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https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/the-design-process-for-a-tiny-robot-brain/ | The Design Process For A Tiny Robot Brain | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"dev board",
"development platform",
"ESP32",
"IMU",
"light sensor",
"motion sensor",
"robot",
"small",
"tiny",
"wifi",
"wireless"
] | As things get smaller, we can fit more processing power into devices like robots to allow them to do more things or interact with their environment in new ways. If not, we can at least build them for less cost. But the design process can get exponentially more complicated when miniaturizing things. [Carl] wanted to build the smallest 9-axis robotic microcontroller with as many features as possible, and went through a number of design iterations
to finally get to this extremely small robotics platform
.
Although there are smaller wireless-enabled microcontrollers, [Carl] based this project around the popular ESP32 platform to allow it to be usable by a wider range of people. With that module taking up most of the top side of the PCB, he turned to the bottom to add the rest of the components for the platform. The first thing to add was a power management circuit, and after one iteration he settled on a circuit which can provide the board power from a battery or a USB cable, while also managing the battery’s charge. As for sensors, it has a light sensor and an optional 9-axis motion sensor, allowing for gesture sensing, proximity detection, and motion tracking.
Of course there were some compromises in this design to minimize the footprint, like placing the antenna near the USB-C charger and sacrificing some processing power compared to other development boards like the STM-32. But for the size and cost of components it’s hard to get so many features in such a small package. [Carl] is using it to build some pretty tiny robots so it suits his needs perfectly. In fact,
it’s hard to find anything smaller that isn’t a bristlebot
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052418",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2024-10-21T05:18:29",
"content": "9 axis nothing. It is just basic IMU that pretty much any microcontroller can handle and make something useful out of it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,371,756.831726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/feeling-a-pong-of-nostalgia-does-it-hold-up-in-2024/ | Feeling A Pong Of Nostalgia: Does It Hold Up In 2024? | Maya Posch | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"nostalgia",
"pong"
] | We have probably all been there: that sudden memory of playing a (video) game and the good memories associated with said memory. Yet how advisable is it to try and re-experience those nostalgic moments? That’s what [Matt] of the
Techmoan
YouTube channel
decided to give a whirl
when he ordered the
Arcade1Up Pong 2 Player Countercade
game system. This comes loaded with multiple variants of the Pong game, including Pong Doubles and Pong Sports, in addition to Warlords, Super Breakout and Tempest. This unit as the name suggests allows for head-to-head two-player gaming.
This kind of ‘countercade’ system is of course much smaller than arcade versions, but you would expect it to give the Pong clones which [Matt] played as a youngster a run for their money at least. Ultimately [Matt] – after some multiplayer games with the Ms. – concluded that this particular nostalgia itch was one that didn’t have to be scratched any more. While the small screen of this countercade system and clumsy interface didn’t help much, maybe Pong just isn’t the kind of game that has a place in 2024?
From our own point of view of having played Pong (and many other ‘old’ games) on a variety of old consoles at retro events & museums, it can still be a blast to play even just Pong against a random stranger at these places. Maybe the issue here is that nostalgia is more about the circumstances of the memory and less of the particular game or product in question. Much like playing Mario Kart 64 on that 20″ CRT TV with three buddies versus an online match in a modern Mario Kart. It’s just not the same vibe. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052392",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2024-10-21T02:43:21",
"content": "It’s in the wrong screen orientation for where the controllers are on its title game.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8052403",
"author": "Joshua",... | 1,760,371,757.275139 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/hackaday-links-october-20-2024/ | Hackaday Links: October 20, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"am",
"amateur radio",
"bandwidth",
"disaster",
"emergency",
"flight simulator",
"hackaday links",
"ham",
"Helene",
"Mechazilla",
"microsoft",
"radio",
"SpaceX",
"starship",
"Super Heavy",
"Windows 10",
"Winlink"
] | When all else fails, there’s radio. Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction through Appalachia stripped away every shred of modern infrastructure in some areas, leaving millions of residents with no ability to reach out to family members or call for assistance, and depriving them of any news from the outside world. But radio seems to be carrying the day, with amateur radio operators and commercial broadcasters alike stepping up to the challenge.
On the amateur side
, there are stories of operators fixing their downed antennas and breaking out their field day gear to get on the air and start pitching in, with both formal and ad hoc networks passing messages in and out of the affected areas. Critical requests for aid and medication were fielded along with “I’m alright, don’t worry” messages, with reports from the ARRL indicating that Winlink emails sent over the HF bands were a big part of that. Unfortunately, there was controversy too, with reports of local hams being unhappy with unlicensed users clogging up the bands with Baofengs and other cheap radios. Our friend Josh (KI6NAZ) took
a good look at the ins and outs of emergency use of the amateur bands
, which of course by
federal law
is completely legal under the conditions. Some people, huh?
Also scoring a win were the commercial broadcasters, especially the local AM stations that managed to stay on the air. WWNC, an AM station out of Nashville, is singled out in
this report
for the good work they did connecting people through the emergency. As antiquated as it may seem and as irrelevant to most people’s daily lives as it has become, AM radio really proves its mettle when the chips are down. We’ve long been cheerleaders for AM in emergencies, and this has only served to make us more likely to call for the protection of this vital piece of infrastructure.
Windows 10 users, mark your calendars — Microsoft has
announced
that you’ve got one year to migrate to a more
profitable
modern operating system. After that, no patches for you! If Microsoft holds true to form, the scope of this “End of Life” will change as the dreaded day draws nearer, especially considering that Windows 10 still holds almost 63% of the Windows desktop market. Will the EOL announcement inspire all those people to migrate? Given a non-trivial fraction of users are still sticking it out with Windows 7, we wouldn’t hold our breath.
Speaking of Microsoft, for as much as they’re the company you love to hate, you’ve got to hand it to them for one product: Microsoft Flight Simulator. It seems like Flight Simulator has been around almost since the Wright Brothers’ day, going through endless updates to keep up with the state of the art and becoming better and better as the years go by. Streaming all that ultra-detailed terrain information comes at a price, though, to the tune of
81 gigabytes per hour for the upcoming Flight Simulator 2024
. Your bandwidth may vary, of course, based on how you set up the game and where you’re virtually flying. But still, that number got us thinking: Would it be cheaper to fly a real plane? A lot of us don’t have explicit data caps on our Internet service, but the ISP still will either throttle your bandwidth or start charging per megabyte after a certain amount. Xfinity, for example, charges $10 for each 50GB block you use after reaching 1.2 TB of data in a month, at least for repeat offenders. So, if you were to settle in for a marathon flight, you’d get to fly for free for about 15 hours, after which each hour would rack up about $20 in extra charges. A single-engine aircraft costs anywhere between $120 and $200 to rent, plus the cost of fuel, so it’s still a better deal to fly Simulator, but not by much.
And finally, we were all witness to a remarkable feat of engineering prowess this week with the successful test flight of a SpaceX Starship followed by catching the returning Super Heavy booster. When we first heard about “Mechazilla” and the idea of catching a booster, we dismissed it as another bit of Elon’s hype, like “full self-driving” or “hyperloops.” But damn if we weren’t wrong! The whole thing was absolutely mesmerizing, and the idea that SpaceX pulled off what’s essentially snagging a 20-story building out of the air on mechanical arms was breathtaking. While the
close-up videos of the catch
are amazing, they don’t reveal a lot about the engineering behind it. Luckily, we’ve got
this video
by Ryan Hansen Space of the technology behind the catch, lovingly created in Blender. The work seems to have been done before the test flight and was made with a lot of educated guesses, but given how well the renders match up with the real video of the catch, we’d say Ryan nailed it. | 44 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052352",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T23:15:36",
"content": "Inre: Flight SimulatorThe last time I flew FS it didn’t need an Internet connection.I usually crashed shortly after take-off anyway.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,757.120173 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/diy-air-bearings-no-machining-required/ | DIY Air Bearings, No Machining Required | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"air bearing",
"epoxy",
"float glass",
"plaster",
"pneumatic"
] | Seeing a heavy load slide around on nearly frictionless air bearings is pretty cool; it’s a little like how the puck levitates on an air hockey table. Commercial air bearings are available, of course, but when you can build
these open-source air bearings
, why bother buying?
One of the nice things about [Diffraction Limited]’s design is that these bearings can be built using only simple tools. No machining is needed past what can be easily accomplished with a hand drill, thanks to some clever 3D-printed jigs that allow you to drill holes with precision into stainless steel discs you can buy on the cheap. An extremely flat surface is added to the underside of these discs thanks to another jig, some JB Weld epoxy, and a sheet of float glass to serve as an ultra-flat reference. Yet more jigs make it easy to scribe air channels into the flat surface and connect them to the air holes through a bit of plaster of Paris, which acts as a flow restriction. The video below shows the whole process and a demo of the bearings in action.
[Diffraction Limited] mentions a few applications for these air bearings, but the one that interests us most is their potential use in linear bearings; a big CNC cutter using these air bearings would be pretty cool. We seen similar budget-friendly DIY air bearings before, including
a set made from used graphite EDM electrodes
. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052312",
"author": "Gösta",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T20:42:23",
"content": "I’m never gonna build air bearings, but the video is thoroughly informative, really enjoyable :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8052421",
"... | 1,760,371,757.042792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/figuring-out-the-most-efficient-way-to-reuse-bags-of-desiccant/ | Figuring Out The Most Efficient Way To Reuse Bags Of Desiccant | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"desiccant",
"silica gel"
] | Everyone knows those small bags of forbidden “Do not eat” candy that come with fresh rolls of FDM filament as well as a wide range of other products. Containing usually silica gel but sometimes also bentonite clay, these desiccant bags are often either thrown away or tossed into bags of FDM filament with a ‘adding one can’t hurt’ attitude. As [Stefan] over at
CNC Kitchen
recently figured out
, adding an already saturated bag of desiccant into e.g. an airtight container with a freshly dried spool of filament can actually make the humidity in the container spike as the desiccant will start releasing moisture. So it’s best to dry those little bags if you intend to reuse them, but what is the best way?
Among the ‘safe’ contenders are an oven, a filament dryer and the ‘filament drying’ option of [Stefan]’s Bambu Lab FDM printer. These managed to remove most of the moisture from the desiccant in a few hours. The more exciting option is that of a microwave, which does the same in a matter of minutes, requiring one or more ~5 minute sessions at low power, which effectively also used less power than the other options. Among the disadvantages are potentially melting bags, silica beads cracking, the bentonite clay desiccant heating up rather dangerously and the indicator dye in silica beads may be damaged by the rapid heating.
After all of this testing, it would seem that there are many good options to reuse those desiccant bags with a bit of care, although for those who happen to have a vacuum chamber nearby, that might be an even faster option. | 34 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052268",
"author": "Lord Kimbote",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T17:29:28",
"content": "They’re too small to keep around IMO. But if you have a need methinks putting them in the sun takes care of them.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,371,757.343538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/a-parts-bin-midi-controller-in-24-hours/ | A Parts Bin MIDI Controller In 24 Hours | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arcade button",
"arduino",
"Arduino Uno",
"drum kit",
"drum machine",
"emergency stop",
"midi",
"music",
"pelican case"
] | Part of the reason MIDI has hung on as a standard in the musical world for so long is that it is incredibly versatile. Sure, standard instruments like pianos and drums can be interfaced with a computer fairly easily using this standard, but essentially anything can be converted to a MIDI instrument with the right wiring and a little bit of coding. [Jeremy] needed to build a MIDI controller in a single day, and with just a few off-the-shelf parts
he was able to piece together a musical instrument from his parts bin
.
The build is housed in an off-brand protective case from a favorite American discount tool store, but the more unique part of the project is the choice to use arcade buttons as the instrument’s inputs. [Jeremy] tied eight of these buttons to an Arduino Uno to provide a full octave’s worth of notes, and before you jump to the comments to explain that there are 12 notes in an octave, he also added a button to the side of the case to bend any note when pressed simultaneously. An emergency stop button serves as a master on/off switch and a MIDI dongle on the other side serves as the interface point to a computer.
After a slight bit of debugging, the interface is up and running within [Jeremy]’s required 24-hour window. He’s eventually planning to use it to control a custom MIDI-enabled drum kit, but for now it was fun to play around with it in some other ways. He’s also posted the project code on
a GitHub page
. And, if this looks a bit familiar, this was not [Jeremy]’s first MIDI project. He was also the creator of
one of the smallest MIDI interfaces we’ve ever seen
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052254",
"author": "bill rowe",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T16:58:41",
"content": "How do I actually get the musical notes out on a speaker?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8052272",
"author": "Jeremy Cook",
"tim... | 1,760,371,757.16417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/forget-flipper-how-about-capybara/ | Forget Flipper, How About Capybara? | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"CapybaraZero",
"ESP32",
"flipper zero"
] | One of the hacker toys to own over the last year has been the Flipper Zero, a universal wireless hacking tool which even caused a misplaced moral panic about car theft in Canada. A Flipper is cool as heck of course but not the cheapest of devices. Fortunately there’s now an alternative in the form of
the CapibaraZero
. It’s a poor-hacker’s Flipper Zero which you can assemble yourself from a heap of inexpensive modules.
At the center is an ESP32-S3 board, which brings with it that chip’s wireless and Bluetooth capabilities. To that is added an ST7789 TFT display, a PN532 NFC reader, an SX1276 LoRa and multi-mode RF module, and an IR module. The firmware can be found through GitHub. Since the repo is nearly two years old and still in active development, we’re hopeful CapibaraZero will gain features and stability.
If you’re interested in our coverage of the Canadian Flipper panic
you can read it here
, and meanwhile if you’re using one of those NFC modules,
consider tuning it
. | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052189",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T11:08:33",
"content": "Cool project. Bruce, which uses M5 products, is another interesting project that has a lot of the same functionality. It’s being ported to the very affordable LilyGo T-embed cc1101 as well, which has ma... | 1,760,371,757.227123 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/20/behold-a-first-person-3d-maze-vintage-atari-style/ | Behold A First-Person 3D Maze, Vintage Atari Style | Donald Papp | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"3d maze",
"atari",
"ray casting",
"vintage"
] | [Joe Musashi] was inspired by discussions about 3D engines and decided to create a first-person 3D maze of his own. The really neat part?
It could have been done on vintage Atari hardware
. Well, mostly.
He does admit he had to do a little cheating to make this work; he relies on code for the ARM processor in the modern Atari VCS do the ray casting work, and the
6507 chip
just handles the display kernel. Still, running his demo on a vintage Atari 2600 console
could
be possible, but would definitely require a Melody or Harmony cartridge, which are special reprogrammable cartridges popular for development and homebrew.
Ray casting is a conceptually simple method of generating a 3D view from given perspective, and
here’s a tutorial
that will tell you all you need to know about how it works, and how to implement your own.
[Joe]’s demo is just a navigable 3D maze rather than a game, but it’s pretty wild to see what could in theory have run on such an old platform, even if a few modern cheats are needed to pull it off. And if you agree that it’s neat, then hold onto your hats because a full 3D ray casting game — complete with a micro physics engine — was
perfectly doable on the Commodore PET
, which even had the additional limitation of a monochrome character-based display. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052174",
"author": "psxnet",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T09:21:20",
"content": "Sadly the github tutorial link is now a 404 page.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8052180",
"author": "Andreas",
"timestamp": "2024-... | 1,760,371,756.981386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/ideal-diodes-and-how-to-build-them/ | Ideal Diodes And How To Build Them | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"diode",
"ideal diode"
] | [Julian] knows that real diodes you can buy don’t work exactly like we say they do. That’s actually pretty common. We routinely ignore things like wire resistance and source resistance in batteries. Diodes have problems that are harder to ignore, such as the forward voltage drop. So, while a real diode will only pass current in one direction, it will also drop some of the voltage. [Julian] shows you how you can get
simulated ideal diodes
and why you might want them in a recent video you can see below.
The video starts with a simple demonstration and enumerates some of the practical limitations. Then, he pulls out some ideal diode modules. These typically don’t solve every problem, so they aren’t really ideal in the theoretical sense. But they typically appear to have no forward voltage drop.
The devices use MOSFETs that turn on to have a low resistance when biased forward. Even then, you’ll have some voltage drop, but it can be made extremely small compared to a real diode.
If you don’t need to handle power, it is fairly easy to couple a diode and an op amp to get similar behavior. But where you really want to minimize voltage drop is in power applications, so these modules use beefy FETs.
Some of the modules can float and handle high voltages. Others require a ground reference and will thus have difficulties with higher voltages. The control electronics differ significantly depending on the type of MOSFET used, and [Julian] covers that in detail in the video.
You might want to check out one of our favorite videos on
non-ideal diodes
. We are guessing that
DIY diodes
will be far from ideal. | 17 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052142",
"author": "Shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T06:04:34",
"content": "I don’t know anything about these ideal diode controllers so I’ll just askCan they be used to deal with the very common multiple power source problemExample USB and battery providing power to the same c... | 1,760,371,756.892398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/fundamentals-of-fmcw-helps-you-understand-your-cars-point-of-view/ | Fundamentals Of FMCW Radar Help You Understand Your Car’s Point Of View | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"automotive",
"beat frequency",
"fft",
"fmcw",
"mixer",
"PLL",
"radar",
"sensor"
] | Pretty much every modern car has some driver assistance feature, such as lane departure and blind-spot warnings, or adaptive cruise control. They’re all pretty cool, and they all depend on the car knowing where it is in space relative to other vehicles, obstacles, and even pedestrians. And they all have another thing in common: tiny radar sensors sprinkled around the car. But how in the world do they work?
If you’ve pondered that question, perhaps after nearly avoiding rear-ending another car, you’ll want to check out
[Marshall Bruner]’s excellent series on the fundamentals of FMCW radar
. The linked videos below are the first two installments.
The first
covers the basic concepts of frequency-modulated continuous wave systems, including the advantages they offer over pulsed radar systems. These advantages make them a great choice for compact sensors for the often chaotic automotive environment, as well as tasks like presence sensing and factory automation. The take-home for us was the steep penalty in terms of average output power on traditional pulsed radar systems thanks to the brief time the radar is transmitting. FMCW radars, which transmit and receive simultaneously, don’t suffer from this problem and can therefore be much more compact.
But how does sending and receiving at the same time actually give the desired information like range and velocity? That’s explained in
the second video
, which details a conceptual implementation of an FMCW radar. We’ll leave the full explanation to [Marshall], but briefly, the transmit section includes a signal generator that produces an FM carrier modulated with a sawtooth or triangular wave. That signal is transmitted out into space while also being sent to the receiver stage, where it’s mixed with the reflected wave arriving sometime later. The difference in frequency between the two signals, which isn’t due to the Doppler effect but rather the fact that the transmitted signal’s frequency changes with time, is the beat frequency needed for the FMCW radar equation. That along with a little — OK, probably a lot — of Fast Fourier Transform magic allows you to discriminate signals of interest from background features or random noise.
Will you be able to build an FMCW radar after watching [Marshall]’s videos? Probably not, but you don’t really need to; radar sensors are pretty easy to come by, enough so that we’ve seen
teardowns on automotive radars
and
experiments with gesture sensing
. But we really appreciate the primer, and we’re looking forward to future installments. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052171",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-10-20T08:54:17",
"content": "I wonder if it’s possible to use those cheap ultrasonic distance measurement modules to do something like this, but much slower and without special hardware.I work with an off the shelf radar chip (puls... | 1,760,371,756.930385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/inside-the-rll-hard-drive-protocol/ | Inside The RLL Hard Drive Protocol | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"hard drive",
"rll",
"seagate"
] | If you are younger than a certain age, RLL probably doesn’t mean much to you. Old consumer-grade hard drives used MFM (modified frequency modulation like a floppy disk uses) and soon went to IDE (integrated drive electronics). There was a brief period when RLL (run length limited) drives were the way to get a little more life out of the MFM technology. [W1ngsfly] has an RLL drive on his bench and uses his scope and some other gear to put it through its paces. You can watch over his shoulder in the video below.
The hardware interface and drive are the same for an MFM and an RLL drive. However, an RLL-aware controller can pack more bits on the same platter by using the newer modulation scheme. Some older disks were good enough for MFM but too sloppy to successfully take an RLL format, but — in theory — any MFM drive could be an RLL drive and vice versa.
Interestingly, modern drives still use RLL internally. You just don’t need to know that anymore. For that matter, classic MFM was a type of RLL, but no one called it that.
The basic idea is that long runs of a single bit play havoc with magnetic recording devices. RLL ensures that there will be a certain number of transitions between 1s and 0s over a period of time, regardless of the actual data. Literally, there is a limit to how many bits can “run” together, hence the name.
It sounds like [w1ngsfly] has spent a lot of time working with hard drives. He talks about pulling platters and putting them back in and it is obvious he understands the low-level protocol used in this old Seagate drive.
Even if you don’t care about retrocomputing, it is really interesting watching someone this knowledgeable about anything put it through its paces.
Those
old drives
seem simple now, but they didn’t back then. These days, you might
prefer to emulate these old drives
. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052072",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T23:09:34",
"content": "I used to have a MFM hard drive, 5MB 5.25″ FH drive. I got it from dumpster diving when a company started clearing out obsolete drives and parts.Beastly drive was noisy as well.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,757.492716 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/make-your-own-remy-the-rat-this-halloween/ | Make Your Own Remy The Rat This Halloween | Donald Papp | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"halloween",
"mpu6050",
"remy"
] | [Christina Ernst] executed a fantastic idea just in time for Halloween: her very own
Remy the rat
(from the 2007 film
Ratatouille
). Just like in the film Remy perches on her head and appears to guide her movements by pulling on hair as though operating a marionette. It’s a great effect, and we love the hard headband used to anchor everything, which also offers a handy way to route the necessary wires.
Behind Remy are hidden two sub-micro servos, one for each arm. [Christina] simply ties locks of her hair to Remy’s hands, and lets the servos do the rest. Part of what makes the effect work so well is that Remy is eye-catching, and the relatively small movements of Remy’s hands are magnified and made more visible in the process of moving the locks of hair.
Originally Remy’s movements were random, but [Christina] added an MPU6050 accelerometer board to measure vertical movements of her own arm. She uses that sensor data to make Remy’s motions reflect her own. The MPU6050 is economical and easy to work with, readily available on breakout boards from countless overseas sellers, and we’ve seen it show up in all kinds of projects such as this
tiny DIY drone
and
self-balancing cube
.
Want to make your own Remy, or put your own spin on the idea? The 3D models and code are
all on GitHub
and if you want to see more of it in action, [Christina] posts videos of her work on
TikTok
and
Instagram
.
[via
CBC
] | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052075",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T23:18:00",
"content": "That is quite effective and hard to beat as a frivolous fun project.I think it would be perhaps more impressive and effective if the rat was a simple passive mechanical system – perhaps Bowden cables or... | 1,760,371,757.618079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/a-robust-guide-to-the-xbox-360-glitch-hack/ | A Robust Guide To The Xbox 360 Glitch Hack | Lewin Day | [
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"cpu",
"glitch",
"glitch attack",
"hacking",
"hardware",
"xbox 360"
] | The Xbox 360 was a difficult console to jailbreak. Microsoft didn’t want anyone running unsigned code, and darn if they didn’t make it difficult to do so. However, some nifty out of the box thinking and tricky techniques cracked it open like a coconut with a crack in it. For the low down,
[15432] has a great in-depth article on how it was achieved
. The article is in Russian, so you’ll want to be armed with Google Translate for this one.
The article gets right into the juice of how glitch attacks work—in general, and with regards to the Xbox 360. In the specific case of the console, it was all down to the processor’s RESET line. Flicker it quickly enough, and the processor doesn’t actually reset, but nonetheless its behavior changes. If you time the glitch right, you can get the processor to continue running through the bootloader’s instructions even if a hash check instruction failed. Of course, timing it right was hard, so it helps to temporarily slow down the processor.
From there, the article continues to explore the many and varied ways this hack played out against Microsoft’s copy protection across multiple models and revisions of the Xbox 360. The bit with the BGA ball connections is particularly inspired. [15432] also goes even deeper into a look at
how the battle around the Xb0x 360’s DVD-ROM drive got heated.
We seldom talk about the
Xbox 360
these days,
but they used to grace these pages on the regular
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to aliaali for the tip!] | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8052032",
"author": "DisposableHero",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T20:16:36",
"content": "Heh, I was just looking up 360 modding today.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8052053",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T21:3... | 1,760,371,757.566863 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/hackaday-hacked/ | Hackaday Hacked! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"comments",
"hacking",
"newsletter"
] | Well, that was “fun”. Last week, we wrote a newsletter post about the state of Hackaday’s comments. We get good ones and bad ones, and almost all the time, we leave you all up to your own devices. But every once in a while, it’s good to remind people to be nice to our fellow hackers who get featured here, because after all they are the people doing the work that gives us something to read and write about. The whole point of the comment section is for you all to help them, or other Hackaday readers who want to follow in their footsteps.
Someone decided to let loose a comment-reporting attack. It works like this: you hit the “report comment” button on a given comment multiple times from multiple different IP addresses, and our system sends the comments back to moderation until a human editor can re-approve them. Given the context of an article about moderation, most everyone whose comment disappeared thought that we were behind it. When more than 300 comments were suddenly sitting in the moderation queue, our weekend editors figured something was up and started un-flagging comments as fast as they could. Order was eventually restored, but it was ugly for a while.
We’ve had these attacks before, but probably only a handful of times over the last ten years, and there’s basically nothing we can do to prevent them that won’t also prevent you all from flagging honestly abusive or spammy comments. (For which, thanks! It helps keep Hackaday’s comments clean.) Why doesn’t it happen all the time? Most of you all are just good people. Thanks for that, too!
But despite the interruption, we got a good discussion started about how to make a comment section thrive. A valid critique of our current system that was particularly evident during the hack is that the reported comment mechanism is entirely opaque. A “your comment is being moderated” placeholder would be a lot nicer than simply having the comment disappear. We’ll have to look into that.
You were basically divided down the middle about whether an upvote/downvote system like on Reddit or Slashdot would serve us well. Those tend to push more constructive comments up to the top, but they also create a popularity contest that can become its own mini-game, and that’s not necessarily always a good thing. Everyone seemed pretty convinced that our continuing to allow anonymous comments is the right choice, and we think it is simply because it removes a registration burden when someone new wants to write something insightful.
What else? If you could re-design the Hackaday comment section from scratch, what would you do? Or better yet, do you have any examples of similar (tech) communities that are particularly well run? How do they do it?
We spend our time either writing and searching for cool hacks, or moderating, and you can guess which we’d rather. At the end of the day, our comments are made up of Hackaday readers. So thanks to all of you who have, over the last week, thought twice and kept it nice.
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
! | 207 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051913",
"author": "preamp.org",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T14:18:06",
"content": "Certainly needs moar 2FA, moar AI and moar capchas!!1! Moar = betterer, amirite?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051925",
"author": "Os... | 1,760,371,758.340506 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/power-supply-pcb-redesign/ | Power Supply PCB Redesign | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"power supply",
"redesign",
"switcher",
"switching power supply"
] | We’ve often heard you should do everything twice. The first time is to learn what you need to do, and the second time is to do it right. We bet [Ian Carey] would agree after taking his old linear power supply PCB and
changing it to a switching regulator
design. You can see more about the project in the video below.
The first power-up revealed a problem with the 3.3V output. We’ve often thought it is harder to troubleshoot a new design than it is to repair something that is known to have worked at one time.
The problem was a misread of the datasheet, something we’ve all done at least once. Luckily, a few component value changes cleared things up. It probably would have been feasible to repair the original boards, but it was cheap enough that he just had new boards made.
We always enjoy seeing the thought process behind a project. We also appreciate seeing the bad with the good. It is too easy to just skip to the working version and not mention the steps it took to get there, but that’s where you tend to learn the most.
The video mentions how PCB layout for switchers can be a big deal, and
we agree
. We are always fans of switching regulator designs made to
plug into linear regulator PCB footprints
. | 6 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051908",
"author": "Klh",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T13:50:19",
"content": "Cheap enough maybe, but so wasteful…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051937",
"author": "mime",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T15:26:12",
... | 1,760,371,757.706725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/19/self-portaging-canoe-is-part-bicycle/ | Self-Portaging Canoe Is Part Bicycle | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"amphibious",
"bicycle",
"bmx",
"boat",
"canoe",
"paddle",
"recumbent",
"Scotland"
] | Normally when making a long voyage in a canoe, an adventurer would paddle the vessel as far as possible and then “portage”, or carry, the canoe over the short sections of land separating the bodies of water. Portaging is a lot of work, though, since canoes generally aren’t particularly light or designed for traveling over land. To solve this problem, [Ben] is modifying his home-built canoe with some interesting parts
to make it into an amphibious vehicle which can much more easily traverse land
.
The wheels for the amphibious craft come from BMX bicycles, which have much smaller wheels as well as more robust frames when compared to more traditional bicycles. The rear of the canoe was modified to use a go-kart axle with two driven wheels. An additional set of cranks mounted outboard drive a custom-built paddle to propel the boat when traveling on water. The frame borrows heavily from recumbent bicycle design and includes a similarly comfortable seat, with steering handled by a wheel at the front when traveling on land and a rudder at the rear when traveling over water.
[Ben] intends to take this unique vehicle on a cross-country trip across Scotland, with the first part of the adventure on water via the Caledonian Canal and the return trip on land via the Great Glen Way. Hopefully, there’s no actual portaging required for his trip as the bike components add a tremendous amount of weight to the boat. [Ben] he even added a sail that could theoretically be used in either mode. We’ll be keeping watch for his next videos showing his adventure, and in the meantime
daydreaming about other unique bikes that let you travel where bikes normally can’t
.
