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https://hackaday.com/2024/03/07/ethernet-for-hackers-transformers-macs-and-phys/ | Ethernet For Hackers: Transformers, MACs And PHYs | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"8p8c",
"ethernet",
"Ethernet PHY",
"phy",
"PoE",
"power over ethernet"
] | We’ve talked about
Ethernet basics
, and we’ve talked about
equipment you will find with Ethernet
. However, that’s obviously not all – you also need to know how to add Ethernet to your board and to your microcontroller. Such low-level details are harder to learn casually than the things we talked about previously, but today, we’re going to pick up the slack.
You might also have some very fair questions. What are the black blocks near Ethernet sockets that you generally will see on boards, and why do they look like nothing else you see on circuit boards ever? Why do some boards, like the Raspberry Pi, lack them altogether? What kind of chip do you need if you want to add Ethernet support to a microcontroller, and what might you need if your microcontroller claims to support Ethernet? Let’s talk.
Transformers Make The Data World Turn
One of the Ethernet’s many features is that it’s resilient, and easy to throw around. It’s also galvanically isolated, which means you don’t need a ground connection for a link either – not until you want a shield due to imposed interference, at which point, it might be that you’re pulling cable inside industrial machinery. There are a few tricks to Ethernet, and one such fundamental Ethernet trick is transformers, known as “magnetics” in Ethernet context.
Each pair has to be put through a transformer for the Ethernet port to work properly, as a rule. That’s the black epoxy-covered block you will inevitably see near an Ethernet port in your device. There are two places on the board as far as Ethernet goes – before the transformer, and after the transformer, and they’re treated differently. After the transformer, Ethernet is significantly more resilient to things like ground potential differences, which is how you can wire up two random computers with Ethernet and not even think about things like common mode bias or ground loops, things we must account for in audio, or digital interfaces that haven’t yet gone optical somehow.
If you don’t see the transformer blob next to the Ethernet socket on your board, you might be thinking that your device has skimped on this part somehow, but that’s not the case. If you’re running Ethernet outside of your device, a transformer has to be present, which means that the RJ45 (8P8C) connector is hiding the transformer instead.
A RJ45 jack with integrated magnetics is colloquially referred to as “magjack”, and you’ll have seen one if you’ve ever seen a Raspberry Pi. They might not always be as cheap as individual Ethernet transformers combined with magnetics-less 8P8C sockets, which is why routers, switches and laptop/desktop motherboards rarely ever use them. However, they’re simple to add, and they’re great at saving board space, which is why you will see them on single-board computers and microcontroller boards.
If you need some Ethernet transformers, you can buy them, but on a short notice, harvesting them is more than acceptable. Now, you have to be mindful, of course. One of the parameters of Ethernet transformers is a turns ratio, which can be different depending on the Ethernet chip in use. If you’re using magnetics with a different turns ratio, it might not work, or it might make the chip in question very unhappy; consult the datasheets!
There’s a lot to Ethernet magnetics, including tricks like capacitive coupling, where you can situationally avoid them altogether in very specific situations. We will go through the magnetic intricacies next time, but for now, they bring us to an interesting question. When a microcontroller says that it has an Ethernet port, what does it even imply? Is it enough to add a transformer, or would it need something else? It depends – let’s learn about it!
Two Different Meanings
There are two parts to Ethernet support in terms of hardware. First, there’s the MAC – that’s a block of hardware taking care of the Ethernet protocol logic. You can’t connect it directly to a transformer, but you can connect it to a PHY. The PHY works on the physical layer of Ethernet, it’s the piece of hardware that takes prepared Ethernet packets and translates them onto the wire. Often, MAC and PHY are just two different areas on a single chip, let’s say, in desktop and laptop Ethernet chips, but just as often they’re separate.
If the MAC and PHY are ever separate in your device – say, the MAC is inside your ESP32 chip and the PHY is external, – the MAC will be will be using an interface called MII or GMII or RGMII or something along these lines. It’s a parallel interface, of the kind you want to layout carefully, because it runs fast.
If your chip says that it supports Ethernet, that can mean two things – either it has a MAC and a PHY inside, or it only has a MAC. If the device is you’re playing with is a more networking-oriented chip, say, something like a Carambola or Onion Omega board, you will have the MAC+PHY combo – just wire up a transformer of some kind, even a magjack, and you are ready to go. If you’re looking at a microcontroller with Ethernet support though, say, an ESP32 or some STM, or the Pine64’s Ox64, it’s way more likely to just have a MAC, so you will have to add a compatible PHY to your circuit before you can start wiring up the transformer.
So, Ethernet support for your favorite piece of silicon might mean straightforward wireup, or it might require an extra chip. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of Ethernet-equipped designs to borrow things from – here’s the Olimex ESP32 design for instance, open-source and giving you a circuit known to work in production. Just be careful taking PoE information from Olimex ESP32 boards – their PoE implementation, is, let’s say, situationally useful. Which is why there’s
warnings on the page
about USB programming, but it’s a great start still!
A Sprinkle Of Resistors
Of course, there are plenty of schematics and reference designs to copy from, and if you do, you might wonder – what are the passives shown inside a magjack schematic, or visible on a board right next to the magnetics? Chances are, you are looking at the Bob Smith termination.
Bob Smith termination on the right of the magnetics, center tap pullups on the left.
Bob Smith termination is something you do for unterminated Ethernet pairs at 10/100Mbps, which you will likely have to work with. It shunts the unused two pairs, both connecting the two wires of each pair together so that the entire pair is treated as a single wire, but also brings the pair to a certain voltage so that any noise induced onto it over the length don’t overlay onto signals on the actually used pairs.
Also, this is one of the things you might burn out if you plug a passive PoE-enabled cable – the resistors will shunt the DC path; which is why PoE-compatible magnetics add extra capacitors in series with each resistor.
On the other side, you will see pullup resistors on the center taps of the active pairs, and capacitors to ground. Omitting either of these will cause your devices to get unhappy, so if your PHY releases magic smoke, or if your Ethernet link glitches out every now and then, you will look back and wish you added them – and it costs nothing to add footprints for them that you can populate later.
Next time, I’d like to show you open-source designs and walk you through a few of them, pointing out things that are there for a reason that you might not be aware of. There are things like isolation perimeters, shield connection, Bob Smith termination values, polarity swaps and PoE tap ways, that you likely want to talk about, and I will highlight appnotes that you’d benefit from reading through, too!
Featured image: “
10base-T
” by [gratuit] | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6739229",
"author": "MattAtHazmat",
"timestamp": "2024-03-07T18:16:11",
"content": "The single pull-up resistor is not universal. More typically, I’ve seen individual 49.9 ohm resistors pulling up to the supply on each leg of the differential pair, with the center tap of the transfo... | 1,760,371,986.319813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/07/ct-scan-reveals-secrets-of-heinzs-new-ketchup-cap/ | CT Scan Reveals Secrets Of Heinz’s New Ketchup Cap | Lewin Day | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"cap",
"CT Scan",
"heinz",
"ketchup"
] | Ketchup bottles are a solved technology, right? Wrong! As it turns out, there is still great development being done in this space. Industrial imaging company Lumafield reveals to us
the secrets of Heinz’s new ketchup bottle cap
, reportedly the result of a seven-figure investment and eight long years of toil.
Lumafield put the cap in a CT scanner to generate three-dimensional cutaway images of the cap’s internal structure. The trick of the new cap is in how it compares to the old design. The previous solution used multiple different plastics: likely polypropylene for the cap itself, along with a small amount of silicone for the flexible nozzle valve. The point of the valve was to regulate the flow of ketchup so the bottle squirts out the red goop in a predictable fashion.
The problem with the old cap is that the use of two materials both makes it more expensive to manufacture, and practically impossible to recycle. A solution was needed, and Heinz finally found one.
The new cap, which is fully recyclable, takes advantage of the properties of ketchup itself. As the ketchup is squeezed out of the bottle, it passes through a complicated array of channels before it gets to the nozzle outlet itself. As a sheer-thinning fluid, ketchup gets less viscous the more its under strain. Thus, as it deforms around the complex channels, it becomes less viscous and more likely to flow out at a predictable rate, rather than in thick gloopy spurts.
It’s amazing to think how much work goes into a simple ketchup cap, and yet, millions of dollars are on the line in projects like these. This isn’t the first time Lumafield used their tech to peel back the layers on a piece of common tech —
last year we covered their investigation
into what’s inside various AirPod knockoffs. | 57 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6739185",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2024-03-07T17:03:14",
"content": "Anyone else remember when ketchup came in glass bottles and required the use of a butter knife in order to get enough out?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,371,986.458617 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/07/stacking-solar-cells-is-a-neat-trick-to-maximise-efficiency/ | Stacking Solar Cells Is A Neat Trick To Maximise Efficiency | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Misc Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"efficiency",
"perovskite",
"semiconductors",
"silicon",
"solar",
"solar panel",
"solar power"
] | Solar power is already cheap and effective, and it’s taking on a larger role in supplying energy needs all over the world. The thing about humanity, though, is that we always want more! Too much, you say? It’s never enough!
The problem is that the sun only outputs so much energy per unit of area on Earth, and solar cells can only be so efficient thanks to some fundamental physical limits. However, there’s a way to get around that—with the magic of tandem solar cells!
More and More And More
Solar cells are constrained by something called the radiative efficiency limit, also known as the
Shockley-Queisser limit
. It defines the maximum possible efficiency of a solar cell based around a p-n semiconductor junction. It states that a single solar cell can only have an efficiency of around 32% for the most popular material, silicon. Even with some other semiconductor material with a higher band gap, peak efficiency could only go as high as 33.7%.
A multi-junction solar cell developed by NREL. It glows red due to gallium indium phosphide in the top layer. Credit:
NREL
The physics involved is complex, and the limit comes down to multiple factors. For a start, not all photons in sunlight have enough energy to excite an electron to the bandgap of the solar cell material, so they don’t contribute to energy generation.
Meanwhile, photons with excess energy above the bandgap level waste some of it as heat. Excess heat tends to reduce the efficiency of the cell due to other effects, while it’s also a fact that not every electron excited in the cell structure contributes to current flow. Work through all these limitations, and you can pencil out that your silicon-based solar cell will never achieve more than 32% at best.
The thing about the limit is that it only applies to a single cell in isolation. The concept of a tandem solar cell is that you stack multiple solar together, each tuned to different wavelengths of light. The idea is that by using different semiconductor materials for the different cells, you can generate electricity more efficiently from different wavelengths of light.
In theory, the idea has great promise. Where an ideal single-junction cell has a maximum efficiency of 33.16% in theory, a tandem or multi-junction solar cell with “infinite” junctions could hit an efficiency of up to 86.8%. Of course, we don’t have infinite types of semiconductor materials to use to make a cell that good, but it’s indicative of the gains that can be made.
A schematic for a multi-junction solar
cell, indicating how each layer is tuned to suit different wavelengths of light. Credit: Ncouniot –
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, CC BY-SA 3.0
In reality, we’re still a ways off the theoretical limits, as you might expect. The highest performing single-junction silicon solar cells were capable of achieving 26.81% efficiency, as of last year. In contrast, the most capable quadruple multi-junction cells have achieved efficiencies of over 47%
under concentrated sunlight
.
In real-world conditions, triple-junction cells have
achieved efficiencies of 39.5%
, still a huge gain over conventional single-junction panels. This isn’t just lab technology, either. Commercial tandem cells are available, and while expensive, they can achieve efficiencies
of over 30%.
Common customers for this technology are often those working in the space industry, looking to power satellites.
It bears noting as well that these efficiency gains are actually much greater than they sound on paper. Take a 20% efficient solar cell for example, sized at one square meter. Nominally, the sun puts out around 1000 watts of energy per square meter as it shines on Earth on a bright day. So, our 20% efficient panel will output 200 watts under ideal conditions. If we bump its efficiency up by just 10%, though, to 30%, we get 300 watts output instead. That’s not a 10% improvement—it’s a 50% improvement! Scale that out to a whole solar array, and you can see the benefits to be had from installing more efficient panels.
Perovskites and More
Of course, you might imagine that this improved efficiency comes at a cost, and it does. Namely, cost! Manufacturing a solar cell with multiple types of semiconductor junctions is far more expensive then simply churning out simple silicon-based panels. Popular semiconductor materials for multi-junction cells include indium gallium phosphide (InGaP), gallium arsenide (GaAs), germanium (Ge), and indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). Known as III/V semiconductor materials, they all have different band gaps, which allows them to convert photons of different energy levels more efficiently into electricity. However, these materials can be very expensive, and aren’t really suitable for mass production of consumer-grade solar cells.
A record-breaking perovskite-silicon solar cell developed by a team at HZB. Credit: Johannes Beckedahl/Lea Zimmerman/
HZB
However, the most talked-about tandem configurations involve pairing silicon with perovskites, a class of materials that have shown remarkable photovoltaic properties. Perovskites are cheaper to produce and have tunable bandgaps, which means their light absorption properties can be adjusted for optimal performance when layered on top of silicon.
In one example from
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin
, scientists created a perovskite solar cell layer that was tuned to capture photons from the blue part of the visible light spectrum. Meanwhile, the conventional silicon solar cell underneath was left to capture the red and near-infrared light.
This improves efficiency, because the perovskite could be tuned with a band gap suitable for the higher energy blue light. If the blue light was instead captured by the silicon layer, the extra energy above the band gap would just be wasted, being turned into heat.
Scientists at KIT developed a cell using two tuned perovskite layers atop a standard silicon solar cell layer. Each layer has a different band gap, with the top layer capturing energy from the most energetic photons. Weaker photons travel through to be converted in the lower layers. Credit:
KIT paper
It’s actually possible to use multiple layers of perovskites too. Each layer can be tuned to a different band gap, with the highest-energy layer on top and silicon on the bottom. Researchers at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie have been experimenting with this very concept, producing a triple-layer perovskite-perovskite-silicon cell.
Their design achieved a record efficiency of 24.4%, as revealed
in a new paper published this year.
Cells using this type of design aren’t yet achieving the 30%+ results of other tandem designs, but the hope is that multi-layer perovskite designs could continue to improve in efficiency in future.
As the world continues to wean itself of fossil fuels, demand for solar cells will continue to rise. At the same time, the more efficiency we can get out of each cell, the less we’ll require to meet our energy needs. Expect development to continue at a rapid pace in this area as companies vie to develop the perfect multi-junction solar cell that can be manufactured en masse. Ultimately, these improved panels will be a key tool in the fight against climate change. | 51 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6739178",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2024-03-07T16:42:43",
"content": "“Solar power is already cheap and effective” (Citation needed)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6739210",
"author": "TG",
"timest... | 1,760,371,986.258722 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/07/older-nissan-leafs-lose-their-app-are-they-the-first-of-many/ | Older Nissan Leafs Lose Their App, Are They The First Of Many? | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"apps",
"cars",
"Nissan Leaf"
] | There was a time when all you needed to use your car was a key. On older vehicles it was a traditional metal key, on more recent ones it had some kind of RFID chip for the immobilizer. As vehicles have become more and more computers on wheels though, the key has disappeared in favor of an electronic key using RF, and in many cases a smartphone application. It’s even used as a selling point: “Look how amazing our car is, you open it with an app!”
Now the obvious flaw is beginning to show in this strategy, as Nissan Leafs made before 2016 and on the road in the UK
are to have their app support withdrawn
. The manufacturer cites the withdrawal of 2G services, but this seems a little fishy when you consider that the older networks will continue to exist in some form until 2030.
Frankly, there’s part of us that welcomes this news. On one hand, it affects relatively few early adopters. But at the same time, it has the promise of finally educating a gullible public that while a car may last into its second or third decade, the superfluous technology with which it has been loaded probably won’t. If it makes consumers clamor for longer support, or better built vehicles, it can only be a good thing. We’re guessing stories like this will become increasingly common in the next few years — luckily for Leaf owners, its relatively trivial loss of functionality won’t be the worst among them.
If the carmakers have forgotten how to make a vehicle without the dross,
we’d be delighted to remind them.
Header: Kārlis Dambrāns,
CC BY 2.0
.
Thanks [CampGareth] for the tip. | 103 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6739078",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2024-03-07T12:09:11",
"content": "Do consider that people who buy new cars rarely hold on to it for more then 5 years, and they don’t care what happens with it after that.I still have one of the older cars. It’s got electronic ignition (p... | 1,760,371,987.046627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/06/thumbs-up-to-this-pico-midi-kalimba/ | Thumbs Up To This Pico MIDI Kalimba | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"capacitive touch",
"kalimba",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | The kalimba, or thumb piano, is an easy way to make some music even if you have next to no idea what you’re doing. The only real downside is that they are limited to the twinkly sounds of metal tines being plucked by thumbs.
[Jeremy Cook] broke the sonic possibilities wide open by
converting a couple of kalimbas into capacitive-touch MIDI instruments
using the Raspberry Pi Pico. He started with a small one that is curiously made of solid wood. Usually these instruments are at least partially hollow to allow air to resonate inside the body.
After soldering up all the 1 MΩ resistors necessary to utilize the capacitive touch capabilities of the Pico, [Jeremy] found it a bit difficult to play individual notes on such a small instrument, so he made version two out of a much larger specimen.
This time, [Jeremy] cooked up a custom PCB which he is calling the Pico Touch 2, which adds the necessary resistors at the SMD level for capacitive touch sensing and in turn cleans up the wiring a bit. Be sure to check it out in action after the break.
Okay, so you don’t have an iota of musical talent. You could always build
a kalimba that plays itself. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738682",
"author": "eeucalyptus",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T16:36:18",
"content": "Whoa, I was about to start making a midi controller for an event, but I guess now I’ll just take this as my model. Cute little project, though maybe a bit wasteful with otherwise fine instruments :D I... | 1,760,371,987.109629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/06/dial-up-is-still-just-barely-a-thing/ | Dial-Up Is Still, Just Barely, A Thing | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"Featured",
"Network Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"dial-up",
"internet",
"modem",
"us robotics"
] | In an era dominated by broadband and wireless cellular networks, it might come as a surprise to many that dial-up internet services still exist in the United States. This persistence is not a mere relic of nostalgia — but a testament to the diverse and uneven nature of internet infrastructure across the country.
Yes, dial-up internet, with those screechy, crackly tones, remains a useful tool in areas where modern, high-speed internet services are either unaffordable or unavailable. Subscriber numbers are tiny, but some plough on and access the Internet by the old ways, not the new.
The Old Ways
The resilience of dial-up internet in the U.S. market is underpinned by several factors that ensure its continued relevance. Primarily, it caters to rural and remote areas where the infrastructure for high-speed internet has not been fully developed.
AOL weirdly still hosts a dialer program on
its dial-up page
, but it doesn’t actually have any dial-up functionality in it.
Despite significant advancements in telecommunications technology, there are still many regions in the U.S. where geographical challenges and the high cost of infrastructure development make it difficult for service providers to offer typical broadband or wireless services. In these areas, dial-up internet becomes the only feasible option for connecting to the digital world. For context, in 2019, census figures suggested
just 0.2% of households
used dial-up internet, a number surely even smaller today.
If you’re trying to get on the internet via telephone line today, though, you’ll find your options are pretty limited. Some big players like EarthLink and AOL stuck with dial-up for longer than most, but the companies no longer offer sign-ups on their websites. Not surprising, given the take rate must have been near zero.
You can apparently get free dialup internet access from NetZero, though you will still be paying for phone calls made when you dial in.
Instead, you’ll need to look at a company like
NetZero,
which offers a dial-up service for $29.95 a month. For that money, you get unlimited internet access with no time limit, which is probably easy to offer when customer numbers are so low. The company also touts its service as “HiSpeed Accelerated Dial-Up,” but it’s just some basic compression or caching system that doesn’t actually net you any data rate increase over the usual 56 Kbps speed of traditional dialup connections. It also offers an ad-supported “Free ISP” service offering up to 10 hours of usage per month, including webmail.
Juno
is another ISP operating in the dial-up space, similarly offering “accelerated” service with unlimited hours for $29.95 a month. Hilariously,
DSLExtreme
offers unlimited dial-up too, despite its name. On an annual contract, it’s as cheap as $9.95 a month, or $12.95 a month if you’re paying as you go.
It’s easy to imagine that for some, the cost factor could play a significant role, but it’s not really the case. Regular broadband connections can be had fairly cheaply, as can cellular service with Internet access bundled in. Ultimately, dial-up isn’t really a cheaper way to get online at all, especially when you consider you have to pay for regular telephone service as well. It really only makes sense if you’re far away from any wireless or wired broadband infrastructure and it’s the only way you can get online. In this way, it can prove a useful way for those in remote areas to do simple tasks like access email or process credit-card payments.
You won’t do much beyond that, though, because dial-up tech is firmly stuck in the 1990s as far as speeds are concerned. At best, you’ll get something approaching 56 Kbits/sec if you’ve got a nice V.92 modem and a great connection. In reality, if you’re calling your ISP from a great distance from a rural area, you might find that your speeds are somewhat lower if the connection isn’t crystal clear.
Classics Never Go Out of Style
At least getting yourself a modem is still fairly easy.
US Robotics
still maintains a small range of 56K modems, and states that most of them are compatible even with Windows 11.
If you want a high-quality modem these days, you might find buying a refurbished US Robotics unit to be your best bet. They were built to last and look like they’re still living in 1989.
The
5670
is a PCI soft modem if you like your operating system to do the heavy lifting, with an MSRP of just $14.99. You can also source a high-quality refurbished
USR3453C
if you have a demanding business-grade application.
Other options include the 5686G external modem with an RS232 interface, or the 5639 soft-modem if you simply have to have a USB interface. StarTech does actually sell
a hardware USB modem
, however, if you’re looking for modern connectivity and a more reliable experience. Ultimately, though, much of what you’ll find for sale online is cheap new USB soft-modems, whereas most hardware modems for sale are used units from the early 2000s and before.
For most of us, it’s hard to imagine using dial-up internet in this era for anything other than pure historical interest. It’s too slow to reasonably load most regular websites, which have all been designed for the higher speeds of modern broadband connections. However, if you’re doing something that needs connectivity on the end of some dusty old rural phone line, you might find yourself getting familiar with the screechy kind of Internet once more. | 97 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738634",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T15:14:27",
"content": "Having worked with cellular devices “in the field”, the benefit of dialup vs. GPRS is that it’s not flaky and prone to outages due to weather. If it’s on, it stays on, instead of cutting off randomly in the ... | 1,760,371,986.915823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/06/gps-antenna-mods-make-starlink-terminal-immune-to-jammers/ | GPS Antenna Mods Make Starlink Terminal Immune To Jammers | Arya Voronova | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"bias tee",
"gps antenna",
"GPS jammer",
"Starlink"
] | The Starlink receivers need positioning and precise timing information to function, and currently the best way to get that information is to use a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) such as GPS. Unfortunately, the antenna used for this secondary satellite connection leaves something to be desired. Of course, when it comes to solving Starlink problems, there’s no one best than [Oleg Kutkov], whose duty is to fix and improve upon Starlink terminals used in Ukraine — and when the specific problem is GPS bands getting jammed by the invading military,
you better believe that a fix is due
.
[Oleg] sets the scene, walking us through the evolution of GPS circuitry on the Starlink terminals. Then he shows us the simplest mods you can do, like soldering an improved passive antenna in place of the chip antenna currently being used. Then, he takes it up a notch, and shows us how you could attach an active antenna by using a bias tee module, a mod that would surely work wonders on more than just this device! Then, he brings out the test result tables — and the differences are impressive, in that the Starlink terminals with active antenna mods were able to get GPS signal in areas with active jamming going on, while the unmodified ones could not.
The post is exceptionally accessible, and a must read for anyone wondering about GPS antenna reception problems in customer-accessible devices. This is not the only Starlink hardware mod we’ve seen [Oleg] make, we’ve just covered his Starlink Ethernet port restoration journey that meticulously
fixes Ethernet connectivity oversights
in the newer models, and the blog also has an article about
powering Starlink terminals without the need for PoE,
so, do check it out if you’re looking for more! | 70 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738606",
"author": "Jace",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T13:23:00",
"content": "Whoa whoa, they’re fighting Russia AND The Horde?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6738637",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T15:18:10... | 1,760,371,986.777569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/06/automated-system-keeps-camper-van-air-fresh-and-warm/ | Automated System Keeps Camper Van Air Fresh And Warm | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"camper",
"cooling",
"electronics",
"heating",
"hvac"
] | Air quality has become a hot topic in recent years. [Ryan Stout] was interested in improving it in his camper van, and set about doing something about it. His solution was an automated system
that provided cleaner air and better comfort to boot.
The concept was simple. [Ryan]’s system is based on an Arduino clone, and uses a SparkFun SCD40 as a
CO2 sensor
, and an MCP9808 for temperature. When the system detects excess carbon dioxide levels, it opens the MaxxAir fan in the camper by triggering it with an infrared signal. Similarly, when it detects excessively low temperatures inside the van, it kicks on a diesel furnace for heating. In a neat addition, to avoid the fan sucking in exhaust fumes, it also closes the fan in order to avoid exhaust fumes entering the camper unnecessarily. All the hardware was then wrapped up in a simple 3D printed enclosure.
With this setup, [Ryan] has managed to cut the buildup of CO2 in his camper at night, and he credits this with reducing morning headaches when he’s out in the camper. We’d call that a win, to say nothing of the additional comfort created by the automatically-controlled heater! If you’re interested in something similar for your home HVAC system,
we’ve got you covered
. | 22 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738597",
"author": "Łukasz",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T12:22:02",
"content": "I have similar setup with esphome scd40 and another esphome fan. Logic is controlled by HA.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6738620",
"autho... | 1,760,371,986.59078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/yuzu-and-citra-emulators-shut-down-after-legal-pressure-from-nintendo/ | Yuzu And Citra Emulators Shut Down After Legal Pressure From Nintendo | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"citra",
"emulator",
"nintendo"
] | In a move that came rather like a surprise to many, the company behind the well-known Switch and 3DS emulators Yuzu and Citra – Tropic Haze LLC – as reported by
PC Gamer
has
shutdown
both projects
and associated websites as part of a US$2.4M settlement with Nintendo with a last message left on the
Yuzu website
. This comes in the wake of Nintendo
suing
Tropic Haze LLC over the Yuzu emulator, claiming that there’s ‘no lawful way to use Yuzu’, as it requires files extracted from a real Switch device to decrypt game files. Although Citra is not part of the
lawsuit
, it being made by the same developers seems to have resulted in it getting axed along with Yuzu as collateral damage.
What makes this issue so legally hairy is that even though an emulator by itself isn’t illegal, requiring proprietary firmware and keys already gets one into contested territory about the legality of dumping said files from a console, even if you own it. This was already an issue with the first Playstation emulators, which require the Playstation BIOS image to even boot, but left the emulator developers mostly untouchable. What seems to have set off Nintendo’s lawyers here would seem to be the way that the Yuzu developers leaned into the copyright infringement (often incorrectly called ‘piracy’) angle, giving Nintendo’s legal team enough exposed flesh to launch a ballistic legal strike.
What will the fallout of this whole case be? Obviously Yuzu and Citra are gone, if only by name. As open source projects Citra is likely to pop up again under another name, while Yuzu can find itself reincarnated as well, albeit very likely. Despite decades of lawsuits by Nintendo and others, emulators themselves are legal under even the US’ egregious DMCA, and dumping firmware and game ROMs from systems and media which you purchased can be done with impunity, even if it leaves Nintendo et al. fuming at the mouth.
Effectively, what this lawsuit and settlement tells us is that even if emulators are widely used for copyright infringement, the emulator developers should only ever admit to this regretfully, lamenting the depravity of humanity that these unscrupulous individuals would do such a horrid thing, rather than simply buy more games and format shift them for backup and personal emulator usage.
The final message by Tropic Haze LLC founders after shutting down the Yuzu and Citra projects. | 40 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738521",
"author": "Lee Stella",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T06:36:56",
"content": "If Nintendo sues someone, it clearly crossed a line.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6738551",
"author": "Andrea Campanella",
"t... | 1,760,371,986.533752 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/large-language-model-can-help-you-develop-for-the-amiga/ | Large Language Model Can Help You Develop For The Amiga | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"amiga",
"ChatGPT"
] | Developing for the Amiga used to involve reading dense programming manuals and trial and error. In contrast, developing these days can be as simple as barking orders at ChatGPT to spit you out some Python code. However, that technique doesn’t work so well for Amiga languages, as ChatGPT hasn’t read much about the now-ancient platform. However, as covered by
AmigaNews,
there is now a ChatGPT model trained specifically on Amiga development. Enter
Amiga Guru.
The work of [Cameron Armstrong], Amiga Guru was built after his early experiments with ChatGPT spat out non-functional gibberish when Amiga-compatible code was requested. The model has been trained on a corpus of official Amiga programming manuals, third-party books, and even the documentation for AmigaOS 3.2 and 4.1.
Using the model yourself requires a subscription to ChatGPT Plus, which prevents this writer from testing it directly. However, it makes sense that having been directly trained on Amiga manuals, it would be more capable at answering Amiga programming queries than conventional ChatGPT 4.
It’s easy to see the value of such a system. Learning to program for older platforms can be hard, with less resources available for new learners. Having an AI to help could be useful for some eager to develop for the 68K-based machine.
If you’d like to try Amiga Guru, you can access it via
this link.
Be sure to let us know how you go, and whether you think it has any value for speeding up your own Amiga development. Otherwise, if you’ve been doing anything else nifty with the platform that Commodore bought and paid for, don’t hesitate to
let us know!
[Thanks to Stephen Waters for the tip!] | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738503",
"author": "Tom K",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T05:06:22",
"content": "I haven’t tried using it for coding but it is giving me good advice on how to troubleshoot my Amiga 4000. Not a lot of places you can go to get that type of help.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,986.366979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/rgb-led-disco-ball-reacts-to-sound-and-color/ | RGB LED Disco Ball Reacts To Sound And Color | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"color changing",
"color sensor",
"disco ball",
"microphone",
"raspberry pi",
"RGB LED",
"RGB LEDs"
] | Although disco music and dancing may be long dead, the disco ball lives on as a staple of dance parties everywhere. [Tim van de Vathorst] spent a considerable amount of time
reinventing the disco ball
into something covered with RGB LEDs that reacts to sound and uses a color sensor to change hue based on whatever it’s presented with.
[Tim] started by modeling the disco ball after a soccer ball with a mixture of pentagons and hexagons. Then it was off to the laser cutter to cut it out of 3mm plywood sheets. Once assembled, [Tim] added LED strips across all the faces and wired them up. Then it was time to figure out how to hold the guts together inside of the ball. Back to the drawing board and laser cutter [Tim] went to design a simple two-piece skeleton to hold the Raspberry Pi and the power supply.
