, or even using pulse-width modulation to control the gate signals of the FETs in a bipolar stepper motor driver.
Picking the correct driver is of course completely project-dependent, and reliant on how much control you need over the stepper motor, as well as your budget for said driver. It might even be that what you actually want is a servo motor, as also pointed out in
Douglas W. Jones’ excellent tutorial
on controlling stepper motors.
General Disadvantages
As useful as stepper motors are, they have a number of clear disadvantages, not the least of which is their constant current draw. As there is no mechanical mechanism to hold the stator in place, their ability to hold position and generate torque is purely determined by the powered coils and whatever magnetism the rotor may have.
This means that they are not a great choice for low-power applications, or where high load torque is a requirement. In the case of the 28BYJ-48 which we looked at in this article, that current is 240 mA typical at 5VDC,
per the datasheet
.
All of this has to be weighed up against the ease of driving them, their (often) low cost and lack of need for a closed feedback system. While having a decelerating gear train as in the 28BYJ-48 helps to increase the torque, ultimately stepper motors are primarily about what’s in their name: stepping in a (usually) deterministic fashion.
Featured image: Still from [Lauri Rantala]’s
first steps into stepper driving
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8079740",
"author": "ddss",
"timestamp": "2025-01-06T16:08:17",
"content": "One trick the article did not mention: By cutting the trace in the middle after take off the blue cover, the middle connection of the 2 coils will be broken and the motor can be used with bipolar driver.",
... | 1,760,371,675.913495 |
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