Thanks to [Risu no Kairu] for the tip! | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051856",
"author": "Frank Edwards III",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T08:42:13",
"content": "What an incredible experience. He has hacked a canoe and a bicycle into a seaworthy craft. I say have at it! I will wait upon these sidelines. Gracefully watched your adventures in the Pac... | 1,760,371,757.66273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/little-rc-car-project-takes-inspiration-from-mario-kart/ | Little RC Car Project Takes Inspiration From Mario Kart | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"mario kart",
"R/C car",
"table top",
"table top RC car"
] | RC cars used to be pretty simple. They’d go forwards, backwards, and steer if you got a full-function toy. However, with modern technology, it’s pretty trivial to make them more advanced. [Stuck at Prototype] demonstrates that nicely
with his little Micro Racer Cars.
Each little RC car has its own ESP32 running the show, hooked up with a motor controller running a small DC gear motor at each wheel. Power is from a lithium-polymer battery on board the car, which is charged via USB C. 3D-printed components form the chassis and body of the vehicle. [Stuck at Prototype] set the cars up so they could be controlled via a smartphone app, or via a custom RC controller of his own design. He liked the latter solution after he realized how hard apps were to maintain. He also gave the cars a little color sensor so they could detect color patches on the ground, so they could change their behavior in turn. This was to create gameplay like Mario Kart, where hitting a color patch might make the car go fast, go slow, or spin out.
The video goes into great detail about everything these tiny tabletop racers can do. The racer cars were initially intended to be a Kickstarter funded project, but it never quite reached its goal. Instead, [Stuck at Prototype] decided to release the designs online instead, putting the relevant files
on Github.
We’ve seen some other neat RC projects before
, too. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Hari Wiguna for the tip!] | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051953",
"author": "Christoph",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T16:19:05",
"content": "The idea of using color sensors and magnetic “paper” is neat. The cars seem to drive very smoothly too.Wouldn’t it have been simpler to convert the RGB-output of the color sensor to HSV/HSL-color space... | 1,760,371,758.105981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/smart-glasses-read-text/ | Smart Glasses Read Text | Al Williams | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"assistive technolgy",
"ocr",
"smart glasses"
] | You normally think of smart glasses as something you wear as either an accessory or, if you need a little assistance, with corrective lenses. But [akhilnagori] has a different kind of smart eyewear. These glasses
scan and read text
in the user’s ear.
This project was inspired by a blind child who enjoyed listening to stories but could not read beyond a few braille books. The glasses perform the reading using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and a machine learning algorithm.
The original software developed took place on a Windows machine using WSL to simplify portability to the Linux-based Raspberry Pi board.
The frame is 3D printed, of course. Mounting the CPU, a camera, and a battery, along with a DC to DC converter, is fairly trivial. The real heavy lifting is in the software. The glasses snap a picture every ten seconds. It might be interesting to add a button or other means to let the user trigger a scan.
Of course, you could build something similar to run on just about any device with a camera and Python. It would be easy, for example, to put something in a hand-held format.
OCR is
a readily solved problem
. There are
commercial smart glasses
that look nice, and we wonder if any will have similar apps for them. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051816",
"author": "Bootdsc",
"timestamp": "2024-10-19T03:42:01",
"content": "Hmm there seems to be a disconnect between what’s been described and what actually was made, did the writer actually read and look at the instructables post? Those glasses were not completed and the image... | 1,760,371,757.825184 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/cnc-metal-forming/ | CNC Metal Forming | Navarre Bartz | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"digital metal forming",
"metal fabrication",
"metal forming",
"Tucker"
] | Forming complex shapes in metal sheets is still a laborious process, especially if you aren’t needing more than a couple parts so stamping doesn’t make sense. That may change with
Digital Sheet Forming
.
While this video is basically an ad for one vendor’s approach, it gives a good set of examples of what the technique can achieve. The high pressure mechanism of the machine presses the metal layer by layer down against a silicone backing to form what you’ve designed, in this case, the nose cone for a Tucker Carioca.
Some people will decry it killing the metal forming industry, but as [Rob Ida] says in the video, it will allow metal formers to become more efficient at the work they do by taking out the tedium and letting them focus on the parts of the process requiring the most skill. Anyone who’s done any work with a 3D printer or CNC mill will know that sending a file to a machine is only one small part of the process.
We’re anxious to see this technology make its way to the makerspace and home shop. If you want to do some sheet metal forming now, why not try
hydroforming
? | 31 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051769",
"author": "Bruce",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T23:27:57",
"content": "If this metal-forming impresses you, the two-robot pinch-style metal-forming will blow you away. In that technique, two separate industrial robots apply coordinated pressure on either side of a sheet to do ... | 1,760,371,758.059181 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/fm-transmitter-remotely-controlled-via-esp32/ | FM Transmitter Remotely Controlled Via ESP32 | Lewin Day | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"fm radio",
"ham radio",
"radio",
"transmitter"
] | Imagine you’ve got an FM transmitter located some place. Wouldn’t it be mighty convenient if you could control that transmitter remotely? That way, you wouldn’t have to physically attend to it every time you had to change some minor parameters! To that end, [Ricardo Lima Caratti]
built a rig to do just that
.
The build is based around the QN8066—a digital FM transceiver built into a single chip. It’s capable of transmitting and receiving anywhere from 60 MHz to 108 MHz, covering pretty much all global FM stereo radio bands. [Ricardo] paired this chip with an ESP32 for command and control. The ESP32 hosts an HTTP server, allowing the administration of the FM transmitter via a web browser. Parameters like the frequency, audio transmission mode, and Radio Data Service (RDS) information can be controlled in this manner.
It’s a pretty neat little build, and [Ricardo] demonstrates it
on video
with the radio transmitting some field day content. We’ve seen
some other nifty FM transmitters
over the years, too. Video after the break. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051736",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T20:15:10",
"content": "Doesn’t an FM broadcast band license require an on-site licensed engineer to be present during operation hours? Maybe my information is out of date…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,371,757.992556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/teardowns-show-off-serious-satellite-hardware/ | Teardowns Show Off Serious Satellite Hardware | Lewin Day | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"hardware",
"satellite",
"space",
"teardown"
] | As hackers, we’re always pulling stuff apart—sometimes just to see what it’s like inside. Most of us have seen the inside of a computer, television, and phone. These are all common items that we come into contact with every day. Fewer of us have dived inside real spacey satellite hardware, if only for the lack of opportunity. Some good gear has landed on [Don]’s desk over the years though,
so he got to pulling it apart and peering inside.
[Don] starts us off with a gorgeous… box… of some sort from Hughes Aircraft. He believes it to be from their Space & Communications group, and it seems to have something to do with satellite communications work. Externally, he gleans that it takes power and data hookups and outputs RF to, something… but he’s not entirely sure. Inside, we get a look at the old 90s electronics — lots of through hole, lots of big chunky components, and plenty of gold plating. [Don] breaks down the circuitry into various chunks and tries to make sense of it, determining that it’s got some high frequency RF generators in the 20 to 40 GHz range.
Scroll through the rest of [Don]’s thread and you’ll find more gems. He pulls apart a microwave transmitter from Space Micro — a much newer unit built somewhere around 2008-2011. Then he dives into a mysterious I/O board from Broad Reach, and a very old Hughes travelling wave tube from the 1970s. The latter even has a loose link to the Ford Motor Company, believe it or not.
Even if you don’t know precisely what you’re looking at, it’s still supremely interesting stuff—and all very satellite-y.
We’ve seen some other neat satellite gear pulled apart before, too.
Meanwhile, if you’ve been doing your own neat teardowns, don’t hesitate to
let us know
! | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051702",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T18:56:11",
"content": "Now that headline was wasted – it would have been perfect with some spelling adjustments for a satellite subscription radio hack :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,758.394906 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/a-hackers-travel-guide-to-europe/ | A Hacker’s Travel Guide To Europe | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"europe",
"hacker camps",
"travel"
] | This summer, I was pleasantly surprised when a friend of mine from Chicago turned up at one of the hacker camps I attended. A few days of hanging out in the sun ensued, doing cool hacker camp stuff, drinking unusual beverages, and generally having fun. It strikes me as a shame that this is such a rare occurrence, and since Hackaday is an American organisation and I am in a sense writing from its European outpost, I should do what I can to encourage my other friends from the USA and other parts of the world to visit. So here I’m trying to write a hacker’s guide to visiting Europe, in the hope that I’ll see more of you at future camps and other events.
It’s Intimidating. But Don’t Worry.
Yes. We’d find this intimidating, too. Bewitchedroutine,
Public domain.
First of all, I know that it’s intimidating to travel to an unfamiliar place where the language and customs may be different. I’m from England, which sits on a small island in the North Atlantic, and believe it or not it’s intimidating for us to start traveling too. It involves leaving the safety of home and crossing the sea whether by flight, ferry, or tunnel, and that lies outside one’s regular comfort zone.
Americans live in a country that’s almost a continent in its own right, so you can satisfy your travel lust without leaving home. Thus of course the idea of landing in Germany or the Netherlands is intimidating. But transatlantic flights are surprisingly cheap in the scheme of international travel because of intense competition, so I’m here to reassure you that you can travel my continent ‘s hacker community without either feeling out of your depth, or breaking the bank.
What About The Language Barrier?
Let’s start with the language. I’m a British English speaker, je parle Francais, een beetje Nederlands, and ein bischien Deutsch. (Ed note: errors left intact for authenticity.) The fact is though, while it’s nice to try my halting Dutch to buy a portion of haring en uitjes, the truth is I rarely find myself completely lost in my travels through the hacker community on just my native language. It may annoy the French to call English a lingua franca, but if you’re an Anglophone you’ve lucked out in having the international glue language at your fingertips. It’s the default translation when traveling, in major cities you will usually find people who speak it when you need to. Meanwhile we’re lucky enough that there are few cities which don’t have some form of hackerspace, so you can usually find someone friendly with local knowledge if you need a bit of advice.
So It’s Not As Scary As You Think, But Why Come Here?
Different countries take it in turns to host the year’s largest hacker camp. This is SHA2017, in the Netherlands.
From here in Europe we look over the Atlantic at events like Def Con with some envy, but the fact is that Americans do things a little differently from us. Those events are
expensive
, while for us a summer hacker event is a community led affair in a field with camping thrown in. Some of the tickets are a few hundred dollars, but that’s it, no hotels, just camping in a field with five thousand other hackers.
Even better, the smaller events are cheaper, and often have much more charm as they aren’t so overwhelming. I can afford to do more than one, because they don’t cost an outrageous amount, and if I work out my timing I can even travel from one to the next without needing anywhere to stay over, instead helping with set-up and teardown. Add to that those hundreds of hackerspaces in cities only a relatively short distance apart, and there’s a lot to see.
Getting Around Needn’t Bankrupt You
Getting around with eurail is as simple as selecting your journey, and boarding the train.
One of the great holidays of the world remains the Great North American Road Trip. Grab a car with a couple of friends, and head out across the wide open spaces on the roads less traveled. Eat at Mom-n-Pop roadside diners in flyspeck towns, and enjoy what the continent has to offer under that endless sky. But while hire cars and gasoline may be cheap in the USA, long distance driving is tedious, so Americans prefer to fly.
Europe is different, hire cars are expensive, gasoline is eye-wateringly expensive, and while budget flights can be cheap, they really are a royal pain in the ass. Fortunately our continent is still cris-crossed by an extensive passenger rail network, and while individual tickets can be expensive there’s a very handy hack that makes them a great choice for a tourist. It’s called the
eurail pass
, originally designed for young people but now available for all ages, and it offers universal access for visitors to the whole continent’s rail network.
Taking a train from Paris to Copenhagen is simply a case of punching the journey into the app, and doing it with 180 mph high-speed trains instead of slower regional trains usually only takes a few Euros extra booking fee. If you’ve ever wondered how I write about events all over Europe for Hackaday I can reveal that there’s no diamond-encrusted expense account, instead I use the domestic European version of this pass. It’s that good.
Where To Stay
BornHack is one of the smaller European hacker camps, offering a week in a Danish forest.
If you are coming over for a hacker camp, there’s your campsite and event all rolled into one, but outside the camps there are still some affordable options. Starting with camping, for us it’s not the backwoods facilities of a trailhead camping spot but in most cases a commercial camp site. For not a huge a mount of money you’ll get toilets and showers along with your pitch, and even a 230V CEE-form power hook-up if you’re prepared to pay extra.
I’ve written Hackaday articles in more than one camp site in my time. Then if you have a eurail pass it’s worth noting that Europe has a night train network. If it’s a conventional sit-up train you might not have the most comfortable night, but for the extra cost of a sleeper berth you can swallow up the journey in comfort and have the day to do more interesting stuff. Then as everywhere it’s easy to find a hotel, I tend to aim for non-tourist-destination train stops and find a two-star room for about 50 to 70 Euros when I need one. And after a few nights camping and night training, you will need one. Finally as you wander around our continent’s hackerspaces you may find the occasional offer of a sofa for the night, but remember that most European houses are tiny and the etiquette around staying over may be a little different. Only expect to stay for a while and use someone’s place as a base if they really know you.
Day To Day
Try the local fast food, you won’t regret it. C van der,
CC BY 2.0
.
It’s possible to exist in many European cities using small-denomination cash in whatever the local currency is, and shopping in ancient markets for exotic ingredients. It’s fun, even. But Europeans shop at the same shops and supermarkets as anyone else, and your Mastercard will work here too.
Look out for budget supermarkets, Aldi, Lidl, or Netto if you’re on a shoestring, and Primark if you’re in need of clothing. Meanwhile eating out can be expensive, and we don’t have a tradition of eating out for breakfast. We have McDonalds, Burger King, and KFC here just like anywhere else, but seek out the local fast food, it’s worth it.
European Hackerspaces
Wrapping it up, if you’re an American you may not be used to most hackerspaces only being a few tens of miles from each other. As a member of several European spaces it’s great to have international visitors drop by, so please, check out online when you go somewhere, find the space, and give them a shout. I have drunk Club-Mate and eaten a variety of delicacies while sitting on shabby sofas in the company of my peers continent-wide, and if you’re One of Us and looking to get to know a country there’s no better way.
So. The Hackaday Tourist Guide has spoken, are we going to see you at a European event next summer?
Header: NASA,
public domain
. | 55 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051684",
"author": "Maggie",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T17:24:03",
"content": "There was a very old episode of Top Gear where Clarkson in Merceder SLR raced May and Hamond all the way from UK to Norway. He drove all across UK, France, Germany, Holand, Denmark, Sweden and finally Norw... | 1,760,371,758.584329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/hackaday-podcast-episode-293-the-power-of-poke-folding-butterflies-and-the-crt-effect/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 293: The Power Of POKE, Folding Butterflies, And The CRT Effect | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week on the Podcast, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week.
First up in the news:
we’ve extended the 2024 Supercon Add-On contest by a week!
That’s right, whether you were held up by Chinese fall holidays or not, here’s your chance to get in on this action.
We love to see the add-ons people make for the badge every year, so this time around we’re really embracing the standard. The best SAOs will get a production run and they’ll be in the swag bag at Hackaday Europe 2025.
What’s That Sound pretty much totally stumped Kristina once again, although she kind of earned a half shirt. Can
you
get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what’s making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.
Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with what actually causes warping in 3D prints, and a really cool display we’d never heard of. Then we’ll discuss the power of POKE when it comes to live coding music on the Commodore64, and the allure of CRTs when it comes to vintage gaming. Finally, we talk Hackaday comments and take a look at a couple of keyboards.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download in
DRM-free MP3
and savor at your leisure.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 293 Show Notes:
News:
Breaking News: 2024 Supercon SAO Contest Deadline Extended
What’s that Sound?
Know that sound?
Submit your answer for a chance at a Hackaday Podcast T-Shirt
.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
What Actually Causes Warping In 3D Prints?
A Technique To Avoid Warping On Large 3D Prints
Have You Heard Of The Liquid Powder Display?
A Phone? A Ham Radio? Relax! It’s Both!
Symbolic Nixie Tubes Become Useful For Artistic Purposes
Linus Live-Codes Music On The Commodore 64
Are CRT TVs Important For Retro Gaming?
Pixel Art And The Myth Of The CRT Effect
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Arduboy Cassette Award Explores New Features
An Arduino Triggers A Flash With Sound
Your Battery Holder Is Also Your Power Switch With ToggleSlot
Kristina’s Picks:
Mapping A Fruit Fly’s Brain With Crowdsourced Research
Portable Pi Palmtop Provides Plenty
Using The 555 For Everything
Can’t-Miss Articles:
If You Can’t Say Anything Nice
Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Folding Butterfly Keyboard | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051679",
"author": "Zach Hugethanks",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T16:40:15",
"content": "FYI: The what’s that sound link is still the old one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051723",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
... | 1,760,371,758.438042 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/double-slit-time-diffraction-at-optical-frequencies/ | Double-Slit Time Diffraction At Optical Frequencies | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"diffraction",
"double-slit"
] | The double-slit experiment, first performed by [Thomas Young] in 1801 provided the first definitive proof of the dual wave-particle nature of photons. A similar experiment can be performed that shows diffraction at optical frequencies by changing the reflectivity of a film of indium-tin-oxide (ITO), as demonstrated in an
April 2024 paper
(
preprint
) by [Romain Tirole] et al. as published in
Nature Physics
. The reflectivity of a 40 nm thick film of ITO deposited on a glass surface is altered with 225 femtosecond pulses from a 230.2 THz (1300 nm) laser, creating temporal ‘slits’.
Interferogram of the time diffracted light as a function of slit separation (ps) and frequency (THz). (Credit: Tirole et al., Nature Physics, 2024)
The diffraction in this case occurs in the temporal domain, creating frequencies in the frequency spectrum when a separate laser applies a brief probing pulse. The effect of this can be seen most clearly in an interferogram (see excerpt at the right). Perhaps the most interesting finding during the experiment was how quickly and easily the ITO layer’s reflectivity could be altered. With
ITO
being a very commonly used composition material that provides properties such as electrical conductivity and optical transparency which are incredibly useful for windows, displays and touch panels.
Although practical applications for temporal diffraction in the optical or other domains aren’t immediately obvious, much like [Young]’s original experiment the implications are likely to be felt (much) later.
Featured image: the conventional and temporal double-slit experiments, with experimental setup (G). (Credit:
Tirole et al.
, Nature Physics, 2024) | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051666",
"author": "f__",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T15:47:54",
"content": "I really appreciate reading about new fundamental research on hackaday. Cool fundamental research deserves more publicity.However, fundamental research is hard to communicate. I don’t have time to read the pa... | 1,760,371,758.490147 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/this-week-in-security-quantum-rsa-break-out-of-scope-and-spoofing-packets/ | This Week In Security: Quantum RSA Break, Out Of Scope, And Spoofing Packets | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"quantum",
"spoofing",
"This Week in Security"
] | Depending on who you ask, the big news this week is that
quantum computing researchers out of China have broken RSA
. (
Here’s the PDF of their paper.
) And that’s true… sort of. There are multiple caveats, like the fact that this proof of concept is only factoring a 22-bit key. The minimum RSA size in use these days is 1024 bits. The other important note is that this wasn’t done on a general purpose quantum computer, but on a D-Wave quantum annealing machine.
First off, what is the difference between a general purpose and annealing quantum computer? Practically speaking, a quantum annealer can’t run Shor’s algorithm, the quantum algorithm that can factor large numbers into primes in a much shorter time than classical computers. While it’s pretty certain that this algorithm works from a mathematical perspective, it’s not at all clear that it will ever be possible to build effective quantum computers that can actually run it for the large numbers that are used in cryptography.
We’re going to vastly oversimplify the problem, and say that the challenge with general purpose quantum computing is that each q-bit is error prone, and the more q-bits a system has, the more errors it has. This error rate has proved to be a hard problem. The D-wave quantum annealing machine side-steps the issue by building a different sort of q-bits, that interact differently than in a general purpose quantum computer. The errors become much less of a problem, but you get a much less powerful primitive. And this is why annealing machines can’t run Shor’s algorithm.
The news this week is that researchers actually demonstrated a different technique on a D-wave machine that
did actually factor an RSA key
. From a research and engineering perspective, it is excellent work. But it doesn’t necessarily demonstrate the exponential speedup that would be required to break real-world RSA keys. To put it into perspective, you can literally crack a 22 bit RSA key by hand.
Zendesk Out of Scope
Here’s an example of two things. First off, a bug being out of scope for a bounty shouldn’t stop a researcher from working on a bug. Second, it’s worth being extra careful in how a bug bounty’s scope is set up, as sometimes bugs have unforeseen consequences. We’re talking here about Zendesk, a customer support tool and ticket manager. [Daniel]
found an issue where an attacker could send an email
to the support email address from a spoofed sender, and add an arbitrary email address to the ticket, gaining access to the entire ticket history.
Because the problem was related to email spoofing, and the Zendesk bounty program on HackerOne considers “SPF, DKIM, and DMARC” to be out of scope, the ticket was closed as “informative” and no bounty awarded. But [Daniel] wasn’t done. What interesting side effects could he find? How about triggering single sign on verification to go to the support email address? Since an Apple account can be used to sign on to slack, an attacker can create an apple account using the support email address, use the email spoof to get access to the created bug, and therefore the one-time code. Verify the account, and suddenly you have an Apple account at the target’s domain. [Daniel] used this to gain access to company Slack channels, but I’d guess this could be used for even more mayhem at some businesses.
Given that the original bug report was closed as “informational”, [Daniel] started reporting the bug to other companies that use Zendesk. And it paid off, netting more than $50,000 for the trouble. Zendesk never did pay a bounty on the find, but did ask [Daniel] to stop telling people about it.
Fortinet Fixed It
The good folks at Watchtowr Labs have
the inside scoop on a recently fixed vulnerability
in Fortinet’s FortiGate VPN appliance. It’s a good fix found internally by Fortinet, and gives us a good opportunity to talk about a class of vulnerability we haven’t ever covered. Namely, a format string vulnerability.
The
printf()
function and its siblings are wonderful things. You give it a string, and it prints it to standard output. You give it a string that contains a format specifier, like
%s
, and it will replace the specifier with the contents of a variable passed in as an additional argument. I write a lot of “printf debugging” code when trying to figure out a problem, that looks like
printf("Processing %d bytes!\n", length);
What happens if the specifier doesn’t match the data type? Or if there is a specifier and no argument? You probably know the answer: Undefined behavior. Not great for device security. And in this case, it does lead to Remote Code Execution (RCE). The good news is that Fortinet found this internally, and the fix was quietly made available in February. The bad news is that attackers found it, and have since been actively using it in attacks.
Escape!
[ading2210] has
the story of finding a pair of attack chains
in Google Chrome/Chromium, where a malicious extension can access the
chrome://policy
page, and define a custom “browser” command to use when accessing specific pages. There are two separate vulnerabilities that can be used to pull off this trick. One is a race condition where disallowed JS code can run before it’s disabled after a page reload, and the other is a crash in the page inspector view. That’s not a page non-developers have a habit of visiting, so the browser extension just pulls a fast one on install, launching a simple page that claims that something went wrong, asking the user to press f12 to troubleshoot.
https://ading.dev/blog/assets/chrome_sandbox_escape/sandbox_escape_final.mp4
Multihomed Spoofing
At this point, most of us rely on Linux for our routers and firewalls. Whether you realize it or not, it’s extremely likely that that little magical box that delivers Internet goodness to your devices is a Linux machine, running iptables as the firewall. And while iptables is excellent at its job, it does have its share of quirks.
Researchers at Anvil have the low down
on
ESTABLISHED
connection spoofing.
Iptables, when run on the boarder between networks, is often set to block incoming packets by default, and allow outgoing. The catch is that you probably want responses to your requests. To allow TCP connections to work both ways, it’s common to set iptables to allow
ESTABLISHED
connections as well. If the IP addresses and ports all match, the packet is treated as
ESTABLISHED
and allowed through. So what’s missing? Unless you explicitly request it, this firewall isn’t checking that the source port is the one you expected. Packets on one interface just might get matched to a connection on a different interface and passed through. That has some particularly interesting repercussions for guest networks and the like.
Bits and Bytes
On the topic of more secure Linux installs, [Shawn Chang] has thoughts on
how to run a container more securely
. The easy hint is to use Podman and run rootless containers. If you want even tighter protection, there are restrictions on system calls, selinux, and a few other tricks to think about.
Check the logs! That’s the first step to looking for a breach or infection, right? But what exactly are you looking for?
The folks at Trunc have thoughts on this
. The basic idea is to look for logins that don’t belong, IPs that shouldn’t be there, and other specific oddities. It’s a good checklist for trouble hunting.
And finally,
the playlist from DEF CON 32 is available
! Among the highlights are [Cory Doctorow] talking about the future of the Internet, [HD Moore] and [Rob King] talking about SSH, and lots lots more! | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051646",
"author": "Rog77",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T14:41:20",
"content": "The Dwave attack was on AES type encryption, not RSA/public key.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051678",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
... | 1,760,371,758.637142 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/motu-audio-interface-resurrected-after-some-reverse-engineering/ | MOTU Audio Interface Resurrected After Some Reverse Engineering | Lewin Day | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"audio interface",
"firmware",
"Ghidra",
"hack",
"motu",
"reverse engineering"
] | These days, when something electronic breaks, most folks just throw it away and get a new one. But as hackers, we prefer to find out what the actual problem is and fix it. [Bonsembiante] took that very tack when a MOTU brand audio interface wasn’t booting. As it turns out,
a bit of investigative work led to a simple and viable fix.
The previous owner had tried to get the unit fixed multiple times without success. When it ended up on [Bonsembiante]’s bench, reverse engineering was the order of the day. Based around an embedded Linux system, there was lots to poke and prod at inside, it’s just that… the system wasn’t booting, wasn’t showing up over USB or Ethernet, or doing much of anything at all.
Extracting the firmware only revealed that the firmware was actually valid, so that was a dead end. However, after some work following the boot process along in Ghidra, with some external help, the problem was revealed. Something was causing the valid firmware to fail the bootloader’s checks—and with that fixed, the unit booted. You’ll have to read the article to get the full juicy story—it’s worth it!
We’ve seen [Bonsembiante’s] work here before,
when they turned an old ADSL router into a functioning guitar pedal.
Video after the break. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051616",
"author": "Martin Hill",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T12:28:41",
"content": "Interesting, I have a similar but simpler Focusrite Scarlet interface that also no longer mounts to USB, I wonder if it could be the same chip.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,371,758.683477 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/18/overcomplicating-the-magnetic-compass-for-a-reason/ | Overcomplicating The Magnetic Compass For A Reason | Dan Maloney | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"armature",
"compass",
"inductor",
"magnetic",
"navigation",
"rotor",
"stator"
] | Some inventions are so simple that it’s hard to improve them. The magnetic compass is a great example — a magnetized needle, a bit of cork, and a bowl of water are all you need to start navigating the globe. So why in the world would you want to over-complicate things with something like
this Earth inductor compass
? Just because it’s cool, of course.
Now, the thing with complication is that it’s often instructive. The simplicity of the magnetic compass masks the theory behind its operation to some degree and completely fails to deliver any quantitative data on the Earth’s magnetic field. [tsbrownie]’s gadget is built from a pair of electric motors, one intact and one stripped of its permanent magnet stators. The two are mounted on a 3D printed frame and coupled by a long shaft made of brass, to magnetically isolate them as much as possible. The motor is powered by a DC supply while a digital ammeter is attached to the terminals on the stator.
When the motor spins, the stator at the other end of the shaft cuts the Earth’s magnetic lines of force and generates a current, which is displayed on the ammeter. How much current is generated depends on how the assembly is oriented. In the video below, [tsbrownie] shows that the current nulls out when oriented along the east-west axis, and reaches a maximum along north-south. It’s not much current — about 35 microamps — but it’s enough to get a solid reading.
Is this a practical substitute for a magnetic compass? Perhaps not for most use cases, but a wind-powered version of this guided [Charles Lindbergh]’s
Spirit of St. Louis
across the Atlantic in 1927 with an error of only about 10 miles over the trip, so there’s that.
Other aircraft compasses
take different approaches to the problem of nulling out the magnetic field of the plane. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051566",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T08:07:00",
"content": "“take different approaches to the problem of nulling out the magnetic field of the plane”While electronic measurement of the magnetic field can make nulling easier, I think the real point of Earth inductor co... | 1,760,371,758.733567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/building-a-zx-spectrum-using-only-new-parts/ | Building A ZX Spectrum Using Only New Parts | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"retrocomputer",
"retrocomputing",
"sinclair",
"ZX Spectrum"
] | Ah, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. A popular computer in Britain and beyond, but now rather thin on the ground. If you can’t find one, fear not, for now—you can apparently build a new one with new parts!
[TME Retro] is here to demonstrate how
.
Before you get excited, no—Sinclair has not risen from the dead. Instead, it’s simply down to the state of the retrocomputing community. There are enough reproduction parts and components out there for the ZX Spectrum that it’s now possible to assemble the whole computer from new bits. You can get
new cases and new mechanical keyboards
, and a 100% compatible motherboard in the form of the
Harlequin board
. The latter even reproduces the unobtainable Spectrum ULA glue logic chip in raw logic!
It’s neat to see the ZX Spectrum live on decades after the production lines ground to a halt. We’ve seen similar feats achieved
with the legendary Commodore 64;
you’d think we had enough of them given they were the best-selling computer of all time. Video after the break. | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051538",
"author": "No More Z80s :(",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T05:20:22",
"content": "Heh, well, won’t be “all new” for much longer considering the Z80 is unfortunately finally out of production.Soon you’ll need an adapter for an eZ80 (maybe, timing may not allow the substitution) ... | 1,760,371,758.9082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/redbox-is-dead-but-the-machines-are-kind-of-hanging-on/ | Redbox Is Dead, But The Machines Are Kind Of Hanging On | Lewin Day | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"News"
] | [
"dvd rental",
"redbox",
"rental"
] | Redbox was a service for renting DVDs from automated kiosks. The business was going well until it wasn’t anymore, and then the company went bankrupt in July this year. And yet… the machines live on. At least, that’s according to YouTuber [Smokin’ Silicon],
who spotted some remaining Redbox kiosks out and about
. Including at his local Walmart!