In order to do some of the really interesting effects, [Tim] had to make sure that the faces were divvied up correctly in code. That was difficult and involved a really big array, but the result looks worth the trouble. Finally, [Tim] covered the ball in white acrylic to diffuse the LEDs. As you will see in the build/demo video after the break, the ball turned out really well. The only real problem is that the camera doesn’t work very well without light, which is something good parties are usually short on. [Tim] might add a spotlight or something in the future.
Do you prefer the mirrored look of the standard disco ball?
Peep the tiny one in this Disco Containment Unit. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738614",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2024-03-06T14:00:14",
"content": "God’s (ie David Gilmour’s) disco ballhttps://youtu.be/9Sa2q-b3oRoat 6:42",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6739054",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,371,987.158432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/goatee-pasta-maker-makes-us-hunger-for-hair/ | Goatee Pasta Maker Makes Us Hunger For Hair | Navarre Bartz | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"cooking",
"pasta",
"pasta maker",
"simone giertz"
] | Some hacks are pure acts of whimsy, and [Simone Giertz] is back to her roots with this
Goatee Pasta Maker
.
If violence to mannequin heads is upsetting, the video may be a bit NSFW (to warn you now that you already clicked on it). What started out as a pasta-making version of those Play-Doh hair people quickly morphed into a more scaled-back endeavor with simply extruding pasta through the mannequin’s chin to create pasta hair.
Initial attempts at using a basketball to extrude clay (used as a pasta stand-in) through holes in a mannequin’s head were unsuccessful, so [Giertz] turned to a more conventional pasta gun to handle the pasta extrusion. Since the gun didn’t have the volume necessary to produce a full head of hair, or even a respectable mustache, the next mannequin’s chin was subjected to multiple drill holes for pasta to escape in a hairy tangle.
The results aren’t exactly appetizing, but it definitely does make edible pasta. If you’re looking for more pasta hacks, how about
ramen in an edible package
,
flat pack pasta
, or
Barilla’s Open Source pasta tool
? | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738207",
"author": "P Curley",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T06:59:00",
"content": "I did not read that headline correctly the first time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6738241",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"ti... | 1,760,371,987.201231 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/oc-accelerate-your-large-builds-locally-with-distcc/ | Accelerate Your Large Builds Locally With Distcc | Dave Rowntree | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"compiling",
"distcc",
"distributed computing",
"gcc",
"network"
] | The motto of Sun Microsystems back in the day was “The Network Is The Computer” which might be kind of relevant when CPUs were slower and single-core affairs, but lately to get a faster compile, you’d simply throw more cores and memory at the problem. The thing is, most of us don’t do huge compilations all that often, we can’t remember the last time we even attempted a Linux kernel build. However if you do find yourself with a sudden need to do so, and have access to a pile of machines hooked to a network, then why not check out
distcc: the fast distributed C/C++ Compiler
? We’ve seen a few mentions in comments and a HaD links article referencing it, but never explicitly covered the tool. So here we go.
To call distcc a compiler is a bit misleading, it is a compiler frontend. Each client you have access to runs the distcc daemon process and sits there awaiting instructions. To start a parallel compile, you invoke your normal build command with the ‘pump’ script, enable parallel build mode set the compiler to ‘distcc’ and let the tool do the rest. A really nice feature is that the compiler hosts need not share a filesystem or have synchronised clocks. They can even be different operating systems and CPU architectures, with appropriate cross-compilers in place, so leveraging existing hardware without dedicating it to the task is much easier.
Distcc compiler support is focussed upon GCC, but does include support LLVM as well. OS support is primarily aimed at Linux but seems to run just fine on various BSD derivatives and even Cygwin on Windows. You can imagine a neat scenario where whilst working on your laptop, you come home and kick off a new build, for your machine to pick up the other machines in your vicinity and automatically tap into their CPU power. And you only need to set it up once!
Whilst this is distributed computing for your needs, on your network, we have seen many good uses lately of distributed computing across the whole internet. Like the
one about a certain pesky coronavirus. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738193",
"author": "ecloud",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T04:05:12",
"content": "distcc!?! you have to configure the machines you’re going to use, last I checked: they don’t discover each other.https://github.com/icecc/icecreamis like that but does discovery, so that machines can come ... | 1,760,371,987.467288 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/design-tips-to-hide-layer-lines-in-3d-printed-parts/ | Design Tips To Hide Layer Lines In 3D Printed Parts | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"dfm",
"layer lines",
"mass production",
"optimizing"
] | [Slant 3D] knows a lot about optimizing 3D prints so that they can be cranked out reliably with minimal need for post-processing, and
in this short video
he uses a cube as a simple example of how a few design changes can not only optimize for production, but can even hide layer lines pretty effectively.
Just to be perfectly clear, layer lines cannot be eliminated
entirely
without some kind of post-processing. But [Slant 3D]’s tips sure goes a long way toward making a part lose that obvious 3D-printed “look”. They also dovetail nicely with advice on how to optimize cranking out high numbers of parts in a print farm.
Adding texture to the outer layer is especially effective when combined with non-traditional part orientations.
One simple way to avoid visible layer lines is to put some kind of texture onto the part. This can be modeled into the part’s surface, or the slicer software can be used to modify the exterior of the print to add a texture such as
a geometric pattern
or by applying a
fuzzy skin
modifier.
Printing a texture onto the exterior is great, but the outcome can be even further improved by also printing the object in a non-traditional orientation.
Using a cube as an example, printing the cube on a corner has the advantage of putting the layer lines in a different orientation as well as minimizing the contact area on the print bed. This applies the texture across more of the part, and looks less obviously 3D printed in the process. Minimizing bed adhesion also makes parts much easier to remove, which has obvious benefits for production. [Slant 3D] points out that performing these operations on a 3D-printed part is essentially free.
A few other optimizations for production involve rounding sharp corners to optimize tool travel paths, and putting a slight chamfer on the bottom of parts to avoid any elephant foot distortion (
Elephant’s foot can be compensated for
, but simply putting a slight chamfer on a part is a design change that helps avoid accounting for machine-to-machine variance.)
Even if one has no need to optimize for high production volume, the tips on hiding layer lines with design changes is great advice. Watch it all in action in the short video, embedded below. | 31 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738155",
"author": "LookAtDaShinyShiny",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T00:07:38",
"content": "I like slant3d videos but I wish this was a little more in depth, showing things like fuzzy skin or applying the height maps to get rid of layer lines. Fuzzy skin is a slicer feature, so that ... | 1,760,371,987.411915 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/optical-guitar-pickup-works-with-nylon-strings/ | Optical Guitar Pickup Works With Nylon Strings | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"guitar",
"led",
"phototransistor"
] | Electric guitar pickups rely on steel strings interfering with a magnetic field, the changes in which are picked up with coils of wire. That doesn’t work with nylon strings, because they don’t tend to perturb magnetic fields nearly as much, beyond some infinitesimal level that some quantum physicist could explain. So what do you do? You follow [Simon]’s example,
and build an optical pickup instead
.
The concept is simple. You place an LED and a phototransistor in a U-shaped channel, and place it so that the string runs through it. You repeat this for each string. Thus, as a string vibrates, it interrupts the light travelling from the LED to the phototransistor. This generates a voltage that varies with the frequency of the string’s vibration. Funnily enough, this type of pickup will work just fine on both nylon and steel strings, if you were so inclined to try it.
[Simon] designed a nifty PCB with six
LED-phototransistor pairs
(using off-the-shelf interruptor sensors) for use with a nylon-stringed guitar. He reports that sound from the strings comes through clearly, but that there is some noise that is evident in the pickup’s output, too.
Listening to the demo,
it seems to capture the sound of the nylon strings well, it’s just a shame that the noise floor is so high.
If you prefer your guitar pickups to be the regular magnetic kind, you can always
wind your own from scrap
. Demo after the break.
https://codeberg.org/Luno/KlimperLux/raw/branch/main/media/demo1.0.flac | 67 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738114",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T21:09:09",
"content": "Maybe having two pickups per string in antiphase would get rid of some background noise?I believe that’s vaguely how humbuckers works?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,987.304746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/pager-lives-again-thanks-to-python-and-mastodon/ | Pager Lives Again Thanks To Python And Mastodon | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"mastodon",
"pager",
"python"
] | Pagers were a big deal for a while there, even if they never quite made it into the pantheon of excellent sitcom plot devices like answering machines did. Anyway, [Finnley Dolfin] had some pagers and gave them a refresh for the modern era,
using them to receive message alerts from Mastodon
.
The project is laced together with a bunch of Python code. It uses the Mastodon library for interacting with the social media website. When it detects an incoming direct message, it hooks into DAPNET – the Decentralized Amateur Paging Network. Via this network, a message is sent out over the airwaves to [Finnley’s] pager, serving as a notification that someone’s reached out to chat on Mastodon.
It’s neat that the amateur radio world is keeping pagers alive, using distributed base stations to share messages. Unfortunately, given the existence of smartphones, we don’t quite see pagers catching on again any time soon. And yet, [Finnley’s] setup has a certain level of old-school cool that no modern phone could match.
We’ve seen
only a handful
of pager hacks over the years, but they’re
still pretty neat
. If you’ve got your own cooking up in the workshop,
drop us a line
, yeah? | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738078",
"author": "Clind",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T20:02:40",
"content": "neat project I wish I’d do to put right next the minitel terminal ^^",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6738115",
"author": "Paul LeBlanc",
"times... | 1,760,371,987.341749 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/retrotechtacular-the-free-piston-engine/ | Retrotechtacular: The Free Piston Engine | Jenny List | [
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"2-stroke",
"engine",
"free piston"
] | We all know how a conventional internal combustion engine works, with a piston and a crankshaft. But that’s by no means the only way to make an engine, and one of the slightly more unusual alternatives comes to us courtesy of a vintage Shell Film Unit film,
The Free Piston Engine
, which we’ve placed below the break. It’s a beautiful period piece of mid-century animation and jazz, but it’s also an introduction to these fascinating machines.
We’re introduced to the traditional two-stroke diesel engine as thermally efficient but not smooth-running, and then the gas turbine as smooth but much more inefficient. The free piston engine, a design with opposed pistons working against compressed air springs and combining both compression and firing strokes in a single axis, doesn’t turn anything in itself, but instead works as a continuous supplier of high pressure combustion gasses. The clever part of this arrangement is that these gasses can then turn the power turbine from a gas turbine engine, achieving a smooth engine without compromising efficiency.
This sounds like a promising design for an engine, and we’re introduced to a rosy picture of railway locomotives, ships, factories, and power stations all driven by free piston engines. Why then, here in 2024 do we not see them everywhere? A quick Google search reveals an inordinately high number of scientific review papers about them but not so many real-world examples. In that they’re not alone, for alternative engine designs are one of those technologies for which if we had a dollar for every one we’d seen that didn’t make it, as the saying goes, we’d be rich.
It seems that the problem with these engines is that they don’t offer the control over their timing that we’re used to from more conventional designs, and thus the speed of their operation also can’t be controlled. The British firm
Libertine
claim to have solved this with their line of linear electrical generators, but perhaps understandably for commercial reasons they are a little coy about the details. Their focus is on free piston engines as power sources for hybrid electric vehicles, something which due to their small size they seem ideally suited for.
Perhaps the free piston engine has faced its biggest problem not in the matter of technology but in inertia. There’s an old saying in the computer industry: “
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM
“, meaning that the conventional conservative choice always wins, and it’s fair to guess that the same applies anywhere a large engine has been needed. A conventional diesel engine may be a complex device with many moving parts, but it’s a well-understood machine that whoever wields the cheque book feels comfortable with. That’s a huge obstacle for any new technology to climb. Meanwhile though it offers obvious benefits in terms of efficiency, at the moment its time could have come due to environmental concerns, any internal combustion engine has fallen out of fashion. It’s possible that it could find a life as an engine running on an alternative fuel such as hydrogen or ammonia, but we’re not so sure. If new free piston engines do take off though, we’ll be more pleased than anyone to eat our words. | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738006",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T18:20:41",
"content": "Stirling free piston engines, that couple energy out through linear magnetic arrays, seem to be at least competitive for some industries and business cases where very low vibration is necessary. Th... | 1,760,371,987.819007 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/high-vacuum-hack-chat/ | High Vacuum Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 6 at noon Pacific for the
High Vacuum Hack Chat
with Niklas from Advanced Tinkering!
To the casual observer, there’s not much that goes on in experimental physics that doesn’t require at least a partial vacuum. It makes sense when you think about it; our atmosphere is so thick and so loaded with water vapor and reactive oxygen that it just has to play havoc with experiments. Even when the goal is more applied than empirical, getting rid of all those pesky molecules is often the first step in getting good results.
But pulling a vacuum is rarely an easy task. Sure you can pump out some of the air, but that just makes the rest of the atmosphere try really hard to get back inside and ruin your day. It takes a lot of specialized equipment, a lot of precision-machined stainless steel fittings, and quite a bit of experience not only to pull a vacuum, but to then be able to work within it and do something useful.
One place where we’ve seen a lot of high-vacuum action is over on
Advanced Tinkering
on YouTube. The channel has a wealth of interesting experiments, many of which need a good vacuum to get going. To that end, channel owner Niklas has assembled a nice collection of vacuum gear, and we asked him to drop by the Hack Chat to talk about what he’s learned by embracing the suck.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 6 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738129",
"author": "Prfesser",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T22:06:58",
"content": "I’m unlikely to make this one–having mouth bones scraped, x-rayed, probably drilled-and-filled, etc. “The Amateur Scientist” has a lot of older articles, many by John Stong, on vacuum processes and const... | 1,760,371,987.650733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/luggable-cyberdeck-can-still-be-a-luggable-pc/ | Luggable Cyberdeck Can Still Be A Luggable PC | Kristina Panos | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"luggable",
"luggable computer"
] | In the 80s and early 90s, there existed a class of personal computers that are no longer around today — the luggable. Planted firmly between a desktop and a laptop, these machines were lovingly called so because they were portable, but just barely. Think Kaypro, Osborne, or the Compaq Portable.
First things first —
this lovely 1990-era industrial luggable has not been gutted
according to [D1g1t4l_G33k]. The chassis, CRT, power supply, and ISA backplane are original and still intact, and they still have all the parts to restore it to its original DOS 3.1 form.
What [D1g1t4l_G33k] did do is replace the 386x-based ISA SBC with a 2005 AMD LX-600 Geode at 366 MHz. Gone are the ISA data acquisition cards and 80 MB SCSI hard drive, replaced with a 32 GB compact flash drive. The floppy drive is functional, too. Now it sits on a cart next to the workbench running AntiX Core 19.5, functioning happily as an AVR development workstation.
Having an old luggable to mess with in the first place isn’t a requirement.
We’ve seen a modern take on the luggable
, and
here’s one with three monitors. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738253",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T12:17:06",
"content": "You could see a Kaypro2 in a McGyver episode with a computer recycling facility in Ghana i think. I will try to find back the episode.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,987.6145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/avi-loeb-and-the-interstellar-lottery/ | Avi Loeb And The Interstellar Lottery | Dan Maloney | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"exoplanet",
"extraterrestrial",
"SETI"
] | Except for rare occasions, I don’t play the lottery. Like many of you, I consider state-run lotteries to be a tax paid only by people who can’t do math. That’s kind of arrogant coming from a guy who chose to go into biology rather than engineering specifically because he’s bad at math, but I know enough to know that the odds are never in your favor, and that I’d rather spend my money on just about anything else.
But I’m beginning to get the feeling that, unlike myself and many others, Harvard professor
Avi Loeb
just might be a fan of playing the lottery. That’s not meant as a dig. Far from it. In fact, I readily concede that a physicist with an endowed chair at Harvard working in astrophysics knows a lot more about math than I do. But given his recent news splashes where he waxes on about the possibility that Earth has been treated to both
near misses
and
direct hits
from interstellar visitors, I’m beginning to think that maybe I’m looking at the lottery backward.
Odd Odds
Whenever someone challenges me on my “tax on the innumerate” position — and here I risk exposing my poor math skills — I explain my position thus: to express
the 1 in 300 million odds of winning Powerball
as a decimal you have to write down an awful lot of zeroes before you start writing any other numbers. To my mind, a number with eight zeroes after the decimal point is indistinguishable from zero, which makes me confident that it’s essentially impossible to win the lottery. QED.
“But,” the lottery lover inevitably cries. “That number may be small, but it is definitely NOT zero! Somebody has to win, and it might as well be me.” While it’s demonstrably false that “someone has to win” — plenty of lottery drawings result in no winners — the photos of people posing with oversized checks prove that people
do
win. That’s sort of confounding to me, because if my position that 0.0000000033 is the same as zero were correct, nobody would ever win. Checkmate, disbeliever.
But what does the lottery have to do with Avi Loeb? In case you don’t know, Avi Loeb is a plasma physicist by training, whose former gig before moving to the astronomy department at Harvard was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton — you know, the place where Einstein used to work. He’s authored more than a thousand papers and eight books; the guy is clearly no slouch in the science department.
And yet he has a habit of making statements about extraterrestrial life and technological civilizations that a lot of other scientists seem to chafe at, seeing them as sensational and attention-seeking. The criticism is understandable from an “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” standpoint. When ‘Oumuamua streaked through the inner solar system in 2017,
Loeb speculated
that the chunk of cosmic debris could be a space probe from an extrasolar civilization, one designed to pick up signals from smaller probes sent to Earth at an earlier time, and that the smaller probes may be related to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).
Interstellar Coal Ash
More recently, Loeb and his colleagues mounted an expedition to the Pacific Ocean off Papua New Guinea to the impact site of a probable interstellar meteor, dubbed IM1, and
recovered bits of it from the ocean floor
. Isotopic analysis of the spherules revealed that some contained iron isotopes in different ratios than those found in the inner solar system, and some are older than the solar system itself, both of which support the meteor’s extrasolar origin. This is hardly conclusive, though; there’s evidence that
the spherules are just coal fly ash
from coal-fired steam vessels, but then again, Loeb’s
further analysis of standard coal fly ash samples
says they’re not.
Loeb doesn’t seem to directly state that the IM1 was a technological artifact from an extraterrestrial civilization, at least not that I could find — although he does a lot of interviews, so it’s quite likely he has. Regardless, the implication is that he thinks both IM1 and ‘Oumuamua are such objects, and that they justify a serious investigation into the nature of interstellar objects, to which end he co-founded the
Galileo Project
, an international search for physical evidence of extraterrestrial technical civilizations. And this is where we get to the cosmic lottery I think Avi Loeb is playing.
In
a 2023 paper
that gives an overview of the Galileo Project, Loeb and project co-founder Frank Laukien argue that the chance of finding a technological civilization at roughly the same level of development as ours in our neck of the galactic woods is pretty small, about one part in 100 million, which is the ratio between the age of our scientific society and the age of the oldest stars in our galaxy. So looking for technological signatures of an extant civilization is probably a fool’s errand, but it’s three times more likely than winning Powerball.
Five In a Billion (or Four)
What if a civilization like ours developed much earlier than we did? It’s possible that at some point in their development, they got the urge to explore their part of the galaxy and figured out how to fling stuff out into space, maybe zipping by the other planets of their system on their way into the void. It’s impossible to argue that such a thing couldn’t happen, since we’ve done it five times so far: both Pioneer probes, two Voyagers, and New Horizons, which isn’t in interstellar space yet but is on its way.
And here’s the important part: it only took our planet four billion years to evolve life that could manage the trick of sending stuff into interstellar space. The Milky Way is roughly 13.6 billion years old, so that means that if we assume the same rate of development, there’ve been over four full cycles of development scattered over perhaps 400 billion stars and at least that many planets. If only a small fraction of those planets got the interstellar itch and developed the means to scratch it, then the galaxy may be positively teeming with technological artifacts from long-dead civilizations. After all, our tiny little Voyager probes will be almost a tenth of the distance to the Andromeda galaxy in another four billion years, assuming they don’t run into anything on the way. If humanity could figure out how to amplify its footprint so dramatically in just two cycles of technological development, imagine what else is out there.
This is the galactic lottery I think Avi Loeb is playing. He knows that if we did it, then someone else probably did too, and he thinks the odds of finding evidence of that are very much in our favor if we just bother to look in the right place. As they say with the real lottery, “You can’t win if you don’t play,” and with a jackpot as big as this, Avi Loeb seems willing to buy tickets to the galactic lottery like crazy. | 94 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737929",
"author": "Zoe Nagy",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T15:17:34",
"content": "So why do people win the lottery if chances are slim?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737934",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,371,987.952883 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/cant-disable-dji-drone-id-spoof-it-with-an-esp/ | Can’t Disable DJI Drone ID? Spoof It With An ESP! | Arya Voronova | [
"drone hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"anti drone defenses",
"anti-drone",
"data privacy",
"DJI",
"location tracking",
"quadcopter"
] | We have been alerted to a fun tool, a
DJI DroneID spoofer
software for ESP8266/ESP32 and some other popular MCUs. Last year,
we’ve told you about DJI DroneID
— a technology DJI added to their drones, which broadcasts data including the drone operator’s GPS position, which, in turn, appears to have
resulted in Ukrainian casualties in the Ukraine war.
The announcement tweet states that DJI has added mechanisms from downgrading firmware. Hence, the spoofer.
There’s no other hardware needed, well other than an ESP8266 or ESP32 devboard, anyway. After the break you can find a video tutorial from [Joshua Bardwell] that shows you how to upload the code using Arduino IDE, and even going through coordinate tweaks. If you ever reminisced about the concept of throwies and were wondering what kind of useful, well, there’s your answer: clone the Git repo, compile it, program some interesting coordinates in, and witness the imaginary drones fly.
All in all, we get a lovely addition to our shenanigan toolkits. Surely, someone could use a neural network to distinguish real drones from fake ones, but it’s nothing that can’t be solved with a bit of code. Looking for a less daring hack? Well, you can always add some automation to your DJI drone by
poking at the RGB LED signals. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737886",
"author": "Gregg Cabe Bond",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T12:13:37",
"content": "I wonder how many drones one could emulate with something more capable, like a WiFi Pinapple for instance…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "67... | 1,760,371,988.065995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/04/the-juggler-in-rust/ | The Juggler: In Rust | Dave Rowntree | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"amiga",
"juggler",
"raspberry pi",
"ray tracing",
"rust",
"softbuffer",
"vecmath",
"winit"
] | Back on the theme of learning to program by taking on a meaningful project — we have another raytracing demo — this time using
Rust on the Raspberry Pi
. [Unfastener] saw our previous article about
writing a simple raytracer in spectrum BASIC
and got inspired to try something similar. The plan was to recreate the famous juggler 3D demo, from the early days of 3D rendering on the Amiga.
The juggler story starts with an Amiga programmer called [Eric Graham] who created ssg, the first ray tracer application on a personal computer. A demo was shown to Commodore, who didn’t believe it was done on their platform, but a quick follow-up with the actual software used soon quelled their doubts. Once convinced, they purchased the rights to the demo for a couple of thousand dollars (in 1986 money, mind you) to use in promotional materials. [Eric] developed ssg into the popular Sculpt 3D, which became available also on Mac and Windows platforms, and kick-started a whole industry of personal 3D modelling and ray tracing.
Anyway, back to the point. [Unfastener] needed to get up the considerable Rust learning curve, and the best way to do that is to let someone else take care of some of the awkward details of dealing with GUI, and just concentrate on the application. To that end, they use the
softbuffer
and
winit
Rust crates that deal with the (important, yet frankly uninteresting) details of building frame buffers and pushing the pixels out to the window manager in a cross-platform way.
Vecmath
takes care of — you guessed it — the vector math. There’s no point reinventing that wheel either. Whilst [Unfastener] mentions the original Amiga demo took about an hour per frame to render, this implementation runs in real-time. To that end, the code performs a timed pre-render to determine the most acceptable resolution to get an acceptable frame rate, achieving a respectable 30 or so frames per second on a Pi 5, with the older Pis needing to drop the resolution a little. This goes to show how efficient Rust code can be and, how capable the new Pi is. How far we have come.
We saw another
interesting rust-based raytracer
a while back, which is kinda fun. We’ve also covered rust in other applications a few times, like
inside the Linux kernel
. Finally here’s our
guide to getting started with rust
, in case you need any more motivation to have a crack at this upcoming language. | 12 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737865",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T10:26:14",
"content": "Give it to me straight boys, should I learn Rust? I work with Cortex M4 MCUs mostly.I find the push towards using Rust inorganic and unnatural, and I cannot help feel someone stands to gain by its adopt... | 1,760,371,988.119585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/fail-of-the-week-the-little-remote-controlled-snowblower-that-couldnt/ | Fail Of The Week: The Little Remote-Controlled Snowblower That Couldn’t | Dan Maloney | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"deep cycle",
"fail of the week",
"fotw",
"h-bridge",
"rc",
"remote",
"snow",
"snowblower",
"track drive"
] | [Punxatawny Phil]’s prognostications aside, winter isn’t over up here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the snow keeps falling. If you’re sick of shoveling the driveway and the walk and you don’t have a kid handy to rope into the job, relax —
this rapidly assembled junkyard RC snowblower
will do just as crappy a job while you stay nice and warm inside.
This build seemed to have a lot of potential at the start, based as it was on a second-hand track-drive snowblower, something that was presumably purpose-built for the job at hand. [Lucas] quickly got to work on it; he left the original gasoline engine to power the auger but took most of the transmission off so that each track could be driven separately with a wheelchair motor. That seemed like a solid idea as far as steering goes, but the fact that he chose to drive the 24 volt motors with a single 12 volt deep-cycle battery worked against him out in the snow.
With a battery upgrade for better traction, the snowblower actually got around in the snow pretty well. [Lucas] also added some nice features, like a linear actuator to remotely engage the auger — a nice safety touch when kids and pets are around — and a motor to control the direction of the chute. Even these improvements weren’t enough, though; it worked insofar as it moved snow from where it was to where it wasn’t, but didn’t really move it very far. To the casual observer, it seems like there’s just not enough weight to the machine, allowing it to ride up over the snow rather than scraping the driveway clean. Check out the video below and see what you think.
Now, we’re not picking on [Lucas] here. Far from it — we enjoyed this build as much as some of his other stuff, like
his scratch-built CO2 laser tube
and
his potty-mouthed approach to Kaizen tool organization
. We still think this one has a lot of potential, and we’re glad he vowed to continue working on it for next winter. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737840",
"author": "Morz46",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T06:42:51",
"content": "Add a flamethrower to melt the snow, and also flamethrower.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737869",
"author": "S_Hennig",
"timesta... | 1,760,371,988.007746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/iphone-6s-nvme-chip-tapped-using-a-flexible-pcb/ | IPhone 6S NVMe Chip Tapped Using A Flexible PCB | Arya Voronova | [
"iphone hacks",
"Phone Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bga",
"BGA soldering",
"flexible printed circuit",
"fpc",
"iphone",
"iPhone 6s",
"NVMe",
"PCIe",
"storage"
] | Psst! Hey kid! Want to reverse-engineer some iPhones? Well, did you know that modern iPhones use PCIe, and specifically, NVMe for their storage chips? And if so, have you ever wondered about sniffing those communications? Wonder no more, as this research team
shows us how they tapped them
with a flexible printed circuit (FPC) BGA interposer on an iPhone 6S, the first iPhone to use NVMe-based storage.
The research was done by [Mohamed Amine Khelif], [Jordane Lorandel], and [Olivier Romain], and it shows us all the nitty-gritty of getting at the NVMe chip — provided you’re comfortable with BGA soldering and perhaps got an X-ray machine handy to check for mistakes. As research progressed, they’ve successfully removed the memory chip dealing with underfill and BGA soldering nuances, and added an 1:1 interposer FR4 board for the first test, that proved to be successful. Then, they made an FPC interposer that also taps into the signal and data pins, soldered the flash chip on top of it, successfully booted the iPhone 6S, and scoped the data lines for us to see.
This is looking like the beginnings of a fun platform for iOS or iPhone hardware reverse-engineering, and we’re waiting for further results with bated breath!
This team of researchers
in particular is prolific, having already been poking at things like MITM attacks on
I2C
and
PCIe
, as well as IoT device and smartphone security research. We haven’t seen any Eagle CAD files for the interposers published, but thankfully, most of the know-how is about the soldering technique, and the paper describes plenty. Want to learn more about these chips? We’ve covered
a different hacker taking a stab at reusing them
before. Or perhaps, would you like to know NVMe in more depth? If so, we’ve got
just the article for you.
We thank [FedX] for sharing this with us on the
Hackaday Discord server
! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737911",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T14:06:39",
"content": "Dang that’s cool. I like this new era of MitM flex cables.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6738206",
"author": "Someone",
"timestamp": "2024-03... | 1,760,371,988.15757 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/hackaday-links-march-3-2024/ | Hackaday Links: March 3, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"Blackbird",
"c/c++",
"camera",
"Consumer Reports",
"doorbells",
"enhance!",
"hackaday links",
"Ingenuity",
"javascript",
"memory-safe",
"Perseverance",
"php",
"printer",
"rental",
"security",
"sql",
"SR-71",
"subscription"
] | Who’d have thought that
$30 doorbell cameras would end up being security liabilities
? That’s the somewhat obvious conclusion reached by
Consumer Reports
after looking at some entry-level doorbell cameras available through the usual outfits and finding glaring security gaps which are
totally
not intentional in any way.
All these cameras appear to be the same basic hardware inside different enclosures, most supporting the same mobile app. Our favorite “exploit” for these cameras is the ability to put them into a pairing mode with the app, sometimes by pressing a public-facing button. Slightly more technically challenging would be accessing images from the app using the camera’s serial number, or finding file names being passed in plain text while sniffing network traffic. And that’s just the problems CR identified; who knows what else lurks under the covers? Some retailers have stopped offering these things, others have yet to, so buyer beware.
Speaking of our techno-dystopian surveillance state, if you’ve had it with the frustrations and expense of printers, has Hewlett-Packard got a deal for you. They want you to
never own a printer again
, preferring that you rent it from them instead. Their “All-In Plan” launched this week, which for $6.99 a month will set up up with an HP Envy inkjet printer, ink deliveries, and 24/7 tech support. It doesn’t appear that paper is included in the deal, so you’re on your own for that, but fear not — you won’t go through much since the entry-level plan only allows 20 prints per month. Plans scale up to 700 prints per month from an OfficeJet Pro for the low, low price of $36. The kicker, of course, is that
your
their printer has to be connected to the Internet, and HP can pretty much brick the thing anytime they want to. The terms of service also explicitly state that they’ll be sending your information to advertising partners, so that’ll be fun. This scheme hearkens back to the old pre-breakup days of AT&T, where you rented your phone from the phone company. That model made a lot more sense when the phone (probably) wasn’t listening in on everything you do. This just seems like asking for trouble.