Here’s the thing. There’s not one big switch at Redbox that turns all the machines off, and even if there was—nobody hit it the moment the company declared bankruptcy. Thus, when [Smokin’ Silicon] rocked up to Walmart, he was able to flick through the movies and even add one to cart for purchase. However, trying to complete the transaction failed—the kiosk eventually reported itself as out of service. That makes sense—you’d expect payment processing to be the first thing to go down.
However, other Redbox kiosks were different. A kiosk at a Food Lion location actually still worked—and [Smokin’ Silicon] was able to complete the transaction and walk away with a Black Adam disc! On a second trip, he was able to walk away with even more!
The rest of the video dives into Redbox lore and other posts online about the status of the company, software, and hardware. Apparently, someone on Reddit was claiming they had the Redbox kiosk OS available. Meanwhile, some users have had trouble returning their discs because the company is now defunct. However, [Smokin’ Silicon] was able to return his without issue. Ultimately, though, he recommends his viewers to go out and score as many DVDs and Blu Rays as possible from the machines since soon enough, they’ll be gone forever.
The fact is, businesses are big and Kafkaesque, the kiosks are scattered all over the country, and so it’s anybody’s guess if and when they stop working. Back when this website began,
a redbox was something different entirely
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Hari Wiguna for the tip!] | 37 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051521",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T03:07:50",
"content": "So the redbox company has gone bankrupt. Does that mean that eventually all the current assets will be sold at cents on the dollar to partially pay off their current debts as fast as possible. And if that i... | 1,760,371,759.103192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/laser-painting-explained/ | Laser Painting Explained | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"laser"
] | If you get an inexpensive diode laser cutter, you might have been disappointed to find it won’t work well with transparent acrylic. The material just passes most of the light at that wavelength, so there’s not much you can do with it. So how did [Rich] make a good-looking sign using a cheap laser? He used a simple
paint and mask technique
that will work with nearly any clear material, and it produces great-looking results, as you can see in the video below.
[Rich] starts with a piece of Acrylic covered with paper and removes the paper to form a mask. Of course, even a relatively anemic laser can slice through the paper covering with no trouble at all. He also cuts an outline, which requires a laser to cut the acrylic. However, you could easily apply this to a rectangular hand-cut blank. Also, most diode lasers can cut thin acrylic, but it doesn’t always come out as cleanly as you’d like.
We wondered why [Rich] didn’t mirror image the graphic and then found out he simply forgot. So, the first pass through the laser doesn’t produce the piece he actually worked with later in the video. We are glad to know we aren’t the only ones who do things like that.
Using a pick, he removes some of the cut paper to reveal the parts he wants to paint a particular color. Then he removes more parts and paints again. The trick is, of course, that he’s painting the back of the acrylic, so the top layer shows through. In this case, he removes part of the mask and paints it orange. Then, he removes the mask that covers the black parts and paints it black. Finally, he removes the rest of the mask, which covers parts that will remain clear or show the paper backing if you leave it on.
If you have a laser and you haven’t discovered [Rich’s] channel, you will spend the rest of the day there. He has numerous tips and techniques for all kinds of lasers. He even turned us on to standoff pins. If you want a deep dive into
acrylic
, here you go. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051496",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T01:23:03",
"content": "CO2 lasers really shine here, no pun intended. Instead of going through acrylic, the plastic will absorb virtually all the energy and vaporize. The vapor smells rather like garlic and probably isn’t g... | 1,760,371,759.034397 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/tiny-lora-gps-node-relies-on-esp32/ | Tiny LoRa GPS Node Relies On ESP32 | Lewin Day | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"gps",
"LoRa",
"powerfeather",
"radio"
] | Sometimes you need to create a satellite navigation tracking device that communicates via a low-power mesh network. [Powerfeatherdev] was in just that situation, and they whipped up
a particularly compact solution to do the job.
As you might have guessed based on the name of its creator, this build is based around the
ESP32-S3 PowerFeather board
. The PowerFeather has the benefit of robust power management features, which makes it perfect for a power-sipping project that’s intended to run for a long time. It can even run on solar power and manage battery levels if so desired. The GPS and LoRa gear is all mounted on a secondary “wing” PCB that slots directly on to the PowerFeather like a Arduino shield or Raspberry Pi HAT. The whole assembly is barely larger than a AA battery.
It’s basically a super-small GPS tracker that transmits over LoRa, while being optimized for maximum run time on limited power from a small lithium-ion cell. If you’re needing to do some long-duration, low-power tracking task for a project, this might be right up your alley.
LoRa is a useful technology for radio communications,
as we’ve been saying for some time.
Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own nifty radio comms build, or anything in that general milleu, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051458",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T21:22:04",
"content": "Nice! Cute and simple project",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051489",
"author": "William Payne",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T00:46:14",
... | 1,760,371,759.156545 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/access-the-information-superhighway-with-a-mac-plus/ | Access The Information Superhighway With A Mac Plus | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"apple",
"bluescsi",
"internet",
"internet archive",
"macintosh",
"macintosh plus",
"proxy",
"wayback machine"
] | For some time now, Apple has developed a reputation for manufacturing computers and phones that are not particularly repairable or upgradable. While this reputation is somewhat deserved, especially in recent years, it seems less true for their older machines. With the second and perhaps most influential computer, the Apple II, being so upgradable that the machine had a production run of nearly two decades. Similarly, the Macintosh Plus of 1986 was surprisingly upgradable and repairable and [Hunter] demonstrates its capabilities by bringing one onto the modern Internet,
albeit with a few tricks to adapt the old hardware and software to the modern era
.
The Mac Plus was salvaged from a thrift store, and the first issue to solve was that it had some rotten capacitors that had to be replaced before the computer could be reliably powered on at all. [Hunter] then got to work bringing this computer online, with the only major hardware modification being a BlueSCSI hard drive emulator which allows using an SD card instead of an original hard disk. It can also emulate an original Macintosh Ethernet card, allowing it to fairly easily get online.
The original operating system and browser don’t support modern protocols such as HTTPS or scripting languages like Javascript or CSS, so a tool called MacProxy was used to bridge this gap. It serves simplified HTML from the Internet to the Mac Plus, but [Hunter] wanted it to work even better, adding modular domain-specific handling to allow the computer to more easily access sites like Reddit, YouTube, and even Hackaday, although he does call us out a bit for not maintaining
our retro page
perhaps as well as it ought to be.
[Hunter] has also built an extension to use the Wayback Machine to serve websites to the Mac from a specific date in the past, which really enhances the retro feel of using a computer like this to access the Internet. Of course, if you don’t have original Macintosh hardware but still want to have the same experience of the early Internet or retro hardware
this replica Mac will get you there too
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051433",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T20:11:11",
"content": "An elegant computer from a more civilized age",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051452",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T20:... | 1,760,371,759.333381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/module-makes-noisy-projects-easy/ | Module Makes Noisy Projects Easy | Al Williams | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"mp3 module"
] | You want to add voice, music, or sound effects to your project. What do you do? Sure, it is easy enough to plug a Raspberry Pi or some other tiny computer, but that’s not always desirable from a power, space, or cost point of view. [Mellow_Labs]
shows a module that makes it simple to add sound to any project
. The little board is just big enough to house a speaker and doesn’t cost much. Check it out in the video below.
The device allows you to preload tracks as MP3 files. There are two ways to control it: via a serial port, or using a single pin that can accept commands like you might expect from a MP3 player, like play and next track.
The module was loud, and the built-in speaker can be replaced. The module’s documentation doesn’t seem to include any example code, but [Mellow_Labs] has code for you on
GitHub
. It probably isn’t going to win any audiophile awards, but you don’t expect that from something just a little bigger than an inch across and not even a half-inch tall. Seems like a good thing for your Halloween props.
It isn’t that we
haven’t seen MP3 modules
before, but this one is nicely integrated and complete. We wondered if a 3D-printed cone might make this
a nice custom bike horn
or if it would need more amplification. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051228",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T01:40:36",
"content": "Loads to download, the BBC just released a huge library of sounds to the public according to the story I heard the other day on NPR.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,759.242131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/clockwork-derby-digital-robo-rally-steampunk-style/ | Clockwork Derby: DigitalRobo Rally, Steampunk Style | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Games",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"boardgame",
"clockwork derby",
"clockworkderby",
"robo rally",
"roborally",
"robotic",
"Tabletop",
"tabletop game"
] | Inspired by the classic game
Robo Rally
,
[Ytec3D]’s
Clockwork Derby
takes tabletop gaming to the next level by combining steampunk aesthetics with automation. We recently had the chance to see it live at
Hackfest
, together with
[Ytec3D]’s animatronic tentacle
, and we can say that his new take on playful robotics offers a unique experience for game enthusiasts. The 300×420 mm board uses magnets, motors, and card readers to handle up to eight players, creating a smooth, automated version of
Robo Rally
where players can focus on strategy while the board handles movement.
In
Clockwork Derby
, game pieces are moved by a magnetic system controlled by the board, which rotates and shifts pieces in real-time. Each player uses a card reader to program moves, with up to five cards per round. The board scans these cards via barcode scanners, so you don’t have to worry about tracking your moves or adjusting game pieces manually. [Ytec3D]’s game rules have been optimized for the automated setup, allowing for smoother gameplay and an emphasis on strategic choices.
The project is a standout for hackers and tinkerers who appreciate blending physical mechanics with digital precision. It’s a great example of how classic games can be modernized with a bit of ingenuity and tech. For those interested in DIY gaming projects or automation, Clockwork Derby is definitely worth exploring. To dive deeper into the build details and see more of the project, visit
[Ytec3D]’s project page
for an in-person look at this inventive tabletop game! | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051184",
"author": "Yet Another Robert Smith",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T21:17:03",
"content": "Functional and beautiful! Hopefully the Articifer is granted a Merit Lordship/Ladyship.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051187",
... | 1,760,371,759.2907 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/floss-weekly-episode-805-mastodon-bring-your-own-algorithm/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 805: Mastodon — Bring Your Own Algorithm | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"FLOSS Weekly",
"OggCamp",
"unconference"
] | This week
Jonathan Bennett
and
Jeff Massie
chat with Andy Piper about Mastodon! There’s a new release of Mastodon, and plenty on the road map to keep everybody excited!
https://joinmastodon.org/
https://shop.joinmastodon.org/products/mastodon-plushie
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 | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,759.196684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-folding-butterfly-keyboard/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Folding Butterfly Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"business card",
"business card keyboard",
"butterfly keyboard",
"folding keyboard",
"Japanese keyboard",
"pcb business card",
"rainbow",
"Salter No. 5",
"Sinclair Zx Spectrum"
] | Want to give prospective employers a business card that doesn’t immediately get tossed? Of course you do. If you’re one of us, the answer is obvious: make it some kind of a PCB.
Image by [Ricardo Daniel de Paula] via
Hackaday.IO
But as those become commonplace, it’s imperative that you make it
do
something. Well, you could do a lot worse than giving someone
a fully-functioning capacitive-touch keyboard
to carry around.
[Ricardo Daniel de Paula] initially chose the CH32V303 microcontroller because it has native USB 2.0 and 16 capacitive touch channels, which can support up to 48 keys via multiplexing.
But in order to reduce costs, [Ricardo] switched to the CH582M, which does all that plus Bluetooth communication. The goal is to have an affordable design for a unique, functioning business card, and I would say that this project has it in spades.
Btrfld is a Folding Butterfly Keyboard
This origami beauty’s name is pronounced ‘
butter-fold
‘, by the way. And that’s because this is a folding, portable version of the original
butterfly keyboard by [SolidusHal]
. Be sure to check out the .gif of it folding and unfolding on the first link.
Image by [SolidusHal] via
reddit
Instead of the Kailh Chocs you were probably expecting, this bad boy has Cherry MX ULP (ultra-low profile) switches, which [SolidusHal] reports are really nice-feeling with a tactile bump. The jury is still out as to how they compare with Chocs, however. With these, the overall thickness of the thing is only 15.5 mm.
As [SolidusHal] says over on GitHub, there aren’t any amazing sources of ULP keycaps yet, so the best option is to print them, and of course you’ll find the STLs in the repo. But beware, an FDM printer isn’t up to this task.
While you could hand-wire this thing, board files are available, so you should probably use them if you’re gonna build your own. And controller-wise, you can use a nice!nano or a BlueMicro840, or just a Pro Micro if you don’t want Bluetooth.
The Centerfold: Taste the Rainbow
Image by [haunterloo92] via
reddit
You know I can’t resist a rainbow, right? And a translucent case too; that just takes the cake.
This here is [haunterloo92]’s Locus keyboard
, which features a carbon fiber plate, Lichicx silent tactile switches, and GMK CYL ZX keycaps, which of course recall the Sinclair Spectrum ZX. Not sure what desk mat that is, but it recalls ye old Apple rainbow, don’t you think? But good luck searching for it. (I had none.)
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: Salter No. 5
The curved keyboard of
this Victorian beauty
isn’t just for looks — it was designed to mimic the shape of the hands and thus be more comfortable.
The Salter no. 5 in all its Victorian glory. Image via
Antikey Chop
What you can’t do with this one is slouch in your chair, otherwise you won’t see what you’re typing over that curved, black shield in the middle.
It is thought that there were no Salter nos. 1-4, and that Salter started with a higher number as to appear more established. Although sold by George Salter’s family company, the typewriter was invented by James Samuel Foley in 1892.
The Salter no. 5 features a three-row keyboard with two Shifts, one for upper case and the other for figures. Altogether, there are 28 keys that can produce 84 characters.
While early 5s used an ink pad, the later models employed a ribbon. They were marketed to compete with Remington typewriters and such, but at one-half or one-third the cost. Even so, they were one of the best typewriters available at the time.
ICYMI: KanaChord Plus Makes Comprehensive Japanese Input Simple
Have you ever wished you had a separate, smaller keyboard for inputting another language so you didn’t have to switch up your OS every time?
Well, then KanaChord Plus is the keyboard for you
, as long as your second language is Japanese.
Image by [Mac Cody] via
GitHub
[Mac Cody]’s update supports a whopping 6,165 Kanji along with 6,240 of the most common Japanese words containing Kanji. This is on top of what KanaChord already supported — all the Kana characters which make up the rest of Japanese writing.
As you may have guessed, KanaChord takes chording input — pressing multiple keys at once as you would on a piano. It uses color in order to indicate character type, Kana mode, and even to provide error feedback. Worried that it won’t work with your OS? There’s a slide switch to select one of three Unicode key sequences. Guess which three.
The touch screen is the icing on this updated cake. As you chord, an incremental Input Method Editor will search the embedded dictionaries and display an ordered list of Japanese words and Kanji choices to scroll through and select. [Mac Cody] has plans to support the Pico 2 and will update
the comprehensive repo
when it’s ready.
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
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051201",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T22:40:43",
"content": "Be sure to check out the .gif of it folding and unfolding on the first link.Or just give us the link to the .gif:https://github.com/SolidHal/btrfld/raw/master/demos/pcb_folding.gif",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,759.481788 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/tech-in-plain-sight-tasers-shooting-confetti/ | Tech In Plain Sight: Tasers Shooting Confetti | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"taser"
] | One of the standard tropes in science fiction is some kind of device that can render someone unconscious — you know, like a phaser set to stun. We can imagine times when being aggressively knocked out would lead to some grave consequences, but — we admit — it is probably better than getting shot. However, we don’t really have any reliable technology to do that today. However, if you’ve passed a modern-day policeman, you’ve probably noticed the Taser on their belt. While this sounds like a phaser, it really isn’t anything like it. It is essentially a stun gun with a long reach thanks to a wire with a dart on the end that shoots out of the gun-like device and shocks the target at a distance. Civilian Tasers have a 15-foot long wire, while law enforcement can get longer wires. But did you know that modern Tasers also fire confetti?
A Taser cartridge and some AFIDs
It sounds crazy, and it isn’t celebratory. The company that makes the Taser — formerly, the Taser company but now Axon — added the feature because of a common complaint law enforcement had with the device. Interestingly, many things that might be used in comitting a crime are well-understood. Ballistics can often identify that a bullet did or did not come from a particular weapon, for example. Blood and DNA on a scene can provide important clues. Even typewriters and computer printers can be identified by variations in their printing. But if you fire a taser, there’s generally little evidence left behind.
Well, that was true until the AFIDs (Anti Felony Identification) came on the scene in 1993. The Taser uses a cartridge that has one or more spools of wire. When you fire the unit, you remove the cartridge and replace it with a new one. The cartridge also has some kind of propellant that fires the dart and wire. Early cartridges used gunpowder, although the newer ones appear to utilize gas capsules. The wire moves between 180 and 205 feet per second. But modern ones also have a few dozen very small disks inside that spew out under the force of the propellant. Each tag has a unique serial number for that cartridge.
Sure, if you have time, you could sweep up the 20 or 30 little tags. But they are less than a quarter of an inch around and disperse widely. Plus, you can’t be sure exactly how many tags are in any given cartridge, so you’d have to be very thorough. In fact, it is hard enough for investigators to find them when they want to. The tags are colorful and show up better when using special lights.
This isn’t just theoretical, by the way. Milwaukee police used AFIDs to track down a thief who stunned a musician and made off with a
300-year-old Stradivarius violin
worth about $5 million. In another case, a man did extensive research about
killing his boss to avoid being caught embezzling
. He used a Taser to subdue his victim and knew to vacuum up the AFIDs, but didn’t get them all, allowing police to identify him as the killer.
Some printers and copiers leave
digital fingerprints
, too. On the other hand, some people seem to enjoy getting the
occasional jolt of voltage
. | 41 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051076",
"author": "Mr. Christopher",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T14:26:25",
"content": "DO cop Tasers have these little tags? Because it would be so much worse if the answer was no.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051380",
... | 1,760,371,759.429765 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/linus-live-codes-music-on-the-commodore-64/ | Linus Live-Codes Music On The Commodore 64 | Elliot Williams | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"chiptune",
"commodore 64",
"editor",
"linus akesson",
"live coding",
"sequencer",
"synthesizer"
] | In this tremendously educational video, [Linus Åkesson]
takes us through how he develops a synthesizer and a sequencer and editor for it on the Commodore 64
, all in BASIC. While this sounds easy, [Linus] is doing this in hard mode: all of the audio is generated by POKE, and it gets crazier from there. If you’re one of those people out there who think that BASIC is a limited language, you need to watch this video.
[Linus] can do anything with POKE. On a simple computer like the C64, the sound chip, the screen chips, and even the interrupts that control program flow are all accessible simply by writing to the right part of memory. So the main loop here simply runs through a lot of data, POKEing it into memory and turning the sound chip on and off. There’s also a counter running inside the C64 that he uses to point into a pitch lookup table in the code.
But the inception part comes when he designs the sequencer and editor. Because C64 BASIC already has an interactive code editor, he hijacks this for his music editor. The final sequencer interface exists
inside
the program itself, and he writes music in the code, in real time, using things like LIST and editing. (Code is data, and data is code.) Add in a noise drum hack, and you’ve got some classic chiptuney sounds by the end.
We love [Linus]’s minimal C64 exercises, and this one gets maximal effect out of a running C64 BASIC environment. But that’s so much code in comparison to
his 256-byte “A Mind is Born” demo
. But to get that done, he had to use assembly.
Thanks [zogzog] for the great tip! | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051051",
"author": "tiopepe123",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T12:45:20",
"content": "My teacher taught in the most complex way to “filter” the students.I have always hated him",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051054",
"author":... | 1,760,371,759.530084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/arduboy-cassette-award-explores-new-features/ | Arduboy Cassette Award Explores New Features | Tom Nardi | [
"Games",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"Arduboy",
"award",
"contest",
"handheld game"
] | When [Press Play on Tape] entered their game
Prince of Arabia
into the Arduboy FX Game Jam, we bet they had no idea that they’d be taking home a prize quite like this — designed by Arduboy creator [Kevin Bates], this
gorgeous new variant of the handheld system
brings some exciting new capabilities to the platform. Plus, it looks awesome.
The system, which is made up of a stacked pair of PCBs, has been designed to resemble an audio cassette. Thanks to the full-color silkscreen service offered by PCBway, it certainly looks the part. But it’s also a fully functional Arduboy, which means it has access to all the games already written for the 8-bit system.
It would have been impressive enough if this new handheld was just a “classic” Arduboy, but instead, [Kevin] made it a considerable upgrade over the version of the system that’s already on the market. If you squint
just
right, you might even catch a glimpse of what the future of the Arduboy might look like.
For one thing, the system features six capacitive touch pads for the directional and action buttons. This capability has been implemented by pairing each pad with its own dedicated touch IC, which means existing software doesn’t have to be modified to take advantage of them. It’s also got a 64 MB flash chip, which makes the
16 MB used in the Arduboy FX
look like…well, a cassette tape. Under the hood there’s also some new RGB LEDs, an IR transmitter, and a real-time clock. In a particularly clever move, [Kevin] has taken over a few pins of the USB-C connector and tied it to the chip’s I2C lines, which lets a standard USB-C cable link two of the handhelds together.
The finished product looks and works great, which has [Kevin] considering doing a small run of them so folks other than the FX Game Jam winners can get in on the action. | 9 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050995",
"author": "deshipu",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T08:57:38",
"content": "Why do all those homebrew consoles must use such diminutive screens? We need bigger pixels to appreciate all the nice pixel art in those games.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,759.582022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/an-arduino-triggers-a-flash-with-sound/ | An Arduino Triggers A Flash With Sound | Jenny List | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"flash photography",
"flash trigger"
] | To capture an instant on film or sensor with a camera, you usually need a fast shutter. But alternately a flash can be triggered with the scene in the dark and the shutter wide open. It’s this latter technique which PetaPixel are looking at courtesy of the high-speed class at Rochester Institute of Technology.
They’re using a cheap sound sensor module and an Arduino
to catch instantaneous photographs, with students caught in the act of popping balloons.
The goal here was to keep things as simple as possible. All you’ll need in addition to the Arduino (or really, any modern microcontroller) is the sound sensor — which are often sold as “microphone shields.” To trigger the flash while still providing electrical isolation is a reed relay. The write-up notes that higher performance systems would be better off with an optoisolator, but this provides a low-cost alternative to get started with.
We rather like the technique, and perhaps it’s a thing to try at a future hacker camp. Unsurprisingly
it’s not the first flash trigger for water balloons we’ve seen
. | 38 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050947",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T05:43:21",
"content": "Could have used a 555.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051020",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T11:04:15",
... | 1,760,371,759.916745 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/assessing-developer-productivity-when-using-ai-coding-assistants/ | Assessing Developer Productivity When Using AI Coding Assistants | Maya Posch | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai",
"GitHub Copilot",
"software development"
] | We have all seen the advertisements and glossy flyers for coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, which promised to use ‘AI’ to make you write code and complete programming tasks faster than ever, yet how much of that has worked out since Copilot’s introduction in 2021? According to
a recent report
by code analysis firm
Uplevel
there are no significant benefits, while GitHub Copilot also introduced 41% more bugs. Commentary from development teams suggests that while the coding assistant makes for faster writing of code, debugging or maintaining the code is often not realistic.
None of this should be a surprise, of course, as this
mirrors what we already found
when covering this topic back in 2021. With GitHub Copilot and kin being effectively Large Language Models (LLMs) that are trained on codebases, they are best considered to be massive autocomplete systems targeting code. Much like with autocomplete on e.g. a smartphone, the experience is often jarring and full of errors. Perhaps the most fair assessment of GitHub Copilot is that it can be helpful when writing repetitive, braindead code that requires very little understanding of the code to get right, while it’s bound to helpfully carry in a bundle of sticks and a dead rodent like an overly enthusiastic dog when all you wanted was for it to grab that spanner.
Until Copilot and kin develop actual intelligence, it would seem that software developer jobs are still perfectly safe from being taken over by our robotic overlords. | 66 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050919",
"author": "DerAxeman",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T02:48:12",
"content": "Is this any different than when C++ was taking hold? Software got more bugs, things got vastly more bloated and slower, and development cycles increased in time. Yet computer scientist loved it.",
"... | 1,760,371,759.833812 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/solve-an-esp32-based-equation-solving-calculator/ | Solve: An ESP32-Based Equation Solving Calculator | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"calculator",
"ESP32",
"Newton-Raphson",
"numerical solver"
] | We’re suckers for good-looking old-school calculators, so this interesting
numerical equation-solving calculator
by [Peter Balch] caught our attention. Based around the ESP32-WROOM-32 module and an LCD, the build is quite straightforward from an electronics point of view, with the main work being on the software side of things.
A custom keyboard was constructed on Veroboard using a handful of tactile switches arranged in a charlieplexing array to minimize the number of IO pins consumed. For the display, an off-the-shelf 240×320 ILI9341-based module hooked up by SPI was used. A single lithium cell was used for the power supply, connected to a USB
You don’t need much to make a usable keyboard.
charger module, but you could just as easily substitute a 3 x AA battery box. The case was designed in DesignSpark mechanical and 3D printed. It’s unclear what keyboard version they settled on; there are options for one with keycaps and one without. Regardless, a 3D-printed frame sits atop the keyboard circuit, with the graphics printed on photo paper and a protective coversheet on top.
The most interesting part of this project is the software and [Peter]’s extensive explanation of the pros and cons of the various numerical-solving algorithms. “Solve,” as they call the project, uses five methods to solve single-variable equations and Newton-Raphson for simultaneous equations. The exact method depends on the types of functions used in the equations and whether they are continuous.
Additionally, the calculator software supports looping constructs, allowing the generation of results tables and multivariable graph plotting. All in all, it could be a helpful desktop addition for someone needing a dedicated solver. Check out the
project GitHub page
for more details of the construction and software and to start building your own.
The subject of calculators is very personal, especially for engineers and scientists. Here’s our word on
maybe
the last physical scientific calculator
. Of course, we’ve covered so many DIY calculator builds that we’ve lost count. Here’s
a great example
. Finally, who needs electronics
when you can do it mechanically
? Batteries not included. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050910",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16T01:55:19",
"content": "Maybe the problem is with my network, but I’m not getting instructables to load via the link.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,371,759.968395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/a-phone-a-ham-radio-relax-its-both/ | A Phone? A Ham Radio? Relax! It’s Both! | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ham radio"
] | A lot of hams like to carry a VHF radio. Of course, nearly everyone wants to carry a phone. Now, thanks to the
kv4p HT
, you don’t have to carry both. The open-source device connects to your Android smartphone and turns it into a radio transceiver. You can build it yourself for about $35. Check out the video below.
The device uses an ESP32 and only transmits one watt, but it has lots of features like APRS and scanning.
The brain is an ESP-WROOM-32. There’s also a ham radio “module” that is easily imported. The rest is fit, finish, and software. The PCB is fairly simple and inexpensive. A 3D-printed case completes things.
There is a new version of the PCB that hasn’t been tested as of this post, but the older version (1.5) seems to work ok, too, if you don’t want to risk trying the 1.6 version and you don’t want to wait.
We always marvel at how many building blocks you can get now. Grab a computer and a radio, and use your phone for power and a user interface. This would have been an enormous project to complete not long ago and now it is an hour’s time and $35. You’ll probably spend as much time ordering parts as building.
If your phone mostly trades cat memes, it fits right in with old
ham tech
. Just watch the
antenna
. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050847",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T20:39:28",
"content": "far out. a “ham radio module”. analog in, analog out, and a serial link with “AT” commands to select the frequency and filters.i was really imagining a “RTL-SDR” sort of board with a wifi interface as an... | 1,760,371,760.088319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/your-battery-holder-is-also-your-power-switch-with-toggleslot/ | Your Battery Holder Is Also Your Power Switch With ToggleSlot | Dave Rowntree | [
"PCB Hacks"
] | [
"cheap",
"cr2032",
"footprint",
"KiCAD",
"switch"
] | We really like PCB-level hacks, especially ones that show ingenuity in solving a real problem while being super cheap to implement. Hackaday.IO user [Steph] wanted a cheap way to switch a wearable on and off without having to keep popping out the battery, so they came up with a
tweaked battery footprint, which is also a simple slide switch
.
Most people making badges and wearables will follow the same well-trodden path of just yanking out the cell or placing some cheap switch down and swallowing the additional cost. For [Steph], the solution was obvious. By taking a standard surface-mount CR2032 button cell holder footprint, extending its courtyard vertically, and moving the negative pad up a smidge, the battery can be simply slid up to engage the pad and slid down to disengage and shut off the juice. The spring section of the positive terminal keeps enough pressure on the battery to prevent it from sliding out, but if you are worried, you can always add a dummy pad at the bottom, as well as a little solder bump to add a bit more security.
Now, why didn’t we think of this before? The KiCad footprint file can be downloaded from
the project GitHub page
, imported into your project and used straight away.
Many of our gadgets are powered by CR2032 cells—so many so that eliminating the need for them leads to interesting projects, like this
sweet USB-powered CR2032 eliminator
. But how far can you push the humble cell? Well, we
held a contest a few years ago to find out
! | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050822",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T18:47:26",
"content": "What a neat a simple solution!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8050827",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T19:11:31",
"content": "Ve... | 1,760,371,760.026236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/experimenting-with-micropython-on-the-bus-pirate-5/ | Experimenting With MicroPython On The Bus Pirate 5 | Chris Lott | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"Bus Pirate 5",
"micropython"
] | I recently got one of the new RP2040-based Bus Pirate 5 (BP5), a multi-purpose interface debugging and testing tool. Scanning the various such tools in my toolbox already: an Analog Discovery 2, a new Glasgow Interface Explorer, and a couple of pyboards, I realized they all had a Python or MicroPython user interface. A few people on the BP5 forums had tossed around the idea of MicroPython, and it just so happened that I was experimenting with building beta versions of MicroPython for a RP2350 board at the time. Naturally, I started wondering, “just how hard can it be to get MicroPython running on the BP5?”