“Enhance, enhance…” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP/Simeon Schmauß
It’s been a while since
Ingenuity
‘s final rough landing on Mars permanently grounded the overachieving helicopter, long enough that it’s time for the post-mortem analyses to begin. The first photographic evidence we had was
a shadowgram
from one of the helicopter’s navigational cameras, showing damage to at least one of the rotor tips, presumably from contact with the ground. Then we were treated to
a long-distance shot
from
Ingenuity
‘s rover buddy
Perseverance
, which trained its MASTCAM instruments on the crash zone and gave us a wide view of its lonely resting place.
Now, geovisual design student [Simeon Schmauβ] has taken long shots made with the rover’s SuperCam instrument and processed them into
amazingly detailed closeups
, which show just how extensive the damage really is. One rotor blade sheared clean off on contact, flying 15 meters before gouging a hole in the regolith. Another blade looks to be about half gone, while the remaining two blades show the damaged tips we’ve already seen. That the helicopter is still on its feet given the obvious violence of the crash is amazing, as well as an incredible piece of luck, since it means the craft’s solar panel is pointing in roughly the right direction to keep it powered up.
You know things are getting weird in the world when the US government starts talking about memory-safe programming. That’s what happened this week, and we’re still trying to wrap our heads around this. Luckily, Maya Posch did
an in-depth look
at the proposal from the White House Office of the National Cyber Director — you know it’s important because “cyber” is right in the name. Her take is switching from C/C++ to inherently memory-safe languages wouldn’t really have that much of an impact, because not a lot of vulnerabilities are coming from that direction anymore. Granted, there was a time when CVEs that boiled down to buffer overflows were coming fast and furious, but most of those bugs seem to have been shaken out. Infosec pro [lcamtuf]
largely seems to agree
that memory safety issues are no longer low-hanging fruit, making the great point that the combination of PHP, SQL, and JavaScript has probably done far more damage than all the buffer overflow exploits ever found combined.
And finally, if you’ve got an hour to spare, you’d do worse than to spend it watching
Animagraffs latest video
, which is an up close and personal tour of the greatest airplane ever made: the SR-71 Blackbird (fight me). The 3D renders in this video are fantastic, and the level of detail, especially in the cockpit, is just astonishing. We never knew the Blackbird wasn’t a fly-by-wire plane; we just figured something that cool and futuristic-looking wouldn’t have cables and bellcranks connecting the stick and rudder pedals to the control surfaces. Sure, there are hydraulic actuators back on the elevons and rudders, and the mechanical mixer is a work of art, but the pilot being physically connected to the control surfaces is pretty amazing. | 26 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737792",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2024-03-04T00:09:52",
"content": "Not surprisingly I’ve done both, I’ve read an excellent book on the big black bird, and seen one upclose. She lives at the museum that the Air Force has on their base in Ohio near where the Wright Brothers... | 1,760,371,988.296416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/making-a-crystodyne-radio-with-zinc-oxide-and-cats-whiskers/ | Making A Crystodyne Radio With Zinc Oxide And Cat’s Whiskers | Maya Posch | [
"classic hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"crystal radio",
"Oleg Losev",
"Tunnel diode"
] | Zinc negative resistance oscillator circuit. (Credit: Ashish Derhgawen)
During the first half of the 20th century radio technology was booming, albeit restricted by the vacuum tube technology of the time which made radios cumbersome in size and power needs. The development of a solid state alternative to the vacuum tube was in full swing, but the first version pioneered by [Oleg Losev] in the form of crystal radios failed to compete. Even so these ‘crystal radios’ laid much of the groundwork for subsequent research. The ease of creating this type of radio also makes it a fun physics experiment today, as [Ashish Derhgawen]
demonstrates in a blog post
.
In the
January 1925 issue
of
Radio News
the theory of the circuit is explained by [Oleg Losev] himself (page 1167). At the core is a material capable of
negative resistance
, as a non-linear (non-Ohmic) material, which means that the current passing through them decreases as voltage increases over part of their I-V curve. This enables it to work as an amplifier or oscillator. After the cessation of research on
crystal radio
technology by [Losev] and others, the negative resistance diode was rediscovered in 1957 with the tunnel diode.
The semiconductor used here is zinc oxide (zincite), which is obtained by taking a strip of zinc and heating it with a blow torch. This creates spots of zinc oxide on the strip, which can then be contacted by the ‘cat’s whisker’ contact. In the circuit, the clock is created by the 4 MHz crystal and a 10 kOhm potentiometer is used to adjust the biasing. What [Ashish] noticed is how fussy this type of oscillator is, as where the cat’s whisker touches on the strip has to be often adjusted, presumably due to how imperfect the formed semiconductor material is. This was one of the main downfalls of crystal radios during the 1920s and onwards, as though they were cheap, they couldn’t amplify very much and required constant maintenance.
Regardless, as a practical demonstration of early solid-state semiconductor research it remains a wonderful example. meanwhile if you’re interested in [Losev]’s life and untimely end,
we wrote a biography of him back in 2017
. | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738443",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T23:21:43",
"content": "Would it work with copper oxide also?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6738898",
"author": "Valentin Angelovski",
"timestamp": "2024-03... | 1,760,371,988.224165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/gaming-on-a-tp-link-tl-wdr4900-wireless-router/ | Gaming On A TP-Link TL-WDR4900 Wireless Router | Maya Posch | [
"Games",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"GTA",
"powerpc",
"tp-link"
] | When you look at your home router, the first thought that comes to mind probably isn’t about playing games on it. But that doesn’t stop [Manawyrm] and [tSYS] from taking on the task of turning the 2013-era TP-Link TL-WDR4900 router
into a proper gaming machine
using an external GPU. This is made possible by the PCIe lanes on the mainboard, courtesy of the PowerPC-based SoC (NXP QorIQ P1014) and remappable Base Address Registers (BARs). This router has been an
OpenWRT-favorite
for years due to its powerful hardware and feature set.
This mod required a custom miniPCIe PCB that got connected to the PCIe traces (after cutting the connection with the Atheros WiFi chipset). This allowed an external AMD Radeon HD 7470 GPU to be connected to the system, which showed up in OpenWRT. To make full use of this hardware by gaining access to the AMD GPU driver, full Debian Linux was needed. Fortunately, the distro had a special PowerPCSPE port that supports the e500v2 CPU core in the SoC. After this it was found that the amdgpu driver has issues on 32-bit platforms, for which an
issue ticket
got filed.
Using the legacy Radeon driver helped to overcome this issue, but then it was found that the big endian nature of the CPU tripped up the
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
game code which has not been written with BE in mind. This took a lot of code patching to help fix this, but eventually the game was up and running, albeit with glitches. Whatever the cause of these graphical glitches was will remain unknown, as after updating everything things began to work normally.
So now it’s possible to convert a 2013-era router into a gaming console after patching in an external GPU, which actually could be useful in
keeping more potential e-waste out of landfills
.
Thanks to [adistuder] for the tip. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738389",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T19:39:19",
"content": "Recycling is as much about economics as it is capability. Right now the above is an investment in knowledge, capability, and time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,988.35674 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/jennys-daily-drivers-damn-small-linux-2024/ | Jenny’s Daily Drivers: Damn Small Linux 2024 | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"damn small linux",
"dsl",
"minimalist distro"
] | There was a time when the gulf between a new computer and one a decade or more old was so large as to be insurmountable; when a Pentium was
the
chip to have an older computer had a 16-bit 8086 or 286. Here in the 2020s, though, that divide is less stark. While a machine from the mid-2000s may no longer be considered quick, it can still run modern and useful software.
The problem facing the owner of such older hardware though is that as operating systems advance their requirements and eclipse their machine’s capabilities. A perfectly good machine becomes less useful, not because the tasks it needs to be used for are beyond it, but because the latest OS is built with higher-spec hardware in mind. The subject of today’s test is an operating system designed to make the best of older hardware, and it’s one with a pedigree.
Damn Small Linux
, or DSL, first appeared in 2005 as a tiny distro for the old machines of the day, and after a long hiatus it’s back with a 2024 edition.
Old Stuff Is Pretty Fast, These Days
So much time has passed since the last DSL release, that what’s considered an old or low-spec computer has moved forward. Thus DSL is no longer the 50 megabyte mini-CD ISO of yore, and has moved to the 700 megabytes of a full-sized CD. This is still a significant constraint, but the extra space means that the new DSL 2024 can provide something much closer to the full-featured desktop OS that people expect.
The DSL 2024 installation in progress
It has a choice between the Fluxbox or JWM window managers, it has
BadWolf
as its default browser, and AbiWord and Gnumeric as its office applications. Under the hood it borrows heavily from the
AntiX
live Linux distro, and the version we’re testing is very much an alpha. I’ve got the perfect machine to test it on, a late-2000s HP netbook with an annoyingly slow 32-bit single-core Atom processor, so it’s time to download the ISO and give it a try.
The first experience was disappointing, because the ISO wouldn’t boot when installed on a Flash drive. Who’s got a spare blank CD-ROM hanging around in 2024? Certainly not me: while I’m certain I still own some, I think they’re packed away in storage somewhere. So it was time for a bit of fault finding, which led me to
isohybrid
, part of the syslinux package. This tool performs the magic to make an ISO 9660 file bootable on a Flash drive, something that I guess I should know more about than I do, given that ISOs were my entire life for a while. It did the trick though, and after a false start with corrupted video and booting into a pre-configured safe video mode, I was soon in the DSL installer.
It’s a relatively painless process as it is with so many modern Linux distributions, and after the usual questions about locale and disk allocation it was ready to reboot. Installing 700 megabytes of software doesn’t take long, and my netbook was booting into its new OS in short order. Here the folly of trying an alpha release of a new Linux distro shows itself, because naturally, the wireless network on the little HP was unrecognized. I can say that the OS felt snappy on a 32-bit Atom, but that was it for that machine in this test.
Finally, A Stripped Out OS With A Wrencher-Capable Browser!
Happily I was able to put it on a vanilla Intel Core Duo Dell laptop and continue. The network connected without issues, and it was time to get stuck in.
As always my task was to do my everyday work of editing Hackaday, and since DSL 2024 uses BadWolf as its browser it was time to fire that up and give the Wrencher a try. Since this browser uses the WebkitGTK engine I expected it to work, and it took me without problems into both the main site and the WordPress back end. This piece has mostly been written on it, just to underscore the Daily Drivers title. It was perfectly usable though understandably not fast, but it compared favourably to Firefox on Lubuntu on the same hardware.
As shipped, DSL 2024 doesn’t come with GIMP, so I couldn’t fix any Hackaday graphics. But there we come to the difference between this DSL and the original. This is a derivative of antiX, which is in turn based upon Debian, so I should be able to run apt in search of new software. And so it turned out, first I was able to run the usual software update, then install my graphics package of choice. The original DSL was a much more custom distro, so this access to the full Debian repository is certainly useful.
DSL 2024 may still be in alpha status and perhaps a few things won’t work, but it’s certainly a stripped-out minimalist 32-bit distro that runs well on the 2000s-era hardware I gave it. That it’s a Debian derivative makes it a leap away from the original DSL, but perhaps given that so much time has passed the two distros shouldn’t be seen in the same light. Certainly the ability to install extra software easily turns it from a novelty into something really useful. When a later version supports that netbook WiFi card, I think it’ll find a permanent home there, turning a barely useful machine into something I can edit Hackaday on if I need to. Definitely a win. | 37 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738371",
"author": "Rafael Lago",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T18:25:24",
"content": "DSL brings me to the time I was just an intern (2007) and was discovering Linux.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6738510",
"author": "h... | 1,760,371,988.441929 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/a-simple-hack-for-running-low-power-gear-from-a-usb-battery-pack/ | A Simple Hack For Running Low-Power Gear From A USB Battery Pack | Lewin Day | [
"Battery Hacks"
] | [
"battery bank",
"current",
"current draw",
"power bank",
"usb"
] | We’ve all been there. You’ve cooked up some little microcontroller project, but you need to unhook it from your dev PC and go mobile. There’s just one problem — you haven’t worked up a battery solution yet. “No problem!” you exclaim. “I’ll just use a USB battery pack!” But the current draw is too low, and the pack won’t stay on. “Blast!” you exclaim, because you’ve been watching too much
Family Guy
or something.
[PatH] had this very problem recently,
when trying to work with Meshtastic running on a RAKwireless WisBlock Base Board.
You’re supposed to hook up your own rechargeable LiPo battery, but [PatH] was in a hurry. Instead, a USB battery pack was pressed into service, but it kept shutting down. The simple trick was to just add a 100-ohm resistor across the device’s battery terminals. That took the current draw from just 15 mA up to 53 mA, which was enough to keep portable USB power banks interested in staying switched on.
It’s an easy hack for an oddball problem, and it just might get you out of a bind one day. If you’ve got any nifty tricks like this up your sleeve, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738337",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T16:42:38",
"content": "I do not really consider 15mA “low power gear”, and pumping it up to 53mA is just atrocious.There are plenty of “battery managment PCB’s”, that meant for this task and they are not very expensive. It’s wo... | 1,760,371,988.516938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/walking-and-talking-through-the-uk-national-museum-of-computing/ | Walking And Talking Through The UK National Museum Of Computing | Dave Rowntree | [
"computer hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"35mm film",
"adventure",
"Elliot 803B",
"Lorentz attractor",
"Marconi",
"TAC",
"TR-48",
"zork"
] | I found myself in Milton Keynes, UK, a little while ago, with a few hours to spare. What could I do but rock over to the National Museum of Computing and make a nuisance of myself? I have visited many times, but this time, I was armed with a voice recorder and a mission to talk to everybody who didn’t run away fast enough. There is so much to see and do, that what follows is a somewhat truncated whistle-stop tour to give you, the dear readers, a flavour of what
other
exhibits you can find once you’ve taken in the usual sights of the Colossus and the other famous early machines.
Click this image to play in your browser.
We expect you’ve heard of the classic text adventure game Zork. Well before that, there was the ingeniously titled “Adventure”, which is reported to be the first ‘interactive fiction’ text adventure game. Created initially by [Will Crowther], who at the time was a keen cave explorer and D & D player, and also the guy responsible for the firmware of the original Arpanet routers, the game contains details of the cave systems of Mammoth and Flint Ridge in Kentucky.
The first version was a text-based simulation of moving around the cave system, and after a while of its release onto the fledgling internet, it was picked up and extended by [Don Woods], and the rest is history. If you want to read more, the
excellent site by [Rick Adams]
is a great resource that lets you
play along in your browser
. Just watch out for the dwarfs. (Editor’s note: “
plugh
“.) During my visit, I believe the software was running on the room-sized ICL2966 via a VT01 terminal, but feel free to correct me, as I can’t find any information to the contrary.
A little further around the same room as the ICL system, there is a real rarity: a Marconi TAC or
Transistorised Automatic Computer
. This four-cabinet minicomputer was designed in the late 1950s as a ‘fast real-time computer’, is one of only five made, and this example was initially installed at Wylfa nuclear power station in Anglesey, intended as a monitoring and alarm system controller. These two machines were spare units for the three built for the Swedish air defence system, which were no longer required. Commissioned in 1968, this TAC ran continuously until 2004, which could make it one the longest continuously running computers in the world. The TAC has 4 kwords of 20-bit core memory, a paper tape reader for program loading and a magnetic drum storage memory. Unusually, for this period, the TAC has a micro-coded CISC architecture, utilising a whole cabinet worth of diode-matrix ROM boards to code the instruction set. This enabled the TAC to have a customizable instruction set. As standard, the TAC shipped with trigonometric and other transcendental functions as individual instructions. This strategy minimized the program size and allowed more complex programs to fit in the memory.
[Peter Onion] NMoC Elliot 803B maintainer and programmer
Most of my time and the most interest in the room was around
the Elliot 803B ‘computer brain.’
This is another early 1960s transistor-based machine with a hardware-efficient (but slow) bit-serial architecture. It comprises multiple large cabinets, one of which houses the 4 kwords of 40-bit (39-bits plus parity) of magnetic core memory, which was typical for that period.
Programs are loaded, as you’d expect, via a paper tape reader, albeit an Elliott-specific one, not a typical standardized machine. The machine’s maintainer [Peter Onion] offered to make me a custom tape using the automatic tape punch, which turned out nice.
An Elliott film handler was attached to the 803B, which is quite unusual and interesting. The story goes that the Elliott factory at Borehamwood was just ‘down the road’ from the UK film industry based at Elstree studios, so it seemed logical to adopt a 35 mm optical film format, which was modified with a coating of magnetic film, for data storage. During that period, the studios used this medium for audio track recording.
Mass storage with the Elliott film handler
The Elliott film handler housed a single thousand-foot reel comprising 4 k data blocks, each 64 words long. Additional clocking and address tracks enable the device to seek in both directions and stop precisely where needed. The address track corresponds to pairs of blocks, depending upon the direction of travel. Odd-addressed blocks are read in the forward direction, and even-addressed blocks are read when running in the reverse direction. This leaves a whole block of space on the tape for acceleration and deceleration of the mechanism, allowing the tape to be stopped precisely where instructed. None of this shuttling back-and-forth behaviour that you see in period movies.
This means that the ‘end’ of the tape physically is block 2047 out of 4096, and the final block 4095 is back at the start of the tape. This is smart, as now you don’t need to rewind the tape to get back to the beginning for the next run. This storage device was used on earlier Elliott machines, and the 803B was the last machine to feature it before Elliott moved to industry-standard magnetic drives.
Another ‘interesting’ design choice of these machines is the power supply. It resembles a charger that might have been used for charging electric milk floats more than powering a 3.5 kW computer. On the side of the power supply cabinet is a pull-out tray with a large battery! The power supply regulation circuit differs from modern standards because it uses an AC line-side regulation strategy. It uses a saturate-able core driven into saturation with a DC feedback signal from the secondary to control the voltage on the secondary side of the main transformer. Because of this, it can only adjust to transients at a rate of 100 Hz. The large battery acts as a big smoothing capacitor and a rudimentary UPS. Neat.
The TR-48 is configured to simulate a model of a suspension system.
There was a Pace TR-48, a transistor-based general-purpose analog computer from the late 1950s, tucked away in a side room. This machine had a typical design for an analog computer, although it was advertised as a ‘desktop’ it was more of a complete desk, with integrated storage for the removable patch panels which allowed for quickly changing the application without constant rewiring.
Push-button selectors enabled the outputs of all amplifiers, the coefficient potentiometer array and the amplifier input ‘trunks’ to be measured via one of the volt meters. The power supplies could also be monitored, and individual amplifiers could be ‘balanced’, although we’re not 100% sure what that refers to. The digital voltmeter also is reported to use ‘high brilliance optical projection’ which must look nice. Unfortunately, the TR-48 wasn’t functional when I visited. This model of computer was used by NASA during the Apollo program to simulate star systems and test the onboard star tracking systems used by the Apollo crew. Although some may argue that it was somewhat obsolete at the time, it played a significant role in the program.
Whilst I was peering over the shoulder of a nearby laptop user I did spy an interesting article about a smaller, fixed-application analog simulator, created by a team from Reading University and the Elektor Electronics lab team. The ‘
chaos machine
‘ is a fun simulation of the famous Lorentz system, which is a set of three ordinary differential equations which for specific parameters can exhibit chaotic behaviour. The build is easy to reproduce, provided you have a scope with an XY input mode or a suitable ADC solution. You could quickly build that on the TR-48 if you had access to one.
It’s hard to photograph items behind glass. Don’t judge!
Finally, the museum has multiple exhibit rooms, hands-on platforms from the past, and numerous glass cabinets stuffed with oddities and unusual hardware we mere mortals rarely see. Check out this whopper of a CPU board, festooned with custom ECL ASICs and heatsinks, pulled from a 1985 Fujitsu series 39 mainframe. PCB designers these days rarely get to create such works of art.
We’ve covered the UK NMoC before;
here’s a much earlier review
. Of course, we can’t leave without circling back to
the famous Colossus
. That just wouldn’t be right.
The featured image shows the Elliott computer being delivered to Norwich City Hall’s treasury department. What a trailblazer! | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738313",
"author": "Microgadgethacker",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T15:32:05",
"content": "Nice write up. BTW for shooting photos through glass try bringing a DSLR circular polarizing filter. Even if you shot with a cell phone or point and shoot you can hold it over the lens.",
... | 1,760,371,988.582447 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/hacking-an-actual-wifi-toothbrush-with-an-esp32-c3/ | Hacking An Actual WiFi Toothbrush With An ESP32-C3 | Maya Posch | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"IoT",
"replacement firmware",
"toothbrush"
] | Following on the heels of a fortunately not real DDoS botnet composed of electric toothbrushes, [Aaron Christophel] got his hands on a sort-of-electric toothbrush which could
totally be exploited for this purpose
.
Evowera Planck Mini will never gonna give you up, never let you down. (Credit: Aaron Christophel)
The Evowera Planck Mini which he got is the smaller, children-oriented version of the
Planck O1
(a more regular electric toothbrush). Both have a 0.96″ color LC display, but the O1 only has Bluetooth and requires a smartphone app. Meanwhile the Mini uses a pressure sensor for the brush along with motion sensors to keep track of the child’s teeth brushing efforts and to provide incentives.
The WiFi feature of the Mini appears to be for both firmware updates as well as to allow parents to monitor the brushing reports of their offspring in the associated smartphone app. With this feature provided by the ESP32-C3 SoC inside the device, the question was how secure it is.
As it turns out not very secure, with [Aaron] covering the exploit in a
Twitter thread
. As exploits go, it’s pretty straightforward: the toothbrush tries to connect to a default WiFi network (SSID
evowera
, pass
12345678
), tries to acquire new firmware, and flashes this when found without any fuss. [Aaron] made sure to figure out the pin-out on the PCB inside the device as well, opening up new avenues for future hacking.
We’re great fans of [Aaron] and his efforts to breathe new life into gadgets through firmware hacking. His
replacement firmware for the Xiaomi LYWSD03MMC
Bluetooth thermometer is one of the best we’ve seen. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738258",
"author": "clind",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T12:41:23",
"content": "Wow toothbrushes now have bluetooth, wifi and color displays !As much as the though of a botnet attack made of a swarm of toothbrushes make me smile and reminiscent of rpg sessions with friends, this also ... | 1,760,371,988.909878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/05/reverse-engineering-the-behringer-ultranet-protocol/ | Reverse Engineering The Behringer Ultranet Protocol | Richard Baguley | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"AES/EBU",
"audio",
"fpga"
] | Ultranet is a protocol created by audio manufacturer Behringer to transmit up to 16 channels of 24-bit sound over a Cat-5 cable. It’s not an open standard, though: Behringer doesn’t offer an API or protocol description to build your own Ultranet devices. But that didn’t stop [Christian Nödig], thanks to a defective mixer, he poked into the signals and
built his own Ultranet receiver
.
Ultranet runs over Cat-5 ethernet cables but isn’t an ethernet-based protocol. The electrical protocols of Ultranet are identical to Ethernet, but the signaling is different, making it a Level 1 protocol. So, you can use any Cat-5 cable for Ultranet, but you can’t just plug an Ultranet device into an Ethernet one. Or rather, you can (and neither device should explode), but you won’t get anything out of it.
Instead, [Christian]’s exploration revealed that Ultranet is based on another standard:
AES/EBU
, the bigger professional brother of the SPD/IF socket on HiFi systems. This was designed to carry digital audio over an XLR cable, and Behringer has taken AES/EBU and tweaked it to run over a single twisted pair. With two twisted pairs in the cable carrying a 192 kbps signal, you get sixteen channels of 24-bit audio in total over two twisted pairs inside the Cat-5 cable.
That’s a bit fast for a microcontroller to decode reliably, so [Christian] uses the FPGA in an Arduino Vidor 4000 MKR in his receiver with an open-source AES decoder core to receive and decode the Ultranet signal into individual channels, which are passed to an ADC and analog output.
In effect, [Christian] has built a 16-channel mixer, although the mixing aspect is too primitive for actual use. It would be great for monitoring, though, and it’s a beautiful description of how to dig into protocols like Ultranet that look locked up but are based on other, more open standards. | 26 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6738229",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2024-03-05T09:50:27",
"content": "“which are passed to an ADC and analog output”Or perhaps a DAC?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6738247",
"author": "ytrewq",
"timestamp": "2024-... | 1,760,371,988.974053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/outdated-hp-microserver-gets-a-new-brain/ | Outdated HP Microserver Gets A New Brain | Navarre Bartz | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"computer case",
"restomod"
] | What to do if you have a really cool old HP MicroServer that just can’t keep up with the demands of today? [jacksonliam] decided to restomod it by
installing a mini PC into the drive bay
.
The HP N54L MicroServer was still running, but its soldered CPU and non-standard motherboard made a simple upgrade impossible. Evaluating the different options, [jacksonliam] decided to save the case and PSU by transplanting an Intel Alder Lake mini PC into the drive bay with 3D printed brackets and
heat set inserts
.
Selecting a fanless “router” model to increase reliability, he was able to find an M.2 to mini-SAS adapter to attach the four drive cage to the NVME slot on the new PC. Power is supplied via the 12 V line on the ATX power supply and one of the mini PC’s Ethernet lines was broken out to a 3D printed PCI slot cover.
Looking for more ways to rejuvenate an old computer? How about putting a
Mac mini inside an old iMac
or a
Raspberry Pi inside an Apple ][
? | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737757",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T22:23:05",
"content": "I always thought it would be cool to turn an old tower server into a something like a blade server by stuffing SBCs or mini-PCs into the plentiful drive bays…it would be even cooler to adapt the case t... | 1,760,371,989.38954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/bring-linux-to-ch32v003-through-yes-risc-v-emulation/ | Bring Linux To CH32V003 Through, Yes, RISC-V Emulation | Arya Voronova | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"CH32V003",
"Embedded Linux",
"GNU/Linux",
"psram",
"RISC-V"
] | Like playing around with Linux on low-power devices? You’d be hard pressed to find a better example than the [tvlad1234]’s
linux-ch32v003
project.
It’s not just a one-off — it’s something you could build right now, since it requires hardly any extra parts.
With help of a 8 MB PSRAM chip for RAM supplementation purposes and an SD card, plus some careful tailoring of the Linux .config parameters, you get Linux on a chip never meant to even come close to handling this much power. The five minutes it takes to boot up to a prompt is part of the experience.
As usual with [tvlad1234]’s projects, there’s a fun twist to it! Running Linux on this chip is only possible thanks to [chlohr]’s
mini-rv32ima
project, which, as you might remember, is a RISC-V emulator. Yes, this runs Linux by running a RISC-V emulator on a RISC-V chip. The main reason for that is because the MCU can’t map the PSRAM chip into RAM, but if you use an emulator, memory mapping is only a matter of software. Having applied a fair amount of elbow grease, [tvlad1234] brings us buildroot and mainline Linux kernel configs you can compile to play with this — as well as a single-layer-ready KiCad board project on GitHub. Yep, you could literally etch a PCB for this project from single-sided copper-clad FR4 with a bit of FeCl3.
While the CH32V003 is undoubtedly a more impressive target for Linux, the
RP2040 Linux project
might be more approachable in terms of having most of the parts in your parts box. At least, up until we start valuing the CH32V003 for
all the cool stuff it can do! | 14 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737720",
"author": "Robert",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T20:38:59",
"content": "“you could literally etch a PCB for this project…”Could you connect this Linux system to a larger screen, install KiCAD on this Linux system, then design this board in KiCAD, use software running on this L... | 1,760,371,989.136046 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/whats-a-transfluxor/ | What’s A Transfluxor? | Al Williams | [
"Parts",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Arma",
"core memory",
"transfluxor"
] | In the 1967 movie
The Graduate
, a wise older man gives some advice to the title character: plastics. Indeed, plastics would become big business. In 1962, though, a computer-savvy character might have offered a different word: transfluxor. What’s a transfluxor? Well, according to computer history sleuth [Ken Shirriff], it was
the heart of a 20-pound transistor computer from Arma
. Of course, plastics turned out to be a better bet, but in 1962, the transfluxor seemed to be the wave of the future.
In 1962, most computers were room-sized, but the Arma was “micro” taking up just 0.4 cubic feet — less than an Apple II. It would eventually spawn computers used in ships at sea and airplanes ranging from the Concorde to Air Force One.
The computer was a bit odd since it had a 22-bit word, and it processed them one bit at a time. Serial computers like this were relatively common in the early days of computers because it dramatically reduced the gate count — important when trying to cram transistors into a tiny box. Of course, the serial data path meant the 1 MHz clock was quite slow. The machine only did about 36,000 instructions per second. While it only had 19 instructions, some of them were more powerful than many computers of the day. For example, the machine could multiply, divide, and even do square roots.
Another space saver was the use of DTL or diode-transistor logic. The computer had wafers, which were tiny circuit boards with just a few functions. The wafers were mounted on boards like ICs, and the board was attached together and coated. The computer could handle shock, temperature, humidity, and even vacuum.
So what’s a transfluxor? You can read [Ken’s] post, but essentially it was a special type of core memory. Normal cores are like a donut. A transfluxor core is like a donut with a big off-center hole and a smaller hole near one edge. You write to the core through the big hole and read through the small hole. Along with some extra circuitry, this allowed the core to be read without destroying the stored data.
There’s a lot more information about this computer, the company behind it, and the later versions of it in the original post. We always enjoy [Ken’s] musing, which ranges from
inside ICs
to more conventional
core memory
. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737672",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T15:39:02",
"content": "Darn. And here we was hoping for time travel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737729",
"author": "Sergio P",
"timestamp": "2024-0... | 1,760,371,989.33742 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/building-your-own-4g-lte-base-station/ | Building Your Own 4G LTE Base Station | Arya Voronova | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"4g",
"base station",
"GSM base station",
"LTE",
"srsRAN"
] | We’ve seen quite a few DIY 2G networks over the years, but the 4G field has been relatively barren. Turns out, there’s an open source suite called srsRAN that lets you use an SDR for setting up an LTE network, and recently,
we’ve found a blog post from [MaFrance351]
(
Google Translate
) that teaches you everything you could need to know if you ever wanted to launch a LTE network for your personal research purposes.
For a start, you want a reasonably powerful computer, a transmit-capable full-duplex software defined radio (SDR), suitable antennas, some programmable SIM cards, and a few other bits and pieces like SIM card programmers and LTE-capable smartphones for testing purposes. Get your hardware ready and strap in, as [MaFrance351] guides you through setting up your own base station, with extreme amounts of detail outlining anything you could get caught up on.
First,
get DragonOS set up
— that’ll help you avoid compiling srsRAN from scratch. Then, treat yourself to a short guide on editing srsRAN config files. Having done that, connect your SDR, and run a few commands. This is enough to have your LTE network show up in the list of available networks on your phone.
Of course, you won’t be able to
connect
to it yet — that’s where the SIM cards come into play. Flash them with your network’s ID and a few other parameters, add your SIM into the srsRAN database, plug it in, and see your network’s name appear on the phone’s home screen. Setting up a data connection is just a few commands away, too, as evidenced by a fair few SpeedTest screenshots!
There’s plenty of fun things you could achieve with such a base station: reverse-engineering of proprietary technology, security research, and probing for vulnerabilities through WWAN interfaces rarely considered as an attack surface. Maybe you could even set up your own cell network — if you ever go sailing in neutral waters, that is.
In case you’re not aware, operating such a network is illegal for basically any hacker reading this article — and it will be easy for your country’s relevant agencies to catch you in the act. As such, grab your
Faraday cages
and lead-lined fridges, and make sure that you don’t cause any illegal interference if you do end up exploring this path.
We’ve generally seen 2G base stations over the years, but with
the sunset of 2G
, those have only been useful in an increasingly low number of countries, and, every once in a while,
a hacker camp
. Need to debug your DIY network at some point? Grab an
LTE sniffer
! | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737668",
"author": "XFwordie",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T14:29:26",
"content": "Band 48 is CBRS in USA. You could in theory operate on it without legal issue?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737669",
"author": "ftg",
... | 1,760,371,989.209678 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/03/a-better-use-for-the-agp-slot-decades-later/ | A Better Use For The AGP Slot, Decades Later | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"AGP",
"interfacing",
"pci"
] | For a while around a quarter century ago PC motherboards came with a special slot, a little shorter than the PCI slots which ruled the roost back then, and offset from them further into the case. This was the Accelerated Graphics Port, or AGP, a standard created to more quickly serve the 3D graphics cards which were then taking the world by storm. It was everywhere for a few years, then in the mid-2000s it was replaced by PCI Express and faded into obscurity. [Peter] has a Socket 7-based NAS with an AGP slot, and was left wondering
whether the unused port could be put to a worthwhile purpose
.
AGP is a superset of PCI clocked at 66 MHz, and usually benefiting from having its own exclusive bridge to the processor bus. Thus he reasoned that he could make an AGP to PCI adapter and it might work, as the right connections are all there. A hacked-together version was made by butchering two riser cards, and when a network card worked quite happily he knew he was on to something and made a PCB. There’s a caveat that it only works with 66-MHz capable PCI cards so not everything will work, but if you’re one of the very few people who must be in the market for one, he can do you a PCB.
We’d normally end with a link to a related project here, but we must instead congratulate [Peter]. As far as we can find, this is Hackaday’s first AGP hack, two decades later. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737643",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T10:03:25",
"content": "Very well written. It should be noted, that the 200MB/s were obviously not achieved with the network card used for initial testing, but a SATA SSD connected via a PCI-X SATAII controller.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,371,989.281354 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/cybiko-repair-a-thon-with-memory-upgrade/ | Cybiko Repair-A-Thon With Memory Upgrade | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Cybiko"
] | Concluding a four-part repair-a-thon on a stack of Cybiko handheld computers, [Robert] over at
Robert’s Retro
covered the intricate details
of fixing a last batch of four in a nearly one-hour long video. These devices, with their colorful transparent cases, are a great time capsule of the early 2000s. Even with their limited hardware, they provided PDA-like capabilities to teens years before smartphones were a thing, with features including music playback and wireless chat (albeit limited to recipients within 100 meters).
Of the four units covered in this video, they are all the original
Cybiko
Classic, with two each of the first and second revision, none of which were booting due to a bad Flash chip. Another issue was the dead rumble motors on them, which fortunately are the easiest to replace. One of the units also has a dead display, which did not get replaced this time around.
Insides of a Cybiko Classic (Credit: Robert’s Retro, YouTube)
The flash chip replacement was a bit more of a headache, as these devices don’t just take any chip, mostly due to how much the system relies on the ready-busy line. This led [Robert] to replace the old 4 Mb AT45DB041 chips with the 16 Mb Atmel AT45DB161. Previously he had taken 1 MB chips from an expansion cartridge to replace more dead flash chips, so those were replaced with 2 MB chips.
With fresh flash in place, the next challenge was to get these written with a firmware image, with the v2 Cybiko units already having CyOS on the separate 256 kB Flash chip, but the v1 units relying on the single big Flash chip for all storage. Fortunately, an enterprising member of the community developed a tool to ease this ordeal by allowing a Cybiko unit in its serial dock to be flashed with no issues, other than the 2 MB Flash causing some issues as this was a previously unknown hardware configuration.
[Robert] now has four working Cybiko units, with one being headless due to the busted screen, and more room for apps on the 2 MB units than a 2000s teenager would have known what to do with. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737665",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T14:20:22",
"content": "I’d use one of these today. Especially with LoRa built in.Reminds me of thishttps://hackaday.com/2022/05/25/long-distance-text-communication-with-lora/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,371,989.439092 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/lost-print-vacuum-casting-in-a-microwave/ | Lost Print Vacuum Casting In A Microwave | Navarre Bartz | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"aluminum",
"brass",
"copper",
"forming",
"kiln",
"metal",
"microwave",
"mold",
"pencil",
"plaster of paris",
"plastic",
"vacuum"
] | Hacks are rough around the edges by their nature, so we love it when we get updates from makers about how they’ve improved their process. [Denny] from
Shake the Future
has just provided an
update on his microwave casting process
.
Sticking metal in a microwave certainly
seems
like it would be a bad idea at first, but with the right equipment it can work quite nicely to develop a compact foundry. [Denny] walks us through the process start to finish in this video, including how to build the kilns, what materials to use, and how he made several different investment castings using the process. The video might be worth watching just for all the 3D printed tools he’s built to aid in the process — it’s a great example of useful 3D prints to accompany your fleet of little plastic boats.
A lot of the magic happens with a one minute on and six minutes off cycle set by a simple plug timer. This allows a more gradual ramp to burn out the PLA or resin than running the microwave at full blast which can cause some issues with the kiln, although nothing catastrophic as demonstrated. Vacuum is applied to the mold with a silicone sleeve cut from a swimming cap while pouring the molten metal into the mold to draw the metal into the cavities and reduce imperfections.
We appreciate the shout out to respirators while casting or cutting the ceramic fiber mat. Given
boric acid’s effects
, [PDF] you might want to use safety equipment when handling it as well or just use water as that seems like a valid option.
If you want to see where he started check out this
earlier version of the microwave kiln
and how he used it to make an
aluminum pencil
. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737626",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T06:36:21",
"content": "OK… so I’m not totally against videos but they aren’t a great way to explain things. In this case, a video exceedinga full houris just obscene. Seriously, a paper with illustrations and maybe a few demonst... | 1,760,371,989.501486 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/the-six-million-dollar-jellyfish/ | The Six Million Dollar Jellyfish | Navarre Bartz | [
"Science"
] | [
"bioengineering",
"biomimetic",
"biomimicry",
"deep ocean exploration",
"jellyfish",
"sensors",
"underwater sensor"
] | What if you could rebuild a jellyfish: better, stronger, faster than it was before? Caltech now has the technology to build
bionic jellyfish
.
Studying the ocean given its influence on the
rest of the climate
is an important scientific task, but the wild pressure differences as you descend into the eternal darkness make it a non-trivial engineering problem. While we’ve sent people to the the
deepest parts of the ocean
, submersibles are much too expensive and risky to use for widespread data acquisition.
The researchers found in previous work that making a cyborg jellyfish was more effective than biomimetic jellyfish robots, and have now given the “
biohybrid robotic jellyfish
” a 3D-printed, neutrally buoyant, swimming cap. In combination with the previously-developed “pacemaker,” these cyborg jellyfish can explore the ocean (in a straight line) at 4.5x the speed of a conventional moon jelly while carrying a scientific payload. Future work hopes to make them steerable like the well-known
robo-cockroaches
.
If you’re interested in some other attempts to explore Earth’s oceans, how about
drift buoys
, an
Open CTD
, or an
Open ROV
? Just don’t forget to
keep the noise down
! | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737404",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T05:39:53",
"content": "Real jellyfish will feel their jobs are threatened and kill it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737417",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
... | 1,760,371,989.556294 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/an-open-sparcstation-usb-keyboardmouse-adapter/ | An Open SPARCstation USB Keyboard&Mouse Adapter | Arya Voronova | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"sparc"
] | Got a SPARCstation? You might have had to deal with the proprietary DIN port used for keyboard and mouse input. However, you need not look for outdated hardware anymore – we’ve recently found
an adapter project
called [usb3sun], which lets you use a regular USB keyboard and mouse instead! Designed by [
delan
] from
[the funny computer museum]
, the usb3sun adapter is featureful, open-source, and even comes
with
four
blog
posts
describing its inner workings and development process!
Based on a Pi Pico board, this adapter has a ton of quality of life features – an OLED screen for status display, extra USB port and headers for debugging, a buzzer to emulate bell and click functions, power LEDs, and all the ports you would expect. The OLED screen is
needed
just because of
how many features
this adapter’s firmware has, and you’re bound to get more – the [usb3sun] firmware is
being actively updated
to this day. It’s as if this adapter aims to do all it possibly could help you with – for instance, one of the firmware updates has added
idprom
reprogramming features, which, as [delan] tells us, lets you boot your workstation with a dead NVRAM battery.
You can order the adapter PCBs yourself, you can breadboard it by following
detailed instructions
from [delan], or you can get a fully assembled and tested [usb3sun] adapter
on Tindie!
This adapter will seriously help you in your SPARCstation forays, and, if you don’t happen to own a SPARCstation, you can always
emulate SunOS
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737376",
"author": "Gösta",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T02:23:46",
"content": "I have a Sparkintosh!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737521",
"author": "forty-2",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T17:43:39",
"con... | 1,760,371,989.610417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/educational-arduino-clock-uses-analog-meters-for-display/ | Educational Arduino Clock Uses Analog Meters For Display | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"clock",
"real time clock"
] | When it comes to educational electronic projects, it’s hard to go past building a clock. You learn tons about everything from circuit concepts and assembly skills to insights about the very nature of time itself. And you get a clock at the end of it! [hamblin.joe] wanted to do a simple project for kids along these lines, so whipped up a neat design
using analog meters to display the time.
The build relies on that old stalwart, the Arduino Uno, to run the show. It’s hooked up to a DS3231 real-time clock module so it can keep accurate time for long periods, as is befitting a clock. Displaying the time is done via the use of two analog meters, each fitted with a custom backing card. One displays hours, the other, minutes. The analog meters are simply driven by the PWM outputs of the Arduino.
It’s not a hugely complex project, but it teaches so much. It provides an opportunity to educate the builders about real-time clocks, microcontroller programming, and even the concepts behind pulse width modulation. To say nothing of the physical skills, like learning to solder or
how to assemble the laser-cut enclosure
. Ultimately, it looks like a really great way for [hamblin.joe] and his students to dive into the world of modern electronics. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737333",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T21:26:46",
"content": "But can Gen-Zers tell time on it? ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737340",
"author": "Feinfinger (M-x totally-tame-mode)",
"tim... | 1,760,371,989.668551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/build-yourself-a-little-mangonel-you-deserve-one/ | Build Yourself A Little Mangonel, You Deserve One | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"age of empires II",
"mangonel",
"siege",
"siege engine",
"siege weapon"
] | If you’re of a certain age, you almost certainly learned about mangonels by playing
Age of Empires II
. Any intermediate player will tell you they are a powerful siege weapon that nevertheless cannot destroy trees (in game). However, why limit yourself to experiencing this capable siege engine in digital form? With the help of [Arry Koster’s] design,
you can build a little mangonel of your very own!
A good-looking siege engine is, more often than not, a well-performing one.
The build is intended for a student or hobbyist audience, and is for a mangonel roughly the size of a shoebox. That’s big enough to have some fun, without being so large as to get you into trouble. The project also comes complete with a useful spreadsheet that lets you simulate the performance of a mangonel hurling a projectile so you can better understand the physics involved.
The mangonel is constructed out of wood, just as medieval examples were. The guide explains how to put the the design together, including the use of graphite to lubricate moving parts — a technique also used historically. Beyond building the siege weapon itself, there are also instructions on how to instrument it with an Arduino to measure its performance accurately.
The only thing this project is missing is a brilliant video of the titchy siege machine in action. We want to see it knocking down
some appropriately-sized castles!
If you happen to be building your own siege engines, miniature or otherwise, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line.
Do include some excellent footage of your antics, to boot! | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737316",
"author": "anonymous coward",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T19:49:02",
"content": "That’s an onager not a mangonel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737326",
"author": "anonymous joker",
"timestamp": "2024... | 1,760,371,990.000938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/hackaday-podcast-episode-260-kicad-8-two-weather-stations-and-multiple-i2cs/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 260: KiCad 8, Two Weather Stations, And Multiple I2Cs | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | It’s a leap year, so Elliot and Dan put the extra day to good use tracking down all the hottest hacks from the past week and dorking out about them. There’s big news in the KiCad community, and we talked about all the new features along with some old woes. Great minds think alike, apparently, since two different e-ink weather stations made the cut this week, as did a floating oscilloscope, an automated film-developing tank, and some DIY solar panels.
We talked about a hacker who figured out that water makes a pretty good solar storage medium, and it’s cheaper than lithium, another who knows that a crappy lathe is better than no lathe, and what every hacker should know about Ethernet. Is there a future for room-temperature superconductors? Maybe it just depends on how cold the room is.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Grab a copy for yourself
if you want to listen offline.
Episode 260 Show Notes:
News:
FLOSS Weekly Episode 772: Raspberry Pi From The Man Himself
An Automotive Locksmith On The Flipper Zero And Car Theft
What’s that Sound?
Congrats to [Beeman] for identifying the
Shephard-Risset tone.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
KiCad 8 Makes Your Life Better Without Caveats
A Smarter Solar Water Heater
Our Home Automation Contest Starts Now!
ESP32 Weather Station Looks Great With Color E-Paper Display
Humidity Sensor Shootout
Building Touch Sensors From Digital Barometer Chips
There’s Hope For That Cheap Lathe Yet!
Wireless Telescope Guidance You Can Build On The Cheap
3D-Printed Automated Development Tank For Classic Photo Films
Darkroom Robot Automates Away The Tedium Of Film Developing
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks
The Photodiode You Never Knew You Had
Avoid I2C Address Conflicts On ESP32 By Pin Muxing
Blast From The Past: Schematic Templates
Dan’s Picks:
Solar E-Ink Weather Station Works On Dark Days, Too
Your Scope, Armed And Ready
Making A Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Is Almost DIY-able
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Ask Hackaday: What If You Did Have A Room Temperature Superconductor?
Ethernet For Hackers: Equipment Exploration
Ethernet For Hackers: The Very Basics
The Modular Connector And How It Got That Way | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737317",
"author": "Tom Donnelly",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T19:49:17",
"content": "What’s that sound. Judy Teen by Cockney Rebel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,989.944093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/if-you-thought-sega-only-made-electronic-games-think-again/ | If You Thought Sega Only Made Electronic Games, Think Again | Jenny List | [
"Games"
] | [
"electromechanical",
"gun fight",
"restoration",
"sega"
] | Most of us associate the name Sega with their iconic console gaming systems from the 1980s and 1990s, and those of us who maintain an interest in arcade games will be familiar with their many cabinet-based commercial offerings. But the company’s history in its various entities stretches back as far as the 1950s in the world of slot machines and eventually electromechanical arcade games. [Arcade Archive]
is starting to tell the take of how one of those games is being restored
, it’s a mid-1960s version of
Gun Fight
, at
the Retro Collective museum
in Stroud, UK.
The game is a table-style end-to-end machine, with the two players facing each other with a pair of diminutive cowboys over a game field composed of Wild West scenery. The whole thing is very dirty indeed, so a substantial part of the video is devoted to their carefully dismantling and cleaning the various parts.
This is the first video in what will become a series, but it still gives a significant look into the electromechanical underpinnings of the machine. It’s beautifully designed and made, with all parts carefully labelled and laid out with color-coded wiring for easy servicing. For those of us who grew up with electronic versions of Sega
Gun Fight
, it’s a fascinating glimpse of a previous generation of gaming, which we’re looking forward to seeing more of.
This is a faithful restoration of an important Sega game, but
it’s not the first time we’ve featured old Sega arcade hardware
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737320",
"author": "metalman",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T20:06:25",
"content": "“the company’s history in its various entities stretches back”thats moving the goal posts",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737384",
"autho... | 1,760,371,989.908778 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/this-week-in-security-forksquatting-rustdesk-and-mms/ | This Week In Security: Forksquatting, RustDesk, And M&Ms | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Avast",
"RustDesk",
"This Week in Security",
"wordpress"
] | Github is struggling to keep up with
a malware campaign that’s a new twist on typosquatting
. The play is straightforward: Clone popular repositories, add malware, and advertise the forks as the original. Some developers mistake the forks for the real projects, and unintentionally run the malware. The obvious naming choice is forksquatting, but the
researchers at apiiro went with the safer name of “Repo Confusion”.
The campaign is automated, and GitHub is aware of it, with the vast majority of these malicious repositories getting removed right away. For whatever reason, the GitHub algorithm isn’t catching all of the new repos. The current campaign appears to publishing millions of forks, using code from over 100,000 legitimate projects. It’s beginning to seem that the squatting family of attacks are here to stay.
RustDesk and Odd Certificates
The RustDesk remote access software is interesting, as it’s open source, allows self-hosting, and written in Rust. I’ve had exploring RustDesk as a todo item for a long time, but a bit of concerning drama has just finished playing out. A user pointed out back in November that
a test root certificate was installed as part of the RustDesk installation
. That root cert is self-signed with SHA1. There is also concern that the RustDesk binaries are signed with a different certificate.
There have been new events since then. First, there was
a Hacker News thread
about the issue earlier this month. The next day,
CVE-2024-25140
was registered with NIST, ranking an insane CVE 9.8 CVSS. Let’s cut through some FUD and talk about what’s really going on.
First, root certificates ought to be signed with a more secure hashing function than SHA1. But not for the reason you think, and in this case it doesn’t matter. Root certificates are self-signed by definition, and the only reason they’re signed at all is because these certificates must be signed to be valid. Child certs are not protected by the root’s signature. The important function that depends on that root signature is the ability to issue a revocation request. That would be really bad for one of the widely trusted root certificates, and not an issue at all for an untrusted cert like this one.
Next, RustDesk has a valid, signed certificate for the executables. The self-signed root certificate is strictly for signing a kernel driver, which requires an Extended Validation (EV) certificate. It’s a bit disconcerting that this requirement can be so easily sidestepped by installing a root cert during application install, but that’s on Microsoft, not RustDesk.
The final concern here is that this certificate is being installed as a system-wide Certificate Authority (CA). That is the most worrying element of this saga, but certificates have a field specifiying their Key Usage (KU) and Extended Key Usage (EKU). The RustDesk CA is strictly for Code Signing. This does not allow RustDesk or anyone in possession of this key to break TLS or spoof web sites. It does allow code signing, which could be a valid concern, but is not the hair-on-fire situation it first appears.
RustDesk has pulled this key from their installation, which happens to disable the virtual display driver. That was the functionality that required a signed kernel driver. The latest news is that the RustDesk devs are getting some assistance, and are pursuing an EV code-signing certificate, and expect to have that process wrapped up in about a month. And that CVE, scoring a severity 9.8? Seems completely bogus.
Ultimate Member SQL Injection
The Ultimate Member WordPress plugin has been updated to release 2.8.3,
fixing a SQL injection flaw
that was accessible as an unauthenticated user.
Based on the update diff
, the key issue is probably a missed
prepare()
on line 704. Oh, and it’s apparently being probed and potentially exploited in the wild, so go patch.
This is probably a good time to have a chat about why there are so many SQL injection attacks in WordPress. First, SQL injection is when user supplied data is interpreted as part of the SQL command to execute. That’s done by including an unexpected character. For instance, a semicolon indicates the end of a statement, and can be used to start the next. So where a naive program expects a number, an input of
15; DROP TABLE Students
will satisfy one SQL statement and inject a second statement to be executed on the database.
Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to prevent SQL injection: input sanitization and prepared statements. And both is good, too! First, sanitize user input. Make sure that integer is actually an integer and only an integer. Strip out quotation marks, semicolons, and other potentially hazardous characters.
The second approach is to use prepared statements. This separates the SQL command from the data in a fundamental way. It’s something like
$database->prepare("INSERT INTO Students (name, age) VALUES (?, ?)");
to send the SQL commands. Then it’s followed by
$database->bind_param("si", $name, $age);
to set the values to be used. And finally a
$database->execute();
actually runs the query. There is no injection possible because of the strict separation between the code and values.
Now we come to WordPress, which has its own
wpdb
class for database calls. That includes a helpful function,
wpdb::prepare()
that looks almost like a prepared statement as shown above.
$wpdb->prepare( "u.user_registered BETWEEN %s AND %s", $from_date, $to_date );
Except it’s not at all. The
prepare()
function strictly does a sanitization pass, and an
sprintf()
value substitution. The
prepare()
function does not actually produce a prepared database statement. WordPress does not provide a way to actually use prepared statements. One of the basic paradigms to keep developers out of trouble with SQL injections is missing.
The M&Ms Are Watching
I have something of a hobby. I find it fun to spot misbehaving machines, and try to figure out what OS is running underneath the shiny GUI. The weirdest embedded device I’ve found is a page scanner that ran a full-fat copy of Windows. The price scanners in your local big-box store might just run Windows CE. The airplane seat-back infotainment centers run a really old Linux. And apparently the M&M vending machines at the University of Waterloo run
Windows with the Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognition.App.exe application
.
We know that because [SquidKid47] caught an unknown software exception on the vending machine’s display screen, and shared it on reddit. A
school newspaper picked up the story
(pdf) and determined that the vending machine uses a camera and facial detection as a combination of smart motion sensor and demographics detector for targeted advertising. Yes, these vending machines serves targeted ads. At least they did. These vending machines have
met their Waterloo
at the University of Waterloo, with the school now formally requesting their removal.
Bits and Bytes
Ring Doorbell to Pwn: It turns out that
some smart doorbells aren’t all that smart
. It’s not surprising that there’s a process to reset a smart doorbell, to associate it with another account. It is rather surprising that this process is as easy as holding the big doorbell button itself for 8 seconds. At the very least, the legitimate owner will receive an email about the change.
Printer insecurity is nothing new, but 3D printer security is still a bit of a niche idea. That may be changing, now that
the equivalent of a “greetings.txt” file has been dropped
on a bunch of Anycubic printers. Apparently Anycubic uses an MQTT server that really doesn’t have sufficient access controls.
It’s that time again, when
a vulnerability fix has been released for GitLab
, and it’s time to go update. The stand-out this time is a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) flaw upon visiting a user’s profile page. I leave it as an exercise for the reader, to produce sample code that copies “samy is my hero” to the profile page of each visitor.
And finally, in the irony department,
Avast has been fined
for using a browser privacy plugin as a platform to collect and sell user data. This happened from 2014 to 2020, using the Jumpshot platform for the actual selling of data. The data was nominally anonymized, but the amount and detail of information available is a bit staggering. It is worth pointing out that Jumpshot is no more, and Avast is now owned by another company. Hopefully without harvesting user information. | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737289",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T17:36:53",
"content": "The 9.8 rating for RustDesk is legit when even the developer doesn’t know what’s going on.https://i.ibb.co/bHjMYWH/2024-02-08-00h41-11.png",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,990.318596 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/cheap-microscope-can-take-amazing-images-with-some-simple-upgrades/ | Cheap Microscope Can Take Amazing Images With Some Simple Upgrades | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"education",
"microscope",
"raspberry pi",
"upgrade"
] | [Birdbrain] is trying to make their own microfluidic devices. To aid in this quest, they need a quality microscope to see what they’re doing. Instead of buying one outright, they purchased a cheap microscope and
upgraded it to do the job instead.
Usability and performance is greatly improved over the stock unit, which was really only fit for learning purposes.
The cheap education-grade microscope cost around $50 USD, had few features, and wasn’t much chop out of the box. The worst part was the sample stage — which was poorly adjustable in the up-and-down axis and could only track about two centimeters up and down. There was no X or Y axis panning either, and it lacked a proper condensor iris, too. Oh, and the included camera module had a resolution of just 240p.
To fix these problems, the microscope was first outfitted with a fully redesigned X-Y-Z stage built out of old components from a salvaged DVD drive and an additional NEMA stepper motor. Camera-wise, it was hooked up with a 2K Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3 running at 10 to 15 frames per second, which broadcasts video over a local network for easy viewing on an external monitor. It also gained an epi-illumination setup for doing reflected light microscopy.
If you’re eager to build a quality microscope with all the controls you personally dream of, this could be a relevant project for you to study.
We’ve featured some other builds along these lines before, too
. Video after the break.
Thanks to [Kelvin Ly] for the tip! | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737591",
"author": "Stendall",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T00:54:58",
"content": "Borg Microscope.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737604",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T02:31:40",
"content"... | 1,760,371,990.100775 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/its-a-coco-no-its-an-apple-ii/ | It’s A CoCo! No, It’s An Apple II! | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"6809",
"Apple 2",
"CoCo",
"tandy"
] | Original retrocomputing hardware is now decades old and showing its age, so the chances are it’s more common in 2024 to experience a machine from the 1970s or 1980s by way of an emulator on a modern machine than it is on the real hardware. There’s another more limited emulation scene as similar 8-bit machines emulate each other, for example when the very similar Dragon 32 and Tandy CoCo have a go at each other’s software. Rarest of them all though is when one classic machine emulates another with a different architecture, but that’s exactly what’s happened with [DragonBytes],
who has persuaded a Tandy CoCo to emulate an Apple II
.
The two machines have significant hardware differences, but we’re guessing that the project is helped a little by the Motorola 6809 in the CoCo and the MOS 6502 in the Apple having both in a sense been different visions of a successor to the Motorola 6800. Thus their architectures while different, are not diametrically opposed. The other hardware is certainly not so similar though, with Moto’s 6847 display chip in the Tandy being far more conventional than Steve Wozniak’s clever NTSC hacks to achieve a color display for minimal cost on the Apple.
The project is written in assembler, and doesn’t by any means claim to support all Apple modes, or be cycle accurate. But it’s a hugely impressive achievement nevertheless.
The CoCo has an enthusiastic following, and has appeared here a few times in the past.
We particularly like this video player
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737576",
"author": "Folkert van Heusden",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T23:04:35",
"content": "Reminds me of 1994 when I wrote an MSX emulator for the Atari ST…in basic (GFA basic). Not very fast but it worked somewhat.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,990.140311 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/diy-geophone-build-performs-well/ | DIY Geophone Build Performs Well | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"geology",
"geophone",
"seismic",
"seismic activity"
] | If you want to know what’s going on with the ground, geologically speaking, a geophone is a great tool to have. It lets you listen in on the rumbles and grumbles beneath your feet, and can give you great insight into matters of seismic importance.
[mircemk] has designed a very capable geophone
that’s simple enough for you to build at home.
The geophone relies on a mass suspended upon a spring inside a chamber, which as you might imagine, will move when shaken by seismic vibrations. The mass is in fact a plastic rod, fitted with an iron nut and a magnet on the end.
This is mounted above a coil, which is fixed to the base of the chamber. Thus, when the chamber is shaken by seismic activity, the mass moves relative to the coil, with the coil picking up the varying magnetic field as it dances around.
The
YouTube video
does a great job of explaining the concepts involved and how to practically build the device. [mircemk] has also had
some other great projects
featured on Hackaday before, too. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737528",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T18:08:55",
"content": "All I’m going to pickup is the vibration caused by snowplowing the street in front of my apartment. I’m on the 16th floor (by height, not floor number), and the building is a tuning fork for snow clea... | 1,760,371,990.048334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/sometimes-its-the-little-things/ | Sometimes It’s The Little Things | Elliot Williams | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Rants"
] | [
"clever",
"i2c",
"i2c addressing",
"multiplexer",
"newsletter"
] | I had one of those why-didn’t-I-think-of-it moments this week, reading
this article about multiplexing I2C on the ESP32 microcontroller
. The idea is so good, and so simple, that it’s almost silly that it’s not standard hacker practice. And above all, it actually helps solve a problem that I’ve got. This is why I read Hackaday every day.
I2C is great in that it lets you connect up multiple devices to a pair of wires using a very bus architecture. Every device has its own address, the host calls them out, and hopefully all other devices keep quiet while just the right one responds. But what happens when you want to use a few of the same sensors, where each IC has the same address? The usual solution is to buy a multiplexer chip.
But many modern microcontrollers, like the ESP32, have an internal multiplexer setup that lets you map the pins with the dedicated hardware peripherals, usually at initialization time. Indeed, I’ve been doing it as an “init” task so long, I never thought to do it otherwise. But that’s exactly the idea behind [BastelBaus]’s hack – if you dynamically reassign the pins, you can do the I2C multiplexing with the chip you’ve got. This should probably work for any other chips that have multiple assignable pins for hardware peripherals as well.
Cool idea, but really simple. Why hadn’t I ever thought of it? I think it’s because I’ve always had this init / mainloop schema in my mind, which for instance the Arduino inherited and formalized in its
setup()
and
loop()
functions. Pin mappings go in the init section, right?
So what this hack really amounts to, for me, is a rethinking of what’s static and what’s dynamic. It’s always worth questioning your assumptions, especially when you’re facing a problem that requires a creative solution. Sometimes limitations are only in your mind. Have you had your mind opened recently by a tiny little hack?
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
! | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737485",
"author": "BobH",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T15:08:15",
"content": "On many of my projects, finding two acceptable pins free for the I2C bus is difficult enough. Looking for 3 or 4 gets more painful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"... | 1,760,371,990.190629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/designing-a-usb-c-upgrade-pcb-for-the-mx-ergo-mouse/ | Designing A USB-C Upgrade PCB For The MX Ergo Mouse | Jenny List | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"logitech",
"micro-USB",
"USB C"
] | As the world of electronic gadgetry made the switch from micro USB to USB-C as the charging port of choice, many of us kept both of the required cables handy. But it’s fair to say that these days a micro USB port has become a pretty rare sight, and the once ubiquitous cable can be a bit elusive in the event that you encounter an older device that requires it.
[Solderking] has a high-end Logitech cordless mouse with just this problem, and
so he replaced its micro USB socket with a USB-C port
. That makes the task sound deceptively simple, because in fact he had to reverse engineer one of the device’s PCBs in its entirety, making a new board with the same outline and components, but sporting the new connector.
Instead of attempting to replicate the complex shape with geometry he started with a scan of the board and had Fusion 360 trace its outline before 3D printing a version of it to check fit in the Logitech case. Then it was a case of tracing the circuit, designing the replacement, and hand transferring the parts from board to board.