The Lazy Approach
Rather than duplicating the BP5 firmware functionality, I decided to ignore it completely and go with existing MicroPython capabilities. I planned to just make a simple set of board definition files — perhaps Board Support Package (BSP) is a better term? I’ve done this a dozen times before for development and custom boards. Then write a collection of MicroPython modules to conform to the unique aspects in the BP5 hardware. As user [torwag] over on the Bus Pirate forums said back in March:
Micropython comes already with some modules and enough functions to get some stuff out-of-the-box working. E.g. the infamous version of “hello world” for microcontrollers aka led-blinking.
The Tailoring
The main interfaces to the BP5’s RP2040 MCU were apparently done with the Pico reference design in mind. That is why you can just load and run the latest RP2 MicroPython build without defining a custom board (note that this only worked with the current v1.24, and failed when I tried to load v1.23 using Thonny, something I did not investigate further). But there are some things that can be done to tweak the build, so I did go ahead and make set of custom board definition files for the BP5.
First I tried to tell MicroPython about the larger QSPI flash. This is a standard thing in configuring MicroPython, but I found an issue with the RP2. The Pico C SDK has a 2 GiB hard-coded flash limit in a linker script. One can fix this by hand editing and rebuilding the SDK, something I decided to leave for later. So I did all my testing using just 2 GiB of the flash.
Several of the customizations that I would normally make, like the serial interface pins assignments, were not necessary. The customization I
did
make was for help files. Since the intended application of this project is a manual debugging, I wanted the modules and functions to have help text. By default, MicroPython builds on the RP2 do not enable
__doc__
strings, but they can be re-enabled with a compiler directive. Unfortunately, while the
__doc__
strings are now retained, the build-in help() function doesn’t print them like CPython. The workaround is to add a help() function to each class. So instead of
help(adc)
you’t type
add.help()
.
Finally, I wanted to add a board top-level help screen, appending to the existing RP2 port help screen. That turned out to be much harder to do, and in the end, I just gave up doing that in the BP5 board definition folder. Instead, I kludged a couple of files in the RP2 port directory — ugly, but this is just an experiment after all.
The Interfaces
These are the basic interfaces of the BP5 hardware, and all of them are already or easily supported in MicroPython.
Eight Buffered IO pins
Programmable Power Supply
NAND flash 1 Gbit
IPS LCD screen, 320 x 240 pixels
18 RGB LEDs
Push button
Going for some instant gratification, I decided to drive the chain of LEDs around the perimeter of the unit first. The RP2 port of MicroPython already has a NeoPixel class. Once I sorted out the chained shift register I/O expansion circuitry, I was blinking LEDs in no time. The eight main buffered I/O signals posed a bit more of a challenge, because there are bidirectional logic level translators on each pin. After writing a I/O pin wrapper class around the regular MP Pin class to handle that aspect of the hardware, I realized that wasn’t quite enough.
But the digital I/O signals on the BP5 aren’t useful until you also control the adjustable voltage reference rail. That led to the Power supply class next, which in turn led to the Analog to Digital class to handle ADC operations. To do this, you need to control the analog MUX. And you need to drive the 74HC595 output expander shift register to select the desired analog MUX channel. No more instant gratification.
The shift register was pretty easy, as I have done this before. The only thing I noted was that there is no feedback, so you can’t read the current state. This requires instead that you keep a shadow register of the current output expander state.
Ian Lesnet, former Hackaday writer and creator of the Bus Pirate, did a great job documenting all of these hardware sections of the design. The resulting power supply circuit is quite flexible. In brief, voltage and current control are done using PWM outputs, and actual voltage and current are sensed using the RP2040’s internal ADCs via the MUX. In addition, a programmable current limit threshold triggers a power supply shutdown, which can be overridden or reset as desired.
The Display
The BP5 uses a two inch IPS TFT LCD having 240 x 320 pixel resolution. It is controlled using a Sitronix ST7789 over SPI. Having driven similar setups before from MicroPython, this was pretty easy. At first. I used the ST7789 library by Russ Hughes. The display was up and displaying text and running a few demo examples in short order.
The NAND Flash
Turning attention to the Micron MT29F1G01A 1 Gib (128 MiB) NAND flash next, I ran into some difficulty. Peter Hinch’s memory chip
driver library
seemed like a good start. But this chip isn’t on the list of already tested chips. I changed the scan function to recognized the Micron ID manufacturer’s byte codes, but after configuring the correct chip size, sector size, and block size parameters, it still didn’t work. After finally asking for help, Mr Hinch explained that my problem was the large 138 KiB block size of this chip. His library buffers one entire block, and 138 KiB is just too big for most microprocessors.
He pointed me to a non-buffered SPI
block device driver
by Robert Hammelrath. I tried this briefly, but gave up after a few hours because I was spending too much time on this chip. This is a solvable problem, but not strictly needed for this goals of this experimental project.
The Images
Speaking of wasting time, I spent way too much time on this part of the project. Not because it was necessary, but just because it was just cool. My idea was a pong-like demo where an icon moves around the screen, rebounding off the screen edges. These LCD screen driver chips use a packed pixel format, RGB565. I found a tool on GitHub called
rgb565-converter
which converts PNG images to and from RGB565 format in C++ format. I forked and heavily modified this to generate Python code as well, in addition to 4-bit grayscale format as well. The animated GIF shows this in action.
The Wrap-up
I enjoyed making this project, and learned a few more things about MicroPython along the way. I knew that the STM32 and the ESP8266 / ESP32 families had been supported by MicroPython almost since the beginning, and that the Pico RP2040 was a relative newcomer to the ecosystem. But I was surprised when I stumbled on
this talk by founder Damien George
about the history of the project at the 2023 PyCon Australia conference. He shows some statistics collected over 8 years of downloads broken down by microprocessor family. The RP2040 has been extremely popular since its introduction, quickly surpassing all other families.
MicroPython Monthly Downloads by MCU Family, provided by [Damien George]
This project presented a few frustrating issues, none of which would be showstoppers if this approach were to be developed further. I continue to be impressed by the number of people in the MicroPython community who have developed a wide variety of support libraries and continue to work on the project to this day.
Which begs the question, does the idea of MicroPython on the Bus Pirate even make sense? The existing C-based Bus Pirate firmware is now well established and works well for its intended purpose — quick explorations of an interface from the command line. Would a alternate MicroPython build benefit the community or just waste people’s limited development hours?
There could be some way to create an MicroPython implementation without duplicating a lot of code. The existing BP5 firmware could be treated as a library, and compiled with various C to MicroPython shim functions to create an extensively customized build. That is beyond my MicroPython experience for now, but it might be worth consideration.
Bus Pirate 5
Another way would be just build a set of “big Python” classes to represent the BP5 on the desktop. This module would talk to the BP5 using the existing serial / USB port protocol, potentially requiring no firmware modifications at all. This seems like a good idea in general, since it allows users to easily script operations from the desktop using Python, and still retain the original capabilities of the BP5 in standalone operation.
The code for this project and associated documentation can be found
here on GitHub
. You can build your own binary if you want, but one is provided in the repository. And as [torwag] said back in March, you can just run the factory RP2040 MicroPython as well. In my testing, the only thing you’ll miss are the help messages.
If you want to learn more about MicroPython, visit
their website
and
GitHub repository
. Pre-built binaries are available for many standard development boards, and instructions on building it for a custom boards are quite clear and easy to follow. I’ve heard rumors that docker containers may be available soon, to make the building process even easier. Visit the
Bus Pirate website
and corresponding
GitHub repository
to learn more about the latest Bus Pirate 5 project.
Hackaday’s own
Tom Nardi did an extensive hands-on review
of BP5 upon its release the release of the Bus Pirate 5 back in February. Also Arya Voronova has written several articles on MicroPython, including
this one
on the eleventh anniversary of the project. Do you use MicroPython? What’s your take on the idea of using it with the Bus Pirate 5? | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050818",
"author": "A",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T18:14:56",
"content": "I know “constomizations” was probably a spelling mistake, but I rather like the idea of a portmanteau of constant and customization being the initial changes you always make to a particular device.",
"paren... | 1,760,371,760.217131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/mapping-a-fruit-flys-brain-with-crowdsourced-research/ | Mapping A Fruit Fly’s Brain With Crowdsourced Research | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"brain mapping",
"drosophila melanogaster",
"fruit fly"
] | Example of a graph representation of one identified network with connections coded by neurotransmitter types. (Credit: Amy Sterling, Murthy and Seung Labs, Princeton University)
Compared to the human brain, a fruit fly (
Drosophila melanogaster
) brain is positively miniscule, not only in sheer volume, but also with a mere 140,000 or so neurons and 50 million synapses. Despite this relative simplicity, figuring out how the brain of such a tiny fly works is still an ongoing process. Recently a big leap forward was made
thanks to crowdsourced research
, resulting in the
FlyWire connectome
map. Starting with high-resolution electron microscope data, the connections between the individual neurons (the connectome) was painstakingly pieced together, also using computer algorithms, but with validation by a large group of human volunteers using a game-like platform called EyeWire to perform said validation.
This work also includes identifying cell types, with over 8,000 different cell types identified. Within the full connectome subcircuits were identified, as part of an effort to create an ‘effectome’, i.e. a functional model of the physical circuits. With the finished adult female fruit fly connectome in hand, groups of researchers can now use it to make predictions and put these circuits alongside experimental contexts to connect activity in specific parts of the connectome to specific behavior of these flies.
Perhaps most interesting is how creating a game-like environment made the tedious work of reverse-engineering the brain wiring into something that the average person could help with, drastically cutting back the time required to create this connectome. Perhaps that crowdsourced research can also help with the ongoing
process to map the human brain
, even if that ups the scale of the dataset by many factors. Until we learn more, at this point even comprehending a fruit fly’s brain may conceivably give us many hints which could speed up understanding the human brain.
Featured image: “
Drosophila Melanogaster Proboscis
” by [Sanjay Acharya] | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050802",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T16:57:55",
"content": "Hm. The 80286 processor has ‘merely’ 134 000 transistors and can run a sophisticated multitasking system such as OS/2.Which in turn leads to the software question. Is the ‘programming’ of the fly known, by... | 1,760,371,760.369661 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/ubiquitous-successful-bus-version-2/ | Ubiquitous Successful Bus: Version 2 | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"usb",
"usb 2",
"USB 3",
"usbc"
] | I’ve talked
a fair bit
about
USB-C
before, explaining how it all works, from many different angles. That said, USB-C is just the physical connector standard, plus the PD part that takes care of voltages and altmodes – things like data transfer are still delegated to the two interfaces you invariably end up using on USB-C ports, USB 2, and USB 3.
You might think USB 2 and USB 3 are tightly related, but in many crucial ways, they couldn’t be more different. I have experience working with both, and, as you might guess, I want to share it all with you. You might be surprised to hear there’s plenty to learn about USB 2 in particular – after all, we’ve had it hang around for 30 years now. Well, let’s make sure you’re fully caught up!
The Ingredients
USB 2 is a point-to-point link – one side is “host” and another is “device”, with the host typically being a PC chipset or a single-board computer. USB 2 relies on a single pseudodifferential pair. It’s “pseudodifferential” because the wires don’t just do differential signaling – they also use digital logic levels and pullup/pulldown resistors to signal device presence, especially in the beginning when the USB link is still getting established. Indeed, you can
imitate a USB device’s presence
with just a resistor.
This differential pair is half-duplex – it’s used for communications back and forth, but only one direction of data transfer at a time. Just like I2C, USB 2 requires the host to initiate all communications. The host has to poll the devices on a regular basis to receive data, a point that regularly gets brought up by defenders of PS/2 keyboards.
You know that USB ports come with a a 5 V power rail, but there are plenty of 3.3 V USB devices, too – in fact, most USB devices operate on 3.3 V internally. At its core, USB 2 requires 3.3 V-based signaling – which is why, when powering your RP2040 from 1.8 V, you must still provide 3.3 V if you want the USB peripheral to work.
An old flash drive, with a 12MHz crystal front and center. By
[Tod Kurt],
CC BY 2.0
You need reasonably accurate clocks to talk USB 2, which is why everyone ends up adding a 12 MHz crystal to their USB projects even when they have an internal RC oscillator. Some devices like cheap USB hub ICs boast an internal RC oscillator that supposedly works for USB transfers, but if you want to use it, you should test it well before you try and rely on it – it could be a path towards USB data transfer errors. Thankfully, 12 MHz crystals are more than abundant, and more than cheap enough.
In short – if you plan to put USB devices on your board, get some 12 MHz crystals and you’ll likely be well-prepared. Why the 12 MHz specifically? It’s directly related to a common USB 2 device speed, of which there are three.
The Three Generations
You might have heard of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 standards, supposedly, being entirely different beasts – that’s true, but nowadays this distinction can be misleading. In practice, there are three versions of USB 2 you should actually distinguish.
These three versions are: low-speed at
1.5 Mbps
, full-speed at
12 Mbps
, and high-speed at
480 Mbps
. The USB 1.1 standard only described the 1.5 Mbps “low-speed” and 12 Mbps “full-speed” devices. The USB 2.0 standard covers both of these modes, too, but also adds the 480 Mbps “high-speed” mode, which operates quite differently on the hardware level, and a number of other improvements. Modern devices are most often USB 2.0, even if they’re 1.5 Mbps or 12 Mbps, which is why I don’t use USB 1 to refer to these kinds of devices – it’s rarely true.
Which speed is this “USB 2.0” hub? Well, it could be any of the three – plug it in and find out. In my experience, this particular hub is unlikely to be well-built.
By [メイド理世],
CC BY-SA 4.0
In fact, I’ve just checked, and all of my 12 Mbps USB devices report compatibility with USB 2.0 standard – my Logitech Unifying receiver, the internal Bluetooth adapter of my Intel WiFI card, and a USB-C 3.5 mm jack DAC from Apple. By the way, you can learn about your plugged-in USB devices and their speeds on Linux using
lsusb -t
and
lsusb -v
, and on Windows, you can use something like HWInfo. Bottom line is – the device speed is what matters, and the standard version doesn’t matter as much, whether it’s 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, or a secret fourth thing.
Flash drives and Ethernet or WiFi adapters are bound to be 480 Mbps, whereas devices like mice, keyboards, fingerprint readers, or USB-UART adapters are typically 12 Mbps. The three speed standards are expected to be compatible between each other – for instance, 480 Mbps devices are expected to be able to fall back to lower speeds if needed, and 480 Mbps hosts are designed to support 12 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps devices. The USB guarantee is that you can plug anything into anything, and generally, it works out.
Microcontrollers, sadly, rarely reach 480 Mbps on their USB peripherals, as much as that would make all our Pi Pico logic analyzers shine. There’s some fundamental reasons for this – 480 Mbps signaling is entirely different from 12 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps, with the 480 Mbps signal looking much more like a modern day differential pair, and 12 Mbps signal being firmly 3.3 V-referenced, in effect, a logic level signal a la UART. This is why you can easily capture lower-speed USB with a logic analyzer or
a Pi Pico
, but you can’t do that for 480 Mbps anymore.
Of course, some hosts don’t handle the inter-speed compatibility aspect well. This is generally a matter of driver support – famously, the Raspberry Pi 1 Model A, without the onboard USB hub and Ethernet chip, initially didn’t work well with mice and keyboards and other low-speed devices on its sole USB port. Specifically, its only USB port that was connected directly to the SoC. On the far more popular Model B, the onboard USB hub acted as a “proxy” of sorts, handling the lower-speed USB devices internally while keeping a full-speed link to the SoC, so the SoC on the Model B only actually talked to a single full-speed device and the driver issues never surfaced. The driver quality has come a long way, and the Pi Zero no longer experiences this problem, however, but other devices of yours might – if that’s the case, remember that you can always add a hub in between.
On the other hand, over a dozen years ago, when high-speed 480Mbps devices became more popular, PC front panel cabling was often designed for the somewhat more lax physical requirements of lower-speed USB, and even stretching those requirements. Remember the advice to plug your USB device directly into the motherboard port if it’s not working well? Often, the shoddily built front panel cable was the reason for that. Not to mention that most front panel boards never had any capacitors on them, something that dramatically helps your USB device stability when you’re adding a host port.
Oh, and the usual reminder, these data rate numbers are mega
bits
(Mb) per second. If you want mega
bytes
(MB) per second, you want to divide by 8, and then some more because of the data transfer overhead. In practice, if you have a 480 Mbps flash drive, expect transfer speeds of 30 MB per second or so; same goes for USB2 WiFi and Ethernet adapters, of course. This was another well-known problem with Raspberry Pi boards before Pi 4 – lowered transfer speeds when using Ethernet and USB devices at the same time, since all of them had to go through a single 480 Mbps link to the SoC. Then, with the Pi 4, the SoC acquired a PCIe link and a separate GMII link for Ethernet, and nowadays this complaint is history.
Conventions, Pinouts, Colours
Follow these colours and pinout as much as possible. Based on drawing by [Fred the Oyster],
CC BY-SA 4.0
USB2 has a well defined standard for wire colours and connector pinout. You shall try and preserve both the colours and the pinout as much as possible, because such conventions help everyone involved. Debugging a device for hours because you confused ground with data, or burning up devices because you mixed up power wires – these scenarios are disastrous and entirely preventable if you stick to the colors that everyone uses!
Red and black are 5 V power and ground – a good ground connection is required for USB to work. Wondering just how much current you get? The answer is, 500 mA is guaranteed, and 1 A to 2 A is exceptionally likely; I’ve talked about it in more detail
in this article.
Green and white are
D+
and
D-
, the two pins in the diffpair. Again, preserve these colours where possible! Cables are very likely to follow these specifications, and if you memorize the colours, you can easily wire up your own tech in no time. You can remember the colours through a mnemonic – green is summer (life,
+
), and white is winter (death,
-
). The standard pinout for USB-A and MicroUSB/MiniUSB connectors is
VCC
–
D-
–
D+
–
GND
, and it’s easy to remember too – you sit next to a fireplace (power) in winter, you go to the beach (ground) in the summer.
A USB standard, or a warcrime? Who’s to say. Though, maybe it’s my anti-HDMI bias speaking.
By [C0nanPayne],
CC BY-SA 4.0
MicroUSB (and MiniUSB) has an
ID
pin right next to GND, a pin originally intended for indicating whether your phone’s MicroUSB socket should switch into host mode, and later growing into a proprietary mess of a pin. In those dark times, it was used for video over MicroUSB standards like MHL, debug port summoning
using bespoke resistor values,
and even combined charging and host modes – none of it documented or prominent in any reasonable way. You rarely ever need to bother with the ID pin – nowadays, USB-C does that the ID pin ever could and way more, and it’s clear the primitive proprietary ID pin signaling standards have inspired the well-structured standard that is USB PD.
Unlike some nice standards like PCIe and USB 2, you have to connect
+
to
+
and
-
to
-
, no crossing wires. It won’t hurt anything electrically if you flip them, though, so if you’re reverse-engineering a device with USB 2 on a custom connector, feel free to connect it one way, plug it in, check
dmesg
or Device Manager. If you see enumeration faults, just unplug, flip the wires, and plug it in again. One warning, don’t solder on the data wires of a device plugged in, that can easily kill your device! A flipped connection where both wires still make contact is guaranteed to still result in enumeration, just that it will error out – you can use that as a way to check your connections, too.
Which connector do you use for USB2 on your own devices? Without a doubt,
USB-C is the best
and most universal choice; don’t be like Raspberry Pi Foundation with Pi Pico boards, forcing us to tap into our ever so dwindling supply of microUSB cables. Remember, you only need two 5.1 kΩ resistors (or 4.7 kΩ, or two pairs of 10 kΩ in parallel) to properly implement a USB-C device port, or two 51 kΩ resistors to implement a host port. Don’t be a fool, USB-C your tools.
What if you want an embedded USB port, in a low footprint? My advice: you should put USB on JST-SH sockets, just like QWIIC, which is an I2C-on-JST-SH connector and pinout standard
that you should also use.
I used to put USB on the JST-SH pins in a way that mimicks the USB-A pinout, but now, I use a riff on the QWIIC pinout –
GND
–
VCC
–
D+
–
D-
. Yes, I told you to use a pinout, but this one is for a good cause – it avoids killing devices if you accidentally plug a QWIIC device into a USB JST-SH port, or vice-versa.
Bringing USB2 Places
You can pull a USB 2 link for up to five meters, in theory, though three or four meters is way more likely. Two meters is the longest that you usually see in USB2 cables on the market. You’ll want seriously proper cables for five meters, of course, because that’s where things start to get touchy. When it comes to link quality, USB 2 can take a beating – until it can’t.
You might have seen USB 2 operate in some pretty bad conditions – dirt cheap USB hubs routed on a single-layer cardboard-backed PCBs, no impedance matching whatsoever. Indeed, you can get away with this more often than not. However, if you’re pushing USB 2 to its 480 Mbps limit, maybe you’re just putting a hub on your board and exposing some ports, beware – you might just get an unpleasant surprise in the shape of USB errors in your OS logs. By the way, on Linux, you can check for these errors by looking in
dmesg
– run
dmesg -Hw
to get a view on what’s happening with your kernel, including any USB errors that might occur.
The RP2040 with its 12 Mbps max speed might not have to impedance match, though the Pi Pico does, but if you’re designing a hub and you want stable 480 Mbps, you should certainly remove length differences between tracks in the USB 2 differential pair, and at least attempt to impedance match your tracks – again,
treat your diffpairs with respect.
Off the board, same goes for making sure your D+ and D- wires are a twisted pair.
That’s enough for today – next time, let’s talk about ESD diodes, USB2 hubs, connectors, debug tools, bitbanging, descriptors, and a fair bit more. At the same time, let’s explore USB3 – USB2’s younger sibling, so alike yet very different. | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051395",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T17:24:05",
"content": "“[…]I want to share it all with you.”Thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051404",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
... | 1,760,371,760.31312 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/the-fnirsi-hrm-10-internal-resistance-meter/ | The FNIRSI HRM-10 Internal Resistance Meter | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"4-wire",
"battery",
"Kelvin connection",
"resistance",
"review",
"tester"
] | Occasionally, we find fun new electronic instruments in the wild and can’t resist sharing them with our readers. The item in question is the FNIRSI HRM-10 Internal resistance meter,
which we show here being reviewed by [JohnAudioTech]
.
So what does it do, and why would you want one? The device is designed to measure batteries so you can quickly determine their health. Its operating principle also allows it to do a decent job of measuring low-resistance parts, which is not necessarily as easy to achieve with the garden variety multimeter, especially the low-end ones. We reckon it would be useful in the field for checking the resistance of switches and relays, possibly in automotive or industrial applications. The four-pin connector is needed because there are two wires per probe, making a Kelvin (also known as four-wire) connection.
Likely, the operating principle is to apply a varying load to the battery under test and then measure the voltage drop. The slope of the voltage sag vs load is a reasonable estimate of the resistance of the source, at least for the applied voltage range. The Kelvin connection uses one pair of wires to apply the test current from a relatively low-impedance source and the second pair to measure the voltage with a high input impedance. That way, the resistance of the probe wires can be calibrated out, giving a much more accurate measurement. Many lab-grade measurement equipment works this way.
Circling back to the HRM-10, [John] notes that it also supports limit testing, making it a helpful gauging tool for the workbench when sorting through many batteries. Data logging and the ability to upload to a computer completes the feature set, which is quite typical for this level of product now. Gone are the days of keeping a manual logbook next to the instrument stack and writing everything down by hand!
We’ve touched on
measuring battery internal resistance before
, but it was a while ago. Regarding Kelvin connections, here’s
a quick guide
and a hack
upgrading a cheap LCR to support 4-wire probes
. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051389",
"author": "WereCatf",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T16:30:02",
"content": "Nifty!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051414",
"author": "Gary Camp",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T18:49:56",
"content": "what is the pric... | 1,760,371,760.4287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/mining-and-refining-mine-dewatering/ | Mining And Refining: Mine Dewatering | Dan Maloney | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"dewatering",
"ground freezing",
"grout",
"open-pit",
"pump",
"water",
"water table",
"workings"
] | From space, the most striking feature of our Pale Blue Dot is exactly what makes it blue: all that water. About three-quarters of the globe is covered with liquid water, and our atmosphere is a thick gaseous soup laden with water vapor. Almost everywhere you look there’s water, and even where there’s no obvious surface water, chances are good that more water than you could use in a lifetime lies just below your feet, and accessing it could be as easy as an afternoon’s work with a shovel.
And therein lies the rub for those who delve into the Earth’s depths for the minerals and other resources we need to function as a society — if you dig deep enough, water is going to become a problem. The Earth’s crust holds something like 44 million cubic kilometers of largely hidden water, and it doesn’t take much to release it from the geological structures holding it back and restricting its flow. One simple mineshaft chasing a coal seam or a shaft dug in the wrong place, and suddenly all the hard-won workings are nothing but flooded holes in the ground. Add to that the enormous open-pit mines dotting the surface of the planet that resemble nothing so much as empty lakes waiting to fill back up with water if given a chance, and the scale of the problem water presents to mining operations becomes clear.
Dewatering mines is a complex engineering problem, one that intersects and overlaps multiple fields of expertise. Geotechnical engineers work alongside mining engineers, hydrogeologists, and environmental engineers to devise cost-effective ways to control the flow of water into mines, redirect it when they can, and remove it when there’s no alternative.
An Old Problem
You’d be forgiven for thinking that dewatering mines is just about building and installing big pumps; that’s pretty much where I was when I started researching this article in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s recent unwelcome visit to Appalachia and the potential destruction of the quartz mines at Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The mines there are the world’s single source for ultra-pure natural quartz, and flooding from the two feet (60 cm) of rain Helene dumped there
threatened to shut down the semiconductor industry
, thanks to the lack of natural quartz needed for the crucibles that turn raw silicon into high-purity wafers via
the Czochralski process
.
Luckily, the Spruce Pine mines somehow
dodged that bullet
, but the whole thing got me thinking about dewatering. I knew that pumping water out of mines went back at least to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, with getting rid of water from coal mines being one of the driving forces behind the invention of the steam engine. Thomas Newcomen’s atmospheric engines were put to use pumping out coal mines in the West Midlands of England and tin mines in Cornwall as early as 1712.
Inefficient, but effective. A Newcomen atmospheric engine, similar to the ones that powered dewatering pumps for mines early in the Industrial Revolution.
Early dewatering efforts were a brute-force affair, with the massive rocking arms of remarkably inefficient steam engines pulling pistons up and down inside pipes, lifting water to the surface and dumping it onto the ground to drain into streams and lakes. The pumps only needed to move water faster than it flowed into the mine, and woe betide the engineer who let his engine lag behind or fail completely so that the mine flooded. To make things worse, the water that was ejected from these mines was often quite polluted, especially in geological formations that resulted in the acidification of floodwaters. Spilling toxic and acidic tailings water onto the surface is famously destructive to the environment, a topic of much less concern back then.
Current dewatering processes are much more mindful of the environmental impact of pumping contaminated water onto the surface, and are also sensitive to the incredible costs of running pumps and water treatment plants around the clock. These days, a lot more effort goes into controlling and managing water before it ever gets into the mine’s workings, and passive methods of dewatering are favored wherever possible. It also matters very much what kind of mine is being dewatered; while the basic processes are similar for open-pit versus underground mines, there are important differences.
Underground mines generally have the advantage of penetrating below the local water table. If the mine’s workings are sufficiently far below the groundwater layer and the rock between them is relatively impervious, the mine might be naturally dry. That’s rarely the case, though, as the shafts and ramps that pass through the water table generally liberate water that then flows into the lower parts of the mine, eventually flooding it to the level of the water table. Sometimes it’s possible to mitigate this by drilling wells into the local water table further up the hydraulic grade; the clean water pumped from these wells causes a “cone of depression” in the local water table, lowering it enough to reduce the flow of water into the well to a manageable level.
In other cases, it may be possible to create an impervious barrier between the porous water-bearing rocks and the mine’s workings. The idea here is to redirect the water, preferably so that it finds other hydraulic paths of less resistance rather than flooding into the workings. Grouting mine workings can use cementitious materials like so-called “shotcrete,” a thin concrete that can be sprayed onto rock surfaces. Other grouting jobs are best accomplished with polymeric materials like urethane resins. No matter what material is used, water is kept from entering the workings thanks to drainage pipes and adits built between the water table rocks and the inside of the applied impervious barrier. The redirected water collects in local sumps, where large electric pumps send it out of the mine for processing.
Big Digs
One interesting way to mitigate the flow of water into workings that penetrate the water table is by freezing it. Ground freezing has been used to stabilize wet soils on construction sites for years, with the technique gaining fame during the Boston “Big Dig” megaproject, which buried sections of Interstates 90 and 93 in the saturated fill that most of Boston is built upon. Ground freezing uses massive refrigeration plants to circulate chilled brine in pipes buried in the wet soil, freezing it solid. In mine dewatering, ground freezing is often used around a shaft or ramp passing through the water table. The drawback to ground freezing is the need to operate a refrigeration plant around the clock, but in some instances, it’s more cost-effective than grouting or other passive methods.
Open-pit mines present their own dewatering challenges. By definition, open-pit mines are near the surface and therefore closer to the local water table, which tends to be within the first few hundred meters from the surface. Open-pit mines also tend to disrupt much more surface area of the water table, as opposed to the numerous but relatively small penetrations caused by underground shafts and tunnels. There’s also the compounding problem that open-pit mines are exposed to the elements, meaning that precipitation into the mine and runoff from the local catchment area can introduce massive amounts of water, all of which has to be managed.
Open-pit uranium mine in Australia. Despite the arid climate, water is still a problem. The pit at the lowest level of the mine is the sump; water that accumulates there is either pumped out to water treatment plants and retention ponds on the surface, allowed to evaporate in situ, or re-infiltrated in the soil below the mine workings by infiltration wells. Source: Adobe Stock.
As with underground mining, dewatering open-pit mines starts with preventing as much water as possible from entering the workings in the first place. Surface berms and swales are often constructed around the perimeter of the mine to control and direct storm runoff into retention ponds, where water can evaporate naturally. Also, dewatering wells are often drilled vertically around the perimeter of the mine, and sometimes horizontally from the walls of the mine into the local water table, to intercept water flowing in the local water table before it enters the mine. Passive dewatering techniques are also used, such as filling cracks with grout or sealants.
The importance of removing water from open-pit mines can’t be overstated. Excess water is a real problem in terms of mine productivity; wet material is heavy, and the huge haulers that bring material up to the surface have to work harder to carry something the mine will make no profit from. Also, the pressure exerted by water in the soil tends to reduce the mechanical strength of the material, making it necessary to cut the walls at a shallower angle than in dry material. That results in removing far more overburden to get to the producing ore body, which might be the difference between a profitable mine and an expensive hole in the ground.
Underground Guitars
Monitoring pore pressure in the groundwater around a mine is one of the biggest parts of dewatering, so much so that mines will install far-flung networks of pressure sensors in and around their workings. The data gathered from these networks not only helps decide where to concentrate dewatering resources, but also serves to monitor how well those efforts are paying off, and to help redirect resources in case the hydrogeological environment changes over time, as it is likely to do.
The chief instrument used today for monitoring pore pressure in mining operations is the piezometer. From the name, one imagines these devices measure water pressure thanks to a piezoelectric transducer. And while there are piezometers that approach, the more common piezometers in use today are of the vibrating wire type. Vibrating wire piezometers, or VWPs, are similar to electric guitars. A thin steel wire is tensioned between a fixed point and a flexible diaphragm. The diaphragm is exposed to the environment, often through a filter to keep debris in the groundwater from getting packed against the diaphragm. The wire’s tension varies as the diaphragm is deflected by water pressure, which changes its resonant frequency. A coil of wire surrounding the steel wire serves to both excite it, like plucking a guitar string, and as a pickup for the resulting vibrations. The higher the pressure outside, the further the diaphragm deflects, which lowers the tension on the string and results in a lower “note” when excited.
VWPs are expected to operate under extreme conditions, so they’re built to last. Most are built from stainless steel cases that can survive inside deep boreholes, and some are even made to be driven into soil directly. Most VWPs include on-board thermistors to adjust pressure readings for the temperature of the water, as well as gas-discharge tubes to protect the sensors and the drivers they’re connected to from lightning strikes and other electrical discharges. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051369",
"author": "Spazer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T15:06:01",
"content": "Love informative articles like this.For some reason the engineering around water and the movement of it is of great fascination to me.Thanks for compiling this information!",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,371,760.498668 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/what-would-it-take-to-recreate-bell-labs/ | What Would It Take To Recreate Bell Labs? | Maya Posch | [
"History"
] | [
"bell labs",
"research"
] | It’s been said that the best way to stifle creativity by researchers is to demand that they produce immediately marketable technologies and products. This is also effectively the story of Bell Labs, originally founded as Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. in January 1925. As an integral part of AT&T and Western Electric, it enjoyed immense funding and owing to the stable financial situation of AT&T very little pressure to produce results. This led to the development of a wide range of technologies like the transistor, laser, photovoltaic cell, charge-coupled cell (CCD), Unix operating system and so on. After the break-up of AT&T, however, funding dried up and with it the discoveries that had once made Bell Labs such a famous entity. Which raises
the question of what it would take
to create a new Bell Labs?
As described in the article by [Brian Potter], one aspect of Bell Labs that made it so successful was that the researchers employed there could easily spend a few years tinkering on something that tickled their fancy, whether in the field of semiconductors, optics, metallurgy or something else entirely. There was some pressure to keep research focused on topics that might benefit the larger company, but that was about it, as the leadership knew that sometimes new technologies can take a few years or decades to come to fruition.
Bell Labs Nobel prizes: comparing year winner was hired vs year of discovery. (Credit: Brian Potter, Construction Physics)
All of this came to a rapid stop following the 1982 court-ordered breakup of AT&T. Despite initial optimism at Bell Labs that things could remain much the same, over the following years Bell Labs would be split up repeatedly, with the 1996 spinning off of Western Electric into Lucent Technologies that took much of Bell Labs with it being the first of many big splits, ending for now with five pieces, with Nokia Bell Labs (formerly Lucent Bell Labs) and AT&T Labs being the largest two. To nobody’s surprise, among all these changes funding for fundamental and theoretical research effectively vanished.
A blue LED held up by its inventor, [Shuji Nakamura].
The article then raises the question of whether Bell Labs was a historical fluke that could exist solely due to a number of historical coincidences, or that we could create a new ‘Bell Labs’ today. Theoretically billion-dollar companies such as Google and Apple are more than capable of doing such a thing, and to a certain extent they also are, funding a wide range of seemingly unrelated technologies and business endeavors.
Ultimately Bell Labs would seem to have been at least partially a product of unique historical circumstances, especially the highly specialized field of telecommunications before the same transistors and other technologies that Bell Labs invented would make such technological fields something that anyone could get started in. It’s possible that even without court order, AT&T would have found itself facing stiff competition by the 1990s.
The short answer to the original question of whether Bell Labs could be recreated today is thus a likely ‘no’, while the long answer would be ‘No, but we can create a Bell Labs suitable for today’s technology landscape’. Ultimately the idea of giving researchers leeway to tinker is one that is not only likely to get big returns, but passionate researchers will go out of their way to circumvent the system to work on this one thing that they are interested in. We saw this for example with [Shuji Nakamura], who cracked
the way to make efficient blue LEDs
, despite every effort by his employer to make his research unnecessarily difficult.
If there’s one thing that this world needs more of, it are researchers like Nakamura-san, and the freedom for them to pursue these passions. That, ultimately could be said to be the true recreation of Bell Labs. | 45 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051319",
"author": "SayWhat?",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T11:29:30",
"content": "Unfortunately corps today are effectively run by big shareholders who demand profits every quarter and don’t give a shit about fundamental research that may turn up something interesting",
"parent_id... | 1,760,371,760.58832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/read-all-about-it-the-2024-supercon-site-is-live/ | Read All About It: The 2024 Supercon Site Is Live | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"2024 Hackaday Supercon"
] | With the 2024 Hackaday Supercon just a couple weeks away, we’re pleased to announce that the
official site for the three-day event is now live!
On the brand-new Supercon page, you can find a listing of all of our fantastic speakers, the hands-on workshops, and perhaps most importantly, the schedule of when everything is happening. As always, Supercon is jam-packed with incredible content, so you’ll want to consult with the schedule to navigate your way through it. Don’t worry if it ends up that two talks you want to see are scheduled for the same time — we’ll be recording all of the talks and releasing them on the Hackaday YouTube channel, so you won’t miss out.
If you’re still on the fence, we do have a
few tickets left at the time of this writing
. All of the workshops are full at this point, but you can still get on the waiting list for a few of them just in case a spot opens up. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051396",
"author": "Jon",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T17:29:22",
"content": "do we have any badge spec/info yet?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8051594",
"author": "davedarko",
"timestamp": "2024-10-18T10:18:07"... | 1,760,371,762.771416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/diy-core-rope-memory-z80-demonstrator-generating-a-fibonacci-sequence/ | DIY Core Rope Memory Z80 Demonstrator Generating A Fibonacci Sequence | Dave Rowntree | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"Core rope memory",
"diy",
"fibonacci sequence",
"rom",
"veroboard",
"z80"
] | We’ve seen a few retro products using core rope memory, such as telephone autodiallers. Obviously, we’ve covered the Apollo program computers, but we don’t think we’ve seen a complete and functional DIY computer using core rope memory for program storage until now. [P-lab]
presents their take on the technology using it to store the program for a Z80-based microprocessor demoboard
, built entirely through-hole on a large chunk of veroboard.
For the uninitiated, core rope memory is a simple form of ROM where each core represents a bit in the data word. Each wire represents a single program location. Passing a wire through the core sets the corresponding bit to a logic 1, else 0. These wires are excited with an AC waveform, which is coupled to the cores that host a wire, passing along the signal to a pickup coil. This forms an array of rudimentary transformers. All that is needed is a rectifier/detector to create a stable logic signal to feed onto the data bus.
For this to work as a ROM with the Z80, the address bus is decoded to 16 individual lines using a CMOS 4515 4-16 decoder. These lines each drive a 2n2222 NPN transistor, pulling one end of the associated address wire to ground. The other ends of all address wires are tied to a common AC-coupled oscillator based around our good friend, the 555 timer. A simple rectifier is formed for each core sense circuit with a BAT85 Schottky diode and a 1 nF capacitor, which passes the sense signal along to a CMOS 4508 dual 4-bit latch. The output of which is passed back to the Z80 data bus via some multiplexing logic. Other than some indicator LEDs on the data bus, the only other IO or indication on this board are a couple of 7-segment displays. Obviously, the ROM is limited to a meagre 16 bytes of storage, making a meaningful demo rather limited. Luckily, it’s possible to code a Fibonacci sequence generator in that space, including driving the output latch to update the display. We wonder now what else could be made to fit in such a restricted code?
We covered DIY core rope memories before, like
here
and
here
; they’re not news to us. Compare and contrast a
DIY magnetic core memory
. Less efficient at this scale? We think so, too.
thanks to [Giuseppe] and [Survival Hacking] for the tip! | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051298",
"author": "kołtun f",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T09:04:55",
"content": "why not creating this board and electronic element on mobius?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051309",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,371,762.421055 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/16/winamp-taken-down-too-good-for-this-open-source-world/ | Winamp Taken Down: Too Good For This Open Source World | Jenny List | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"open source",
"takedown",
"winamp"
] | If you picked today in your hackerspace’s sweepstake on when Winamp would pull their code repository, congratulations! You’re a winner! The source for the Windows version of the venerable music player was released on GitHub three weeks ago, and after some derision over its licence terms, a bunch of possible open source violations, and the inadvertent release of some proprietary third-party code,
it’s been taken down
. We’re sure that if you still have a burning desire to look at it then it won’t be too difficult to find a copy through your favorite search engine, leaving the question of what really just happened.
It’s fairly obvious that the owners of the code lacked some level of understanding of just what open source really is, based on
their not-really-open licence
and all those code leaks.
They did back down
on not allowing people to create forks, but it’s evident that they didn’t anticipate the reaction they got. So were they merely a bit clueless, or was it all just a publicity stunt involving a piece of software that’s now of more historical than practical interest? It’s possible we’ll never know, but the story has provided those of us sitting on the fence eating popcorn with some entertainment. | 58 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8051233",
"author": "Crabvergence",
"timestamp": "2024-10-17T02:14:33",
"content": "Interesting insights from someone who (allegedly) was inside this circus show.“I worked at Winamp till this February. I was the one that suggested the we’d open-source all the player code that belong... | 1,760,371,762.73278 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/breaking-news-2024-supercon-sao-contest-deadline-extended/ | Breaking News: 2024 Supercon SAO Contest Deadline Extended | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"2024 Hackaday Superconference",
"2024 Supercon SAO Contest",
"sao",
"Supercon"
] | More than a couple folks have written us saying that their entries into
the Supercon Add-On Contest
got caught up in the Chinese fall holidays. Add to that our tendency to wait until the last minute, and there still more projects out there that we’d like to see. So we’re extending the deadline one more week, until October 22nd.
AND!XOR Doom SAO from years past.
If you’re just tuning in now, well, you’ve got some catching up to do. Supercon Add-Ons are another step forward in the tradition of renaming
the original SAO
. One of
our favorite resources on the subject
comes from prolific SAO designer [Twinkle Twinkie], and you can even download PCB footprints over there on Hackaday.io.
Don’t know why you want to make an SAO? Even if you’re not coming to Supercon this year? Well, our own [Tom Nardi]
describes it as a low barrier to entry, full-stack hardware design and production tutorial
. Plus, you’ll have something to trade with like-minded hardware nerds at the next con you attend.
We’ve already seen some killer artistic entries, but we want to see yours! We know the time’s tight, but you can still get in a last minute board run if you get started today. And those of you who are sitting at home waiting for boards to arrive, wipe that sweat from your brow. We’ll catch up with you next Tuesday! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050857",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T21:00:47",
"content": "I hope the extension brings in a bunch more SAOs!(Unfortunately, I won’t be one of the submitters.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,762.180985 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/antirtos-no-rtos-needed/ | ANTIRTOS: No RTOS Needed | Dave Rowntree | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"c++",
"function pointers",
"interrupts",
"queue",
"RTOS",
"scheduling"
] | Embedded programming is a tricky task that looks straightforward to the uninitiated, but those with a few decades of experience know differently. Getting what you want to work predictably or even fit into the target can be challenging. When you get to a certain level of complexity, breaking code down into multiple tasks can become necessary, and then most of us will reach for a real-time operating system (RTOS), and the real fun begins. [Aleksei Tertychnyi] clearly understands such issues but instead came up with an alternative they call
ANTIRTOS
.
The idea behind the project is not to use an RTOS at all but to manage tasks deterministically by utilizing multiple queues of function pointers. The work results in an ultra-lightweight task management library targeting embedded platforms, whether Arduino-based or otherwise. It’s pure C++, so it generally doesn’t matter. The emphasis is on rapid interrupt response, which is, we know, critical to a good embedded design. Implemented as a single header file that is less than 350 lines long, it is not hard to understand (provided you know C++ templates!) and easy to extend to add needed features as they arise. A small code base also makes debugging easier. A vital point of the project is the management of delay routines. Instead of a plain delay(), you write a custom version that executes your short execution task queue, so no time is wasted. Of course, you have to plan how the tasks are grouped and scheduled and all the data flow issues, but that’s all the stuff you’d be doing anyway.
The GitHub project
page
has some clear examples and is the place to
grab that header file
to try it yourself. When you really need an RTOS
, you have a lot of choices, mostly costing money, but
here’s our guide to two popular open source projects: FreeRTOS and ChibiOS
. Sometimes, an RTOS isn’t enough, so we
design our own full OS from scratch
— sort
of. | 54 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050707",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T11:20:49",
"content": "I did something similar, around an event queue, and added several macros similar to the ones used in C coroutines to allow to write asynchronous functions. I used it for the firmware in my keyboard.",
... | 1,760,371,762.506154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/15/modular-magnetic-led-matrix/ | Modular Magnetic LED Matrix | Danie Conradie | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"addressable leds",
"bitluni",
"led matrix",
"ws2812"
] | [bitluni] seems rather fond of soldering lots of LEDs, and fortunately for us the result is always interesting eye candy. The latest iteration of this venture features
8 mm WS2812D-F8 addressable LEDs
, offering a significant simplification in electronics and the potential for much brighter displays.
The
previous version
used off-the-shelf 8×8 LED panels but had to be multiplexed, limiting brightness, and required a more complex driver circuit. To control the panel, [bitluni] used the ATtiny running the MegaTinyCore Arduino core. Off-the-shelf four-pin
magnetic connectors
allow the panels to snap together. They work well but are comically difficult to solder since they keep grabbing the soldering iron. [bitluni] also created a simple battery module and 3D printed neat enclosures for everything.
Having faced the arduous task of fixing individual LEDs on
massive LED walls
in the past, [bitluni] experimented with staggered holes that allow through-hole LEDs to be plugged in without soldering. Unfortunately, with long leads protruding from the back of the PCB, shorting became an immediate issue. While he ultimately resorted to soldering them for reliability, we’re intrigued by the potential of refining this pluggable design.
The final product snapped together satisfyingly, and [bitluni] programmed a simple animation scheme that automatically updates as panels are added or removed. What would you use these for? Let us know in the comments below. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050674",
"author": "Weasel",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T09:11:21",
"content": "Thats pretty darn cool. But trying to work with those LED´s i had one issue. I really wonder how it performs when the screen gets bigger. Datarate is fixed, every LED wants 24databits. FPS rates are probab... | 1,760,371,762.293216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/what-actually-causes-warping-in-3d-prints/ | What Actually Causes Warping In 3D Prints? | Dave Rowntree | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"FDM",
"warping"
] | The 3D printing process is cool, but it’s also really annoying at times. Specifically, when you want to get a part printed, and no matter how you orientate things, what adhesion aids you use or what slicer settings you tweak, it just won’t print right. [David Malawey] has been thinking a little about the problem of the edges of wide prints tending to curl upwards, and
we believe they may be on to something
.
Obviously, we’re talking about the lowest common denominator of 3D printing, FDM, here. Other 3D printing technologies have their gotchas. Anyway, when printing a wide object, edge curling or warping is a known annoyance. Many people will just try it and hope for the best. When a print’s extreme ends start peeling away from the heat bed, causing the print to collide with the head, they often get ripped off the bed and unceremoniously ejected onto the carpet. Our first thought will be, “Oh, bed adhesion again”, followed by checking the usual suspects: bed temperature, cleanliness and surface preparation. Next, we might add a brim or some sacrificial ‘bunny ears’ to keep those pesky edges nailed down. Sometimes this works, but sometimes not. It can be frustrating. [David] explains in the YouTube short how the contraction of each layer of materials is compounded by its length, and these stresses accumulate as the print layers build. A simple demonstration shows how a stack of stressed sections will want to curl at the ends and roll up inwards.
This mechanism would certainly go some way to explain the way these long prints behave and why our mitigation attempts are sometimes in vain. The long and short of it is to fix the issue at the design stage, to minimize those contraction forces, and reduce the likelihood of edge curling.
Does this sound familiar? We thought we
remembered this, too, from years ago
. Anyway, the demonstration was good and highlighted the issue well.
Thanks to [Keith] for the tip! | 35 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050625",
"author": "Oliver",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T05:45:30",
"content": "So whats the conclusion? What can we do to prevent this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050628",
"author": "scott_tx",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,371,762.249333 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/a-risc-v-lisp-compiler-written-in-lisp/ | A RISC-V LISP Compiler…Written In Lisp | Dave Rowntree | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"assembler",
"compiler",
"lisp",
"raspberry pi pico 2",
"RISC-V"
] | Ah, Lisp, the archaic language that just keeps on giving. You either love or hate it, but you’ll never stop it. [David Johnson-Davies] is clearly in the love it camp and, to that end, has produced a fair number of tools wedging this language into all kinds of nooks and crannies. The particular nook in question is the RISC-V ISA, with their
Lisp-to-RISC-V compiler
. This project leads on from
their RISC-V assembler
by allowing a Lisp function to be compiled directly to assembly and then deployed as callable, provided you stick to the supported language subset, that is!
The fun thing is—you guessed it—it’s written in Lisp. In fact, both projects are pure Lisp and can be run on the uLisp core and deployed onto your microcontroller of choice. Because who wouldn’t want to compile Lisp on a Lisp machine? To add to the fun, [David] created a previous project targeting ARM, so you’ve got even fewer excuses for not being able to access this. If you’ve managed to get your paws on the new Raspberry Pi Pico-2, then you can take your pick and run Lisp on either core type and still compile to native.
The Lisp-Risc-V project can be found in
this GitHub repo
, with the other tools easy enough to locate.
We see a fair few Lisp projects on these pages. Here’s another
bare metal Lisp implementation using AVR
. And how many lines of code does it take to implement Lisp anyway? The answer is
42
200 lines of C
, to be exact. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050615",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2024-10-15T04:56:40",
"content": "Operative word is “subset” I guess. Full-fat lisp isn’t compilable, in part because of it’s tendency to be self-modifying.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,371,762.554321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/new-study-looks-at-the-potential-carcinogenicity-of-3d-printing/ | New Study Looks At The Potential Carcinogenicity Of 3D Printing | Dan Maloney | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"abs",
"assay",
"cancer",
"cell",
"gene expression",
"health",
"metabolism",
"PLA",
"sarcoma"
] | We’ve all heard stories of the dangers of 3D printing, with fires from runaway hot ends or dodgy heated build plates being the main hazards. But what about the particulates? Can they actually cause health problems in the long run? Maybe, if
new research into the carcinogenicity of common 3D printing plastics
pans out.
According to authors [CheolHong Lim] and [
DongSeok Seo], the research covered in this paper was undertaken because of reports of rare cancers among Korean STEM teachers, particularly those who used 3D printers in their curricula. It was thought that only long-term, continued exposure to the particulates generated by 3D printers could potentially be hazardous
and that
PLA
was less likely to be hazardous than
ABS
. The study was designed to assess the potential carcinogenicity of both ABS and PLA particulates under conditions similar to what could be expected in an educational setting.
To do this, they generated particulates by heating ABS and PLA to extruder temperatures, collected and characterized them electrostatically, and dissolved them in the solvent DMSO. They used a cell line known as Balb/c, derived from fibroblasts of an albino laboratory mouse, to assess the cytotoxic concentration of each plastic, then conducted a comet assay, which uses cell shape as a proxy for DNA damage; damaged cells often take on a characteristically tailed shape that resembles a comet. This showed no significant DNA damage for either plastic.
But just because a substance doesn’t cause DNA damage doesn’t mean it can’t mess with the cell’s working in other ways. To assess this, they performed a series of cell transformation assays, which look for morphological changes as a result of treatment with a potential carcinogen. Neither ABS nor PLA were found to be carcinogenic in this assay. They also looked at the RNA of the treated cells, to assess the expression of genes related to carcinogenic pathways. They found that of 147 cancer-related genes, 113 were either turned up or turned down relative to controls. Finally, they looked at glucose metabolism as a proxy for the metabolic changes a malignant cell generally experiences, finding that both plastics increased metabolism in vitro.
Does this mean that 3D printing causes cancer? No, not by a long shot. But, it’s clear that under lab conditions, exposure to either PLA or ABS particulates seems to be related to some of the cell changes associated with carcinogenesis. What exactly this means in the real world remains to be seen, but the work described here at least sets the stage for further examination.
What does this all mean to the home gamer? For now, maybe you should at least crack a window while you’re printing. | 40 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050558",
"author": "robert",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T23:12:25",
"content": "A famous person (cannot recall who, sorry) once said no pleasure was worth foregoing for the sake of a few extra years in a retirement home in Weston-Super-Mare. Well, even if printing does give me cancer ... | 1,760,371,762.372013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/the-greengate-ds3-part-2-putting-a-retro-sampler-to-use/ | The Greengate DS:3 Part 2: Putting A Retro Sampler To Use | Adam Fabio | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"bea",
"Greengate DS:3",
"tubetime"
] | The Greengate DS:3 had been re-created in the form of the Goodgreat. Now
[Bea Thurman] had to put it to use
.
If the Greengate DS:3 card was rare, the keyboard was nearly impossible to find. After a long search, [Bea] bought one all the way from Iceland. The card of course came courtesy of [Eric].
It was time to connect the two together. But there was a problem — a big problem. The GreenGate has a DB-25 connected via a ribbon cable to the board’s 2×10 connector. The keyboard that shipped with those cards would plug right in. Unfortunately, [Bea’s] keyboard had a DIP-40 IDC connector crimped on its ribbon cable. What’s more the connectors for the sustain and volume pedals were marked, but never drilled out. The GreenGate silk screen was still there though.
Maybe it was a prototype or some sort of modified hardware. Either way, the 40-pin DIP connector had to go if the keyboard ever were to work with the card. What followed were a few hours of careful wire tracing
Tracing out pins is always a pain. To make it worse, the only DB-25 connector [Bea] had on hand was an Insulation Displacement Connector (IDC). It’s the right part to use for the ribbon cable attached to the keyboard, but not what you’d want to use to test pinouts. These connectors are generally crimped once.
The GreenGate keyboard and foot pedals are matrix scanned – much like a standard alphanumeric keyboard. The keyboard also needed some internal cleanup after 40 years. Like many ‘boards of the day, it used small spring wires that made contact with a common bar.
After some painstaking debugging, working directly with [Eric] on video chat, [Bea] had the system working. Now came the fun part — using the keyboard to make music.
The Greengate hardware is impressive, but the software is stunning. [Bea] got in touch with [Colin Holgate], who wrote it. He’s also the “gate” in Greengate. With [Colin’s] software, Waveforms can be edited in an oscilloscope view, much like one would find in a modern DAW. The software even includes a pattern editor, which can be used for arpeggios.
The GreenGate has 4 notes of polyphony, is multitimbral, and can layer multiple samples across the keyboard. Considering this is all handled on an Apple II+ with a green screen monitor for a UI, impressive is an understatement.
[Bea] gives us a great walkthrough using the system. She starts by sampling audio from a cassette. With the audio in memory, she uses this to build a simple song. The entire setup made an appearance at VCF MidWest, so if you saw it in person let us know in the comments! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050566",
"author": "You don't get this from me much...",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T23:52:56",
"content": "Awesome!Thanks for this, Adam!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8051114",
"author": "jns",
"timestamp": "2024-10-16... | 1,760,371,762.1376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/solving-a-retrocomputing-mystery-with-an-album-cover-greengate-ds3/ | Solving A Retrocomputing Mystery With An Album Cover: Greengate DS:3 | Adam Fabio | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"GoodGreat",
"greengate",
"sampler",
"synthesizer"
] | [Bea Thurman] had a retro music conundrum. She loved the classic Greengate DS:3 sampler, but couldn’t buy one, and couldn’t find enough information to build her own.
[Bea’s] plea for help
caught the attention of [Eric Schlaepfer], aka [TubeTime]
. The collaboration that followed ultimately solved a decades-old mystery.
In the 1980s, there were two types of musicians: Those who could afford a Fairlight CMI and everyone else. If you were an Apple II owner, the solution was a Greengate DS:3. The DS:3 was a music keyboard and a sampler card for the Apple II+ (or better). The plug-in card was a bit mysterious, though. The cards were not very well documented, and only a few survive today. To make matters worse, some chips had part numbers sanded off. It was a bit of a mystery until [Bea and Tubetime] got involved.
Eric Schlaepfer
While [Bea] didn’t have the card itself, she had a photo of the board and a picture of an album that contained the key to everything.
The Greengate came packed with a vinyl album, “Into Trouble with the Noise of Art.” An apt title, since the album art was the Greengate PCB top layer. Now if you know [Eric], you know he
wrote the book (literally)
on taking things apart and taking photos of them,
even producing replicas
.
Thoroughly nerdsniped, [Eric] loaded the photos KiCad and started tracing. With the entire top layer artwork and most of the bottom layer, the 8-bit card wasn’t too hard to figure out. The sticky point was one chip. A big 40-pin part with the numbers scrubbed off. One owner pulled the chip to check for fab information on the back, only to be greeted by a proper British “You Nosey S.O.B.” penciled on top of more sanded part numbers.
If the chip was an ASIC, the project would be blocked until they could get their hands on an actual board for analysis. An ASIC would have custom part numbers on it from the fab though – no need for sanding. It had to be something off the shelf. [Eric] used some context clues to determine that the Mystery chip had to be a DMA controller. This narrowed the field down. From there, he had to compare pinouts until he had a match with the venerable MC6844.
With the mystery part out of the way, [Eric] put the finishing touches on the PCB,
saved it to his GitHub as the GoodGreat DS:3,
and sent it off. A few days later, the bare boards arrived and were quickly populated with vintage parts. [Eric] ran a few tests and sent the card off to [Bea], where we will pick up with part 2.
At least the device wasn’t protected with
a self-destruct code
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050488",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T19:19:25",
"content": "It seems like they wanted to keep their secrets – scraping off part numbers – but then why did they choose to show the entire top artwork on the album cover?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,371,762.911215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/calculating-the-true-per-part-cost-for-injection-molding-vs-3d-printing/ | Calculating The True Per Part Cost For Injection Molding Vs 3D Printing | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"injection molding"
] | At what point does it make sense to 3D print a part compared to opting for injection molding? The short answer is “it depends.” The medium-sized answer is, “it depends on some back-of-the-envelope calculations specific to your project.” That is what [Slant 3D}
proposes in a recent video
that you can view below. The executive summary is that injection molding is great for when you want to churn out lots of the same parts, but you have to amortize the mold(s), cover shipping and storage, and find a way to deal with unsold inventory. In a hypothetical scenario in the video, a simple plastic widget may appear to cost just 10 cents vs 70 cents for the 3D printed part, but with all intermediate steps added in, the injection molded widget is suddenly over twice as expensive.
In the even longer answer to the question, you would have to account for the flexibility of the 3D printing pipeline, as it can be used on-demand and in print farms across the globe, which opens up the possibility of reducing shipping and storage costs to almost nothing. On the other hand, once you have enough demand for an item (e.g., millions of copies), it becomes potentially significantly cheaper than 3D printing again. Ultimately, it really depends on what the customer’s needs are, what kind of volumes they are looking at, the type of product, and a thousand other questions.
For low-volume prototyping and production, 3D printing is generally the winner, but at what point in ramping up production does switching to an injection molded plastic part start making sense? This does obviously not even account for the physical differences between IM and FDM (or SLA) printed parts, which may also have repercussions when switching. Clearly, this is not a question you want to flunk when it concerns a business that you are running. And of course, you should bear in mind that these numbers are put forth by a 3D printing company, so at the scale where molding becomes a reasonabe option, you’ll also want to do your own research.