The result is a USB-C chargeable mouse, and while all the design files don’t appear to be online, it’s possible to download the Gerbers
from a PCBWay page
. On top of that there’s a YouTube video of the process which we’ve placed below the break.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen somebody spin up a new board to add USB-C to an older device — this
drop-in replacement for Sony’s DualShock 4 comes to mind
. If you’ve got enough free space inside your particular gadget, you might be able to pull of a USB-C conversion with nothing more exotic than a
hacked up Adafruit breakout board
. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737498",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T15:50:49",
"content": "Its also amazing what you can do with a usb-C breakout board and a whole lot of epoxy ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737517",
"author": "L... | 1,760,371,992.141499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/02/on-the-merits-of-a-solid-state-dehumidifier-filament-dry-box/ | On The Merits Of A Solid-State Dehumidifier Filament Dry Box | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer filament",
"dehumidifier"
] | How good are ion membrane dehumidifiers for keeping FDM filament dry and ready for printing? This is the question which
[Stefan] at
CNC Kitchen
sought to answer in a recent video
. Like many of us, he was inspired by a video which [Big Clive] made a while ago in which said dehumidifiers were demonstrated for keeping an enclosure free from moisture. Yet would they be able to tackle the much bigger drying job of one or more spools of filament? Thanks to some free samples sent by
Rosahl
, [Stefan] was able to start answering this question.
Performance of desiccants and dehumidifier element. (Credit CNC Kitchen)
In the experiments, he used the smaller RS1 (€36.25 a piece) for a single spool container, and the larger MDL-3 (€169) with a Bambu Lab AMS multi-spool unit. Normally such an AMS has three big containers with silica desiccant in it that have to be regularly swapped out, but he modified one AMS to only have the big MDL-3 membrane to dehumidify. A second AMS was left with older silica in its containers, and a third got fresh silica, allowing for some benchmarking between the three units.
The results say a lot, with the initial empty AMS test showing the older silica desiccants topping out quickly and leaving the fresh silica and the membrane dehumidifier to go neck to neck. This is not the usual scenario in which you’d use these dehumidification methods of course, and the small-scale test with the RS1 showed that with a full filament spool in the box, humidity inside the container would only drop very gradually as more and more moisture replaced what was removed from the air. In particular the cardboard element of the spool being used was suspected of being one of the biggest sources of moisture.
Performance of desiccants and dehumidifier element with full AMS. (Credit CNC Kitchen)
With multiple spools inside the three AMS units to simulate a more typical scenario, the performance was rather similar, except with the used silica’s performance absolute cratering and the impact of moisture replacement in the air being very noticeable for the other two AMS units as humidity kept moving around even as it went gradually down, with the ion membrane dehumidifier taking it down far further than even the fresh silica.
Effectively, this means that such an ion membrane dehumidifier is a good choice, as it does exactly what it says on the tin, with a rather humble power usage of around 4 watt (at 3 V).
This doesn’t mean that heated drying boxes can be thrown out, of course, as they are much faster and it makes sense to first dry spools out before putting them in a storage box with one of these solid state units. The main negatives to such a solid state solution are probably the price and the oxygen accumulation inside the container, as the
ion membrane works
as hinted at through electrolysis with the hydrogen ions moving through the membrane, which leaves the oxygen atoms behind. | 43 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737427",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2024-03-02T10:48:47",
"content": "There are some youtube videos about making ion exchange membranes using napkins, pva glue, cement and some unfamiliar chemicals. Maybe someone can figure out opensource version of this as well…",
"p... | 1,760,371,991.945343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/bluetooth-wearable-becomes-rad-synth-controller/ | Bluetooth Wearable Becomes Rad Synth Controller | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"filter",
"midi",
"pinewatch",
"synth",
"volca"
] | Once upon a time, a watch was just a watch. These days, though, smartwatches have all kinds of tricks built in, from heartrate sensors, to accelerometers, gyros, and tons of networking capability. Take advantage of just some of that hardware, and you have yourself a pretty nifty controller.
And that’s precisely what [Simon Brem] did.
The project is based around the capable
PineTime smartwatch
, which [Simon] has been using with the InfiniTime firmware. On this platform, he created an app that sends out Bluetooth MIDI commands straight from the watch. It can be used as a motion controller, where waving and angling the watch can be used to control MIDI parameters, or it can be used to sync BPM to the wearer’s heartrate. [Simon] demonstrates an example use case in a
demo video
, where the watch is used to control filters in pleasant ways.
We’ve seen
a lot of neat watch hacks lately
, as it turns out! To say nothing of the
brilliant MIDI controllers
that have
come through these doors,
as well. Video after the break.
https://projects.simonbrem.de/infinitime-ble-midi/infinitime_ble-midi_demo2.mp4 | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737664",
"author": "Oleksiy",
"timestamp": "2024-03-03T13:48:06",
"content": "OMG, finally a cool use for my PineTime that been collecting dust for about a year. Thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,991.8212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/thinkpad-x1-carbon-turned-usb-device-through-relentless-digging/ | ThinkPad X1 Carbon Turned USB Device Through Relentless Digging | Arya Voronova | [
"laptops hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"facedancer",
"thinkpad",
"USB Gadget",
"usb gadget framework",
"usb3",
"USB3300",
"xhci"
] | In what’s perhaps one of the most impressive laptop reverse engineering posts in recent memory, [Andrey Konovalov] brings us
an incredibly detailed story
of how he’s discovered and successfully enabled a USB
device
controller in a ThinkPad X1 Carbon equipped with a 6th gen Intel CPU.
If you ever wanted to peek at the dirty secrets of a somewhat modern-day Intel CPU-based system, this write-up spares you no detail, and spans dozens of abstraction layers — from Linux drivers and modifying NVRAM to custom USB cable building and BIOS chip flashing, digging deep into undocumented PCH registers for the dessert.
All [Andrey] wanted was to avoid tinkering with an extra Raspberry Pi. While using a PCIe connected device controller, he’s found a reference to
intel_xhci_usb_sw-role-switch
in Linux
sysfs
, and dove into a rabbit hole, where he discovered that the IP core used for the laptop’s USB ports has a ‘device’ mode that can be enabled. A dig through ACPI tables confirmed this, but also highlighted that the device is disabled in BIOS. What’s more, it turned out to be locked away behind a hidden menu. Experiments in unlocking that menu ensued, in particular when it comes to bypassing Intel Boot Guard, a mechanism that checks BIOS image signatures before boot.
An SPI socket [Andrey] got
on Adafruit
for ease of patching the BIOS to unlock the hidden menu
[Andrey] shows us a few different ways he’s tried to enable the controller, just for the fun of it, from using BootGuard exploits to reverse-engineering NVRAM EFI variable mapping, and even a lengthy section on poking directly at the Intel PCH’s registers trying to enable the USB device peripheral from userspace, assisted by [Maxim Goryachy] of
Intel reverse-engineering fame.
In the end, the NVRAM patching way turned out to be the most viable way for an average user, and the blog post has more than enough detail for any enterprising hacker who would like to make it work for them as well.
As a victory dance, we get a section on all the wonderful things you can do if your device supports USB device mode. There’s the obvious USB storage example, but [Alexey] shows us a few cool tools to remember – the Raw Gadget Linux kernel framework for building any kind of USB device you could dream of, the syzkaller USB stack fuzzer, and
Facedancer
, a framework for USB device emulation.
If you think all of this is a lot, mind you that we have only described about half of all the cool stuff that the blog post contains — you should
go check it out,
and make a cup of tea, because there’s just that much cool stuff to learn about.
Genuinely, this blog post is a testament to a hacker’s dedication, and a shining example of just how far you can reach if you are willing to keep digging. Does your laptop
hide some secrets
that nobody knew existed? Remember, there’s only one way to find out. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737209",
"author": "Zoe Nagy",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T13:13:26",
"content": "Or just buy a Macbook.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737262",
"author": "bebop",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T16:08:04",
"c... | 1,760,371,992.037489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/03/01/doom-runs-on-husqvarnas-robot-lawnmower/ | DOOMRuns On Husqvarna’s Robot Lawnmower | Lewin Day | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"does it run doom",
"doom",
"mower",
"robot"
] | DOOM
has been ported to a lot of platforms — to the point where the joke is kind of getting old now. Evidence of that is available in the fact that brands are now getting in on the action. Yes, as reported by
The Register,
you can now officially play
DOOM
on your
Husqvarna’s Automower
.
Nice, right? Speedrun it on this interface.
We had to check if this was some kind of joke; indeed, the April release date had us looking at the calendar. However, it seems to be legit. You’ll be able to download a version of
DOOM
via the Husqvarna Automower Connect App, and play it on the tiny screen of your robot lawnmower. Hilariously, due to the size of the game, Husqvarna notes it “may take up to a week before the game is playable” due to the time it takes the mower to download it, along with a necessary software update.
Controls are simple. The knob on the robot is used for turning left and right, while pressing start lets you run forward. Firing weapons is done by pressing the control knob.
We’ve seen some quality ports before,
including an arcade port that was particularly cool.
Really, though, at this stage, you have to work harder to impress. Show us
DOOM
running on a Minuteman launch console or something.
Thanks to [Stephen Waters] for the tip! | 26 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737143",
"author": "issalig",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T09:29:04",
"content": "Release in April? April 1st?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6737168",
"author": "Andrea Campanella",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T10:49:55",
... | 1,760,371,992.371203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/easily-add-link-cable-support-to-your-homebrew-gba-game/ | Easily Add Link Cable Support To Your Homebrew GBA Game | Maya Posch | [
"Games",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"game boy advance",
"Game Boy Link Cable"
] | The Game Boy Advance (GBA) link cable is the third generation of this feature which originated with the Gameboy. It not only allows for peripherals to be connected, but also for multiplayer between GBAs – even with just one game copy – and item sharing and unlocking of features in specific games. This makes it an interesting feature to support in today’s homebrew GBA games and applications, made easy by libraries such as [Rodrigo Alfonso]’s
gba-link-connection
.
This C++ library can be used in a number of ways: either limited to just the
physical link cable
, just the
wireless link
option or both (universal link). These support either 4 (cable) or 5 (wireless) players to be connected simultaneously. As additional options there are the
LinkGPIO.hpp
and
LinkSPI.hpp
headers which allow the link port to be used either as a generic GPIO, or as an SPI link (up to 2 Mb/s). The multiboot feature where a single ROM image is shared among connected GBAs is supported with both wired and wireless links.
It’s heartening to see that a device which this year celebrates its 23rd birthday is still supported so well.
Thanks to [gudenau] for the tip. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737120",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T07:38:31",
"content": "With a breakout board that SPI mode would be great for a GameBoy tricorder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6737126",
"author": "Daid",
"ti... | 1,760,371,991.864649 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/internet-of-production-alliance-wants-you-to-think-globally-make-locally/ | Internet Of Production Alliance Wants You To Think Globally, Make Locally | Navarre Bartz | [
"hardware"
] | [
"decentralized",
"distributed manufacturing",
"fablab",
"fourth industrial revolution",
"Internet of Production Alliance",
"makerspace",
"manufacturing",
"open source hardware",
"production",
"supply chain"
] | With the proliferation of digital fabrication tools, many feel the future of manufacturing is distributed. It would certainly be welcome after the pandemic-induced supply chain kerfuffles from toilet paper to Raspberry Pis. The
Internet of Production Alliance
(IoP) is designing standards to smooth this transition. [via
Solarpunk Presents
]
IoP was founded in 2016 to build the infrastructure necessary to move toward a global supply chain based on local production of goods from a global database of designs instead of the current centralized model of production with closed designs. Some might identify this decentralization as part of the
Fourth Industrial Revolution
. They currently have developed two standards,
Open Know-Where
[PDF] and
Open Know-How
.
Open Know-Where is designed to help locate makerspaces, FabLabs, and other spaces with the tools and materials necessary to build a thing. The sort of data collected here is broken down in to five categories: manufacturing facility, people, location, equipment, and materials.
Open Know-How focuses on open designs having more consistent metadata to fast-track someone making it instead of trying to piece together the varying amounts of data available for a build. They even have a
database of designs
that already follow the Open Know-How standard. Given the focus on relief work and developing countries, there seems to be a higher density of medical and rescue equipment than you might find elsewhere. Some of the organizations you might recognize with members that helped develop the standard are the Open Source Hardware Association, the
e-Nable Alliance
, and Appropedia.
We have a HackChat about
on-demand manufacturing
, have pondered the opportunities for
Open Source Hardware to be more like software
, and have also seen biohackers pushing for more
distributed production of drugs
. Modular platforms like
OpenStructures
and the
Open Robotic Platform
could certainly help too. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737072",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T03:36:45",
"content": "Or we could.. Idunno, try and be self-sufficient and make stuff again instead of giving our whole country away… Just a wacky idea.You can keep your “fourth industrial revolution.” Gross.",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,371,992.293766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/a-3-tool-selector-box-for-a-jbc-soldering-station/ | A 3-tool Selector Box For A JBC Soldering Station | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino pro mini",
"JBC",
"relays",
"soldering",
"uln2003A"
] | Soldering is one of those jobs that are conceptually simple enough, but there’s quite a bit of devil in the detail and having precisely the right tool for the job in hand is essential for speed and quality of results. The higher-quality soldering stations have many options for the hot end, but switching from a simple pencil to hot tweezers often means unplugging one and reattaching the other, and hoping the station recognises the change and does the right thing. [Lajt] had three soldering options and a single output station. Their solution was a
custom-built three-way frontend box
that provides a push-button selection of the tool to be connected to the station sitting atop.
[Lajt] shows in the blog post how each of their target hot ends is wired and the connectivity the control station expects to determine what is plugged in. Failing to recognise a connected 50 W heating element as if the smaller 25 W unit was still connected would suck, with a huge amount of lag as the temperature of the hot end would fail to keep up with the thermal load during use. When connections are made, it is important to ensure the unit has sufficient time to detect the change in output and configure itself appropriately. An Arduino Pro mini handles the selection between outputs by driving a selection of relays with appropriate timing. An interesting detail here is what [Lajt] calls a ‘sacrificial relay’ in the common ground path, which has a greater contact rating than the others and acts as a secondary switch to save wear on the other relay contacts that would otherwise be hot-switched. All in all, a nicely executed project, which should offer years of service.
We like DIY tools and tool-related hacks. Here’s a
DIY Hakko station
, a
Weller clone unit
, and a
peek inside TS1C portable unit
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6737167",
"author": "lis0r",
"timestamp": "2024-03-01T10:49:14",
"content": "Anyone know what the “mechanical tip cleaner” noise is that he triggers off screen before replacing the iron each time?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,371,991.981108 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/for-today-only-pi3/ | For Today Only, Pi=3 | Jenny List | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"leap year",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi birthday"
] | In 1897 the state assembly of the American state of Indiana famously tried and failed to pass a bill which would have had the effect of denying the value of the mathematical constant Pi. It was an attempt to define a method to “square the circle”, or draw a square of the same area as a given circle through a series of compass and straight edge steps. It’s become something of a running joke and internet meme, and of course defining Pi exactly remains as elusive as ever.
Today and today alone though, you can in one sense claim that Pi is 3, because
it’s twelve years since the launch of the original Raspberry Pi
. The 29th of February 2012 was a leap day, and today being the third leap day since, could be claimed by a date pedant to be the third birthday of the little board from Cambridge. It’s all a bit of fun, but the Pi folks have marked the occasion by featuring an LED birthday cake.
Three leap days ago, your scribe was up at the crack of dawn to be one of the first to snag a board, only to witness the websites of the two distributors at the time, RS and Farnell, immediately go down under the denial of service formed by many thousands of other would-be Pi owners with the same idea. It would be lunchtime before the sites recovered enough to slowly buy a Pi, and it would be May before the computer arrived.
The Pi definitely arrived with a bang, but at tweleve years old is it still smoking? We think so, while it’s normalized the idea of an affordable little board to run Linux to the extent that it’s one of a crowd, the Pi folks have managed to stay relevant and remain the trend setter for their sector rather than Arduino-style becoming an unwilling collective term.
We’ve said this before here at Hackaday, that while the Pi boards are good, it’s not them alone which sets them apart from the clones but their support and software. Perhaps their greatest achievement is that a version of the latest Raspberry Pi OS can still run on that board ordered in February 2012, something unheard of elsewhere in single board computers. If you still have an original Pi don’t forget this, while it’s not the quickest any more there are still plenty of tasks at which they can excel. Meanwhile with their move into branded silicon and their PCIe architecture move we think things are looking exciting, and we look forward to another 12 years and three birthdays for them. Happy 3rd birthday, Raspberry Pi! | 47 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736941",
"author": "Luis Mercado",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T21:17:13",
"content": "Maybe someone more versed in maths can explain to me by they had to go to such extremes to propose a bill to deny the value of Pi. Wouldn’t be enough to simply substitute Pi, in any given formula, wi... | 1,760,371,992.237829 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/washing-machine-motors-unlocked/ | Washing Machine Motors Unlocked | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"induction motor",
"motor",
"washing machine motor"
] | There’s great potential in salvaging a motor from a broken appliance, but so often the part in question is very specific to its application, presenting a puzzle of wires to the experimenter. This was very much the case with older washing machines and other white goods, and while their modern equivalents may have switched to more understandable motors, there are still plenty of the older ones to be had. [Matthias random stuff]
sheds a bit of light on how these motors worked
, by means of a 1980s Maytag washing machine motor.
Many of us will be used to old-style induction motors, in which two windings were fed out of phase via a large capacitor. This one doesn’t have a capacitor, instead it has a primary winding and a secondary one with a higher resistance. We’re not quite sure the explanation of the resistance contributing to a phase shift holds water, however this winding is connected in for a short time at start-up by a centrifugal switch. Even better, reversing its polarity reverses the direction of the motor.
The result is a mess of wires demystified, and a mains powered motor with a bit of strength for your projects. We’ve let a few of these motors slip through our fingers in the past, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so hasty.
This is a subject that we’ve looked at
in the past
. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736904",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T19:44:22",
"content": "Phase shift.https://woodgears.ca/motors/reversing.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6736918",
"author": "spaceminions",
"timest... | 1,760,371,992.088774 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/floss-weekly-episode-772-raspberry-pi-from-the-man-himself/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 772: Raspberry Pi From The Man Himself | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Podcasts"
] | [
"broadcom",
"Eben Upton",
"FLOSS Weekly",
"Rasperry Pi"
] | This week, Jonathan Bennett and Elliot Williams talk with Eben Upton about the Raspberry Pi! The conversation covers
the new Pi 5
, the
upcoming CM5
, the possible Pi500, and the Initial Public Offering (IPO) that may happen before too long. There’s also the PCIe port, the RP1, and the unexpected effects of using Broadcom chips. And then we ask the Billion Dollar question: What’s the money from an IPO going to fund? New hardware, software upgrades, better documentation? Nope, and the answer surprised us, too.
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show
right in the Hackaday Discord
? Next week, we’re talking with Julian Lam about NodeBB!
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 | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736880",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T18:29:29",
"content": "Rasperry Pi 5 is probably going to be the last iteration that isn’t plainly focused on profit. IPOs end up destroying companies from the inside out and the top down.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,371,992.425148 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/making-a-dye-sensitized-solar-cell-is-almost-diy-able/ | Making A Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Is Almost DIY-able | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"solar",
"solar panel"
] | We see plenty of solar projects here on Hackaday, but they primarily consist of projects that use an off-the-shelf solar panel to power something else. We see very few projects where people actually create their own solar panels. And yet,
that’s precisely what [Shih Wei Chieh] has done!
The project consists of a large dye-sensitized solar panel. These are a type of solar panel that can easily be created by the DIY builder, though their efficiency leaves something to be desired versus the best commercial types available. However, you can build them in any way you like to suit your application, which can have some potential benefits.
It consists of two pieces of FTO glass that is etched and prepared to become the electrodes for a string of solar cells. The cells have to be treated with titanium dioxide and then laced with silver traces, before being assembled with liquid electrolyte squirted in between. It’s finicky stuff, but
the video
almost makes it look easy… if you’re familiar with working in a chemistry lab, that is.
While it’s DIY-able, it’s at the outer edge of what some of us would be comfortable with. It does involve some steps with semi-obscure chemicals and the use of a kiln to produce the cells. The design shown here outputs around 5.8 volts and 51 milliamps. It’s not heaps, but it’s enough to run a low-power project for some time in an area with decent sun.
We’ve seen some other great
solar projects
over the years, too! Video after the break. | 9 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736677",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T04:45:48",
"content": "Quarter watt ish in 2024 could power something useful if you don’t waste most of it in regulation so it conforms to modern digital everything",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,371,992.467012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/the-strange-metal-phase-and-its-implications-for-superconductivity/ | The Strange Metal Phase And Its Implications For Superconductivity | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"cuprates",
"fermi liquid",
"strange metal",
"superconductivity"
] | The behavior of electrons and the exact fundamentals underlying the phenomenon we call ‘electricity’ are still the subject of many competing theories and heated debates. This is most apparent in the area of superconducting research, where the Fermi liquid theory — which has has formed the foundation of much of what we thought we knew about interacting fermions and by extension electrons in a metal — was found to break down in cuprates as well as in other metals which feature a state that is a non-Fermi liquid, also called a ‘strange metal phase’.
This phase was the subject of a 2023
research article
by [Liyang Chen] and colleagues in
Science
titled
Shot Noise in a Strange Metal
. As summarized in a
Quanta Magazine
article, the term ‘shot noise’ refers hereby to the quasiparticles that are postulated by the Fermi liquid theory to form part of the electrical current as electrons interact and ‘clump’ together, creating discrete ‘particles’ that can be measured like rain drops falling on a roof. [Liyang Chen] and colleagues created a 200 nm thin nanowire (pictured, top) out of ytterbium, rhodium and silicon, followed by cooling it down to a few Kelvin and measuring the current.
What the team found was no sign of these discrete quasiparticles, but rather non-Fermi liquid continuous current. Yet what is exactly the nature of this measured current? Quite a few attempts at explaining this phenomenon have been undertaken, e.g.
Jianfan Wang et al. (2022)
in rare-earth intermetallic compounds. More recently [Riccardo Arpaia] and colleagues
explore
charge density fluctuations (CDF) as a signature of the quantum critical point (
QCP
), which is a point in the phase diagram where a continuous phase transition takes place at absolute zero.
They studied the CDF using X-ray scattering in cuprate superconductors with a wide doping range, using the measured CDF as an indication of the QCP, indicating that the former may be a result of the latter. With these results mostly inspiring more discussion and research, it’ll probably be a while still before we risk replacing the Fermi liquid theory, or apply strange metal findings to produce high-temperature superconductors. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736868",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T18:06:01",
"content": "Excellent! “That’s weird…” is what leads to new ideas which ultimately helps us get closer to the truth.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,992.637829 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/ethernet-for-hackers-equipment-exploration/ | Ethernet For Hackers: Equipment Exploration | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Network Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"8p8c",
"ethernet",
"ethernet switch",
"how-to",
"phy",
"PoE",
"power over ethernet",
"RJ-45",
"rj45",
"router",
"routers"
] | Last time,
we talked about the surface-level details of Ethernet.
They are fundamental to know for Ethernet hacking, but they’re also easy to pick up from bits and pieces online, or just from wiring up a few computers in your home network. Now, there’s also a bunch of equipment and standards that you will want to use with Ethernet – easy to find whether used or new, and typically as easy to work with. Let’s give you a few beacons!
Routers And Switches
Whenever you see a box with a few Ethernet ports, it’s either referred to as a router, or a switch, sometimes people will even use the word “hub”! Fortunately, it’s simpler than it may seem. A router is a smart device, typically with an OS, that ties two or more networks together – routing packers from one network to another, and typically taking care of things like handing out local IP addresses via DHCP. A switch merely helps Ethernet devices exchange packets between each other on the same level – it’s typically nowhere near as smart as a router gets. Oftentimes, a home router will contain a switch inside, so that you can plug in multiple of your home devices at once. That’s the main difference – a switch merely transmits packets between Ethernet-connected devices, while a router is a small computer taking care of packet forwarding between networks and possibly including an Ethernet switch on the side.
A typical router’s internal structure
It’s easy to find a router for hacking purposes, and we’ve been reprogramming them for two decades now. Often, they run Linux, and if they don’t, they can be coerced. Inside a common router, you get a Linux device, typically with barely any CPU power, RAM or ROM, but you can run fun stuff alright – a file share, some control software for your robot, or maybe a tiny home automation suite.
Taking the other tack, it’s easy to build something that fulfills the functions of a router – take a low-power PC, put a Linux OS onto it, set up a DHCP server and packet forwarding script of some sort, and add a switch for anything you might want to network up. If you need a WiFi access point, you can plug in a network card and set up something like
hostapd
. Or don’t – there are also WiFi APs available: a single-purpose device with a single Ethernet port, that tend to be wonderful at what they do, unless you go for the cheapest option possible.
There’s plenty of hacking potential in Ethernet routers and switches alike. For routers, there’s the obvious OS hacking, but even that’s not all. For instance, you can use a multi-port router as a switch in a pinch, as long as you disable the “smart” features like DHCP server and don’t plug anything into the WAN port. Once, when I needed a gigabit Ethernet switch and only had a cheap router with gigabit ports, I did just that. Understand these devices, and you will be able to reuse them in a variety of ways. Speaking of reuse – if you have an outdated router, take one apart, and you can get RJ45 (8P8C) jacks, Ethernet transformers (aka magnetics), switch-mode PSU circuits you can reuse, and some nice WiFi antennas in case you need to boost your ESP32’s coverage in a pinch.
As for switches, here are
a few
hacks
that turn regular switches into “managed” switches that add extra quality of life features like VLANs, port mirroring, or
security features
. We’ve even covered a hack that lets you
tap into the Linux OS
powering a particularly fancy switch! Want to build your own Ethernet switch? We’ve previously shown you products from a company building
hacker-oriented
commercial
embeddable
Ethernet switches, that I’m sure you could easily learn from and put your own spin on. The company involved started out as “open-source” but took down the hardware design file repo at some point after we started covering their products; thankfully,
there
are
forks
still available. Plus, switch schematics can be
pretty easy to find
, and teardowns
even more so!
Have you heard about Ethernet hubs? “Hub” is generally a synonym for “switch” these days, but back in the 10 Mbps days, it used to be a different device – a passive way to tie three Ethernet devices into a network using resistors, diodes, or transistors. Every packet is sent to every device, of course, and it only works for low speeds because it makes the connection half-duplex, and the signal strength is weakened, but the upside is that it’s extremely simple. I’ve never encountered a hub in real life, but if you’re wondering, I’ve found two designs,
one using resistors
(translated,
original
) and
another using diodes
. Both of these designs have three ports – if you’re ever in need of a low-speed Ethernet network, this should do in a pinch.
Power over Ethernet
Speaking of things that you can build yourself, powering your devices is undoubtedly a priority. Let’s talk about Power over Ethernet, where you will find it, how you can build it on your own, and when you might want to reconsider doing that.
By [deavmi],
CC BY-SA 4.0
PoE (
Power over Ethernet
) is either one standard or multiple ones, depending on where you look. There’s the
well-thought-out PoE standard,
used in products of all sorts. It’s the one you are likely to know if you encounter PoE on a shelf, and it’s
completely consumer-friendly
and wonderful, and typically it will come with a heftier pricetag. Just like USB-PD, PoE does negotiation to check voltages and see if the consumer device is PoE-capable, and it also overlays the voltage on top of the signal – which means you can do Gigabit without worry.
There’s also the PoE “standard” where you use two pairs for 100 Mbps and then just put a high-ish DC voltage on two of the remaining pairs. It’s charitably referred to as “passive PoE”, and it is what you’re likely to encounter in cheap products. You’d better watch out to ensure that it doesn’t blow up your port – there’s no negotiation, and usual devices don’t take kindly to it. In addition to that, there are a few proprietary standards, like the Mikrotik Gigabit PoE.
The 802.3af PoE standard works by superimposing a DC voltage onto the signal, using
two possible pair combinations,
known as
Mode A and Mode B respectively.
There’s also
a higher power option,
which uses all four pairs for higher power devices. Power is only applied to the pairs
after PoE negotiation,
and negotiation only happens after a compatible device is detected on the other end. 802.3af PoE tends to come with a pricetag, and that’s mostly because it has a fair bit more electronics involved, typically even including a small but hefty transformer.
If your device doesn’t come with PoE and you want to add it the proper way, there’s also modules you can buy online and add inline, 802.3af injectors and extractors. It might take a fair minute to find one, but you generally won’t go wrong using a 802.3af-compliant PoE module if you want to go the DIY route while sticking to foolproof PoE tech – they make a lot of sense if most of your network already supports 802.3af and it’s just a few devices that don’t. Oh, and of course, it’s possible to
design your own.
If you do that, you can even
add support for both proper 802.3af and passive PoE
!
Passive PoE, the straightforward version, has its spot under the sun and in our toolboxes too. Of course, you better be careful shoving passive PoE-powered cables into places – it can burn out a port on your laptop or Pi, if you’re not careful. Nevertheless, if you’re fine with 10/100Mbps, have control over the network, and just want to wire up a Raspberry Pi or two, passive PoE is a wonderful way to do it – the cheapest, the simplest, and the most flexible. One classic hacky way to make passive PoE work is simply cutting into Ethernet cables, but if you’ll be touching the cabling often, remember that this is breakage-prone. If you want to make a passive PoE circuit easy to maintain when your network inevitably needs some tweaking, you can also buy passive PoE injectors and receivers online – and they’ll be much, much cheaper too! So, you exchange user error protection for lower cost and greater hackability – sounds like exactly the kind of tradeoff a hacker should know about.
Here’s my own advice for passive PoE, having wired up a couple of small-scale networks with it. You should clearly mark passive PoE cables, because they’re meant to go through a PoE tap (“injector”) before you plug them into any device – a red sharpie, maybe a piece of red tape, but a sticker that says “do not touch if you don’t know what you’re doing” is the best option problem. This is the most important part with passive PoE, and you might be able to guess why I stress it. You might be tempted to add PoE by soldering onto the pads of an Ethernet jack on your device’s PCB, but do a multimeter test first – it might be a jack with integrated Ethernet transformer, or there might be resistors connected to the unused pairs.
Also, you have to choose your voltage with passive PoE, and you can’t just do 5 V. The voltage drop over meters of Ethernet cabling is going to halve this voltage immediately, with barely anything left unless you’re powering something really low power. Remember, active PoE uses 48 V for a good reason – as you increase voltage, you decrease current needed to carry the same amount of power. 12 V might be tempting, but 24 V is significantly more advantageous, as long as you don’t use cheap DC-DC modules – those will fail you, especially when powering a Raspberry Pi. Last but not least, if you are about to re-crimp cable carrying a passive PoE link, remember to disconnect the other end, unless you want to have sparks fly.
We’ve covered PoE
quite
a
bit
, and even hacks that
add PoE to ESP32
using 802.3af modules,
reuse the Raspberry Pi PoE header
for single-cable wireup, or even transmit
Ethernet over DC power instead
. Now, for a change, let’s talk about the polar opposite – a way to do Ethernet that does not allow you to do any power transmission at all, which is Ethernet over fiber optics, and how you can get there.