While people make entire careers out of injection molding, you can do it yourself in small batches. You can even use your
3D printer in the process
. If you try injection molding on your own, or with a professional service, be sure to
do your homework and learn what you can
to avoid making costly mistakes. | 45 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050432",
"author": "Force",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T16:34:41",
"content": "This video feels like an ad",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050444",
"author": "Jack",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T17:12:33",
"... | 1,760,371,762.8545 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/the-biological-motors-that-power-our-bodies/ | The Biological Motors That Power Our Bodies | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"ATP",
"cilium",
"flagellum",
"motor protein"
] | Most of us will probably be able to recall at least vaguely that a molecule called ATP is essential for making our bodies move, but this molecule is only a small part of a much larger system. Although we usually aren’t aware of it, our bodies consist of a massive collection of biological motors and related structures, which enable our muscles to contract, nutrients and fluids to move around, and our cells to divide and prosper. Within the biochemical soup that makes up single- and multi-cellular lifeforms, it are these mechanisms that turn a gooey soup into something that can do much more than just gently slosh around in primordial puddles.
There are many similarities between a single-cell organism like a bacteria and eukaryotic multi-cellular organisms like us humans, but the transition to the latter requires significantly more complicated structures. An example for this are cilia, which together with motor proteins like myosin and kinesin form the foundations of our body’s basic functioning. Quite literally supporting all this is the cytoskeleton, which is a feature that our eukaryotic cells have in common with bacteria and archaea, except that eukaryotic cytoskeletons are significantly more complex.
The Cytoskeleton
Image of the mitotic spindle in a human cell showing microtubules in green, chromosomes (DNA) in blue, and kinetochores in red. “
Kinetochore
” by [Afunguy].
We mammals have a skeleton to keep our bodies from collapsing into a sad, soggy pile, so too do our cells have their own skeleton, giving them shape and rigidity, as well as providing motor proteins something to interact with. The cytoskeleton in eukaryotes consists of mainly microfilaments, intermediate filaments and microtubules, with prokaryotes having their own distinct cytoskeleton structures. Of the three types that make up the eukaryotic cytoskeleton, the microfilament and microtubules are used by motor proteins. These thus fall into two categories: actin motors (using the actin-based microfilaments) and microtubule motors.
Although muscles are an obvious example of motor proteins in action, even something as fundamental as cell division (mitosis) involves motor proteins, specifically kinesin microtubule motors. Starting from a
centrosome
(microtubule organizing center), microtubules are formed from tubulin to create the scaffolding for the kinesin proteins to move across, which then move the two centrosomes (one newly formed) to opposite sides of the cell undergoing mitosis. What drives the actual separation of the duplicated chromosomes (chromatids) are the
kinetochores
. These kinetochore proteins are microtubule-binding structures that form not only the linkage between the chromatids and a centromere, they also create the mitotic spindle, and which use ATP to ‘crawl’ along the microtubules thanks to their microtubule-binding dynein and kinesin motor proteins. This is what pulls the chromatids apart, allowing mitosis to continue and eventually end up with two sets of DNA within one cell.
“
Organization of Muscle Fiber
” by [OpenStax]
The motor proteins that create muscle cells do not use microtubules, but rather the actin-based microfilaments. Within mammalian species, there are about 40 different types of these myosin motor proteins. The protein myosin II is the one that is part of muscle cells, but it also serves an essential function with mitosis, specifically after the completion of mitosis, when the
cytokinesis
stage commences. During this an actin-myosin ring is assembled around the cell, along which myosin II proteins can move. Powered by ATP, these motor proteins constrict the cell, pinching it until one cell becomes two, each with its own copy of the original cell’s DNA.
In the case of
muscle
cells, these are rather unique in this regard, as some of them are multinucleated cells, formed through the fusion of individual cells (a
synctium
). Mammalian muscle tissues come in three broad categories: smooth, cardiac and skeletal muscle tissue, each of which have distinct properties. Of these skeletal muscle tissue is composed of synctium cells, which form long tubular cells, inside of which are many myofibril organelles. These myofibrils consist of
myofilaments
, each of which can be a thick, thin or elastic type.
The thick filaments are myosin II proteins, the thin filaments are actin proteins and the elastic filaments (titin-based), which provides support and guidance to the thick and thin filaments. Muscle contraction is thus accomplished by the myosin II filaments binding to the actin and moving across it, powered by the ATP from the mitochondria (the powerhouses of the cell). This shortens the myofibril and thus the muscle. Relaxation of the muscle involves the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, which breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which originally excited the muscle fiber membrane’s receptors.
Protein Power
Often referred to as ‘cellular currency’,
ATP
(adenosine triphosphate) and
GTP
(guanosine triphosphate) are both
nucleoside triphosphates
, which are an essential precursor to RNA and DNA in addition to being involved in signaling pathways, and the aforementioned energy currency. These nucleosides are generally synthesized inside cells, in the case of ATP using mechanisms like photosynthesis and cellular respiration. While ATP is the most important energy carrier within the cell, GTP is important in DNA transcription and microtubule polymerization, making its use more specialized.
The cycle of ATP and ADP.
The energy of ATP and GTP is released through hydrolysis, which produces ADP and GDP, respectively, along with a free inorganic phosphate ion (P
i
). This releases about 20.5 kilojoules per mole, with the hydrolyzed molecules being ‘recharged’ to produce new ATP and GTP, in a continuous cycle.
For hydrolysis of ATP, the enzyme
ATPase
has to be present. In the case of e.g. muscle tissue, the ATP will bind to the myosin II proteins, which subsequently gets hydrolyzed by the ATPase, turning it into ADP and P
i
. This process forms cross-bridges between the myosin II and actin, which induces movement of the former along the latter, and releasing the ADP and P
i
. This is followed by a fresh ATP binding to the myosin II, preparing it for the next power stroke. For different motor proteins a similar process enables a similar process of events, which can continue for as long as it is mechanically possible, fresh ATP (or GTP) is available and an impetus (e.g. neurotransmitter binding to a receptor) is present.
Cilia
“
Eukaryotic cilium diagram
” by [LadyofHats]
Perhaps one of the most fascinating motor proteins are those that are part of
flagella
and
cilia
. Here the bacterial flagellum is quite different from the eukaryotic one, being powered by a proton gradient motor, and also different from the archaeal flagella. Meanwhile the eukaryotic flagella and cilia are quite similar, with the distinction being mostly academic. Both consist of nine microtubules with a pair of
dynein
motor proteins per doublet microtubule that use ATP hydrolysis to provide motion. The only exception here are the non-motile cilia, which lack the dynein.
Dynein motor proteins move along microtubules, which makes their presence in these flagella and cilia rather logical. These motile cilia and flagella are found throughout the body, with the respiratory epithelial cells found throughout the inside of the respiratory tract providing the essential function of mucociliary clearance, and similar motile cilia moving cerebrospinal fluid inside the brain, as well as egg cells from the oviducts (fallopian tubes) to the uterus .
Meanwhile the version found on sperm cells which provide them with the ability to propel themselves are generally called flagella. This version is longer and has a different undulating motion than the motile cilia described earlier, but still has the same basic structure. As said earlier, eukaryotic flagella and cilia are effectively the same, which has led to considerable confusion and debate in the past.
A Wonder Of Evolution
In this article we touched only upon a fraction of the sheer complexity of all the details which make a body like that of ours work (somewhat) perfectly on a daily basis. Beyond the essentials covered on e.g. Wikipedia, there are the in-depth reference books, with the student reference work
Biochemistry
(8th edition
Archive link
) by Jeremy M. Berg and colleagues my current go-to refresher on just about anything to do with biochemical systems.
It should come as no surprise that with the sheer complexity of the field of biochemistry, even something as relatively straightforward as motor proteins would lead to significant confusion. This was quite obvious in a
recent video
on the
Smarter Every Day
YouTube channel, where the differences between bacterial and eukaryotic flagella got mixed up severely, which was perhaps somewhat ironic for a science channel that is run by a person with rather strong opinions on ‘intelligent design’ (ID).
The complexity of biological motors is often pointed to by ID proponents as some kind of evidence of ‘irreducible complexity’, yet across the bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic domains we can see the same problems being solved repeatedly in three very distinct fashions. This shows quite clearly the marvel of evolution, and how this process over millions of years can turn even the most complex problem into a logical series of steps once you get the right chemicals together.
Once the chemistry had some time to turn into proper biochemistry with the evolutionary survival process mercilessly picking off the attempts that weren’t quite good enough, and before you know it you have us primates marveling at at said biochemistry. As they say, life finds a way.
Featured image: “
Flagellar Motor Assembly
” by [PKS615]. | 50 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050397",
"author": "zoenagy3466",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T15:07:00",
"content": "What about converting food waste to energy source with bacteria?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050442",
"author": "Teachmethingsese"... | 1,760,371,763.010032 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/using-the-555-for-everything/ | Using The 555 For Everything | Bryan Cockfield | [
"hardware"
] | [
"555 timer",
"circuit design",
"microcontroller"
] | The 555 timer is one of the most versatile integrated circuits available. It can generate PWM signals, tones, and single-shot pulses. You can even put one in a bi-stable mode similar to a flip flop. All of these modes are available by only changing a few components outside of the IC itself. It’s also dirt cheap, so it finds its way into all kinds of applications its original inventors never imagined. There’s a bit of a trope around here as well that you ought not to use a microcontroller when one of these will do, and while it’s a bit of a played-out comment, it’s often more true than it seems. This video shows a few uncommon ways of using these circuits instead of putting a microcontroller to work.
After a brief overview of the internals of the hallowed 555, [Doctor Volt] walks us through some of its uses, starting with applications for digital inputs, including a debounce circuit and a toggle switch. From there, he moves on to demonstrating a circuit that can protect batteries from deep discharge, and a small change to that circuit can turn the 555 into a resetting fuse that can protect against short circuit events. Finally, the PWM capabilities of this small integrated circuit are put to work as an audio amplifier, although perhaps not one that would pass muster for the most devout audiophiles among us.
Even though it’s possible to offload a lot of the capabilities of a 555 onto a microcontroller, there’s certainly an opportunity to offload some things to the 555, even if your project still needs a microcontroller. However, offloading tasks like debounce or input latching to hardware rather than spending microcontroller cycles or pins can make a project more robust, both from reliability and software points of view. For some other useful circuits, some of which have been forgotten in the modern microcontroller age,
it’s worth taking a look at some of these antique circuit books as well
. While we are sure the 555 designers hoped it would be a big hit, no one
imagined this giant one
. | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050341",
"author": "Zalan Meggyesi",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T11:57:23",
"content": "My all time favorite in this topic:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXeSsevsNNE– 555-based analog robotics",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8050... | 1,760,371,763.069688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/14/alphabet-soup-haskells-single-letter-naming-quirks/ | Alphabet Soup: Haskell’s Single-Letter Naming Quirks | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Misc Hacks",
"News",
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"coding",
"conventions",
"dictionary",
"haskell",
"programming language",
"variable",
"variables"
] | When you used punch cards or tape to write a computer program, brief variable names were the norm. Your compiler or assembler probably only allowed six letters, anyway. But times change, and people who, by habit, give array indices variable names like I, J, or K get a lot of grief. But [Jack Kelly] points out that for highly polymorphic languages like Haskell, you often don’t know what that variable represents anyway. So how are you supposed to name it? He provides
a guide to one-letter variable names commonly used by Haskell developers
and, sometimes, others.
Haskell’s conventions are particularly interesting, especially with i, j, and k, which are borrowed from mathematical tradition to signify indices or integers and passed on via Fortran. The article also highlights how m often refers to Monads and Monoidal values, while t can represent both traversables and text values. Perhaps more obscurely, p can denote profunctors and predicates, giving a glimpse into Haskell’s complex yet efficient type system. These naming conventions are not formal standards but have evolved into a grass-roots lexicon.
Of course,
you can go too far
. We see a lot of interesting and strange things written in Haskell, including this
OpenSCAD competitor
. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050301",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T09:34:27",
"content": "I completely abhor single letter variables. It makes search and replace ambiguous and error prone, but more important, many IDE’s have a built in function to highlight a variable when it gets selected, f... | 1,760,371,763.597876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/portable-pi-palmtop-provides-plenty/ | Portable Pi Palmtop Provides Plenty | Jenny List | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"laptop",
"palmtop",
"pi zero"
] | We’ve seen many portable laptops using the Raspberry Pi series of boards in the decade-plus since its launch. The appeal of a cheap board that can run a desktop Linux distro without requiring too much battery is hard not to fall for. Over the years, the bar has been raised from a Pi stuck to the back of one of those Motorola netbook accessories, through chunky laptops, to some very svelte and professional-looking machines.
A recent example comes from [Michael Mayer]
, whose Portable Pi 80 is a palmtop design that we’d be happy to take on the road ourselves.
At its heart is a Pi Zero 2, combining as it does a tiny form factor with the useful power of its Pi 3-derived processor. This is mated to a Waveshare 7-inch display, and in the bottom half of the machine sits a 40% mechanical keyboard. Alongside this are a pair of 18650 cells and their associated power modules. The little Arduino, which normally handles the keyboard, has been relocated due to space constraints, which brings us to the case. A project like this one is, in many ways, a task of assembling a set of modules, and it’s in the case that the work here really shines.
It’s a 3D-printable case that you can download from Printables
, and it’s very nice indeed. As we said, we’d be happy to use one of these.
Portable computing has come
a very long way
. Often the
keyboard
can make it or break it. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050260",
"author": "ziew",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T07:08:31",
"content": "In the spirit of constructive criticism I wanted to ask why pay for the keyboard PCB if one could just 3D-print the top plate and then wire the buttons manually, only to discover that the author provides thi... | 1,760,371,763.442701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/diy-3d-printed-arduino-self-balancing-cube/ | DIY 3D-Printed Arduino Self-Balancing Cube | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bluetooth",
"cube",
"microcontroller",
"motor",
"PCBWay",
"self balancing",
"self-balancing cube"
] | Self-balancing devices present a unique blend of challenge and innovation. That’s how
[mircemk]’s project
caught our eye. While balancing cubes isn’t a new concept — Hackaday has published several over the years — [mircemk] didn’t fail to impress. This design features a 3D-printed cube that balances using reaction wheels. Utilizing gyroscopic sensors and accelerometers, the device adapts to shifts in weight, enabling it to maintain stability.
At its core, the project employs an Arduino Nano microcontroller and an MPU6050 gyroscope/accelerometer to ensure precise control. Adding nuts and bolts to the reaction wheels increases their weight, enhancing their impact on the cube’s balance. They don’t hold anything. They simply add weight. The construction involves multiple 3D printed components, each requiring several hours to produce, including the reaction wheels and various mount plates. After assembly, users can fine-tune the device via Bluetooth, allowing for a straightforward calibration process to set the balancing points.
If you want to see some earlier incarnations of this sort of thing, we covered other designs in
2010
,
2013
, and
2016
. These always remind us of
Stewart platforms
, which are almost the same thing turned inside out. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050230",
"author": "BALAJI SANKAR",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T03:54:59",
"content": "a) If it is a reaction wheel, the additional bolt nuts are there to add polar mass moment of inertia, not to add weight. b) Stewart platforms are static positioning devices. This is a dynamic balanc... | 1,760,371,763.547633 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/hackaday-links-october-13-2024/ | Hackaday Links: October 13, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"3Blue1Brown",
"ai",
"animation",
"asteroid",
"astronaut",
"billionaire",
"biomass",
"carbonaceous",
"data cennter",
"hackaday links",
"Manim",
"mathematics",
"Nuclear Reactor",
"python",
"space",
"space food",
"super yacht",
"yacht"
] | So far, food for astronauts hasn’t exactly been haute cuisine. Freeze-dried cereal cubes, squeezable tubes filled with what amounts to baby food, and meals reconstituted with water from a fuel cell don’t seem like meals to write home about. And from the sound of
research into turning asteroids into astronaut food
, things aren’t going to get better with space food anytime soon. The work comes from Western University in Canada and proposes that carbonaceous asteroids like the recently explored Bennu be converted into edible biomass by bacteria. The exact bugs go unmentioned, but when fed simulated asteroid bits are said to produce a material similar in texture and appearance to a “caramel milkshake.” Having grown hundreds of liters of bacterial cultures in the lab, we agree that liquid cultures spun down in a centrifuge look tasty, but if the smell is any indication, the taste probably won’t live up to expectations. Still, when a 500-meter-wide chunk of asteroid can produce enough nutritionally complete food to sustain between 600 and 17,000 astronauts for a year without having to ship it up the gravity well, concessions will likely be made. We expect that this won’t apply to the nascent space tourism industry, which for the foreseeable future will probably build its customer base on deep-pocketed thrill-seekers, a group that’s not known for its ability to compromise on creature comforts.
Speaking of billionaires, there’s been
a lot of buzz in the news lately
about using small modular nuclear reactors to power things like cryptocurrency mines and AI data centers. We suspect this trend has as much to do with tech-bro street cred as it does with saving the planet from the extreme power requirements of these endeavors. But as cool as it would be to put on a black turtleneck and cut the ribbon at the first nuke-powered server farm, how much cooler would it be to break a bottle of champagne on the prow of
your very own nuclear-powered superyacht
? Cool enough, apparently, that none other than Lloyd’s Register, the storied maritime and shipping concern that started in a London coffeehouse in 1760, is starting to think about what nuclear power means to the maritime world, especially for commercial shipping but also for the ultimate in pleasure craft. While it’s true that nuclear-powered vessels have been plying the seas for the better part of a century now, the factors that justify the massive up-front expense have so far limited the viable use cases to nation-states looking to project power and with the ability to create unlimited amounts of money at will. The need for a yacht that can cruise the world ocean for years on end without refueling isn’t clear, but perhaps that’s missing the point. After all, we’ve already seen a tech billionaire build a company to make rockets so he can go to Mars, so it’s not unthinkable that some billionaire will take his yacht nuclear just for the flex.
For various reasons, we’ve done a lot of articles on space topics over the years, despite the fact that getting the technical details that we assume our readers crave as much as we do isn’t easy. One resource we’ve come to depend on is
Gunter’s Space Page
, which is a treasure trove of information on just about everything that’s ever gone into space, including the stuff that tried but didn’t make it. This is one of those no-nonsense sites that doesn’t have a lot of cruft messing things up and just serves up the details you need. Want to see
every launch in 1982
? Need a list of
everyone who has ever flown to space
? Gunter has you covered. Fair warning, though; there are plenty of rabbit holes to fall down on this site, as well as Gunter’s other sites on
US Navy ships
and
steam locomotives
.
And finally, another indispensable resource is Grant Sanderson’s wonderful “3Blue1Brown,” a YouTube channel dedicated to showing how math works. There’s plenty of crossover between demographics for Hackaday and 3B1B, so chances are good that you’ve seen Grant’s amazing work, and if you’re like us, you’ve wondered exactly how he goes about creating those wonderful animations. Well, wonder no more —
this in-depth video
dives into Manim, the custom math animation library Grant created to make his signature look. If you’ve ever wondered what’s going on behind the scenes with such fascinating videos as
how complex Fourier series can draw anything
or
why pi hides inside the collisions of bouncing blocks
, you need to check this one out. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050206",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2024-10-14T00:15:10",
"content": "“material similar in texture and appearance to a “caramel milkshake.””So mud. It looks and feels like a smooth mud. Or worse.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comme... | 1,760,371,763.320669 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/a-homebrew-gas-chromatograph-that-wont-bust-your-budget/ | A Homebrew Gas Chromatograph That Won’t Bust Your Budget | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"adc",
"arduino",
"Chemistry",
"gas chromatography",
"GC",
"grain of wheat",
"HX7111",
"MQ-2",
"silica"
] | Chances are good that most of us will go through life without ever having to perform gas chromatography, and if we do have the occasion to do so, it’ll likely be on a professional basis using a somewhat expensive commercial instrument. That doesn’t mean you can’t
roll your own gas chromatograph
, though, and if you make a few compromises, it’s not even all that expensive.
At its heart, gas chromatography is pretty simple; it’s just selectively retarding the movement of a gas phase using a solid matrix and measuring the physical or chemical properties of the separated components of the gas as they pass through the system. That’s exactly what [Markus Bindhammer] has accomplished here, in about the simplest way possible. Gas chromatographs generally use a carrier gas such as helium to move the sample through the system. However, since that’s expensive stuff, [Markus] decided to use room air as the carrier.
The column itself is just a meter or so of silicone tubing packed with chromatography-grade silica gel, which is probably the most expensive thing on the BOM. It also includes an injection port homebrewed from brass compression fittings and some machined acrylic blocks. Those hold the detectors, an MQ-2 gas sensor module, and a thermal conductivity sensor fashioned from the filament of a grain-of-wheat incandescent lamp. To read the sensors and control the air pump, [Markus] employs an Arduino Uno, which unfortunately doesn’t have great resolution on its analog-to-digital converter. To fix that, he used the ubiquitous HX7111 load cell amplifier to read the output from the thermal conductivity sensor.
After purging the column and warming up the sensors, [Markus] injected a sample of lighter fuel and exported the data to Excel. The MQ-2 clearly shows two fractions coming off the column, which makes sense for the mix of propane and butane in the lighter fuel. You can also see two peaks in the thermal conductivity data from a different fuel containing only butane, corresponding to the two different isomers of the four-carbon alkane.
[Markus] has been on a bit of a tear lately; just last week, we featured his photochromic memristor and, before that, his all-in-one electrochemistry lab. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050179",
"author": "brucedesertrat",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T21:19:06",
"content": "That’s really cool. Going to guess though, that standard reference mixes will cost a lot more than the whole thing :-/Packing the silica into a stainless steel column would enable you to put the c... | 1,760,371,763.395045 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/retro-wi-fi-on-a-dime-amigas-slow-lane-connection/ | Retro Wi-Fi On A Dime: Amiga’s Slow Lane Connection | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"amiga",
"Amiga 3000",
"Amiga 3000T",
"wifi",
"wireless"
] | In a recent video, [Chris Edwards] delves into the past, showing how he
turned a Commodore Amiga 3000T into a wireless-capable machine
. But forget modern Wi-Fi dongles—this hack involves an old-school D-Link DWL-G810 wireless Ethernet bridge. You can see the Amiga in action in the video below.
[Chris] has a quirky approach to retrofitting. He connects an Ethernet adapter to his Amiga, bridges it to the D-Link, and sets up an open Wi-Fi network—complete with a retro 11 Mbps speed. Then again, the old wired connection was usually 10 Mbps in the old days.
To make it work, he even revived an old Apple AirPort Extreme as a supporting router since the old bridge didn’t support modern security protocols. Ultimately, the Amiga gets online wirelessly, albeit at a leisurely pace compared to today’s standards. He later demonstrates an upgraded bridge that lets him connect to his normal network.
We’ve used these wireless bridges to put oscilloscopes and similar things on wireless, but newer equipment usually requires less work even if it doesn’t already have wireless. We’ve also seen our share of strange wireless setups
like this one
. If you are going to put your Amgia on old-school networking, you might as well get
Java running
, too. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050170",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T20:31:56",
"content": "You can do the same with OpenWRT on a $4 Linksys router from Goodwill. And it will support proper WPA2 so you don’t need a necro router on the other end.Of course one of those little pocket travel routers ... | 1,760,371,763.493928 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/building-an-automotive-load-dump-tester/ | Building An Automotive Load Dump Tester | Dave Rowntree | [
"hardware"
] | [
"555 timer",
"amplifier",
"automotive",
"compliance",
"discrete design",
"load dump",
"manhattan construction",
"pulse"
] | For those who have not dealt with the automotive side of electronics before, it comes as somewhat of a shock when you find out just how much extra you have to think about and how tough the testing and acceptance standards are. One particular test requirement is known as the “load dump” test. [Tim Williams]
needed to build a device
(first article of three) to apply such test conditions and wanted to do it as an exercise using scrap and spares. Following is a proper demonstration of follow-through from an analytical look at the testing specs to some interesting hand construction.
Manhattan-style layout
The load dump test simulates the effect of a spinning automotive alternator in a sudden no-load scenario, such as a loose battery terminal. The sudden reduction in load (since the battery no longer takes charging current) coupled with the inductance of the alternator windings causes a sudden huge voltage spike. The automotive standard
ISO 7637-2:2011
dictates how this pulse should be designed and what load the testing device must drive.
The first article covers the required pulse shape and two possible driving techniques. It then dives deep into a case study of the Linear Tech DC1950A load dump tester, which is a tricky circuit to understand, so [Tim] breaks it down into a spice model based around a virtual transistor driving an RC network to emulate the pulse shape and power characteristics and help pin down the specs of the parts needed. The
second article
deals with analysing and designing a hysteric controller based around a simple current regulator, which controls the current through a power inductor. Roughly speaking, this circuit operates a bit like a buck converter with a catch diode circulating current in a tank LC circuit. A sense resistor in the output path is used to feedback a voltage, which is then used to control the driving pulses to the power MOSFET stage. [Tim] does a good job modeling and explaining some of the details that need to be considered with such a circuit.
That resistor is so overkill. Love it.
The third and final article turns what’s been learnt so far into a practical design that can be built, with many extra parts added and explained to make this work in reality. It was nice to see ICs being mostly rejected in favour of a discrete design using transistors and other parts at hand—you can see the individual circuit elements if you know what you’re looking for. That said, the venerable 555 timer is in there, doing one of the things it does best: being a trigger timer. The physical construction is done Manhattan-style on a couple of board layers, with some hilariously outsized parts bolted on just because. There’s much to learn from this project, although it will be a tough read for any newcomer to electronics.
While we’re considering building our own instruments, here’s an
active load build
. EMC testing is one of those areas that can really cause problems. Here’s
our guide
. We don’t see enough discrete components used in projects these days. Here’s a
discrete transistor CPU to admire
. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050114",
"author": "Karl",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T16:32:01",
"content": "My understanding is that for decades, alternators have had integrated clamping diodes to mitigate this issue.I did some load dump tests for some work projects about 10 years ago. At the time, it seemed odd t... | 1,760,371,763.651531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/levitating-magnet-in-a-spherical-copper-cage/ | Levitating Magnet In A Spherical Copper Cage | Danie Conradie | [
"Art"
] | [
"eddy currents",
"Lenz's Law",
"lost pla casting",
"neodymium magnet"
] | Lenz’s Law is one of those physics tricks that look like magic if you don’t understand what’s happening. [Seth Robinson] was inspired by the way eddy currents cause a cylindrical neodymium magnet to levitate inside a rotating copper tube, so he cast a
spherical copper cage to levitate a magnetic sphere
.
Metal casting is an art form that might seem simple at first, but is very easy to screw up. Fortunately [Seth] has significant experience in the field, especially
lost-PLA metal casting
. While the act of casting is quick, the vast majority of the work is in the preparation process. Video after the break.
[Seth] started by designing and 3D printing a truncated icosahedron (basically a low-poly sphere) in two interlocking halves and adding large sprues to each halve. Over a week, the PLA forms were repeatedly coated in layers of ceramic slurry and silica sand, creating a thick shell around them. The ceramic forms were then heated to melt and pour out the PLA and fired at 870°C/1600°F to achieve full hardness.
With the molds prepared, the molten copper is poured into them and allowed to cool. To avoid damaging the soft copper parts when breaking away the mold, [Seth] uses a sandblaster to cut it away sections. The quality of the cast parts is so good that 3D-printed layer lines are visible in the copper, but hours of cleanup and polishing are still required to turn them into shiny parts. Even without the physics trick, it’s a work of art. A 3d printed plug with a brass shaft was added on each side, allowing the assembly to spin on a 3D-printed stand.
[Seth] placed a 2″ N52 neodymium spherical magnet inside, and when spun at the right speed, the magnet levitated without touching the sides. Unfortunately, this effect doesn’t come across super clearly on video, but we have no doubt it would make for a fascinating display piece and conversation starter.
Using and abusing eddy currents makes for some very interesting projects, including
hoverboards
and
magnetic torque transfer
on a bicycle. | 21 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050073",
"author": "Miayamasu",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T13:28:56",
"content": "I see it drop at the end of the spin, so it really levitates nicely. Despite the video being 60fps it’s difficult to look past the motion blur. Whoever has a high speed camera should contact him so he c... | 1,760,371,763.709392 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/13/a-vic-20-with-no-vic/ | A VIC-20 With No VIC | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"VIC-20"
] | [DrMattRegan] has started a new video series to show his latest
recreation of a Commodore VIC-20
. The core of the machine is [Ben Eater’s] breadboard 6502 design. To make it a VIC-20, though, you need a “VIC chip” which, of course, is no longer readily available. Many people, of course, use FPGAs or other programmable logic to fake VIC chips. But [Matt] will build his with discrete TTL logic. You can see the first installment of the series below.
Although the base machine is sort of a copy of [Ben’s] breadboard, [Matt] has a few different building techniques that are worth learning and also made some changes to the clock input. This could be useful when troubleshooting, which was necessary when the breadboard didn’t start up at first.
While the first CPU was on a breadboard, the fake VIC will be on perf board. The new VIC impostor will also output modern VGA signals.
The VIC-20 is
a very popular computer to clone
. We also see a lot of — sometimes incredible —
restorations
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050023",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T09:26:27",
"content": "Please post the follow-up videos to hackaday also! This first one is really just background.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050082",
"au... | 1,760,371,763.751237 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/all-system-prompts-for-anthropics-claude-revealed/ | All System Prompts For Anthropic’sClaude, Revealed | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"anthopic",
"claude",
"LLM",
"system prompt"
] | For as long as AI Large Language Models have been around (well, for as long as modern ones have been accessible online, anyway) people have tried to coax the models into revealing their system prompts. The system prompt is essentially the model’s fundamental directives on what it should do and how it should act. Such healthy curiosity is rarely welcomed, however, and creative efforts at making a model cough up its instructions is frequently met with a figurative glare and stern tapping of the
Terms & Conditions
sign.
Anthropic have bucked this trend by
making system prompts public
for the web and mobile interfaces of all three incarnations of Claude. The prompt for Claude Opus (their flagship model) is well over 1500 words long, with different sections specifically for handling text and images. The prompt does things like help ensure Claude communicates in a useful way, taking into account the current date and an awareness of its knowledge cut-off, or the date after which Claude has no knowledge of events. There’s some stylistic stuff in there as well, such as Claude being specifically told to avoid obsequious-sounding filler affirmations, like starting a response with any form of the word “Certainly.”
While the source code (and more importantly, the training data and resulting model weights) for Claude remain under wraps, Anthropic have been rather more forthcoming than others when it comes to sharing other details about inner workings, showing
how human-interpretable features and concepts can be extracted from LLMs
(which uses Claude Sonnet as an example).
Naturally, safety is a concern with LLMs, which is as good an opportunity as any to remind everyone of Goody-2, undoubtedly
the world’s safest AI
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8050020",
"author": "Thomas Anderson",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T09:08:48",
"content": "This is really cool, I’m always surprised about how dumb these system prompts sound, I always expect them to be some crazy unintelligible mess.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,371,763.887392 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/solar-planes-are-hard/ | Solar Planes Are Hard | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"foam airplane",
"mppt",
"solar plane"
] | A regular comment we see on electric aircraft is to “just add solar panels to the wings.” [James] from Project Air has been working on just such a
solar plane
, and as he shows in the video after the break, it is not a trivial challenge.
A solar RC plane has several difficult engineering challenges masquerading as one. First, you need a solid, efficient airframe with enough surface area for solar panels. Then, you need a reliable, lightweight, and efficient solar charging system and, finally, a well-tuned autopilot to compensate for a human pilot’s limited endurance and attention span.
In
part one of this project
, a fault in the electrical system caused a catastrophe so James started by benching all the electricals. He discovered the
MPPT
controller had a battery cutoff feature that he was unaware of, which likely caused the crash. His solution was to connect the solar panels to the input of a 16.7 V voltage regulator—just under the fully charged voltage of a 4S LiPo battery— and wire the ESC, control electronics, and battery in parallel to the output. This should keep the battery charged as long as the motor doesn’t consume too much power.
After rebuilding the airframe and flight testing without the solar system, [James] found the foam wing spars were not up to the task, so he added aluminum L-sections for stiffness. The solar panels and charging system were next, followed by more bench tests. On the test flight, it turned out the aircraft was now underpowered and struggled to gain altitude thanks to the added weight of the solar system. With sluggish control responses,[James] eventually lost sight of it behind some trees, which led to a flat spin and unplanned landing.
Fortunately, the aircraft didn’t sustain any damage, but [James] plans to redesign it anyway to reduce the weight and make it work with the existing power system.
We’ve seen
several solar planes from [rctestflight]
and
meticulously engineered
versions from [Bearospace Industrues]. If long flight times is primarily what you are after, you can always ditch the panels and
use a big battery for 10+ hour flights
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049929",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2024-10-13T02:04:48",
"content": "Reminds me of the “before I sputter out” song. ;-)(Novocaine for the Soul)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8049974",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timest... | 1,760,371,763.933555 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/remembering-john-wheeler-youve-definitely-heard-of-his-work/ | Remembering John Wheeler: You’ve Definitely Heard Of His Work | Donald Papp | [
"Science"
] | [
"physics",
"Wheeler"
] | Physicist John Archibald Wheeler made groundbreaking contributions to physics, and [Amanda Gefter] has
a fantastic writeup about the man
. He was undeniably brilliant, and if you haven’t heard of him, you have certainly heard of some of his students, not to mention his work.
Ever heard of wormholes? Black holes? How about the phrase “It from Bit”? Then you’ve heard of his work. All of those terms were coined by Wheeler; a knack for naming things being one of his talents. His students included
Richard Feynman
and
Kip Thorne
(if you enjoyed
The Martian
, you at least indirectly know of Kip Thorne) and more. He never won a Nobel prize, but his contributions were lifelong and varied.
One thing that set Wheeler apart was the highly ambitious nature of his research and inquiries. He was known for pushing theories to (and past) their absolute limits, always seeking deeper insights into the nature of reality. The progress of new discoveries in the fields of general relativity (for which his textbook,
Gravitation,
remains highly relevant), space-time, and quantum mechanics frequently left Wheeler feeling as though more questions were raised than answered. His thirst for a greater understanding of the nature of reality was one he pursued until his death in 2006. He pondered not just the ultimate nature of our universe but also why we seem to have the same basic experience of it. Wheeler saw these questions as having answers that were far from being self-evident.
Wheeler’s relentless curiosity pushed the boundaries, reminding us that the search for knowledge never truly ends. If that inspires you, then take the time to
check out the full article
and see whether his questions inspire and challenge your own perspective.
Scientists can now make
black holes
— sort of. You can even make your own
wormhole
. Sort of. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049843",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T23:08:33",
"content": "What prompted this story? Someone tried to pick up a copy of “Gravitation” and is in the hospital?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050005... | 1,760,371,764.019737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/cockroaches-in-space-waste-processing-and-a-healthy-protein-source-combined/ | Cockroaches In Space: Waste Processing And A Healthy Protein Source Combined | Maya Posch | [
"Space"
] | [
"cockroach",
"insect protein",
"space travel"
] | As the current frontier of humanity in space, the International Space Station is heavily reliant on Earth not only for fresh supplies but also as a garbage disposal service for the various types of waste produced on the ISS by its human occupants. As future manned missions take humans further away from Earth, finding ways to reprocess this waste rather than chucking it out of the nearest airlock becomes a priority. One suggested solution comes from a Polish company, Astronika, with
their insect bioreactor
that can process organic material into useful biomass.
Interestingly, the cockroach species picked was the
Madagascar hissing cockroach
, one of the largest (5 – 7.5 cm) species. This is also a cockroach species which is often kept as a pet. In this closed-loop bioreactor that Astronika has developed, these cockroaches would chew their way through up to 3.6 kg of waste per week in the large version, with the adult cockroaches presumably getting turned into fresh chow and various materials at some point. Beyond the irrational ‘yuck’ factor that comes with eating insect protein, one of the biggest issues we can see with this system is that the long-duration mission crew may get attached to the cockroaches, as they are rather cute.
Joking aside, even if a final version of such a bioreactor ends up using far less cute bacteria and kin, the idea to recycle as much human biowaste as possible is a crucial step towards making remote space stations and long-duration space travel possible. A small version of this bioreactor will be sent up to the ISS, where the principle would get its first shot at showing off its space legs.
For some reason, cockroaches and NASA seem
inextricably linked
. We remembered that the Madagascar cockroaches apparently make
pretty good robotics platforms
if you are a deft hand at roach surgery. | 51 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049730",
"author": "The Mighty Buzzard",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T20:28:39",
"content": "Pick a different insect and maybe. The only way cockroaches could ever factor into my diet is if they’re fed to fish that I then ate though. I’d rather fatten up before liftoff and just not eat... | 1,760,371,764.167003 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/approximating-an-adc-with-successive-approximation/ | Approximating An ADC With Successive Approximation | Al Williams | [
"LED Hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"analog to digital",
"successive approximation"
] | [Igor] made a VU meter with LEDs using 8 LEDs and 8 comparators. This is a fast way to get one of 8 bits to indicate an input voltage, but that’s only the equivalent of a 3-bit analog to digital converter (ADC). To get more bits, you have to use a smarter technique, such as successive approximation. He shows a chip that uses that technique internally and then
shows how you can make one without using the chip
.
The idea is simple. You essentially build a specialized counter and use it to generate a voltage that will perform a binary search on an unknown input signal. For example, assuming a 5 V reference, you will guess 2.5 V first. If the voltage is lower, your next guess will be 1.25 V. If 2.5 was the low voltage, your next guess will be 3.75 V.
The process repeats until you get all the bits. You can do this with a microcontroller or, as [Igor] shows, with a shift register quite simply. Of course, you can also buy the whole function on a chip like the one he shows at the start of the video. The downside, of course, is the converter is relatively slow, requiring some amount of time for each bit. The input voltage also needs to stay stable over the conversion period. That’s not always a problem, of course.
If that explanation didn’t make sense, watch the video. An oscilloscope trace is often worth at least 1,000 words.
There are, of course,
many ways to do such a conversion
. Of course, when you start trying to really figure out how many bits of resolution you have or need,
it gets tricky
pretty fast. | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049618",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T17:28:57",
"content": "Omw of those things I feel “I know all about” but didn’t really know how it worked.I wonder how hard it would be to add a capture and hold circuit? Presumably that could be as simple as a capacitor you ... | 1,760,371,764.221556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/if-you-cant-say-anything-nice/ | If You Can’t Say Anything Nice | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"be nice",
"comments",
"newsletter"
] | [Editor’s Note: After we posted this, we got hit by a comment-report attack, and about 1,000 (!) comments across the whole site got sent back into the moderation queue on Saturday. We’ve since re-instated them all, but that took a lot of work.
About halfway down the comments in this article, the majority of comments are “hey, why did you delete this?” We didn’t, and they should be all good now. We debated removing the “try deleting this!” comments, but since we didn’t delete them in the first place, we thought we should just leave them. It makes a royal mess of any discussion, and created a lot more heat than light, which is unfortunate.]
You know what your mom would say, right? This week, we got an above average number of useless negative comments. A project was described as looking like a “turd” – for the record I
love
the hacker’s angular and futuristic designs, but it doesn’t have to be to your taste. Then someone else is like “you don’t even need a computer case.” Another commenter informed us that he doesn’t like to watch videos for the thirtieth time. (Yawn!)
What all of these comments have in common is that they’re negative, low value, non-constructive, and frankly have no place on Hackaday. The vast majority are just kind of
Eeyorey
complaining about how someone else is enjoying a chocolate ice cream, and the commenter prefers strawberry. But then some of them turn nasty. Why? If someone makes a project that you don’t like, they didn’t do it to offend you. Just move on quietly to one you
do
like. We publish a hack every three hours like a rubidium clockwork, with a couple of original content pieces scattered in-between on weekdays.
And don’t get us wrong: we love comments that help improve a project. There’s a not-so-fine line between “why didn’t you design it with trusses to better hold the load?” and “why did you paint it black, because blue is the superior color”. You know what we mean. Constructive criticism, good. Pointless criticism, bad.
It was to the point that we were discussing just shutting down the comments entirely. But then we got gems! [Maya Posch]’s
fantastic explainer about the Lagrange points had an error
: one of the satellites that Wikipedia said was at an earth-moon Lagrange point is actually in normal orbit around the moon. It only used the Lagrange point as a temporary transit orbit. Says who? One of the science instrument leads on the space vehicle in question. Now
that
is a high-value comment, both because it corrects a mistake and enlightens us all, but also because it shows who is reading Hackaday!
Or take [Al Williams]’s
article on mold-making a cement “paper” airplane
. It was a cool technique, but the commenters latched onto his assertion that you couldn’t fly a cement plane, and the discussions that ensued are awesome. Part of me wanted to remind folks about the nice mold-making technique on display, but it was such a joy to go down that odd rabbit hole, I forgive you all!
We have
an official “be nice” policy about the comments
, and that extends fairly broadly. We really don’t want to hear what you don’t like about someone’s project or the way they presented it, because it brings down the people out there who are doing the hard work of posting their hacks. And
hackers
have the highest priority on Hackaday.
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! | 398 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049471",
"author": "Squirrel",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T14:04:40",
"content": "I see where this is headed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8049541",
"author": "Thomaszo",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T15:49:49",
... | 1,760,371,764.528241 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/have-you-heard-of-the-liquid-powder-display/ | Have You Heard Of The Liquid Powder Display? | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"e-ink",
"lcd",
"liquid powder display"
] | Over the decades the technology behind flat panel displays has continuously evolved, and we’ve seen many of them come and go. Among the popular ones there are a few that never quite made the big time, usually because a contemporary competitor took their market.
An example is in a recent [Wenting Zhang] video
, a mystery liquid powder display. We’d never heard of it, so we were intrigued.
The first segment of the video is an examination of the device, and a comparison with similar-looking ones such as a conventional LCD, or a Sharp Memory LCD. It’s clearly neither of those, and the answer finally came after a lot of research. A paper described a “Quick response liquid powder” as a mechanism for a novel display, and thus it was identified. It works by moving black and white electrically charged powder to flip a pixel from black to white, and its operation is not dissimilar to the liquid-based e-ink displays which evidently won that particular commercial battle.
The process of identifying the driver chip and pinout should be an essential watch for anyone with an interest in display reverse engineering. After a lot of adjusting timing and threshold voltages the dead pixels and weird effects fall away, and then it’s possible to display a not-too-high-quality image on this unusual display, through a custom PCB with an RP2040. Take a look at the video below the break.
We’ve seen [Wenting Zhang]’s work here a few times before,
most recently in a very impressive mirror-less camera project
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049423",
"author": "Prfesser",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T11:28:48",
"content": "Etch-A-Sketch: the original liquid powder display.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8049460",
"author": "weiman",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T13... | 1,760,371,764.575371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/12/whats-your-swr-are-you-sure/ | What’s Your SWR? Are You Sure? | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ham radio",
"swr"
] | If you are involved in any sort of radio transmission, you probably have at least heard of SWR or standing wave ratio. Most transmitters can measure it these days and most ham radio operators have tuners that measure it, also. But what are you measuring? [KI8R] points out that if your coax has loss — and what coax doesn’t? — you are probably getting
an artificially low reading by measuring at the transmitter
.
The reason is that most common SWR-measuring instruments pick up voltage. If you measure, for example, 10V going out and 1V going back, you’d assume some SWR from that. But suppose your coax loses half the voltage (just to make an obvious example; if your coax loses half the voltage, you need new coax).
Now, you really have 5V getting to your antenna, and it returns 2V. The loss will affect the return voltage just like the forward voltage. Reflecting 2V from 5 is a very different proposition from reflecting 1V out of 10!
On the other hand, as [KI8R] points out, SWR isn’t everything. In the old days, you’d load your transmitter’s finals into just about anything. Now, solid-state rigs expect to drive a low SWR, or they will crank down the power to prevent the reverse voltage from damaging them.
Overall, it is a good talk about a subject that is often taken for granted. Of course, with cheap VNAs, you can easily measure SWR right at the antenna, often with
disappointing results
. If you have
trouble visualizing standing waves
, we know someone who can help. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049383",
"author": "ExploWare",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T08:45:59",
"content": "[Quote]if your coax loses half the voltage, you need new coax[/quote]… or are working on really long lines, which is really not that bad if you know what,you’re working with",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,764.670533 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/supercon-2023-receiving-microwave-signals-from-deep-space-probes/ | Supercon 2023: Receiving Microwave Signals From Deep-Space Probes | Lewin Day | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Space"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Supercon",
"2023 Hackaday Superconference",
"antenna",
"Deep Space Network",
"dish",
"DSN",
"Juno",
"nasa",
"radio",
"software-defined radio",
"space",
"spectrogram"
] | Here’s the thing about radio signals. There is wild and interesting stuff just getting beamed around all over the place. Phrased another way, there are beautiful signals everywhere for those with ears to listen. We go about our lives oblivious to most of them, but some dedicate their time to teasing out and capturing these transmissions.
David Prutchi is one such person. He’s a ham radio enthusiast that dabbles in receiving microwave signals sent from probes in deep space. What’s even better is that he came down to Supercon 2023 to tell us all about how it’s done!
Space Calling
David’s home setup is pretty rad.
David notes that he’s not the only ham out there doing this. He celebrates the small community of passionate hams that specialize in capturing signals directly from far-off spacecraft. As one of these dedicated enthusiasts, he gives us a look at his backyard setup—full of multiple parabolic dishes for getting the best possible reception when it comes to signals sent from so far away. They’re a damn sight smaller than NASA’s deep space network (DSN) 70-meter dish antennas, but they can still do the job. He likens trying to find distant space signals as to “watching grass grow”—sitting in front of a monitor, waiting for a tiny little spike to show up
on a spectrogram
.
Listening to signals from far away is hard. You want the biggest, best antenna you can get.
The challenge of receiving these signals comes down to simple numbers. David explains that a spacecraft like JUNO emits 28 watts into a 2.5-meter dish, which comes out to roughly 44.5 dBm of signal with a 44.7 dBi gain antenna. The problem is one of distance—it sits at around 715 million kilometers away on its mission to visit Jupiter. That comes with a path loss of around -288 dB. NASA’s 70-meter dish gets them 68 dBi gain on the receive side, which gets them a received signal strength around -131 dBm. To transmit in return, they transmit around the 50-60 kW range using the same antenna. David’s setup is altogether more humble, with a 3.5-meter dish getting him 47 dBi gain. His received signal strength is much lower, around -152 dBm.
His equipment limits what he can actually get from these distant spacecraft. National space agencies can get full signal from their dishes in the tens-of-meters in diameter, sidebands and all. His smaller setup is often just enough to get some of the residual carrier showing up in the spectrogram. Given he’s not getting full signal, how does he know what he’s receiving is the real deal? It comes down to checking the doppler shift in the spectrogram, which is readily apparent for spacecraft signals. He also references the movie
Contact
, noting that the techniques in that film were valid. If you move your antenna to point away from the suspected spacecraft, the signal should go away. If it doesn’t, it might be that you’re picking up local interference instead.
THIS. IS. JUST. AWESOME. !!!
This is video decoded from the 8455MHz high rate downlink
@uhf_satcom
received yesterday. All the work on the decoder and data analysis really paid off in the end!
Video shows solar panel of Chang'e-5 glistening in the sun and dust floating around.
pic.twitter.com/FKc92kgskl
— r00t (@r2x0t)
November 25, 2020
Some hobbyists have been able to decode video feeds from spacecraft downlinks.
Working at microwave frequencies requires the proper equipment. You’ll want a downconverter mounted as close to your antenna as possible if you’re working in X-Band.
However, demodulating and decoding full spacecraft signals at home is sometimes possible—generally when the spacecraft are still close to Earth. Some hobbyists have been able to decode telemetry from various missions, and even video signals from some craft! David shows some examples, noting that SpaceX has since started encrypting its feeds after hobbyists first started decoding them.
David also highlights the communications bands most typically used for deep space communication, and explains how to listen in on them. Most of it goes on in the S-band and X-band frequencies, with long-range activity focused on the higher bands.
David has pulled in some truly distant signals.
Basically, if you want to get involved in this kind of thing, you’re going to want a dish and some kind of software defined radio. If you’re listening in S-band, that’s possibly enough, but if you’re stepping up into X-band, you’ll want a downconverter to step that signal down to a lower frequency range, mounted as close to your dish as possible. This is important as X-band signals get attenuated very quickly in even short cable runs. It’s also generally required to lock your downconverter and radio receiver to some kind of atomic clock source to keep them stable. You’ll also want an antenna rotator to point your dishes accurately, based on data you can source from NASA JPL. As for finding downlink frequencies, he suggests looking at the ITU or the Australian Communication and Media Authority website.
He also covers the techniques of optimizing your setup. He dives into the minutae of pointing antennas at the Sun and Moon to pick up their characteristic noise for calibration purposes. It’s a great way to determine the performance of your antenna and supporting setup. Alternatively, you can use signals from geostationary military satellites to determine how much signal you’re getting—or losing—from your equipment.
Ultimately, if you’ve ever dreamed of listening to distant spacecraft, David’s talk is a great place to start. It’s a primer on the equipment and techniques you need to get started, and he also makes it sound really fun, to boot. It’s high-tech hamming at its best, and there’s more to listen to out there than ever—so get stuck in! | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049026",
"author": "UT",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T01:49:39",
"content": "How is SpaceX allowed to encrypt their telemetry? They get a large amount of public federal funding, they should be mandated to keep everything open.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,764.623589 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/photochromic-dye-makes-up-this-novel-optical-memristor/ | Photochromic Dye Makes Up This Novel Optical Memristor | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"405nm",
"532",
"laser",
"memristor",
"photochromic"
] | Despite being much in the zeitgeist lately, we have to confess to still being a bit foggy about exactly what memristors are. The “mem” part of their name seems to be the important bit, implying a memory function, but the rest of the definition seems somewhat negotiable — enough so that you can
make a memristor from a bit of photochromic dye
.
Now, we’ll leave the discussion of whether [Markus Bindhammer]’s rather complex optical memory cell officially counts as a memristor to the comments below, and just go through the technical details here. The heart of this experimental device is a photochromic dye known as
cis
-1,2-dicyano-1,2-bis(2,4,5-
trimethyl-3-thienyl)ethene, mercifully shortened to CMTE, which has the useful property of having two stable states. Transitioning from the open state to the closed state occurs when UV light shines upon it, while switching back to the closed state is accomplished with a pulse of green light. Absent the proper wavelength of light, both states are stable, making non-volatile information storage possible.
To accomplish this trick, [Markus] filled a quartz cuvette with a little CMTE-doped epoxy resin. Inside a light-tight enclosure, two lasers — one at 405 nm wavelength, the other at 532 nm — are trained on the cuvette through a dichroic mirror. On the other side of the CMTE resin, he placed a VEML7700 high-accuracy ambient light sensor. An Arduino Nano reads the light sensor and controls the lasers. Writing and erasing are accomplished by turning on the proper laser for a short amount of time; reading the state of the cell involves a carefully timed pulse from the 405 nm laser followed by a 532 nm pulse and watching the output of the sensor.
Is a one-bit memory device that uses a dye that goes for €300 per gram and a pair of laser diodes practical? Of course not, but it’s still pretty cool, and we appreciate all the effort and expense [Markus] went to with this one. Now, if you want some fuel for the “It’s not a memristor” fire,
memristors might not even be a thing
. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048850",
"author": "Markus Bindhammer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T16:28:48",
"content": "One correction: It’s not a one-bit memory. Actually you can store many states of illuminance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8049108",
... | 1,760,371,764.726899 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/meet-the-optical-data-format-youve-never-heard-of-before/ | Meet The Optical Data Format You’ve Never Heard Of Before | Lewin Day | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"archival storage",
"archive",
"archive storage",
"fiber channel",
"optical disc",
"optical disc archive",
"optical disc storage",
"sony"
] | You consider yourself a power user. You’ve got lots of files, and damn it, you like to keep them backed up. Around a decade ago, you gave up on burning optical discs, and switched to storing your files on portable hard drives. One local, one off-site, and a cloud backup just to be sure. You’re diligent for a home gamer, and that gets you done.
The above paragraph could describe any number of Hackaday readers, but what of bigger operations? Universities, businesses, and research institutions all have data budgets far in excess of what the individual could even imagine. What might shock you is that some of them
are
relying on optical media—just not the kind you’ve ever heard of before. Enter Sony’s Optical Disc Archive.
Not A DVD
The concept: a cart full of 11 or 12 discs, each with lots of data on it. Credit: Sony
Historically, tape has been a very popular backup medium as it provides a great deal of storage at a low price. In these applications, the linear nature of tape and the resulting slow seek speeds don’t really matter. However , tape has another problem—that of longevity. Plastic tapes covered in magnetic particles just aren’t that hardy when you start talking about timespans measured in decades or more. To that end, Sony wanted to develop a more durable archival and backup solution as an adjunct to its popular Linear Open Tape storage systems.
An ODA cartridge. Credit: Sony
The result was the Optical Disc Archive, an optical component of Sony’s broader PetaSite data archive system. It’s considered an ideal solution for storing large amounts of media for long periods of time. Sony cites broadcaster archives as a prime use case, where it’s desirable to store footage for easy access for many decades. The fast seek time of the optical media allows for its use as an online or nearline archive, something which tape doesn’t do anywhere near as well.
Released in 2012, it drew from BluRay technology, using the same 405 nm lasers to burn data on to write-once discs. Generation one cartridges held 12 single-sided optical discs and could store up to 1.5 terabytes per cart, with read speeds of up to 137.5 MB/s. Smaller carts were available with capacities as low as 300 GB, and some early media was rewritable.
By generation three, released in 2019, Sony had pushed storage up to 5.5 terabytes and speeds up to 375 MB/s, using 11 discs per cartridge with three layers on each side. The current generation technology comes in at 500GB per individual disc. From generation two media onwards, all media was write once.
Standalone desktop drives used high-speed USB connections, or in some cases, fiber channel.
While desktop drives are available, it’s not the typical use case. Discs are typically stored en masse in large stacker units that combine one or more drives and many storage cartridges. One typically starts with a master library unit, to which one can add up to to five expansion units each holding more drives and cartridges. The units contain robotics to load and unload cartridges in the available drives. It’s possible to create a 42U rack untit that stores 535 cartridges with one drive and a total of 2.94 petabytes,
according to Sony.
Alternatively, if you wanted more drives and less carts, you could build a similar sized rack to store 375 carts and four drives for up to 2.06 petabytes instead.
Using the optical format has multiple benefits to longevity. The discs are read without any sort of friction which can wear away the media, quite unlike tapes which make contact with the reader head. The polycarbonate media is also resistant to water, dust, changes in humidity and temperature, and electromagnetic radiation, within reason. Sony claims a media life of 100-years-plus—this has obviously gone
untested in real time.
There’s also the in-built benefit of using write-once media—this makes the discs themselves essentially immune to viruses, intentional erasure, ransomware, or cyber attacks—outside of some edge case where a hacker figures out how to overspeed the drives and destroy the discs. Don’t hold your breath.
Sony offered expandable rack-mount libraries that could hold tons of carts and multiple drives.
All this sounds wonderful, right? There’s just the sad note that this wonderous optical technology is already on the way out. Click around Sony’s website, and you’ll find that most of the Optical Disc Archive hardware has been discontinued. Indeed, when Sony announced it was cutting production of writable optical media,
we took notice—
mostly thinking about CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and BD-Rs. But an additional consequence was that it would end the production of Optical Disc Archive carts as well, and with no new media, there’d be no need for new drives, either. As to why, the answer was simple—money. As reported by
TechRadar:
“The growth of the cold storage market has not reached our expectations, and the performance of the storage media business as a whole continues to be in the red,” a Sony Group spokesperson said. “We have determined that it is necessary to review the business structure to improve profitability.”
Ultimately, Sony built a very cool, very capable optical archival system. It was capable of storing large amounts of data at a reasonable cost, and doing so for many decades at a time. The only real problem was that the market wasn’t able to support it, or Sony couldn’t figure out the business model—take your pick. In any case, consider this the coolest optical media format you’ve never heard of, and probably never will again. Vale. | 80 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048812",
"author": "clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T14:27:19",
"content": "Well you have uva, uvb, uvcWith a uv laser Now your Xbox and PlayStation can just fit the game completed, without adding half a terabyte of patches and updatesActually get the completed softwa... | 1,760,371,764.939594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/the-internet-archive-has-been-hacked/ | The Internet Archive Has Been Hacked | Lewin Day | [
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"hack",
"internet archive",
"news"
] | There are a great many organizations out there, all with their own intentions—some selfish, some selfless, some that land somewhere in between. Most would put the Internet Archive in the category of the library—with its aim of preserving and providing knowledge for the aid of all who might call on it. Sadly, as [theresnotime] reports,
it appears this grand institution has been hacked.
On Wednesday, users visiting the Internet Archive were greeted with a foreboding popup that stated the following:
Have you ever felt like the Internet Archive runs on sticks and is constantly on the verge of suffering a catastrophic security breach? It just happened. See 31 million of you on HIBP!
The quote appears to refer to Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), a site that collates details of security breaches so individuals can check if their details have been compromised.
According to
founder Brewster Kahle
, the site was apparently DDOS’d, with the site defaced via a JavaScript library. It’s believed this may have been a
polyfill supply chain attack
. As for the meat of the hack, it appears the individuals involved made off with usernames, emails, and encrypted and salted passwords. Meanwhile, as
Wired
reports, it appears Have I Been Pwned first received the stolen data of 31 million users on September 30.
At the time of writing, it appears the Internet Archive has restored the website to some degree of normal operation. It’s sad to see one of the Internet’s most useful and humble institutions fall victim to a hack like this one. As is always the way,
no connected machine is ever truly safe
, no matter how much we might hope that’s not the case.
[Thanks to Sammy for the tip!] | 33 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048769",
"author": "Andrzej",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T12:50:33",
"content": "Obligatory reference to xkcd #2347",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8048774",
"author": "Barefoot",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T13:12:1... | 1,760,371,765.007129 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/wimbledon-goes-automated/ | Wimbledon Goes Automated | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"sports",
"tennis",
"wimbledon"
] | When you think of tennis, you probably think of Wimbledon, the All England Club’s famous competition that has run for 147 years. Part of that history has always been line judges who call the ball in or out, sometimes to the ire of players and fans alike. But line judges will be no more at Wimbledon. They are moving to
ELC or electronic line calling
on all courts in both the main draw and the qualifying tournaments, according to [Tumaini Carayol] writing in
The Guardian
.
Of course, in 2007, the competition started using “Hawk-Eye,” which allows for review and challenges of the calls. ELC has also been used in other venues, such as the US Open, which has also done away with all line judges.
In fact, the only grand slam tournament that isn’t using ELC now is the French Open. There is some concern, however. The increased availability of line judges will cut down on the demand for new line judges at lesser tournaments. However, these jobs are a common pathway for aspiring chair judges to gain experience and exposure.
According to the
Bloomberg
video below, the system uses cameras and microphones to keep track of the ball’s position. Other reports say there are 18 cameras and, apparently, the system uses a computer-generated voice to call “out,” “fault,” or “foot fault.”
Apparently, there are some downsides, however. Last month at the US Open, play was halted because the remote office of the technicians operating the ELC system had to evacuate due to a fire alarm.
[Lewin Day] thinks
tech will ruin sports
. He may be right. Of course, we are more likely to
play sports on technology
.