Media Converters
If you’ve ever hacked a bit further than pure home applications of Ethernet, you’ll know there’s a way to put it onto fiber optic. Fiber is wonderful for even longer distance runs than Ethernet can achieve, it’s even more resillient too. Sometimes it lets you reuse an existing fiber connection – many a provider now prefers pulling fiber. A piece of hardware capable of converting Ethernet to fiber is called a “media converter,” and they’re not that hard to find online as separate pieces of equipment – especially given that many are discarded by small-scale ISPs as they upgrade their tech.
A mediaconverter, functioning despite slightly suboptimal incoming fiber cable configuration
Now, unlike Ethernet, you can’t easily crimp fiber, you have to weld it with a special machine, and if you don’t have that machine, you might have to settle with buying pre-terminated fiber lengths. You also have to be seriously careful when bending fiber – it can’t withstand much abuse. However, if the upsides of fiber are tempting for you, what you can do is go find a media converter online, plug your Ethernet cable into it, and on the other port of it, or two ports, and bam, you get fiber Ethernet.
One unexpected use case for a hacker is total galvanic isolation – lightning-proofing your Ethernet links on the cheap. If you’ve ever wanted to add a surefire, guaranteed lightning protection to an Ethernet connection, converting it into a short run of fiber optic cable through two media converters is perhaps the best decision you can make! Fiber is also resilient to electromagnetically noisy environments.
At this point, you might be wondering – how exactly do you build new Ethernet devices? Whether it’s an ESP32, a DIY router, or
an Ethernet-enabled stepper motor,
worry not. Next time, we will go through the practical side of using Ethernet – Ethernet transformers, internals, and wireup, nuances like Bob Smith termination, magjack recommendations, PHYs and MACs, and how to bend the rules at the hardware level. For illustration and example circuit purposes, expect to see a fair few Ethernet-based hacks from all around the hacker world!
Featured image: “
10base-T
” by [gratuit] | 28 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736532",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T18:33:07",
"content": "“Have you heard about Ethernet hubs? “Hub” is generally a synonym for “switch” these days, but back in the 10 Mbps days, it used to be a different device – a passive way to tie three Ethernet devices into a n... | 1,760,371,992.716279 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/the-photodiode-you-never-knew-you-had/ | The Photodiode You Never Knew You Had | Jenny List | [
"LED Hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"led",
"optoelectronics",
"photodiode"
] | Optoelectronics hold a range of possibilities for the hardware experimenter — indeed who among us hasn’t added LEDs aplenty to our work? What many of us may be unaware of though is that an LED is also a photodiode, and can even be persuaded to generate usable quantities of power.
[Voltative] takes a look at this phenomenon
with a series of experiments.
Lighting up an LED from a set of other LEDs is pretty cool, as is powering a calculator, or even the calculator powering itself from its on-board LED. But what caught our eye was using two LEDs as a data link, with both of them acting as transmitter and receiver (something on searching
we find we’ve seen before
). The possibilities there become interesting indeed.
Given that we are now surrounded by LEDs, from OLED screens to LED lighting, we can’t help wondering what the photodiode performance of some other types of part might be. Would the large area of a lighting LED give a better result for example, or would the phosphorescent coating of a white LED make it useless. We feel there’s more scope for experimentation here. | 34 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736483",
"author": "jenningsthecat",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T16:55:29",
"content": "“Would the large area of a lighting LED give a better result for example, or would the phosphorescent coating of a white LED make it useless?”That’s an interesting question. I suspect that the coat... | 1,760,371,993.02844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/air-canadas-chatbot-why-rag-is-better-than-an-llm-for-facts/ | Air Canada’s Chatbot: Why RAG Is Better Than An LLM For Facts | Maya Posch | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"chatbot",
"large language model",
"retrieval augmented generation"
] | Recently Air Canada was in the news regarding the outcome of
Moffatt v. Air Canada
, in which Air Canada was forced to pay restitution to Mr. Moffatt after the latter had been disadvantaged by advice given by a chatbot on the Air Canada website regarding the latter’s bereavement fare policy. When Mr. Moffatt inquired whether he could apply for the bereavement fare after returning from the flight, the chatbot said that this was the case, even though the link which it provided to the official bereavement policy page said otherwise.
This latter aspect of the case is by far the most interesting aspect of this case, as it raises many questions about the technical details of this chatbot which Air Canada had deployed on its website. Since the basic idea behind such a chatbot is that it uses a curated source of (company) documentation and policies, the assumption made by many is that this particular chatbot instead used an LLM with more generic information in it, possibly sourced from many other public-facing policy pages.
Whatever the case may be, chatbots are increasingly used by companies, but instead of pure LLMs they use what is called RAG: retrieval augmented generation. This bypasses the language model and instead fetches factual information from a vetted source of documentation.
Why LLMs Don’t Do Facts
A core problem with using LLMs and expecting these to answer questions truthfully is that this is not possible, due to how language models work. What these act on is the likelihood of certain words and phrases occurring in sequence, but there is no ‘truth’ or ‘falsehood’ embedded in their parameter weights. This often leads to jarring situations with chatbots such as ChatGPT where it can appear that the system is lying, changing its mind and generally playing it fast and loose with factual statements.
The way that this is generally dealt with by LLM companies such as OpenAI is by acting on a negative response by the human user to the query by essentially running the same query through the LLM again, with a few alterations to hopefully get a response that the inquisitive user will find more pleasing. It could hereby be argued that in order to know what ‘true’ and ‘false’ is some level of intelligence is required, which is something that
LLMs by design are completely incapable of
.
With the Air Canada case this is more than obvious, as the chatbot confidently stated towards Mr. Moffatt among other things the following:
Air Canada offers reduced
bereavement fares
if you need to travel because of an imminent death or a death in your immediate family.
…
If you need to travel immediately or have already travelled and would like to submit your ticket for a reduced bereavement rate, kindly do so within 90 days of the date your ticket was issued by completing our Ticket Refund Application form.
Here the underlined ‘bereavement fares’ section linked to the official Air Canada policy, yet the chatbot had not cited this answer from the official policy document link. An explanation could be that the backing model was trained with the wrong text, or that a wrong internal policy document was queried, but the ’90 days’ element is as far as anyone can determine – including the comment section over at
the Ars Technica article
on the topic – not something that has ever been a policy at this particular airline. What’s also interesting is that Air Canada has now removed the chatbot from its site, all of which suggests that it wasn’t using RAG.
Grounding LLMs With RAGs
LLMs have a lot of disadvantages when it comes to factual information, even beyond the aforementioned. Where an LLM is also rather restrictive is when it comes to keeping up to date with new information, as inside the model new information will have to be integrated as properly weighed (‘trained’) parameters, while the old data should be removed or updated. Possibly a whole new model has to be trained from fresh training data, all of which makes running an LLM-based chatbot computationally and financially expensive to run.
In a
run-down by IBM Research
they go over many of these advantages and disadvantages and why RAGs make sense for any situation where you not only want to be able to trust a provided answer, but also want to be able to check the sources. This ‘grounding’ of an LLM means effectively bypassing it and running the system more like a traditional Internet search engine, although the LLM is still used to add flavor text and the illusion of a coherent conversation as it provides more flexibility than a chatbot using purely static scripts.
Facebook’s retrieval augmented generation system, featuring a pre-trained retriever (Query Encoder + Document Index) with a pre-trained sequence to sequence (seq2seq) model (Generator) to find the most appropriate (top-K) documents from which the output is generated. (Credit: Piktus et al., 2020)
The idea of using these more traditional methods with LLMs to keep them from going off the rails was first pitched by Meta (née Facebook) in a
2020 paper
, in which they used a neural network-based retriever to access information in a
vector index
of Wikipedia. This supports a range of different types of queries, including questions, fact verification and generating trivia questions. The retriever component thus only has to be trained to be able to find specific information in the prepared documents, which immediately adds the ability to verify the provided information using these documents rather than rely on a highly opaque parameterized model.
In the IBM provided example, they paint a scenario where an employee asks a number of questions to a company chatbot, which pulls up the employee’s HR files, checks available vacation days, matches the request against company policies and combines the resulting information into a response. Of course, in the Facebook paper it is noted that RAG-enhanced LLMs are still very much capable of ‘hallucinating’ and need ‘fine-tuning’ to keep them in line. On the bright side, a result of using RAG is that sources can be provided and linked, so that said employee can then check those to verify that the response was correct.
LLMs Are Still Dumb
The problematic part with chatbots is that unless they have been carefully scripted by a human being (with QA validating their work), they are bound to mess up. With pure LLM-based chatbots this is beyond question, as the responses provided range between plausible to completely delusional. Grounding LLMs with RAG reduces the amount of made-up nonsense, but in the absence of any intelligence and comprehension of what the algorithm generates as a response, there also cannot be any accountability.
That is, the accountability (and liability) shifts to the entity which opted to put the chatbot in place, as was succinctly and rightfully demonstrated in
Moffatt v. Air Canada
. In the end no matter how advanced or complex the system and its algorithms are, the liability remains with the human element in charge. As the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s judge who presided over the case states in the ruling: “It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.”
In light of such a case, a company should strongly question whether there is any conceivable benefit to having a chatbot feature on their public-facing website rather than a highly capable search functionality which could still use natural language processing to provide more relevant search results, but which leaves the linked results to human-written and human-validated documents as the authoritative response. For both Air Canada and Mr. Moffatt such a system would have been a win-win and this whole unpleasant business could have been avoided. | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736459",
"author": "yet another bruce",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T15:29:05",
"content": "If Watson is the retrieval engine does that mean Sherlock is the LLM – or is it Moriarty?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737615",
... | 1,760,371,992.960736 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/avoid-i2c-address-conflicts-on-esp32-by-pin-muxing/ | Avoid I2C Address Conflicts On ESP32 By Pin Muxing | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP32",
"i2c",
"i2c address translation",
"i2c addressing",
"i2c bus"
] | Using hardware I2C on an ESP32? Do you need to connect multiple I2C devices with the same address? Normally, you wouldn’t be able to do that without extra parts, but on the ESP32, [BastelBaus]
has found a nice hack
— just connect your devices to different pins and slightly abuse the ESP32 GPIO muxing, no extra hardware required!
Initially, they tried separating SDA and SCL completely, and after a bit of tinkering, that’s worked out wonders! For this method, [BastelBaus] provides example Arduino code you could easily integrate into your project, and shows logic analyzer captures that demonstrate there’s barely any overhead. Later, they’ve also found out that you could multiplex only one of the pins, specifically, SDA, having the SCL line be common! As far as we see, this could also work out with split SCL, but do let us know if that doesn’t sound right.
Typically, such a problem is solved with an I2C multiplexer, and we’ve highlighted
projects with them
before. However, this simple method could also work on chips like the RP2040 or
even the Raspberry Pi 4
— just a bit more limited, since the GPIO muxing for I2C has less available ports! Also, if you’re not using a chip with such a comfortable GPIO mux and you must use devices with overlapping addresses, check out
the comment section under our I2C ecosystem article
– there’s a fair few other methods you can use. And, if this method ever malfunctions for you, there’s
a bunch of very straightforward ways
you could debug your bus! | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736411",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T12:35:13",
"content": "Heh. I actually have a patent* on (almost) that :-)(Got a buck and a placque for it)Mine uses an I2C PIO chip to generate the mux select signals at the far end of the I2C bus. So your master can be ... | 1,760,371,992.887247 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/the-white-house-memory-safety-appeal-is-a-security-red-herring/ | The White House Memory Safety Appeal Is A Security Red Herring | Maya Posch | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Software Development"
] | [
"code security",
"programming languages"
] | In the Holy Programming Language Wars, the lingua franca of system programming – also known as C – is often lambasted for being unsecure, error-prone, and plagued with more types of behavior that are undefined than ones that are defined by the C standards. Many programming languages were said to be ‘C killers’, yet C is still alive today. That didn’t stop the US White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) from
putting out a report
in which both C and C++ got lambasted for being ‘unsafe’ when it came to memory management.
The
full report
(PDF) is pretty light on technical details, while citing only blog posts by Microsoft and Google as its ‘expert sources’. The claim that memory safety issues are the primary cause of CVEs is not substantiated, or at least ignores the severity of CVEs when looking at the
CISA statistics
for active exploits. Beyond this call for ‘memory safety’, the report then goes on to effectively call for more testing and validation, while kicking in doors that were opened back in the 1970s already with the Steelman requirements and the High Order Language Working Group (
HOLWG
) of 1975.
What truly is the impact and factual basis of the ONCD report?
CVE Quality Not Quantity
Perhaps the most vexing of the claims made repeatedly in the ONCD report – as well as the longer, but
very similar report
by the NSA, CISA and others titled
The Case for Memory Safe Roadmaps
– is that of memory safety issues being the primary issue. These are claims which seem to always come back to reports by Microsoft and Google, rather than the list of actively exploited CVEs, all of which feature prominently in e.g. the 2023 report on
2022’s top 12 hit list
with everyone’s favorite vulnerabilities, such as Log4j (CVE-2021-44228) featuring sloppy input validation, or three CVEs in Microsoft’s Exchange Server, hitting a triple whammy of Common Weakness Enumerations (CWEs).
Just like 2022’s chart leader (Fortinet SSL VPN) this includes
CWE-22
: the improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory. Exchange Server was also featured for
CWE-918
(server-side request forgery, SSRF) and
CWE-287
(Improper Authentication). Of these, memory safety issues can be a factor with CWE-287 (e.g.
CVE-2021-35395
), albeit very sporadically. The pattern with especially remote exploits (which is relevant with ‘cybersecurity’) is overwhelmingly with input validation and handling, which mostly involve omitted checks and logic errors.
Putting the focus on memory safety is more than a little suspect when the worst CVEs come from programmers not putting in basic checks for path traversal and forgetting to fully check user credentials. What is also worrying is the complete lack of any reference to the favorite language of the military, medical, and aviation fields where things going boom (prematurely) is generally considered a bad thing: Ada.
Steelman
As mentioned earlier, the
Steelman requirements
are the result of the foremost computer science experts at the time being asked to come up with the requirements that a high-level language would have to fulfill in order to be used for the most demanding tasks across the US DoD. In a 1997
comparison by David A. Wheeler
of Ada 95, C89, C++, and Java, these languages’ adherence to the Steelman requirements is determined, with Ada obviously scoring the highest (93%), while Java comes in at 72%, C++ 68% and C at the back with 53%. Of note here is of course that since then all of these languages have received many updates to their respective standards, but it still provides a useful snapshot.
The lack of built-in concurrency support in C and C++ has been partially resolved at this point, with C++11’s standard memory model, but is hard to fully resolve without modifying the language’s foundations and rendering it incompatible with existing codebases. This is something that you can only do with something less fundamental like a scripting language, and even then it’s likely to upset a large part of the userbase for many years.
Where Ada scores very highly is not only with its concurrency handling, but also with its type system, which includes aspects such as parameters and return values. What often upsets novice Ada programmers who migrate from other languages is that they first have to set up their types with constraints, and this can seem time-consuming and unneeded. But as described in Steelman, these restrictions, along with code that’s stripped from as much ambiguity as possible, help to avoid programming mistakes.
Effectively, a good programming language knows what your intent is by setting restraints and offering the means to restrict functions and procedures using contract-based programming so that the compiler has as much context as possible. Meanwhile, the code should be written where possible in plain English, without cryptic symbols and easy to typo symbols that can e.g. turn a comparison into an assignment. This is also the reason why Ada is case-insensitive: why would
coolVar
differ from
coolvar
when it’s clear from the context what is meant?
Memory Safety Is Easy In C++
It’s rather amusing to read old DoD reports, such as a
1991 report
(PDF) by the US Air Force called
Ada and C++: A Business Case Analysis
. This was written before C++ was standardized, but as part of a ‘make stuff cheaper to build’ push by the DoD, C++’s claim to have tacked many of Ada’s features onto C got investigated by multiple government branches, including the FAA. The conclusion then was that Ada was still by far the best choice, with clear signs that its strong code reusability and self-documenting code helped reduce maintenance costs.
Even so, Ada’s lack of popularity outside of the aforementioned fields has led to a dearth of Ada programmers, which has resulted in C++ ultimately being approved for DoD projects like the F-35 program, albeit with strong restrictions on acceptable code to bring it more into line with Ada. What this shows is perhaps that the problem is not so much C++, but more how you use it.
After all, C++ by itself has no major issues with memory management or a lot of undefined behavior as long as you keep away from its C compatibility syntax. With RAII (resource allocation is initialization) and encapsulating code into classes with well-tested constructors and destructors, you avoid many of the issues that plague C. Add to this C++’s standard template library (STL) with
std::string
and containers that replace the nightmarish and error-prone C-style strings and arrays, and suddenly you have to try pretty hard to get code that has any memory-related issues, because simple buffer overruns no longer happen.
Of course, many who do programming for a while will be tempted by low-level optimizations, and end up writing things like a
lock-free ring buffer
and
zero-copy RPC
libraries using raw memory pointers. In such cases you will want to first of all have a solid understanding of how the underlying hardware works, and get really familiar with tools like
Valgrind
, The value of Valgrind in particular is hard to overestimate, as with a bit of effort you can analyze your code for memory safety, multi-threading issues (threads, mutexes, etc.) as well as memory usage.
Touch Of Magic
Perhaps in this era of instant-gratification LLM code generating tools and “cut/paste from Stack Overflow”, we have forgotten the most important thing of all about programming. Namely that it is an engineering discipline that requires planning, documenting, testing, and feeling like the more you learn, the less you know, and the more easy mistakes you make as you write more complicated programs. Speaking as someone who is gradually porting personal C++ projects to Ada, what I have found along the way is that as much as I like C++, there’s something about Ada that really excites me.
Sure, it is a bit of a pain to get used to dealing with the default immutable string types, and it’s all too easy to just reach for the package of predefined integer and float types to get that instant gratification, not to mention the hours staring at the Ada compiler output as it informs you of all the issues in your code. Yet once you’re over those first hurdles, and the program just runs without glitches or oddities like you’re used to with C++ code, that’s an almost magical feeling.
This is perhaps why the ONCD report feels so wrong, as it contains none of the lessons of the past, nor the hard-won experiences of those who write the code that keeps much of society up and running. You can almost hear the cries of many senior software engineers as they wonder whether they’re merely chopped liver in the eyes of government organizations, even as said organizations are kept running due to countless lines of Ada, COBOL, C and C++ code. Never mind the security researchers who despair as basic input validation is once again ignored in favor of buzzwords pushed by a couple large corporations. | 107 | 39 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736891",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T18:53:54",
"content": "Security and zero-trust.https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2023/02/20/the-next-generation-in-data-center-security-smartnics-and-dpus/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,993.238322 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/piano-feeder-gets-pets-playing-for-their-supper/ | Piano Feeder Gets Pets Playing For Their Supper | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"cats",
"dogs",
"pet feeder",
"pet food",
"pet health",
"pets"
] | If you ever watched a video of Piano Cat and wondered if your cat could learn to play, then [Sebastian Sokołowski] has a possible solution with this
combination piano tutor and cat feeder
.
Starting with a CNC cut MDF enclosure, [Sokołowski] developed a cat feeder that would fit in the rear of the piano. It had to be reliable, consistent, and easy to disassemble. He walks us through his testing for each of these features and says the feeder was the most difficult part of the project to develop due to the propensity of pet feeder mechanisms to jam.
A custom PCB takes the key presses from the piano (with functional black keys) and outputs the sound from a speaker in the back. Lessons progress through increasing difficulty automatically, encouraging your cat to learn what the different keys can do. Food is dispensed after a performance or on a schedule set through the accompanying smartphone app. All the files are available if you want to build your own, but there is a wait list available if you want a completed version to give to less technically-inclined cat staff.
We’re certainly no stranger to the creatures that rule the internet here at Hackaday, having featured other
cat feeders
, new research into
spaying cats
, or even
open source robo-cats
. | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736843",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T16:40:45",
"content": "Pentatonix, that’s so daft. Meow!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6736853",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T17:17:36",
... | 1,760,371,993.091781 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/nasa-found-another-super-earth-with-tantalizing-possibilities/ | NASA Found Another Super Earth With Tantalizing Possibilities | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"earth",
"exoplanet",
"habitable zone",
"Planet",
"planets",
"super earth"
] | Earth is a rather special place, quite unlike the other planets in the solar system. It’s nestled at the perfect distance from the sun to allow our water to remain liquid and for life to flourish in turn. It’s a rare thing; most planets are either too close and scorching hot, or too far and freezing cold.
NASA is always on the hunt for planets like our own, and recently found a new super-Earth by the name of TOI-715b. The planet is larger than our own, but it’s position and makeup mean that it’s a prime candidate for further study. Let’s take a look at how NASA discovered this planet, and why it’s special.
On The Hunt
An impression of how TOI-715b could look, orbiting around its red dwarf star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The search for Earth-like planets is inherently a key part of the search for other life in the universe. After all, at this time, the only place we know of that hosts life is our own planet. Thus, if we’re looking for more life, we’d expect to find it somewhere similar. Thus, NASA has put plenty of effort into finding these Earth-like planets, along with Super-Earths, that are like our own, only larger.
This hunt is handled by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS for short. As you might guess from the name, it’s a satellite charged with the specific job of finding far-off planets. It achieves this by watching distant stars for the characteristic shadow of an orbiting planet passing in front of them; these are referred to as “transits.” TESS was charged with examining bright stars near to our Sun in order to hunt for these transit events which give away the location of potential planets.
TESS, seen here prior to launch, is NASA’s prime tool for hunting down exoplanets. It works by looking for the characteristic shadow of planets passing in front of a bright star. These events are called “transits” and make it possible to detect planets from great distances. Credit:
Orbital ATK/NASA, public domain
Originally designed for a two-year mission, having entered service in 2018, TESS continues its work today to identify new planet candidates in other solar systems. By November 2023, it had identified a total of 6,977 candidates, with 402 of those being confirmed as actual planets. Unlike other telescopes, which have mostly identified very distant or very large planets, TESS’s telescopes have proved capable of detecting much smaller planets closer in size to our own Earth.
In the case of this new discovery, known as TOI-715 b, NASA has turned up quite the exciting find. The planet exists within what is termed the “conservative” habitable zone around the star which it orbits. This is a region in which a planet could conceivably orbit and host liquid water. It’s not a guarantee, as such a planet would also need to have the right atmosphere, but it opens up the possibility. This “conservative” zone is much narrower than the “optimistic” habitable zone, where a planet
could
have liquid water with a lower degree of certainty.
TOI-715b is also quite close to Earth in size, being roughly 1.5 times the diameter of our planet. It orbits a red dwarf star, which is somewhat smaller than our yellow dwarf Sun. The star is also cooler than the Sun, which allows a planet to orbit closer without overheating beyond the point where liquid water could exist on the surface. Stars like these have proven compelling targets for scientists hunting potentially-habitable planets; one such solar system
known as TRAPPIST-1
has already been found to have a gaggle of small planets in its habitable zone. As for TOI-715b, its close orbit gives it a year just 19 days long.
Great effort is expended to find new planets in the “habitable zone” around their host stars, where temperatures could theoretically be in the range that would allow water to remain liquid on the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lizbeth B. De La Torre
TESS has also discovered a potential other planet of interest in the same system. If confirmed, this slightly-smaller planet, closer to Earth’s size, could be the smallest habitable-zone planet yet identified by NASA.
For now, there is still much work to do. Scientists hope to identify whether TOI-715b really is a “water world” or not, and work to achieve that could be carried out with the Webb telescope. Ideally, the planet will have an easily-detectable atmosphere to keep it in the right temperature range to allow liquid water to exist on its surface.
As our understanding of the universe continues to evolve, we’re learning more about what’s out there every day. What we find is often
new and unusual.
But when we’re looking for other habitable planets, we’re often looking for something familiar, just like home! This Super-Earth, or another out there, could turn out to be just that. | 57 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736814",
"author": "Panondorf",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T15:26:37",
"content": "An orbit of only 19 days? That has to be tidally locked! I hope a tidally locked planet can be habitable, given how many keep being found but I am skeptical. Then there is the question of flares so clos... | 1,760,371,993.49124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/an-automotive-locksmith-on-the-flipper-zero-and-car-theft/ | An Automotive Locksmith On The Flipper Zero And Car Theft | Jenny List | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"canada",
"car theft",
"flipper zero"
] | Here in the hacker community there’s nothing we love more than a clueless politician making a fool of themselves sounding off about a technology they know nothing about. A few days ago we were rewarded in spades by the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne, who railed against the Flipper Zero, promising to ban it as a tool that could be used to gain keyless entry to a vehicle.
Of course our community has roundly debunked this assertion, as capable though the Flipper is, the car industry’s keyless entry security measures are many steps ahead of it. We’ve covered the story from a different angle before, but it’s worth returning to it for an
automotive locksmith’s view on the matter
from [Surlydirtbag].
He immediately debunks the idea of the Flipper being used for keyless entry systems, pointing out that thieves have been using RF relay based attacks which access the real key for that task
for many years now
. He goes on to address another concern, that the Flipper could be used to clone the RFID chip of a car key, and concludes that it can in the case of some very old vehicles whose immobilizers used simple versions of the technology, but not on anything recent enough to interest a car thief.
Of course, to many readers this will not exactly be news. But it’s still important, because perhaps some of us will have had to discuss this story with non-technical people who might be inclined to believe such scare stories. Being able to say “Don’t take it from me, take it from an automotive locksmith” might just help. Meanwhile
there is still the concern of CAN bus attacks to contend with
, something the manufacturers could have headed off had they only
separated their on-board subsystems
. | 61 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736765",
"author": "Gordon Shephard",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T12:36:26",
"content": "Unfortunately, the ‘non-technical people who might be inclined to believe’ problem is basic to the current state of our culture. Rapid (I almost wrote ‘rabid’) technological change will always le... | 1,760,371,993.335656 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/29/a-full-keyboard-for-5/ | A “Full” Keyboard For $5* | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"CH552",
"keyboard",
"keyboard for ants"
] | Sure, we’ve all seen PCB business cards at this point, but what about giving away a full-blown keyboard at meetups and such?
That’s just how cost-effective the idawgz32 keyboard is.
How on Earth can it cost so little? [sporewoh] used the CH552 microcontroller, which comes in around a dollar and only needs a couple of capacitors to get it up and running. The firmware is
FAK
.
As [sporewoh] writes in this
blog post about the keyboard
, they did some analysis and realized that most of the cost of their previous tiny board came from the switches. In addition to switching up the switches, [sporewoh] performed a few tricks to get the cost down, like making the key spacing 9 mm x 9 mm so that the overall board is less than 100 mm x 100 mm (which triggers a deal at a certain board house).
Unfortunately, the switches turned out not to be so good. They had greater travel and required more actuation force than the ones [sporewoh] was used to with previous board. The switches were also scratchy, which was solved with a little Krytox. But ultimately, they are pretty unreliable, so the next revision will use Panasonic EVQP0N02Bs.
If this seems familiar, you may be recalling
this $3 macro pad which uses the same chip
, or maybe the fact that
we’ve covered the CH552 in detail.
*Thanks to the current CAD to USD exchange rate. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736732",
"author": "Confused",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T09:42:57",
"content": "Am I supposed to know what FAK stands for? FAKE? For A Keyboard?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6736799",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
... | 1,760,371,993.388844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/flux-is-your-friend-for-archiving-old-floppy-disks/ | Flux Is Your Friend For Archiving Old Floppy Disks | Navarre Bartz | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"disc format",
"floppy",
"floppy disk",
"flux map",
"greaseweazel",
"kryoflux"
] | Nothing screams retrocomputing quite like floppy drives. If you want to preserve some of your favorite computing memories like that paper you wrote about the joys of the Information Superhighway, [Shelby] from Tech Tangents has a detailed dive into
how to preserve the bits off those old floppies
.
Back in the day, the best way to get data off an old drive was to fire up an old computer. Now, with new devices specifically designed for harvesting data off of old floppies like the KryoFlux and the Greaseweazle, you can get the full flux map of the disk. With this, you can build binary image files and actually pull files and duplicate disks from vintage systems.
Some systems, like PCs, Macs, and Commodores are well-understood and are simple to preserve, while others take quite a bit of work to figure out. [Shelby] walks us through some of the more common disk formats as well as some real oddballs like Microsoft Adventure which features inconsistent formatting as a form of
early DRM
(boo).
Want to do
your own preservation
? We’ve covered a
couple different
methods
in the past
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736729",
"author": "Zoe Nagy",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T09:30:58",
"content": "Don’t forget to share it on DC++, it’s still running well in 2024.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6736842",
"author": "Matt",
"ti... | 1,760,371,993.542559 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/restoring-starlinks-missing-ethernet-ports/ | Restoring Starlink’s Missing Ethernet Ports | Arya Voronova | [
"Network Hacks",
"Repair Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"ethernet",
"ethernet jack",
"Starlink"
] | Internet connectivity in remote areas can be a challenge, but recently SpaceX’s Starlink has emerged as a viable solution for many spots on the globe — including the Ukrainian frontlines. Unfortunately, in 2021 Starlink released a new version of their hardware, cost-optimized to the point of losing some nice features such as the built-in Ethernet RJ45 (8P8C) port, and their proposed workaround has some fundamental problems to it. [Oleg Kutkov], known for fixing Starlink terminals in wartime conditions, has
released
three
posts
on investigating those problems and, in the end, bringing the RJ45 ports back.
Starlink now uses an SPX connector with a proprietary pinout that carries two Ethernet connections at once: one to the Dishy uplink, and another one for LAN, with only the Dishy uplink being used by default. If you want LAN Ethernet connectivity, they’d like you to buy an adapter that plugs in the middle of the Dishy-router connection. Not only is the adapter requirement a bother, especially in a country where shipping is impeded, the SPX connector is also seriously fragile and prone to a few
disastrous failure modes
, from
moisture sensitivity
to straight up
bad factory soldering
.
For a start, [Oleg] has cracked the original adapter open and
shows us the internals,
even
reverse-engineering the schematic
and the SPX pinout! The adapter itself is a fundamental failure point to be tackled, so that’s where the next two hacks come in. First, he shows us how to
add a LAN port without requiring the adapter.
This requires you to tap into some test points or even QFN pins and add your own Ethernet transformer, but once you do that, you can get rid of the adapter for good. He shares breakout boards you can order and assemble to make this job way easier, and shows how to integrate the LAN connector into the shell.