Title image from [matt4395] via Pixabay. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048719",
"author": "zoenagy3466",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T08:44:12",
"content": "There should be a time limit how long people waste time on each match, like on soccer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8048729",
"author": "Z... | 1,760,371,765.044386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/09/the-punched-card-detective/ | The Punched Card Detective | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"hollerith",
"Punched Card"
] | [John Graham-Cumming] might not be the first person to thumb through an old book and
find an IBM punched card
inside. But he might be the first to actually track down the origin of the cards. Admittedly, there were clues. The book was a Portuguese book about computers from the 1970s. The cards also had a custom logo on them that belonged to a computer school at the time.
A Hackaday card, thanks to the
online card punch
It is hard to remember, but there was a time when cards reigned supreme. Sometimes called Hollerith cards after Herman Hollerith, who introduced the cards to data processing, these cards used square holes to encode information. Reading a card is simple. There are 80 columns on a classic card. If a column has a single punch over a number, then that’s what that column represents. So if you had a card with a punch over the “1” followed by a punched out “5” in the next column and a “0” in the column after that, you were looking at 150. No punches, of course, was a space.
So, how did you get characters? The two blank regions above the numbers are the X and Y zones (or, sometimes, the 11 and 12 zones). The “0” row was also sometimes used as a zone punch. To interpret a column, you needed to know if you expected numbers or letters. An 11-punch with a digit indicated a negative number if you were expecting a number. But it could also mean a particular letter of the alphabet combined with one or more punches in the same column.
So where did [John’s] cards come from? Since he found the school that used the cards, he was able to locate a text book also used by the school. Inside, there were illustrations of exactly the real cards found in the book. They were exercises for students, and the second book detailed what all the fields actually meant. Mystery solved.
It was common in the old days for cards, tapes, and even disks to store data, and it was up to you to know what kind of data it was. That’s why FORTRAN had such an intricate FORMAT statement for I/O. We occasionally see
new card readers
. They rarely, though, work with
standard cards
. | 31 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048713",
"author": "Hans",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T08:01:49",
"content": "Ha! I have seen only unpunched cards, and for some reason always presumed that they were used to represent binary code, 10 bits per byte/word. “Big numbers they knew back then” I thought… Luckily wikipedia g... | 1,760,371,765.117882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/09/on-site-viral-rna-detection-in-wastewater-with-paper-and-wax-microfluidics/ | On-Site Viral RNA Detection In Wastewater With Paper And Wax Microfluidics | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"PCR"
] | Schematic version of on-site wastewater analysis using the microfluidic strips (Credit: Yuwei Pan et al., Cell, 2024)
Wastewater sampling has become a popular way over the years to keep track of the health of a population, including human ones, as pathogens are often detectable in the effluence from toilets. Since most houses connected to the centralized sewer systems, this means that a few sampling sites suffice to keep tabs on which viruses are circulating in an area. While sampling this wastewater is easy, the actual RNA analysis using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) still has to be performed in laboratories, adding complex logistics. An approach for on-site analysis using microfluidics was tested out by [Yuwei Pan] et al., as
recently published
in
Cell
.
This particular approach uses
RT-LAMP
(reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification) to increase the amount of genetic material, which has the significant benefit over PCR that it does not require multiple thermal cycles, instead being run at a constant temperature. The filter paper used as the basis has wax microchannels printed on it, which help to guide the filtered wastewater to the reaction chambers. This is in many ways reminiscent of the all too familiar linear flow self-tests (RAT: rapid antigen test) that have become one of the hallmarks of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
What this paper microfluidic device adds is that it doesn’t merely contain antigens, but performs the lysis (i.e. breakdown of the virus particles), genetic material multiplication using RT-LAMP and subsequent presence detection of certain RNA sequences to ascertain the presence of specific viruses. Having been used in the field already since 2020 in the UK, the researchers envision this type of on-site analysis to be combined with a smartphone for instant recording and transmission to health authorities.
Some of the benefits of this approach would be lower cost, easier logistics and faster results compared to shipping wastewater samples to central laboratories. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8048770",
"author": "robert",
"timestamp": "2024-10-10T12:54:37",
"content": "PCR can have a very high false positive rate, often it can be too sensitive to be useful. The designers of this will need to be very careful in terms of the number of amplification cycles they use, lest th... | 1,760,371,765.16376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/are-crt-tvs-important-for-retro-gaming/ | Are CRT TVs Important For Retro Gaming? | Dave Rowntree | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"240p",
"480i",
"analog",
"crt",
"gaming",
"interlacing",
"nes",
"retro",
"snes"
] | We always thought the older console games looked way better back in the day on old CRTs than now on a modern digital display. [Stephen Walters] thinks so too, and goes into
extensive detail in a lengthy YouTube video
about the pros and cons of CRT vs digital, which was totally worth an hour of our time. But are CRTs
necessary
for retro gaming?
The story starts with [Stephen] trying to score a decent CRT from the usual avenue and failing to find anything worth looking at. The first taste of a CRT display came for free. Left looking lonely at the roadside, [Stephen] spotted it whilst driving home. This was a tiny 13″ Sanyo DS13320, which, when tested, looked disappointing, with a blurry image and missing edges. Later, they acquired a few more displays: a Pansonic PV-C2060, an Emerson EWF2004A and a splendid-looking Sony KV24FS120. Some were inadequate in various ways, lacking stereo sound and component input options.
A poor analog cable coupled with rendering inaccuracy gives a nice filtering effect
A large video section discusses the reasons for the early TV standards. US displays (and many others using NTSC) were designed for 525 scan lines, of which 480 were generally visible. These displays were interlaced, drawing alternating fields of odd and even line numbers, and early TV programs and NTSC DVDs were formatted in this fashion. Early gaming consoles such as the NES and SNES, however, were intended for 240p (‘p’ for progressive) content, which means they do not interlace and send out a blank line every other scan line. [Stephen] goes into extensive detail about how 240p content was never intended to be viewed on a modern, sharp display but was intended to be filtered by the analogue nature of the CRT, or at least its less-than-ideal connectivity. Specific titles even used dithering to create the illusion of smooth gradients, which honestly look terrible on a pixel-sharp digital display. We know the differences in signal bandwidth and distortion of the various analog connection standards affect the visuals. Though RGB and component video may be the top two standards for quality, games were likely intended to be viewed via the cheaper and more common composite cable route.
Component video inputs are arguably the sweet spot for analog connectivity
One debatable point is the effect of modern digital image processing on display lag. Modern TVs may have analog inputs, but these are sampled into the digital domain before being filtered and upscaled to fit the screen. This takes some time to process. We reckon that with games needing pixel-perfect timing reflexes, this could affect gameplay. It is also a perfect excuse to bust out some old games, you know,
for science
.
It’s an interesting discussion with newer tech that perhaps has a detrimental effect on the gameplay experience. Emulators such as Retroarch have some excellent video shader plugins that can accurately render some of these effects, so even if you can’t find a physical CRT that works, you can still at least experience the joy that these things once brought.
We
touched on this subject a couple of months back
with a somewhat opposite opinion, but all this stuff is subjective anyway. Want to know what makes CRTs tick? Then, take
them to bits with a hammer
. And did we mention how light guns are
no longer just for CRTs
? | 51 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049380",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T08:11:01",
"content": "This is a perennial topic, and it always fails on one point: CRT TVs evolved over time, so the games would look “right” on one kind of TV and the effect would fail on another. Different phosphor masks, RF mo... | 1,760,371,765.256955 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/pc-floppy-copy-protection-vault-corporation-prolok/ | PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Corporation Prolok | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"copy protection",
"Prolok",
"software piracy"
] | In the 2020s we’re used to software being readily accessible, and often free, whether as-in-beer or as-in-speech. This situation is a surprisingly new one, and in an earlier era of consumer software it was most often an expensive purchase. An anti-piracy industry sprang up as manufacturers tried to protect their products, and
it’s one of those companies that [GloriousCow] examines in detail
, following their trajectory from an initial success through to an ignominious failure driven by an anti-piracy tech too extreme even for the software industry.
Vault Corporation made a splash in the marketplace with Prolok, a copy protection system for floppies that worked by creating a physically damaged area of the disc which wouldn’t be present on a regular floppy. The write-up goes into detail about the workings of the system, including how to circumvent a Prolok protected title if you find one. This last procedure resulted in a lawsuit between Prolok and Quaid Software, one of the developers of circumvention tools, which established the right of Americans to make backup copies of their owned software.
The downfall of Vault Corporation came with their disastrously misjudged Prolok Plus product, which promised to implant a worm on the hard disks of pirates and delete all their files in an act of punishment. Sensing the huge reputational damage of being tied to such a product the customers stayed away, and the company drifted into obscurity.
For those interested further in the world of copy protection from this era, we’ve previously covered the similar deep dives that
[GloriousCow] has done on Softguard’s Superlok
as well as the
Interlock system from Electronic Arts
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049350",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2024-10-12T03:44:10",
"content": "Ashton-Tate, oh yeah that heavy handed garbage disposal that everyone talks about today because they provided lots of value for money",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,765.591016 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/repairing-a-component-on-a-flex-connector/ | Repairing A Component On A Flex Connector | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"flex PCB",
"smd",
"smd fix"
] | It used to be you could crack open a TV or radio and really work on the components inside. The smallest thing in there was maybe a disc capacitor a little smaller than your pinky’s nail. Nowadays, consumer electronic boards are full of tiny SMD components. Luckily [StezStix Fix?] has a microscope and the other tools you need. Someone sent him an
Amazon Echo Show with a bad touchscreen
. Can it be fixed?
The video below shows that it can, but there’s a twist. The bad capacitor was mounted on one of those flexible PCB cables that are so hard to work with. It is hard enough not to damage these when you aren’t trying to remove and replace a component from the surface of the cable.
[StezStix] didn’t have schematics, so he had to use the “Columbus method” (you know, hunt until you find it), but that worked in this case. Turns out a burned finger broke the case. We liked that he showed his hot air mess-ups, where he blew a handful of components off the board. You may, however, want to hover over the mute button for the fast-forward dance party music.
We envy [StezStix] the feeling you get when a repair like this works. SMD fixes can be
rewarding
. We’ll remind you of the utility of
covering parts
you don’t want to heat with hot air using tape.
Thanks [Jim] for the tip! | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049306",
"author": "Peter Puffer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T23:31:03",
"content": "There’s no law that prohibits people from using CRT TV. To receive digital TV you can buy special converters on AliExpress. In fact CRTs are better because they have full viewing angles and better co... | 1,760,371,765.819341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/how-to-make-conductive-tin-oxide-coatings-on-glass/ | How To Make Conductive Tin Oxide Coatings On Glass | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"coating",
"glass",
"glass coating",
"tin oxide"
] | Glass! It’s, uh, not very conductive. And sometimes we like that! But other times, we want glass to be conductive. In that case, you might want to give the glass a very fine coating of tin oxide.
[Vik Olliver] has been working on just that,
in hopes he can make a conductive spot on a glass printing bed in order to use it with a conductive probe.
[Vik’s] first attempt involved using tin chloride, produced by dissolving some tin in a beaker of hydrochloric acid. A droplet of this fluid was then dropped on a glass slide that was heated with a blowtorch. The result was a big ugly white splotch. Not at all tidy, but it did create a conductive layer on the glass. Just a thick, messy one. Further attempts refined the methodology, and [Vik] was eventually able to coat a 1″ square with a reasonably clear coating that measured an edge-to-edge resistance around 8 megaohms.
If you’re aware of better, easier, ways to put a conductive coating on glass, share them below!
We’ve seen similar DIY attempts at this before, too.
If you’ve been cooking up your own interesting home chemistry experiments (safely!?) do
let us know! | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049251",
"author": "The Mighty Buzzard",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T20:14:07",
"content": "Silver. It’s much more conductive than tin and can be deposited in transparent films as well.Yes, it’s more expensive but in the miniscule amounts we’re talking that’s not really a factor.",
... | 1,760,371,765.719844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/c64-gets-a-graphics-upgrade-courtesy-of-your-favorite-piano-manufacturer/ | C64 Gets A Graphics Upgrade Courtesy Of Your Favorite Piano Manufacturer | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"c64",
"commodore",
"commodore 64",
"gpu",
"graphics card",
"yamaha"
] | The Commodore 64 was quite a machine in its time, though a modern assessment would say that it’s severely lacking in the graphical department. [Vossi] has whipped up a bit of an upgrade for the C64 and C128, in the form of
a graphics expansion card running Yamaha hardware
.
As you might expect, the expansion is designed to fit neatly into a C64 cartridge slot. The card runs the Yamaha V9958—the video display processor known for its appearance in the MSX2+ computers. In this case, it’s paired with a healthy 128 kB of video RAM so it can really do its thing. The V9958 has an analog RGB output that can be set for PAL or NTSC operation, and can perform at resolutions up to 512×212 or even 512×424 interlaced. Naturally, it needs to be hooked directly up to a compatible screen, like a 1084, or one with SCART input. [Vossi] took the time to create some demos of the chip’s capabilities, drawing various graphics in a way that the C64 couldn’t readily achieve on its own.
It’s a build that almost feels like its from an alternate universe, where Yamaha decided to whip up a third-party graphics upgrade for the C64. That didn’t happen, but
stranger team ups have occurred
over the years.
[Thanks to Stephen Walters for the tip!] | 38 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049271",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T21:22:25",
"content": "Steinway and Sons makes graphics chips?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8049358",
"author": "wrzwicky",
... | 1,760,371,765.665674 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/hackaday-podcast-episode-292-stainless-steel-benchies-lego-turing-machines-and-a-digital-camera-made-of-pure-diy/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 292: Stainless Steel Benchies, Lego Turing Machines, And A Digital Camera Made Of Pure DIY | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Here we are in October, improbably enough, and while the leaves start to fall as the goblins begin to gather, Elliot and Dan took a break from the madness to talk about all the wonderful hacks that graced our pages this week. If there was a theme this week, it was long-term projects, like the multiple years one hacker spent going down dead ends in the quest for DIY metal 3D printing. Not to be outdone, another hacker spent seven years building a mirrorless digital camera that looks like a commercial product. And getting a solderless PCB to do the blinkenlight thing took a long time too.
Looking to eliminate stringing in your 3D prints? Then you’ll want to avoid the “pause and attach” approach, which intentionally creates strings in your prints. Wondering if you can 3D print bearings? You can, but you probably shouldn’t unless you have a particular use in mind. And what happens when you have an infinitely large supply of Lego? Why, you build a Turing machine on steroids, of course.
Finally, we take a look at this week’s “Can’t-Miss” articles with a look into plastic recycling and why we can’t have nice things yet, and we take a trip out into orbit and examine the ins and outs of Lagrange points.
And a little mea culpa from the editing desk: Sorry the podcast is coming out late this week. Audacity ate my files. If you’re ever in a similar circumstance, you can probably halfway save your bacon with
audacity-project-tools
. Ask me how I know.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Download the zero-calorie MP3.
Episode 292 Show Notes:
News:
The Internet Archive Has Been Hacked
What’s that Sound?
It was an old treadle Singer sewing machine, guessed correctly by [Charlie]. Congrats!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
An Open Source Mirrorless Camera You’d Want To Use
First Benchies In Stainless Steel, With Lasers
Ender 3 Meets MIG Welder To Make A Metal Benchy — Kind Of
See The “Pause-and-Attach” Technique For 3D Printing In Action
3D Printed String Vase Shows What’s Possible
Intentional Filament Stringing Helps Santa Soar
Wonderful Foldable Printable Dodecahedron
The Turing Machine Made Real, In LEGO
TMD-1 Makes Turing Machine Concepts Easy To Understand
TMD-2: A Bigger, Better, More Collaborative Turing Machine
TMD-3: Clever Hall Sensor Hack Leads To Better Turing Demo
Towards Solderless PCB Prototyping
Open Source Pick And Place Has A $450 BOM Cost
(Re)designing The LumenPnP Tape Feeder
3D Printed Bearings With Filament Rollers
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks
Fail Of The Week: The Case Of The Curiously Colored Streetlights
That’ll Go Over Like A Cement Airplane
What Happened To Duracell PowerCheck?
Dan’s Picks:
The Piezoelectric Glitching Attack
GPS Tracking In The Trackless Land
V-Cut Vias Test Your Whole Panel At Once
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Lagrange Points And Why You Want To Get Stuck At Them
Recycling Tough Plastics Into Precursors With Some Smart Catalyst Chemistry
Big Chemistry Series | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,765.762483 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/the-uss-new-nuclear-weapons-mysterious-fogbanks-and-inertial-confinement-fusion/ | The US’s New Nuclear Weapons, Mysterious Fogbanks And Inertial Confinement Fusion | Maya Posch | [
"Science",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"aerogel",
"thermonuclear"
] | Keeping the United States’ nuclear arsenal ready for use is an ongoing process, one which is necessarily shrouded in complete secrecy. In
an article
by
The War Zone
these developments and the secrets behind it are touched upon, including a secret ingredient for these thermonuclear warheads that is only officially known as ‘Fogbank’, but which is very likely aerogel.
As noted by a commentator, this is pretty much confirmed in an article published by Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) in the
2nd 2009 issue
(PDF) of
Nuclear Weapons Journal
. On page nine the article on hohlraum-based inertial confinement fusion notes the use of aerogel to tamp the radially inward motion of the wall material, suggesting a similar function within one of these thermonuclear warheads.
The research at the Nuclear Ignition Facility (NIF) over at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is directly related to these thermonuclear weapons, as they are based around inertial confinement fusion (ICF), which is what the NIF is set up for to study, including the role of aerogel. ICF is unlikely to ever be used for energy production,
as we noted in the past
, but makes it possible to study aspects of detonating a thermonuclear weapon that are difficult to simulate and illegal to test with real warheads.
Currently it seems that after decades of merely reusing the Fogbank material in refurbished warheads, new material is now being produced again, with it likely being used in the new W93 warhead and the low-yield W76 and life-extended W76-1 variants. All of which is of course pure conjecture, barring the details getting leaked on the
War Thunder
forums to settle a dispute on realistic US thermonuclear weapon yields. | 52 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049181",
"author": "Peter Puffer",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T15:58:11",
"content": "If you’re looking for an interesting read on nuclear weapons check out “Broń Jądrowa” by Jerzy Kubowski ISBN: 9788320433869. His book on NPPs “Elektrownie Jądrowe” ISBN: 9788301193560 is pretty go... | 1,760,371,765.92159 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/this-week-in-security-the-internet-archive-glitching-with-a-lighter-and-firefox-in-the-wild/ | This Week In Security: The Internet Archive, Glitching With A Lighter, And Firefox In-the-wild | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"firefox",
"HIBP",
"internet archive",
"This Week in Security"
] | The Internet Archive
has been hacked
. This is an ongoing story, but it looks like this started
at least as early as September 28
, while the site itself was showing a creative message on October 9th, telling visitors they should be watching for their email addresses to show up on Have I Been Pwnd.
Hi folks, yes, I'm aware of this. I've been in communication with the Internet Archive over the last few days re the data breach, didn't know the site was defaced until people started flagging it with me just now. More soon.
https://t.co/uRROXX1CF9
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt)
October 9, 2024
There are questions still. The site defacement seems to have included either a subdomain takeover, or a long tail attack resulting from
the polyfill takeover
. So far my money is on something else as the initial vector, and the polyfill subdomain as essentially a red herring.
Troy Hunt has confirmed that he received 31 million records, loaded them into the HIBP database, and sent out notices to subscribers. The Internet Archive had email addresses, usernames, and bcrypt hashed passwords.
In addition, the Archive has been facing Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks off and on this week. It’s open question whether the same people are behind the breach, the message, and the DDoS. So far it looks like one group or individual is behind both the breach and vandalism, and another group, SN_BLACKMETA, is behind the DDoS.
Palo Alto Expedition
Researchers at
HORIZON3 started with a known vulnerability in Palo Alto’s Expedition application
. This follows a pattern we’ve seen many times before. A vulnerability is found, usually in a codebase or niche that hadn’t been considered interesting to researchers. A new vulnerability is announced, and suddenly the boring code seems interesting.
The new vulnerability was pretty straightforward — an HTTP call to a specific endpoint resets the admin password to default. The obvious next step was to look for something to do with this new admin power. Expedition uses cron to schedule tasks, and while there didn’t seem to be a way to directly set the command, the start time wasn’t sanitized, and ended up part of a string executed in bash. Yes, it’s a simple command line injection. Sometimes the simple approach just works.
The flaws were fixed with 1.2.96. As Expedition is intended for network migration, it’s not expected to be run indefinitely. Shodan lists a whopping 23 Expedition servers on the Internet. Don’t be like those guys.
Arbitrary Write, But Read Only Filesystem
[Stefan Schiller] from Sonar
had an interesting challenge
. He had found an arbitrary file upload widget in a node.js application. This sort of write anything anywhere flaw is usually an instant exploit, with many options to choose from. This particular application was hardened: The filesystem was read only. This is a great strategy for making exploitation harder. But as we see here, it’s not foolproof. In Unix, everything is a file. And that means that file write vulnerabilities are useful even with a read-only FS.
In this case, the weak point was an anonymous pipe, an inter-process communication (IPC) construction. The Linux
procfs
puts those pipes on the filesystem. Listening on the other end of one of those pipes was
libuv
, a signal handling library. One of the things this library does with these messages is to jump execution to a pointer in the message, as a callback function implementation. Build this data structure properly, and you have shell code execution. Nifty!
Glitching With a Lighter
Memory glitching attacks are really cool. And most of the time, they’re pretty difficult to pull off. Getting access often means physically attacking a chip, or using some expensive EM generator. [David Buchanan] wanted to know if that style of attack is possible with makeshift tools.
So, he channeled his inner MacGyver, and looked at the junk in his pockets
. A scrap of wire and a pocket lighter? Perfect!
That lighter didn’t use flint and steel, but instead a piezo-electric trigger. Solder the wire onto the memory chip of a laptop, and flick the lighter right next to it. That scrap of wire is suddenly an antenna, and the em burst from the lighter is enough to flip a bit. It’s rowhammer, with an antenna.
And yes, using similar techniques to rowhammer, it’s quite possible to use this to compromise a machine, assuming you can get some arbitrary data somewhere in memory. It’s a clever bit of magic, and while not particularly useful as an attack, it’s really great to see someone working with these attacks on a shoestring budget and making it work.
Firefox 0-day
It’s time to update Firefox.
Mozilla has released an emergency update
, version 131.0.2, to fix a critical use-after-free vulnerability in Animation timelines, part of the Web Animations API. Not much is known about this vulnerability, but it’s being used in real-world attacks already. We know that ESET discovered the flaw, but not yet whether that discovery was from observing it in use. Regardless, the fix is now available.
Bits and Bytes
We normally think of data breaches as leaking personal information, and then brace for the inevitable targeted spam. Here’s your reminder that it can be worse than that. AT&T
seems to have an ongoing data breach
where someone with access to shipping information for new iPhones is sending it to organized porch pirate rings.
And finally, Google Project Zero has
a new post out, from [Nick Galloway]
, chatting about OSS-Fuzz and the Dav1d AV1 decoder. [Nick] expanded the fuzzing setup for Dav1d, and managed to find an integer overflow while at it. And while you’re here, maybe
check out the OSS-Fuzz Bounty program
, where Google offers to pay programmers for adding Open Source software to the OSS-Fuzz project. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049166",
"author": "zoenagy3466",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T14:54:17",
"content": "US is not allowed to talk about ESET anymore..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8049232",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timesta... | 1,760,371,766.103286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/easily-program-rp2040-boards-with-your-android-device/ | Easily Program RP2040 Boards With Your Android Device | Lewin Day | [
"Android Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"CircuitPython",
"micropython",
"rp2040"
] | You could write your microcontroller code on your desktop PC, or you could do it on your laptop on the go. Or, if you want to get really portable about things, you could write your embedded code on your phone. Enter
DroidScript.
Basically, DroidScript is a JavaScript and Python IDE for Android phones and tablets. Simple enough. You can use it to write apps for your phone or tablet. But its party piece?
You can now also use it to program for embedded devices
—namely, a range of those based on the RP2040 microcontroller. For example, the Adafruit QT-Py RP2040, the Pimoroni TinyFX, or the Pimoroni Yukon. They run MicroPython and CircuitPython, and you can program them from DroidScript. Easy.
A decade ago, this would have been a royal pain in the butt. But today? It’s easy, because the smartphones and devboards both use USB-C connectors. All you need is a regular USB-C cable and you can hook straight up to the board and burn your code.
You can get the app on the
Google Play Store
if you’re so inclined.
We’ve seen some other neat smartphone programming projects over the years, too.
Meanwhile, if you’ve found any other nifty ways to get your code on to a dev board, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049119",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T11:44:37",
"content": "Hmm I wonder if Droidscript can initiate a serial connection with the board via pyserial.It’s a pita to get a serial connection with termux",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,765.969227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/11/tiny-drones-do-distributed-mapping/ | Tiny Drones Do Distributed Mapping | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"crazyflie",
"SLAM",
"TOF",
"ultra wideband"
] | Sending teams of tiny drones to explore areas and structures is a staple in sci-fi and research, but the weight and size of sensors and the required processing power have long been a limiting factor. In the video below, a research team from [ETH Zurich] breaks through these limits, demonstrating
indoor mapping with a swarm of tiny drones
without dependence on any external systems.
The drone is the modular
Crazyflie
platform, which uses stackable PCBs (decks) to expand capabilities. The team added a
Flow deck
for altitude control and motion tracking, and a
Loco positioning deck
with a
UWB
module determining relative distances between drones. On top of this, the team added two custom decks. The first mounts four
VL53L5CX
8×8 pixel TOF sensors for omnidirectional LIDAR scanning. The final deck does handles all the required processing with a GAP9 System-on-Chip, which features 10 RISC-V cores running on just 200 mW of power.
Of course the special sauce of this project lies in the software. The team developed a lightweight collaborative Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) algorithm which can be distributed across all the drones in the swarm. It combines LIDAR scan data and the estimated position of the drone during the scan, and then overlays the data for the scans for each location across different drones, compensating for errors in the odometry data. The team also implemented inter-drone collision avoidance, packet collision avoidance and optimizing drones’ paths. The code is supposed to be available on
GitHub
, but the link was broken at the time of writing.
The Crazyflie platform has been around for more than a decade now, and we’ve seen it used in several
research projects
, especially related to
autonomous navigation
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049092",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T08:59:27",
"content": "Are TOF cameras really considered to be LIDAR devices?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8049102",
"author": "m",
"timestamp": "2024-1... | 1,760,371,766.019805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/symbolic-nixie-tubes-become-useful-for-artistic-purposes/ | Symbolic Nixie Tubes Become Useful For Artistic Purposes | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"in-7",
"in7",
"nixie",
"nixie tube"
] | When it comes to Nixie tubes, the most common usage these days seems to be in clocks. That has people hunting for the numerical version of the tubes, which are usually paired with a couple of LEDs to make the colon in the middle of the clock. However, other Nixie tubes exist, like the IN-7, which has a whole bunch of neat symbols on it instead.
[Joshua] decided to take these plentiful yet less-popular tubes and whip them up into a little art piece.
The IN-7
is a tube normally paired with the numerical IN-4 tube in instrumentation, where it displays unit symbols relevant to the number being displayed. It can display omega, +, M, pi, m, A, -, V, K, and ~.
[Joshua]’s build is simple enough. It spells the word “MAKE” in Nixie tubes as a neat sign for a makerspace. It uses “M” for Mega, “A” for Amps, “K” for Kilo for the first three letters. The fourth letter, “e”, is achieved by turning the tube 90 degrees, so the “m” for milli approximates that character. Two rows spelling “MAKE” (or “MAKe”) are assembled, powered via a small circuit which [Joshua] assembled on a custom-etched board using the toner transfer process. The electronics are all wrapped up in a neat laser-cut acrylic enclosure which was designed in Inkscape.
It’s a neat little project which makes good use of a Nixie tube that is, by and large, unloved. It also recalls us of a misspent youth, writing silly words on scientific calculators using only the available Greek characters. Meanwhile, if you’re working on your own Nixie builds, we’ve featured some neat drivers
that you might just find valuable
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049135",
"author": "alnwlsn",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T13:08:58",
"content": "I use symbol nixies in place of the seconds for some of my clocks. It’s more interesting to look at, and I usually don’t care what the actual seconds are.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,371,766.055138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/10/sailing-the-high-steppes/ | Sailing The High Steppes | Navarre Bartz | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"land sail",
"land sailing",
"Mongolia",
"sail cart",
"sailing"
] | Sails typically bring to mind the high seas, but wind power has been used to move craft on land as well. Honoring this rich tradition, [Falcon Riley] and [Amber Word] decided to sail across Mongolia in “
Moby the Land Sailing vessel.
”
Built in a mere three days from $200 in materials they were able to scrounge up the week before, the cart served as their home for the 300 km (~186 mi) journey across the Mongolian countryside. Unsurprisingly, bodging together a sailing vessel in three days to traverse uneven terrain led to a failed weld to the front tire, but a friendly local lent a hand to get them back on the road.
Built mostly out of plywood, the fully-laden cart tipped the scales at 225 kg (500 lbs) and could still be towed by hand. Under sail, however, they managed 70 km in one particularly windy day. They covered the distance in 46 days, which isn’t the fastest way to travel by any means, but not bad given the quick build time for this house on wheels. We suspect that a more lightweight and aerodynamic build could yield some impressive results. Maybe it’s time for a
new class at Bonneville
?
If you want to learn to sail in your own landlocked region,
maybe learn a bit first
? Instead you might want to build an
autonomous sailing cart
or take a
gander at sailing out of this world
?
[Thanks to Amber for stopping by to suggest some corrections!] | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8049032",
"author": "Chris Pepin",
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T02:23:49",
"content": "Not fast by powered vehicle standards, but WAY faster if the choice was build a sail cart or walk the entire distance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,371,766.418814 |
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