What if the SPX connector has failed you completely? You’re in luck, the last of the three write-ups is about
getting rid of the SPX connector
even for Dishy wiring purposes, and that is a way simpler mod. All in all, the three articles are full of diagrams, tips and tricks, so whether you’re looking to learn more about hardware you own, mod it to improve convenience, or perhaps even repair a broken SPX connector, you’re in for a treat! Before the conflict had [Oleg] take a plunge into the Starlink repair depths, we’ve seen him build
a wideband SDR station
, reverse-engineer
Tesla car LTE modems
and
Bluetooth speakers
alike, and there’s much more to bee found
at his blog
. | 29 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736667",
"author": "Capo",
"timestamp": "2024-02-29T04:19:01",
"content": "Elon, Elon, Elon, what a talent to create good first products and then turn around them to screw your customers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "67367... | 1,760,371,993.614791 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/28/esp32-weather-station-looks-great-with-color-e-paper-display/ | ESP32 Weather Station Looks Great With Color E-Paper Display | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"display",
"e-paper",
"ESP32",
"weather station"
] | [educ8s.tv] has built weather stations before, but his latest is his best yet. It’s all thanks to its low-power design,
enabled by its e-paper display.
The build is based around an ESP32 microcontroller, combined with a BMP180 sensor for measuring barometric pressure, and a DHT22 sensor for measuring temperature and humidity. By taking these values and feeding them into the Zambretti algorithm, it’s possible to generate a rudimentary weather forecast.
The weather station looks particularly impressive thanks to its six-color e-paper display. It’s brightly colored and easy to read, and displays graphs of temperature, pressure, and humidity over time. Plus, by virtue of the fact that it only draws power when updating, it allows the project to last a long time running solely on battery power.
As far as DIY weather stations go, this is an attractive and clean design that offers plenty of useful data to the user.
We’ve seen some other neat builds in this vein before, too. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736415",
"author": "Jan Praegert",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T12:47:03",
"content": "First, I want to say, the DHTxxs are terrible sensors. They should be forbidden by Government. Every Government. Worldwide.But ok, they use bme280 in this project as an alternative. So please, use th... | 1,760,371,993.670233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/wire-wrap-odyssey-a-7400-series-homebrew-8-bit-computer/ | Wire Wrap Odyssey: A 7400-series Homebrew 8-bit Computer | Maya Posch | [
"classic hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"7400-series",
"8-bit computers"
] | The Wire Wrap Odyssey’s first Hello World from the CPU module, here hooked up to a logic analyzer in July of 2020. (Credit: Paul Krizak)
As part of his computer science curriculum at Texas A&M University in the early 2000s, [Paul Krizak] took a computer architecture course on the basics of their functioning. This and being exposed to dozens of homebuilt computer projects inspired him to begin building
his own 8-bit computer
in 2010, which eventually grew into the Wire Wrap Odyssey. This name covers both the primary construction method chosen around 2019 in the form of wire-wrapped connections, as well the
harrowing journey
to reach this point with a functioning computer system despite many choices and setbacks.
The Odyssey CPU is an 8-bit microcoded design with 16-bit address bus, using mostly 74HC-series logic. A VGA graphics card is also part of the design, which can output a 640×480 text display, with character glyphs read from the system ROM (32 kB AT28C256). As for the RAM, this is an extravagant 32 kB dual-port SRAM (Renesas 7007), which also allows both the CPU and video card to use the same SRAM. Currently the system has four peripherals: a PS/2 keyboard controller, an RTC and timer (DS1511Y+), 82C52 UART and 1 MB of extended RAM, but an ATA port and parallel port are in development.
Perhaps the most impressive part about this product is the level of documentation, from the early stages including paper doodles to the current state of the system, including the
GitHub repository
for the software. [Paul] was also an exhibitor at the Vintage Computing Festival (VCF)
SoCal
recently with his Wire Wrap Odyssey, where he was able to show off the progress so far. Next year he hopes to visit VCF SoCal again, with the remaining planned peripherals implemented. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736376",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T09:00:48",
"content": "I have been itching to do something like this for years, but… time, and other itches! Very well done and documented, I know it took perseverance and tenacity to get to this point, impressive.",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,371,993.728952 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/blast-from-the-past-schematic-templates/ | Blast From The Past: Schematic Templates | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"drafting template",
"schematic"
] | If you want to draw schematics today, you probably sit down at your computer. Why not? There are a ton of programs made to do the work easily, and the results look great. Back in the day, you might sit at a drafting table with a full set of T-squares, triangles, and maybe a Leroy. But what about when inspiration struck at the coffee shop (no, not a Starbucks in those days)? Well, you probably had a schematic drawing template. We were surprised you can still buy these at high prices. Or you can
3D print your own
, thanks to [Jan Stech].
Templates of all kinds used to be very common. There were several for schematics, logic symbols, furniture, and even geometric shapes and curves. They were almost always green and transparent. A quick search on Amazon for “drafting template” shows you can still get the generic templates, but schematic ones are still expensive.
[Jan’s] templates are miniature. You probably can’t easily make them clear either, although you could probably use them as a guide for cutting out some green plastic. There’s even a related one
for logic gates
, should you need that one.
We will admit to occasionally resorting to
the worst CAD package ever
. Even though
the second worst one
is admittedly better. | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736326",
"author": "JohnS_AZ",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T04:26:11",
"content": "In “those days”, likely on a stool at the pink Formica counter of a Dunkin Donuts. (This was back when their donuts actually tasted good)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,993.898648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/wireless-telescope-guidance-you-can-build-on-the-cheap/ | Wireless Telescope Guidance You Can Build On The Cheap | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"astronomy",
"sky",
"telescope"
] | Telescopes are fun to point around the sky, but they’re even better when you have some idea of what you’re actually looking at. Experienced sky-gazers love nothing more than whipping out some quality glassware and pointing it to the heavens to try and view some photons from some fancy celestial point of interest. To aid your own endeavors in this realm, you might consider following [aeropic’s] example
in building a capable wireless telescope DSC.
Yes, [aeropic] built a capable digital setting circle (DSC) which can be used to quickly point a telescope at objects in the sky, with the aid of the right astronomical software. An ESP32 board runs the show, using AS5600 positional encoders on each axis of the telescope to understand the device’s orientation. The encoders are attached via 3D-printed components to track the motion of the telescope accurately. It can then be paired over Bluetooth with a smartphone running an app like Skysafari. Once calibrated on some known stars, the app can then read the encoder outputs from the telescope, and help guide the user to point the device at other stars in the night sky.
The rig won’t actually move the telescope for you, it just guides you towards what you want to look at. Even still, it makes finding points of interest much faster and could help you get a lot more out of
your next sky viewing party
. Have fun out there! Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8081957",
"author": "Gregg",
"timestamp": "2025-01-12T03:46:47",
"content": "This is exactly what I need on my 8in Orion Starhopper. Can’t seem to find the esp32 code, where should I be looking?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,994.1205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/3d-printed-automated-development-tank-for-classic-photo-films/ | 3D-Printed Automated Development Tank For Classic Photo Films | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"darkroom",
"development",
"photography"
] | [packetandy] had a problem. He was still into classic analog photography, but local options for development were few and far between. After some frustration, he decided to take on the process himself, creating an automatic development tank
for that very purpose.
For black and white film, developing is fairly straightforward, if dull and time consuming. The film requires constant agitation during development, which can be dull to do by hand. To get around this, [packetandy] decided to build a development tank rig that could handle agitation duties for him by wiggling the film around in his absence.
The tank itself is created by Patterson, and has a stick on top for agitating the film inside. The rig works by attaching a NEMA stepper motor to this stick to jerk it around appropriately. Rather than go with a microcontroller and custom code, [packetandy] instead just grabbed a programmable off-the-shelf stepper controller that can handle a variety of modes. It’s not sophisticated, but neither is the job at hand, and it does just fine.
It’s a nifty build that should see [packetandy]’s black-and-white photography on the up and up. Meanwhile, if simple development isn’t enough for you, consider diving into the world of
darkroom robot automation
if you’re so inclined! | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736292",
"author": "Llaves",
"timestamp": "2024-02-28T00:23:36",
"content": "Actually, film does not require continuous agitation. It requires periodic agitation, once every 30 seconds or minute for about 5 seconds. Never seemed all that tedious back when I did wet photography. Of ... | 1,760,371,993.964634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/underwater-sensor-takes-single-pair-ethernet-for-a-dip/ | Underwater Sensor Takes Single Pair Ethernet For A Dip | Maya Posch | [
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"ethernet",
"single pair ethernet"
] | The 10BASE-T1 Ethernet standard is also known as ‘single pair Ethernet’ (SPE), as it’s most defining feature is the ability to work over a single pair of conductors. Being fairly new, it offers a lot of advantages where replacing existing wiring is difficult, or where the weight of the additional conductors is a concern, such as with the
underwater sensor node project
that [Michael Orenstein] and [Scott] dreamed up and implemented as part of a design challenge. With just a single twisted pair, this sensor node got access to a full-duplex 10 Mbit connection as well as up to 50 watts of power.
The
SPE standards
(100BASE-T1, 1000BASE-T1 and NGBASE-T1) 10BASE-T1 can do at least 15 meters (10BASE-T1S), but the 10BASE-T1L variant is rated for at least 1 kilometer. This makes it ideal for a sensor that’s placed well below the water’s surface, while requiring just the single twisted pair cable when adding Power over Data Lines (PoDL). Whereas Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) uses its own dedicated pairs, PoDL piggybacks on the same wires as the data, requiring it to be coupled and decoupled at each end.
Coupling and decoupling data with a PoDL powered device with 10BASE-T1. (Credit: Michael Orenstein & Scott, Electric UI)
Within the PoDL standard there are sixteen supported power classes along with a compatibility matrix for 10XXBASE-1T standards. Detecting of a PD-compatible device is done by the power supply providing a constant current source and the powered device sinking current to adjust the voltage to hit a specific level. With all of this knowledge and the requisite parts in mind and hand, a waterproof enclosure was sourced, firmware written and everything assembled to create a sensor node for temperature, humidity (SHTC3), motion (LSM6DSO) and depth/pressure (MS5837).
So that’s power and communications settled. All of a sudden, that
homebrew ROV you’ve been dreaming of
is starting to look a little more achievable. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736224",
"author": "Ben",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T19:38:34",
"content": ">Whereas Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) uses its own dedicated pairYes, but only with 100M.The big advantage of SPE is the single pair, saving 2 wires compared to “normal” Ethernet.",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,371,994.087365 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/joost-burgi-and-logarithms/ | Joost Bürgi And Logarithms | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"logarithms",
"slide rule"
] | Logarithms are a common idea today, even though we don’t use them as often as we used to. After all, one of the major uses of logarithms is to simplify computations, and computers do that just fine (although they might use logs internally). But 400 years ago, doing math was painful. Enter Joost Bürgi. According to [Welch Labs], his
book of mathematical tables
should have changed math forever. But it didn’t.
If you know how a slide rule works, you’ll find you already know much of what the video shows. The clockmaker was one of the people who worked out how logs could simplify many difficult equations. He created a table of 23,030 “red and black” numbers to nine digits. Essentially, this was a table of logarithms to a very unusual base: 1.0001.
Why such a strange base? Because it allowed interpolation to a higher accuracy than using a larger base. Red numbers are, of course, the logarithms, and the black numbers are antilogs. The real tables are a bit hard to read because he omitted digits that didn’t change and scaled parts of it by ten (which was changed in the video below to simplify things). It doesn’t help, either, that decimal points hadn’t been invented yet.
What was really impressive, though, was the disk-like construct on the cover of the book. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the text, it is clear this was meant to allow you to build a circular slide rule, which [Welch Labs] does and demonstrates in the video.
Unfortunately, the book was not widely known and Napier gets the credit for inventing and popularizing logarithms. Napier published in 1614 while Joost published in 1620. However, both men likely had their tables in some form much earlier. However, Kepler knew of the Bürgi tables as early as 1610 and was dismayed that they were not published.
While we enjoy all kinds of retrocomputers, the slide rule may be
the original
. Want to make your own circular version? You
don’t need to find a copy of this book
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736220",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T19:26:06",
"content": "I don’t mind people going unrecognised, if they insisted if keeping works unpublished before someone more sensible comes along.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,994.020562 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/big-chemistry-hydrofluoric-acid/ | Big Chemistry: Hydrofluoric Acid | Dan Maloney | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"acid",
"AHF",
"apatite",
"Big Chemistry",
"etchant",
"fluorine",
"fluorspar",
"HFA",
"hydrogen fluoride",
"sulfuric"
] | For all of the semiconductor industry’s legendary reputation for cleanliness, the actual processes that go into making chips use some of the nastiest stuff imaginable. Silicon
oxide is
comes from nothing but boring old sand, and once it’s turned into
ultrapure crystals
and sliced into wafers, it still doesn’t do much. Making it into working circuits requires dopants like phosphorous and boron to give the silicon the proper semiconductor properties. But even then, a doped wafer doesn’t do much until an insulating layer of silicon dioxide is added and the unwanted bits are etched away. That’s a tall order, though; silicon dioxide is notoriously tough stuff, largely unreactive and therefore resistant to most chemicals. Only one substance will do the job: hydrofluoric acid, or HFA.
HFA has a bad reputation, and deservedly so, notwithstanding its somewhat overwrought treatment by Hollywood. It’s corrosive to just about everything, it’s extremely toxic, and if enough of it gets on your skin it’ll kill you slowly and leave you in agony the entire time. But it’s also absolutely necessary to make everything from pharmaceuticals to cookware, and it takes some big chemistry to do it safely and cheaply.
Going With The Flow
Understanding the industrial importance and production of hydrogen fluoride requires a close look at the fluoride side of the molecule. Like chlorine and bromine, fluorine is one of the halogens, and as such has a high electronegativity, or the tendency to attract shared electrons in chemical bonds. As the most electronegative element, fluorine is very reactive, so much so that it forms bonds with almost every other element on the periodic table.
Fluorine compounds fall into two broad categories: organic and inorganic. Both categories have a wide range of industrial uses. Organic fluorides are compounds where fluorine is bound to carbon; while this is technically a covalent bond where electrons are shared between two atoms, fluorine’s pull on the carbon electrons is so strong that it gives the C-F bond ionic characteristics. This tends to make organic fluorides, like polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, or Teflon), very stable compounds, leading to their industrial usefulness. Stability is a double-edged sword, though; fluorocarbon solvents and refrigerants like Freon can persist for decades in the upper atmosphere, and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is classified as a persistent organic pollutant or “forever chemical” with toxic properties.
Calcium fluorite, or fluorspar
For as many uses as organic fluorides have, and for as much of them as we produce, the vast majority of global fluoride production is in the form of inorganic fluorides, and the majority of that is dedicated to the production of metal. Fluoride compounds such as calcium fluoride, also known as fluorite or fluorspar, have been used as a flux in steelmaking for centuries; fluorine takes its name from the Latin
fluor
, to flow. Thanks to its reactivity, the fluorine in fluorspar binds to impurities in the steel mix, floating it to the surface as a slag that can be removed. About half of the world’s fluorspar production goes into steelmaking, with most of the rest going into
aluminum production
in the form of synthetic cryolite, a compound of sodium, fluorine, and aluminum that is used as an electrolyte to lower the melting point of alumina in bauxite ore.
Inorganic fluorides also play a huge role in the petroleum industry, where fluorine serves as a catalyst for alkylation, the process of adding alkyl groups to smaller, lighter hydrocarbons. Alkylation is used to turn the four-carbon compound isobutane into alkenes such as propylene and butylene, which are precursors to plastics such as polypropylene and butadiene, the “B” in
ABS
. Inorganic fluorides are also making a splash in the battery industry, with lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF
6
) becoming more important as an electrolyte for lithium batteries.
None of these compounds, though, would exist if it weren’t for the two million tons of hydrogen fluoride we turn out each year, in the form of anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (AHF). AHF is a gas at room temperature, but when chilled slightly it condenses into HF, a liquid that’s miscible in water. Aqueous solutions of HF are called hydrofluoric acid, and are generally the form used for industrial processes to produce most of the organic and inorganic fluorides listed above. Hydrofluoric acid is also broadly used as a cleaner, solvent, and etchant in industrial processes, particularly in the manufacture of integrated circuits.
It Takes Acid to Make Acid
Fluorine is a fairly abundant element,
making up 13% of
the 13th most abundant in the Earth’s crust by mass. Because it reacts with so many elements, there are a lot of fluoride-containing minerals, like fluorspar, which is the main feedstock for industrial-scale hydrogen fluoride production.
Like many big chemistry processes, the reaction that produces hydrogen fluoride is quite simple. The details, however, require some careful chemical engineering and strict process control, along with a lot of specialized equipment:
Fluorspar is treated with sulfuric acid, creating hydrogen fluoride and calcium sulfate, which in hydrated form is known as gypsum. But before any of that can happen, fluorspar has to be mined and preprocessed. Most fluorspar deposits have a fairly low concentration of the mineral trapped in unwanted rock material, or gangue. To increase the relative concentration of fluorspar to gangue, raw ore goes through a process called beneficiation, where it’s crushed into a fine powder and mixed with water and surfactants. Air is pumped into the mixture, creating bubbles that the gangue adheres to while the fluorspar sinks. The enriched fluorspar goes through several rounds of froth flotation and drying until it gets to the proper concentration — about 97.5% pure fluorspar for acid production feedstock. Fluorspar used for flux in steelmaking or to make cryolite only needs to be between 60% and 84% pure.
Anhydrous hydrogen fluoride production starts in a prereactor, which is charged with dry acid-grade fluorspar. Sulfuric acid, which is produced from
sulfur recovered from natural gas processing
, is pumped in, along with oleum, or fuming sulfuric acid (SO
3
). The combined reactants are pumped into a rotary kiln, which is indirectly heated with steam. The kiln needs to be heated because the reaction of sulfuric acid and calcium fluoride is strongly endothermic; the heat drives the reaction to completion.
Raw hydrogen fluoride gas leaves the rotary kiln and passes through a series of filtration and purification steps. The goal here is to remove any fluorspar particulates and sulfuric acid aerosols in the gas, as well as to dehydrate the raw gas as much as possible with condensers and distillation. Anhydrous hydrogen fluoride can then be stored as a gas, or more commonly, diluted with water to form hydrofluoric acid at a variety of concentrations tailored to downstream processes.
Like everything destined for the semiconductor fab plant, the hydrofluoric acid used for etching silicon wafers has to be as close to contaminant-free as possible. Electronics-grade hydrofluoric acid is made by diluting AHF with
ultrapure water
to a final concentration of about 50%. Total cationic contamination has to be less than 10 parts per billion, meaning that each liter must have less than 10 micrograms of anything other than hydrogen, oxygen, and fluorine.
A Healthy Apatite
Another major source of hydrofluoric acid is as a byproduct of phosphoric acid production. Phosphates are a major plant macronutrient — it’s the “P” in the familiar “NPK” rating on fertilizers — and in a world with 8 billion mouths to feed, mountains of phosphate fertilizers are made every year. Phosphoric acid is the chief feedstock for fertilizer manufacturing, along with being important as a food additive, in lubrication and metal treatments, and of course as a dopant and etchant in semiconductor manufacturing.
Phosphoric acid is manufactured from phosphate-containing minerals such as calcium hydroxyapatite (
Ca
5
(PO
4
)
3
OH
), the same mineral that makes bones and dental enamel hard, and fluorapatite (
Ca
5
(PO
4
)
3
F). Both minerals, together known simply as apatites, are found in phosphate rocks all over the world; commercially viable deposits are few and far between, though.
Extracting the apatite ores involves typical mining processes followed by similar beneficiation steps used in fluorspar manufacture. Phosphoric acid can be created from s
ufficiently enriched apatite by treating it with sulfuric acid:
It’s a very similar reaction to that used in AHF production, but the desired product is the phosphoric acid (H
3
PO
4
), which goes through extensive filtration and purification processes. The gaseous HF that’s produced is just a waste product, albeit one valuable enough to be recovered. This is accomplished with a wet scrubber, which treats the HF-containing flue gasses with a fine spray of water. The HF readily dissolves in water, making it easy to recover. The aqueous solution goes through further filtration and distillation processes to reach the final desired purity and strength.
Poisons While It Burns
The descriptions of the chemical processes used to liberate fluorine from minerals are greatly simplified, of course, and almost nothing about handling AHF and hydrofluoric acid on industrial scales is trivial. Hydrofluoric acid, while chemically classified as a weak acid thanks to its inability to dissociate completely into H
+
and F
–
ions in solution, is anything but weak in practical terms. Hydrofluoric acid is corrosive in the extreme, quickly destroying most metals, many plastics, and even glass. Only certain polymers, like certain polyethylenes and fluoropolymers like Teflon, are resistant to HFA; unfortunately, materials like these are difficult to use in industrial settings, especially where high temperatures and pressures are needed. Certain nickel alloys like
Monel
are resistant to hydrofluoric acid, meaning that a lot of the reaction vessels and piping are used in hydrogen fluoride plants.
And as if hydrofluoric acid’s corrosivity weren’t enough, it’s also extremely toxic.
Hydrofluoric acid burns
in the lab or plant are very dangerous; as soon as the acid
breaks down the integrity of the epidermis
, the fluoride ions begin to bind to anything they can find, with particular affinity for calcium and magnesium ions in tissues. These ions are vital for the electrochemical reactions of the nervous system, meaning that with enough of a dose, fluorine ions can quickly stop your heart. Immediate washing followed by rapid medical intervention is required to avoid a gruesome and painful death. | 32 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736132",
"author": "J.Cook",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T15:17:43",
"content": "It’s also a byproduct when you spill Chlorine Trifluoride (CF3), as noted by Derek Lowe in his infamous post “Sand won’t save you this time” (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-t... | 1,760,371,994.329758 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/big-candy-is-watching-you-facial-recognition-in-vending-machines-upsets-university/ | Big Candy Is Watching You: Facial Recognition In Vending Machines Upsets University | Maya Posch | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"privacy",
"surveillance",
"surveillance state"
] | Most people don’t think too much of vending machines. They’re just those hulking machines that lurk around on train stations, airports and in the bowels of school and office buildings, where you can exchange far too much money for a drink or a snack. What few people are aware of is just how these vending machines have changed over the decades, to the point where they’re now collecting any shred of information on who interacts with them, down to their age and gender.
How do we know this? We have a few enterprising students at the University of Waterloo to thank.
After [SquidKid47] posted a troubling error message
displayed by a campus M&M vending machine on Reddit, [River Stanley] decided to investigate the situation. The resulting article was
published in the February 16th edition
of the university’s digital newspaper, mathNEWS.
In a bout of what the publication refers to as “Actual Journalism”, [Stanley] found that the machine in question was produced by
Invenda
, who in their
brochure
(PDF) excitedly note the many ways in which statistics like age, gender, foot traffic, session time and product demographics can be collected. This data, which includes the feed from an always-on camera, is then processed and ‘anonymized statistics’ are sent to central servers for perusal by the vending machine owner.
The good news is that this probably doesn’t mean that facial recognition and similar personalized information is stored (or sent to the big vaporous mainframe) as this would violate the GDPR and similar data privacy laws, but there is precedence of information kiosks at a mall operator taking more liberties. Although the University of Waterloo has said that these particular vending machines will be removed, there’s something uncomfortable about knowing that those previously benign vending machines are now increasingly more like the telescreens in Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four
. Perhaps we’re already at the point in this timeline were it’s best to assume that even vending machines are always watching and listening, to learn our most intimate snacking and drinking habits.
Thanks to [Albert Hall] for the tip. | 50 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736083",
"author": "Zoe Nagy",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T12:29:44",
"content": "Could lobotomize the camera with a drill bit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6736085",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp... | 1,760,371,994.253499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/27/classic-calculator-goes-rpn-with-new-brain/ | Classic Calculator Goes RPN, With New Brain | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"calculator",
"RPN",
"vfd"
] | In the era of the smartphone, an electronic calculator may seem a bit old-hat. But they continue to hold a fascination in our community, both when used for their original purpose, and as objects for hardware hacking in their own right. After their first few years when they were a rare and exclusive gadget, they were manufactured in such huge numbers as to be readily available for the curious hacker. [Suikan] has taken one of these plentiful models
and done something special for it
, creating a new mainboard, and a firmware which transforms it into a reverse Polish, or RPN, scientific calculator.
The Sharp EL210 and EL215 were ubiquitous early-1980s calculators without scientific functions, and with a VFD display. We remember them being common during our schooldays, and they and similar models can still be found on a trawl through thrift stores.
On the board is one of the STM32 microcontrollers and a Maxim VFD driver, and fitting it is simply a case of soldering the Sharp’s VFD to it, placing it in the calculator, and attaching the keyboard.
The firmware
meanwhile uses the orange C key from the original calculator as a function key, alternating between standard and scientific operations.
If you’re curious about RPN,
we’ve taken a look at it here in the past. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736050",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T09:53:18",
"content": "I still use pocket calculators (I have 2 simple Casio FX-82MS) everyday as they provide a much better haptic feedback than a phone and are quicker than firing up a spreadsheet.",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,371,994.169875 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/a-deep-dive-into-a-1980s-radio-shack-computer-trainer/ | A Deep Dive Into A 1980s Radio Shack Computer Trainer | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"microcomputer",
"radio shack",
"science fair",
"TMS1100",
"Tower of Hanoi"
] | For those of us who remember Radio Shack as more than just an overpriced cell phone store, a lot of the nostalgia for the retailer boils down to the brands on offer. Remember the Realistic line of hi-fi and stereo gear? How about Archer brand tools and parts? Patrolman scanners, Micronta test instruments, and don’t forget those amazing Optimus speakers — all had a place in our development as electronics nerds.
But perhaps the most formative brand under the Radio Shack umbrella was Science Fair, with a line of kits and projects that were STEM before STEM was a thing. One product that came along a little too late for our development was the Science Fair Microcomputer Trainer, and judging by
[Michael Wessel]’s deep dive into the kit
, we really missed the boat. The trainer was similar to the earlier “100-in-1”-style breadboarding kits, with components laid out on a colorful cardboard surface and spring terminals connected to their leads, making it easy to build circuits using jumper wires. The star of the show in the microcomputer trainer was a Texas Instruments TMS1100, which was a pretty advanced chip with a 4-bit CPU with its own ROM and RAM as well as a bunch of IO lines. The trainer also sported a peppy little 400-kHz crystal oscillator clock, a bunch of LEDs, a seven-segment display, a speaker, and a rudimentary keyboard.
The first video below is a general introduction to the trainer and a look at some basic (not BASIC) programs. [Michael] also pulls out the oscilloscope to make some rough measurements of the speed of the TMS1100, which turns out to be doing only about 400 instructions per second. That’s not much, but in
the second video
we see that it was enough for him to nerd-snipe his collaborator [Jason] into coding up an 80-nibble Tower of Hanoi solver. It’s a little awkward to use, as the program runs in spurts between which the user needs to check memory locations to see which disc to move to which peg, but it works.
It looks like people are
rediscovering the Microcomputer Trainer
all of a sudden. It might be a good time to pick one up. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736029",
"author": "Garth",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T07:53:31",
"content": "When I was a kid I had a friend who had one of those 100-in-1 kits with all the spring contacts, and I wanted one so badly I could taste it. This was approximately 1971, and I believe it was Heathkit brand... | 1,760,371,994.452622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/integration-taught-correctly/ | Integration Taught Correctly | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"calculus",
"integral",
"integration"
] | [Math the World] claims that your calculus teacher taught you integration wrong. That’s assuming, of course, you learned integration at all, and if you haven’t forgotten it. The premise is that most people think of performing an integral as finding the area under a curve or as the “antiderivative.” However, fewer people think of integration as
adding up many small parts
. The video asserts that studies show that students who don’t understand the third definition have difficulty applying integration to real-world problems.
We aren’t sure that’s true. People who write software have probably looked at numerical integration like Simpson’s rule or the midpoint rule. That makes it pretty obvious that integration is summing up small bits of something. However, you usually learn that very early, so you’re forgiven if you didn’t get the significance of it at the time.
Even if you didn’t learn calculus, the video is an easy introduction to the idea of integration with practical examples drawn from basketball, archery, and more. Although there is a bit of calculus terminology, the actual problems could just as easily have been the voltage on a charging capacitor, for example.
We think calculus has a bad rap as being difficult
when it isn’t
. Maybe you should take
more than 20 minutes to learn it
. | 31 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736007",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T05:03:50",
"content": "Doesn’t do much good if my goldfish brain can’t remember all the formulas regarding the integration of sin and cos and others",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,371,994.396594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/the-dedeterminator-uses-quantum-physics-to-make-decisions-so-you-dont-have-to/ | The DeDeterminator Uses Quantum Physics To Make Decisions So You Don’t Have To | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"causality",
"philosophy",
"radioactive decay",
"random number generator"
] | Are you making your own decisions and mainlining causality like a sucker? Why go through the agony, when you could hand over the railway switch of determinism to a machine that can decide things for you!
Enter the DeDeterminator, a decision machine from [Oliver Child].
The construction is simple enough, being built inside a small tin. One kind of wishes it had a secret third “PERHAPS” bulb that illuminates only when the universe’s continued existence has been called into question.
The idea is simple. At the press of a button, the DeDeterminator illuminates a bulb—indicating either yes or no. The decision for which bulb to illuminate is truly random, as it’s determined by the radioactive decay of a Americium-241 alpha particle source. A Geiger-Muller tube is used to detect alpha particles, with the timing between detections used to determine the yes-or-no output of the device.
It’s a neat concept, and it’s kind of fun knowing that your decision is both out of your hands and as random as it could possibly be. Would the universe guide you wrong? Who could possibly question the reasoning of the particles? The only rational move could be to comply with whatever directive the box hath given. Just don’t ask it to make any decisions with dangerous outcomes.
We’ve featured other projects using radioactive decay for
random number generation before,
though they weren’t quite as philosophically intriguing as the DeDeterminator. Mostly they’re just about cryptographic security and such, but some do deal with causality
in imaginary spaces,
which has its own magic about it.
Meanwhile, if you’ve untangled the quantum chains of cause and effect, or you’ve just found a way to break RSA encryption using a Pi Pico,
do drop us a line,
won’t you? | 20 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735963",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T00:33:17",
"content": "An overengineered D2 die (AKA a coin) (Yes he probably mentioned this himself) (No I didn’t watch)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6735965",
"author":... | 1,760,371,994.511637 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/kicad-8-makes-your-life-better-without-caveats/ | KiCad 8 Makes Your Life Better Without Caveats | Arya Voronova | [
"News",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"design tool",
"eda",
"KiCAD",
"kicad integration",
"pcb layout"
] | A few days ago,
KiCad 8 was released,
and it’s a straight upgrade to any PCB designer’s quality of life. There’s a blog post as usual, and, this year, there’s also
a FOSDEM talk
from [Wayne Stambaugh] talking about the changes that we now all get to benefit from. Having gone through both of these, our impression is that KiCad 8 developers went over the entire suite, asking: “this is cool, but could we make it better”? The end result is indeed a massive improvement in a thousand different ways, from small to fundamental, and all of them seem to be direct upgrades from
the KiCad 7 experience
.
For a start, KiCad works better with whatever other tools you might use. There’s the recently added LTSpice schematic import and overall serious SPICE simulation improvements, SVG and DXF import for the schematic editor, an “export copper” option for STEP, mechanical CAD import QoL tweaks,
IPC-2581
export for whenever manufacturers start supporting it, and Cadence Allegro netlist export in case you’d like to use KiCad for schematic duty only. You can now also import footprint and symbol libraries from Altium and CADSTAR, as well as import EasyEDA projects directly, and this release brings enough features that you might just want to try those importers out.
There’s much more to see on the KiCad front itself, too – separation of schematic editor grid sizes for wire and text positioning, Git integration, a new flexible BOM export tool, live previews when tweaking schematic symbols or footprints in text editor, improved 3D viewer UI, ARM64 support on Windows, and even on-hover preview of symbols and footprints when picking them from a library list.
If your footprint or symbol differ from the library-contained one, there’s now an interactive diff window showing you the changes visually, and it’s now easier to edit footprint pads in bulk thanks to footprint editor improvements. Last but not least, there’s automatic schematic label and wire creation mechanisms for quick wireup, and improved net highlights in complex hierarchical schematic designs – the schematic editor has received a lot of love, and it is eager to share.
A lot of sharp edges have been filleted in on the PCB editor front, too. You can now resize length tuning patterns on the fly, easily assign nets to graphic shapes to aid your RF or capacitive touch design, power symbols now have editable names, and there’s a new pin 1 marker on the block that should work better in more situations than the previous convention ever could. For automation afficionados, we’ve seen `kicad_cli` introduced in KiCad 7, and now it adds ERC/DRC exports for all your automated pull request review needs, BoM export, gITF and VRML 3D model exports, and a bunch more.
KiCad’s usage is ramping up, and industry players are taking note – for instance, Wurth Electronics has recently pledged to bring all their components to KiCad as a library. On the KiCad 9 roadmap, we see stable API IPC interface for Python scripts, visual diff and merge for Git, license embedding into files, reusable schematics and design blocks, pad stacks and guard rings, ODB++ export, certainly, quite a bit more that we didn’t yet know we needed. Oh, and they don’t forget about keeping things up to date either – this release brings a trove of documentation and UI translation updates.
Whatever your toolkit is, chances are, KiCad 8 works with it way better now, and whatever kind of KiCad user you are, there’s something in this release for you. Consider trying KiCad 8 out, report bugs if needed, donate, or maybe even get some
KiCad merch
while at it. It is wise to hold off on a
.0.0
release, but all the new features sure make it a tempting offer. | 61 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735878",
"author": "ziggurat29",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T21:10:39",
"content": "alas no win7, so hopefully the hacks for kicad 7 still work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6735882",
"author": "Dagobert",
"ti... | 1,760,371,994.768584 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/radioactive-3d-printed-flower-glows-and-glows/ | Radioactive 3D Printed Flower Glows And Glows | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"radioactive",
"Tritium"
] | Glow-in-the-dark projects aren’t that uncommon. You can even get glow-in-the-dark PLA filament. However, those common glowing items require a charge from light, and the glow fades very quickly. [Ogrinz Labs] wasn’t satisfied with that. His “
Night Blossom
” 3D-printed flower glows using radioactive tritium and will continue to glow for decades.
Tritium vials are available and often show up in watches for nighttime visibility. The glow doesn’t actually come directly from the radioactive tritium (an isotope of hydrogen). Instead, the radioactive particles excite phosphor, which glows in the visible spectrum.
Once you have the vials, it is easy to understand how to finish off the project. The flower contains some long tubes inside each petal. There are also a few tiny vials in the center. The whole assembly goes together with glue.
Tritium tubes are widely available. There are, however,
fake tubes
, so if you get a good deal, you might want to make sure you are really getting a tritium tube. One way to tell is that fake tubes will glow brighter when you briefly expose them to a bright light. A real tritium tube won’t care if you hit it with light or not. Fake tubes are often cheap, and real tubes are not. Also, because tritium is radioactive, there may be laws or regulations about buying, selling, and possessing them, depending on where you live. The truth is, these little tubes have tiny amounts of material, but if you break one, you probably shouldn’t sniff the contents.
There were at least two versions. The first was FDM printed in clear plastic. Resin and pigment added color, and a clearcoat sealed it all in. The second version uses resin printing along with pigments. The FDM part diffused the light a bit, which might benefit this application.
If you don’t need much power, you can use these vials to make
a simple nuclear battery
. Afraid of radioactivity? Well, that’s generally a good idea, but
in this case
, you are probably fine. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735825",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T19:08:07",
"content": "Great project. The video is long winded, I skipped around and got nothing out of it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6737077",
"author": "Mich... | 1,760,371,994.668171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/dietpi-version-9-1-now-with-raspberry-pi-5-support-and-more/ | DietPi Version 9.1: Now With Raspberry Pi 5 Support And More | Maya Posch | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"DietPi",
"Raspberry Pi 5"
] | DietPi recently
released version 9.1
, which among other changes includes new images for the Raspberry Pi 5, Radxa Rock 4 SE and NanoPi R5S/R5C & 6. The Radxa Rock 4 SE image was necessary because the Rock 4’s RK3399 SoC is
subtly different
from the RK3399-T’s SoC in terms of memory support, which prevents a Rock 4 image from booting on the Rock 4 SE. Meanwhile the Raspberry Pi 5 image is all new and still a bit rough around the edges, with features like the changing of the resolution and camera module support not working yet. These new images are all
available for testing
.
We
covered DietPi previously
with their 8.12 release, along with the reasons why you might want to use DietPi over Armbian and Raspberry Pi OS. Essentially DietPi’s main focus
is on performance
combined with a small installed size, with the included configuration tools and the setup allowing for many more features to be tweaked than you usually find. If the performance improvements, lower RAM usage and faster boot times seen with the Raspberry Pi 4 holds up, then DietPi can just give the Raspberry Pi 5 a nice little boost, while saving power in the process.
Thanks to [StephanStS] for the tip. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735778",
"author": "Misterlaneous",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T17:15:02",
"content": "I run my x86 home server on dietpi. It’s tiny and fast. 0 complaints.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8050848",
"author": "john",
... | 1,760,371,994.626192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/ask-hackaday-what-if-you-did-have-a-room-temperature-superconductor/ | Ask Hackaday: What If You Did Have A Room Temperature Superconductor? | Al Williams | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"science",
"superconductivity",
"superconductor"
] | The news doesn’t go long without some kind of superconductor announcement these days. Unfortunately, these come in several categories: materials that require warmer temperatures than previous materials but still require cryogenic cooling, materials that require very high pressures, or materials that, on closer examination, aren’t really superconductors. But it is clear the holy grail is a superconducting material that works at reasonable temperatures in ambient temperature. Most people call that a room-temperature superconductor, but the reality is you really want an “ordinary temperature and pressure superconductor,” but that’s a mouthful.
In the Hackaday bunker, we’ve been kicking around what we will do when the day comes that someone nails it. It isn’t like we have a bunch of unfinished projects that we need superconductors to complete. Other than making it easier to float magnets, what are we going to do with a room-temperature superconductor?
Basics
We draw schematics as though wires have no resistance. But in real life, that’s not true. Electrons flowing through a wire will cause some loss. However, in 1911, a Dutch physicist, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, pioneered low-temperature research. At the time, common wisdom observed that while lowering a metal’s temperature reduced resistance, it was likely that at absolute zero, electrons would be immobile and, thus, no electrical current would flow at that temperature. Onnes, observed quite the opposite. Starting with mercury, he observed that at 4.2 K, very near absolute zero, the resistivity of the material abruptly went to zero.
Of course, getting materials near 4.2 K is a big problem. For example, liquid nitrogen — which is usually used in labs when you want something cold — boils at 77 K. Even then, cooling things with liquid nitrogen isn’t very practical for most applications. However, there are some ceramic materials that exhibit superconductivity above 90 K so it is possible to use superconductors today if you are willing to cool with something like liquid nitrogen.
Superconductors don’t exhibit electrical loss, so a current can travel forever in a loop of superconducting material. Experiments have observed currents traveling in a loop for nearly three decades with no measurable loss, and the ories predict currents would sustain at least 100,000 years if not more than the lifetime of the universe.
The physics behind it all is hairy. In normal conductors, electrons flow across an ionic lattice. Some electrons collide with the ions, converting some of their energy to heat. In a superconductor, the electrons bind in weak pairs known as Cooper pairs. The pairs form a type of superfluid that can flow without energy dissipation. You can see a more detailed explainer in the video below.
One important takeaway about superconductivity is that it disappears above given current and magnetic field levels. So in addition to characterizing superconductors by their critical temperature and pressure, it’s also important to know the critical current density and critical magnetic field strengths.
Obvious Cases
There are several places where superconductors are used today: SQUID (superconducting quantum interference devices) are very sensitive magnetometers that use Josephson junctions, superconductors with a thin insulating component. These are common in labs, MRI machines, and quantum computers. It is possible to use them to locate submarines, too. They do not need to pass large currents and are not subject to strong fields. Presumably, if you had room-temperature superconductors, you could form Josephson junctions with them, and all of these devices would become less expensive and easier to operate.
Another place we see superconductors already is in electromagnets for things like MRIs, particle accelerators, levitating trains, and fusion reactors. These are the applications that require high current or are subject to strong magnetic fields. Today, these applications all require liquid nitrogen or liquid helium. If future room-temperature superconductors end up having high critical current densities as well, you could cheaply build very strong electromagnets.
Certainly, places where we use cold superconductors today would just get better. But there are also several new applications that you could do today but the cooling overhead is too prohibitive. Of course, some of it will depend on the characteristics of the unknown magic material. For example, you often hear people say that electrical transmission lines could be superconductors. That’s true, but only if they have high critical magnetic field parameters, because otherwise they don’t really work for AC current. On the other hand, we use AC partly as a hedge against losses, so if you were willing to change the whole system, you could possibly use superconducting cables to transmit lower DC voltages long distances, but then you’re relying on a high critical current density.
Consumer Electronics
We aren’t entirely certain what superconductors will do for consumer electronics. Better magnets might mean better motors, so maybe your electric drill will be lighter and more powerful. Lower resistance in components could mean less heat loss and higher battery life. You often hear that superconductors will lead to phones that last weeks on a charge. Maybe, but our guess is not right away. We doubt that the loss in interconnect is really what’s draining your phone battery. However, it is true that components that have fewer inefficiencies could lead to longer battery life. It might allow faster charging, too. After all, GaN charging is more efficient because it produces less heat than conventional electronics. A superconducting charger would be even faster.
In general, you could expect warm superconducting electronics to be able to handle more current in smaller spaces. There is some thought they may also be faster. Eary Josephson junctions (admittedly, in liquid helium) were much faster than conventional transistors in use at the time. Of course, transistors are better today, but presumably widespread use of superconducting junctions would also bring improvements.
What Will You Do?
The truth is, though, since we don’t know the properties of the room-temperature superconductor, we don’t know what it may or may not bring. Maybe you won’t have a superconducting cell phone because it would reset itself whenever you encountered a magnetic field. We simply don’t know.
However, we did want to ask. If you could open your web browser and order superconducting parts right now, what would you do with them? Do you want wire? Coils? Switching devices? And why? Let us know in the comments below.
If you have access to liquid nitrogen, maybe you are already
using superconducting material
. If so,
let us know that
, too. Or, perhaps you are working on
making the next material to claim room-temperature superconductivity
.
Featured Image: The eight toroidal superconducting magnets at the heart of the LHC, credit:
CERN
. | 80 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735720",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T15:24:21",
"content": "Not the same discussion, but a conversation at work someone posed the idea of what if we had things like the Ironman arc reactor.My answer was railguns.My answer for this is also rail guns. Even if su... | 1,760,371,995.037754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/on-click-install-local-ai-applications-using-pinokio/ | On-click InstalllocalAI Applications Using Pinokio | Dave Rowntree | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai",
"apps",
"browser"
] | Pinokio is billed as an autonomous virtual computer, which could mean anything really, but don’t click away just yet, because this is one heck of a project. AI enthusiast [cocktail peanut] (and other undisclosed contributors) has
created a browser-style application
which enables a virtual Unix-like environment to be embedded, regardless of the host architecture. A discover page loads up registered applications from GitHub, allowing a one-click install process, which is ‘simply’ a JSON file describing the dependencies and execution flow. The idea is rather than manually running commands and satisfying dependencies, it’s all wrapped up for you, enabling a one-click to download and install everything needed to run the application.
But what applications? we hear you ask, AI ones. Lots of them. The main driver seems to be to use the Pinokio hosting environment to enable easy deployment of AI applications, directly onto your machine. One click to install the app, then another one to download models, and whatever is needed, from the likes of HuggingFace and friends. A final click to launch the app, and a browser window opens, giving you a web UI to control the locally running AI backend.
Many chat-type models are supported, as is stable diffusion and many other fun time sinks. Running AI applications on your hardware, with your data, and privately, is a total breeze. Unless an application needs external API access, no internet connection is needed. No sign-ups and no subscription costs! There are some obvious gotchas; AI applications need a lot of resources, so you will need plenty of RAM and CPU cores to get anything working, and for the vast majority of applications, a modern GPU with plenty of VRAM. Our testing showed that some apps needed a minimum of 4GiB of VRAM to even start, but a few ran on only the CPU. It just depends. We reckon you’ll need at least 8GiB to run the older stable diffusion 1.5 model, but that will not come as a great shock to some of you.
For a bit more of an intro to how all this works, and what you can do with it, check out the
docs
. The project is open source, but we haven’t located the source yet. Perhaps more testing is being performed first? Finally, there is
an active discord
as well, if you get stuck.
AI is not news here, here’s a little something allowing you to chat with a
locally hosted LLM
. If this project isn’t self-contained enough for you, why not check out the
AI in A Box
? | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735687",
"author": "echomrg",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T13:22:48",
"content": "I’m wondering if all the stuff it downloads and install is sandboxed?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6735716",
"author": "A",
"tim... | 1,760,371,994.925029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/26/deep-dive-into-a-prison-laptop/ | Deep Dive Into A Prison Laptop | Maya Posch | [
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"laptop",
"prison gear"
] | The phenomenon of prison electronics is by now relatively well-documented, with striking transparent radios, televisions, and kin easy to recognize. Yet what about prison laptops? As it turns out, these are a thing as well, and [Zephray Wenting] got one from eBay to investigate, as
documented over at Twitter
(
ThreadReader single page
). Much like their audiovisual brethren, these laptops lack basic features in the name of prison security, which in the case of this laptop means for example no USB ports. Even the spacebar stabilizer rod is missing. Weaponized keyboards are apparently a thing in corrections facilities.
The Justice Tech Solutions Securebook 5. (Credit: Zephray Wenting)
Called the Justice Tech Solutions Securebook 5, it has been superseded by the Securebook 6. Inside this earlier unit, you’ll find an Intel N3450 with 4 GB LPDDR3, with SATA for storage and a special dock connector. Some laptops come with WiFi hardware installed, others are unpopulated. It appears that these Securebooks by default have a BIOS password that cannot be erased, even by removing it from the NVRAM (‘CMOS’), as it’ll return on the next boot due to an automatic BIOS reset. This was temporarily bypassed through a hacky external SPI Flash adapter, but the reward for all this trouble was a BIOS setup screen with just the ‘Security’ tab.
It’s now been sleuthed out that the default password is
N%(dU32p
as
reported
by Hackaday’s own [Adam Fabio] on Twitter. It turns out the password was available on a (now private) YouTube video. [Techknight] on Twitter has delved into EFI BIOS hacking. He has
an alternate BIOS image that does provide access to the full BIOS setup utility
. With BIOS access not being necessary to boot the system, the question that [Zephray] went ahead with was how to boot it into an OS since the original HDD or SSD had been removed prior to being sold. The bad news here is that it turned out that the system has a HDD whitelist (which [Sark] found a way to
bypass
). The good news is that someone has
probed the system
before, with the storage device being reported as ‘China SATA3 240GB SSD’.
Rather than mess with this, it was attempted to boot from USB, by tapping into the USB lines for the touchpad, which turned out to allow booting into a live image of Ubuntu without fuss. As an ongoing project, it’ll be interesting to see what more functionality can be wrung out of this piece of prison kit, all hopefully from the right side of the prison bars.
Thanks to [livelaughliang] for the tip. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735639",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T09:31:57",
"content": "“see what more functionality can be wrung out of this piece of prison kit, all hopefully from the right side of the prison bars” ….. surely, being conscious of the laptop’s normal environment, ... | 1,760,371,995.102475 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/tuneshroom-is-an-artistic-mushroom-themed-midi-controller/ | TuneShroom Is An Artistic Mushroom-Themed MIDI Controller | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"midi",
"mushroom",
"notes"
] | Most MIDI controllers are modelled after traditional instruments, like pianos, flutes, or guitars. [Oliver Child] went in a different direction
for the TuneShroom
, instead modelling his DIY controller after the terrifying, unclassifiable living organism we call the mushroom.
The project was a fun way for [Oliver] to try creating a project with an artistic PCB design, and it worked out well in that regard. He penned a circuit board in the shape of a toadstool, with conductive pads serving as capacitive touch points to activate various notes.
The design is based around the Sparkfun Pro Micro, but it’s not programmed in Arduino. [Oliver] wanted to make full use of the ATmega32U4 microcontroller and have freedom to use the pins at will, so instead the project was programmed with a patched version of LUFA to handle the USB side of things. MIDI data is naturally piped out over this interface to an attached computer.
Files are
on Github
for the curious. Alternatively, contemplate
turning an entire saxophone into a MIDI controller
in your spare time. Video after the break.
🎵🍄 TuneShroom up and running! Will be sharing more about the project soon.
pic.twitter.com/kWVQyxitoq
— Oliver Child (@OliverChild)
October 25, 2019 | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6736009",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2024-02-27T05:12:32",
"content": "A whole bunch of these and laptops loaded with ZynAddSubFX for a shroom party!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,995.135896 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/theres-hope-for-that-cheap-lathe-yet/ | There’s Hope For That Cheap Lathe Yet! | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"chinese lathe",
"lathe",
"machining"
] | There may be few cases where the maxim that “you get what you pay for” rings true, than a lathe. The less you spend on a lathe, the closer you get to a lathe-shaped object and the further from, well, a lathe. [Camden Bowen] has bought a cheap lathe, and he’s not content with a lathe-shaped object, so
he takes us in the video below through a set of upgrades for it
. In the process he makes a much nicer lathe for an entirely reasonable sum.
First up are the bearings, in this case a set of ball races which aren’t really appropriate for taking lateral force. After a lot of effort and a tiny bit of damage he manages to remove the old bearings and get the new ones in place, though their slightly different dimensions means he has to replace a spacer with a temporary 3D printed item which he’ll turn in metal later. We learn quite a bit about cheap lathe tools and tool alignment along the way, and he ends up buying a better tool post to solve some of its problems. We were always not very good at grinding HSS edges, too.
At the end of it all he has a much better lathe, upping cost from $774 to $1062 which is still pretty good for what he has. Worth a look, if you too have a lathe-shaped object. | 30 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735604",
"author": "SlowEng",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T06:54:18",
"content": "These “cheap” lathes are at least good for learning how to tune and setup a lathe without worrying you are going to ruin something. It’s a low stress entry to machine tools after all it’s not hardinge or ... | 1,760,371,995.198973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/hackaday-links-february-25-2024/ | Hackaday Links: February 25, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"airline",
"Artemis",
"AWS",
"camera",
"cloud",
"cybertruck",
"eclipse",
"flood",
"fording",
"hackaday links",
"iphone",
"logo",
"nasa",
"outage",
"rice",
"wiring harness",
"worm",
"Wyze"
] | When all else fails, blame it on the cloud? It seems like that’s the script for just about every outage that makes the news lately, like
the Wyze camera outage this week
that kept people from seeing feeds from their cameras for several hours. The outage went so far that some users’ cameras weren’t even showing up in the Wyze app, and there were even reports that
some people were seeing thumbnails for cameras they don’t own
. That’s troubling, of course, and Wyze seems to have taken action on that quickly by disabling a tab on the app that would potentially have let people tap into camera feeds they had no business seeing. Still, it looks like curiosity got the better of some users, with 1,500 tapping through when notified of motion events and seeing other people walking around inside unknown houses. The problem was resolved quickly, with blame laid on an “AWS partner” even though there were no known AWS issues at the time of the outage. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: security cameras, especially mission-critical ones, have no business being connected with anything but Ethernet or coax, and exposing them to the cloud is a really, really bad idea.
The next Great American Eclipse
is rapidly approaching, and if you don’t already live close to the path of totality, chances are pretty good that you’re already out of luck in terms of travel and accommodations. Hotels and campgrounds are booked solid, most at egregiously inflated rates, and flights to the airports along the path are likely going to be hard to come by in the days before and after the big event on April 8.
Based on experience
, whatever effort is needed to get into the path of totality is worth it, but if you just can’t find a place to stay on the ground, Delta Airlines might just have a solution for you. They’re running
a special flight 1218
, from Austin, Texas to Detroit, Michigan, pretty much right down the centerline of totality. It takes off from Austin at 12:15 PM CT and arrives in Detroit at 4:20 PM ET, my dude. That means the Moon’s shadow will catch up to the plane, an Airbus A220-300, somewhere over Missouri or so, when the plane will be at cruising altitude and well above the clouds. That should be pretty spectacular for the lucky few on t
he currently sold-out flight
; we just hope they’ve all considered the fact that once the show is over, they’ll be in Detroit.
“The Worm” returns! For the upcoming Artemis II Moon mission,
NASA is dusting off their nostalgia-laden “worm” logo
, emblazoning the booster and the Orion capsule with the unmistakable twisty letters. Presented as an alternative to the equally iconic
“meatball” logo
, the worm dates back to 1975 but didn’t really catch on until the Space Shuttle program. Like vexilologists, logologists — if that’s the correct term — have strong opinions about both designs, the details of which are probably best left alone. We will say that NASA is going hard with the worm, though, with letters 2 meters tall on the booster. Like it or hate it, it’s a bold choice.
Remember, kids — never drive through water of unknown depth. And that goes
even when you’re driving a Cybertruck
, which is supposed to be nigh-impervious to water, as well as bullets and rocks. The electric vehicle has a “Wade Mode” — it really should have been “Ford Mode,” but wasn’t for obvious reasons — that is supposed to pump up the air suspension to maximum height as well as put positive pressure on the battery compartment, to prevent water ingress. The YouTube video that accompanies the article shows someone giving this a try, and all things considered, it worked out pretty well. The truck performed admirably even in a puddle deep enough that the hood (or frunk, whatever) was awash. The water did rip off some plastic trim pieces, which would probably cost about $11,000 to get fixed (just kidding — maybe), and the tailgate and tonneau cover buttons wouldn’t work afterwards either. That the truck survived more or less intact isn’t really the point, though, as anyone who has driven through even a few inches of running water can attest. Water always wins.
Speaking of water, if your iPhone takes a dunk in the porcelain throne, you might be best advised to
lay off the rice
. That’s what Apple support says, anyway, as the common home remedy for a waterlogged phone may end up “allow[ing] small particles of rice to damage your iPhone.” We assume the mechanism of injury would be dust and broken bits of rice kernels entering the USB-C or Lightning jack. We could see how this would be a problem, especially if the rice nubbins get rehydrated by the water and swell up in there. Maybe silica gel would be a better choice?
And finally, New Mind just dropped
a cool video
on the evolution of wiring harnesses. He starts with the laughably simple electrical system of the Model T Ford and progresses all the way up to the harnesses needed for EVs. The side-trip into wire insulation types and the different terminations used over the years was fantastic too. We recently did a piece on
automative wiring harnesses
, so this video was much appreciated. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735546",
"author": "RP",
"timestamp": "2024-02-26T01:02:56",
"content": "“- once the show is over, they’ll be in Detroit.” LOL",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6735833",
"author": "Garrett",
"timestamp": "2024... | 1,760,371,995.260274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/streaming-deck-removes-need-for-dedicated-hardware/ | Streaming Deck Removes Need For Dedicated Hardware | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Tool Hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"browser",
"control",
"flask",
"python",
"qr code",
"remote",
"smartphone",
"stream",
"tablet",
"touchscreen",
"twich",
"webdeck",
"windows"
] | Streaming content online has never been more popular than it is now, from YouTube to Twitch there are all kinds of creators around with interesting streams across a wide spectrum of interests. With that gold rush comes plenty of people selling figurative shovels as well, with audio mixing gear, high-quality web cams, and dedicated devices for controlling all of this technology. Often these devices take the form of a tablet-like device, but [Lenochxd] thinks that
any tablet ought to be able to perform this task
without needing dedicated, often proprietary, hardware.
The solution offered here is called WebDeck, an application written in Flask that turns essentially any device with a broswer into a stream control device. Of course it helps to have a touch screen as well, but an abundance of tablets and smartphones in the world makes this a non-issue. With the software running on the host computer, the streamer can control various aspects of that computer remotely by scanning a QR code which opens a browser window with all of the controls accessible from within. It has support for VLC, OBS Studio, and Spotify as well which covers the bases for plenty of streaming needs.
Currently the host software only runs on Windows, but [Lenochxd] hopes to have MacOS and Linux versions available soon. We’re always in favor of any device that uses existing technology and also avoids proprietary hardware and software. Hopefully that’s a recipe to avoid planned obsolescence and unnecessary production. If you prefer a version with a little bit of tactile feedback, though,
we’ve seen other decks which add physical buttons
for quick control of the stream. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735518",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2024-02-25T22:38:41",
"content": "“Streaming content online has never been more popular than it is now…”Not for me – I just cancelled my last streaming subscription. Streaming is Waaay too expensive and I am sick and tired worrying about hi... | 1,760,371,995.320997 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/internet-radio-built-in-charming-cassette-like-form-factor/ | Internet Radio Built In Charming Cassette-Like Form Factor | Lewin Day | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"internet radio",
"radio"
] | You can listen to plenty of broadcast radio these days. There’s a lot of choice too, with stations on AM, FM, and digital broadcasts to boot. However, if you want the broadest possible choice, you want an internet radio. If that’s your bag, why not build a fun one
like [indoorgeek’s] latest design?
The build is based around a PCB and 3D-printed components that roughly ape the design of a cassette tape. It even replicates the typical center window of a cassette tape by using a transparent OLED screen, which displays the user interface. In a neat way, the graphics on the display are designed to line up with those on the PCB, which looks excellent.
An ESP32 is the heart of the operation, which is responsible for streaming audio over the Internet via its WiFi connection. It’s powered by a small lithium-polymer battery, and hooked up with a MAX98357 Class D amplifier driven via the chip’s I2S hardware. Audio is played out over a small speaker salvaged from an old smartphone.
While it’s obviously possible to play whatever you like on a smartphone these days, sometimes it’s fun to have
simple devices that just do a single job
. Plus, we can’t deny this project looks really neat. Video after the break. | 21 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735453",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2024-02-25T18:15:34",
"content": "That’s a lovely little thing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6735462",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-02-25T18:56:57",
"c... | 1,760,371,995.375551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/one-object-to-print-but-so-many-settings/ | One Object To Print, ButSo ManySettings! | Dave Rowntree | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"beam",
"experiment",
"infill pattern",
"slicer",
"strength",
"wall count"
] | When working with an FDM 3D printer your first prints are likely trinkets where strength is less relevant than surface quality. Later on when attempting more structural prints, the settings become very important, and quite frankly rather bewildering. A few attempts have been made over the years to determine in quantifiable terms, how these settings affect results and
here is another such experiment
, this time from Youtuber
3DPrinterAcademy
looking specifically at the effect of wall count, infill density and the infill pattern upon the strength of a simple beam when subjected to a midpoint load.
Modern slicers can produce many infill patterns, but the effect on real world results are not obvious
When setting up a print, many people will stick to the same few profiles, with a little variety in wall count and infill density, but generally keep things consistent. This works well, up to a point, and that point is when you want to print something significantly different in size, structure or function. The slicer software is usually very helpful in explaining the effect of tweaking the numbers upon how the print is
formed
, but not too great at explaining the result of this in real life, since it can’t know your application. As far as the slicer is concerned your object is a shape that will be turned into slices, internal spaces, outlines and support structures. It doesn’t know whether you’re making a keyfob or a bearing holder, and cannot help you get the settings right for each application. Perhaps upcoming AI applications will be trained upon all these experimental results and be fed back into the slicing software, but for now, we’ll just have to go with experience and experiment.
The video does a reasonable job of determining the yield point for a few values of the parameters of interest, but most interesting were the figures for which infill patterns are strongest, and how to optimise for weight-to-strength ratio, which could be useful for some folks.
This kind of content is not new on these pages. Here’s an
experiment to determine the stiffness
of various filaments. Here’s
another angle that uses printed worm gears
as a testbed to determine the effect of printing orientation, amongst other factors. If you’re a bit newer to 3D printering than all this, then
check out our guide to getting started
, complete with actual practical advice. That’ll never catch on. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735374",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2024-02-25T15:19:02",
"content": "N=1, so every setting is only tested once. So I would take the results as indicative, as there was no test done to see how much variation you will have in multiple samples of the same type.",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,371,995.431058 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/25/a-smarter-solar-water-heater/ | A Smarter Solar Water Heater | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"attiny",
"automation",
"efficiency",
"energy storage",
"ESP32",
"green energy",
"home-assistant",
"hot water",
"solar",
"water heater"
] | Installing solar power at a home is a great way to reduce electricity bills, especially as the cost of solar panels and their associated electronics continue to plummet. Not every utility allows selling solar back to the grid, though, so if you’re like [Rogan] who lives in South Africa you’ll need to come up with some clever tricks to use the solar energy each day while it’s available to keep from wasting any. He’s devised
this system for his water heater
that takes care of some of this excess incoming energy.
A normal water heater, at least one based on electric resistive heaters, attempts to maintain a small range of temperatures within the insulated tank. If the temperature drops due to use or loss to the environment, the heaters turn on to bring the temperature back up. This automation system does essentially the same thing, but allows a much wider range of temperatures depending on the time of day. Essentially, it allows the water heater to get much hotter during times when solar energy is available, and lets it drop to lower values before running the heater on utility electricity during times when it isn’t. Using a combination ESP32 and ATtiny to both control the heater and report its temperature, all that’s left is to program Home Assistant to get the new system to interact with the solar system’s battery charge state and available incoming solar energy.
While it’s an elegantly simple system that also affords ample hot water for morning showers, large efficiency gains like this can be low-hanging fruit to even more home energy savings than solar alone provides on paper. Effectively the water heater becomes another type of battery in [Rogan]’s home, capable of storing energy at least for the day in the form of hot water. There are
a few other ways of storing excess renewable energy as well
, although they might require more resources than are typically available at home. | 81 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6735337",
"author": "SaintP",
"timestamp": "2024-02-25T12:18:40",
"content": "I could understand why you wouldn’t want to do this everywhere, as elderly users could get unexpectedly scalded.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "673... | 1,760,371,995.540278 |
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