A Simple Serial Display

January 9, 2023 by 11 Comments

Often with more “modern” complex protocols involving handshaking, token exchanges, and all the other hoops and whistles accompanying them, we forget how useful and powerful serial can be. In what might be a wonderful tribute to that, [Davide Gironi] created a simple AVR-powered 16-digit serial display.

It can display two numbers, and that’s it. A MAX7219 drives the display, and the brains are an ATmega8. It’s straightforward to send new values: a start byte, a CRC, the data to display, and an end byte. A CP2102 provides a UART to USB interface to connect to a host. An EEPROM helps it remember the last numbers shown. It supports positive, negative, and floating-point numbers.

This is a beautiful example of doing one thing and doing it well. The design is simple and allows it to be used for anything. You can show the current stock market price, the time for the next two trains for your commute, or whatever else you can think of. [Davide] included a schematic, code, and a 3d printed enclosure.

Perhaps the idea could be combined with a clever design for a single-motor seven-segment display.

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Spaceballs Get Serialized

January 9, 2023 by 33 Comments

As much as we’d love a TV show version of the cult classic movie, we’re talking about a different kind of Spaceball. While there have been many iterations, [Evan] had a Spaceball built by a company known as Spacetec in 1991 and rebranded by HP. Being an older peripheral, he used the Orbotron 9001, a converter from RS232 serial to USB, to interface his Spaceball with modern devices.

The spaceball was one of the first 6 degrees of freedom controllers, useful for CAD and some games that supported it. It’s famous for being involved in the NASA Mars Pathfinder mission as it was used to control the Sojourner rover. In addition to the perfect orb, it also features eight handy buttons.

The Orbotron is a USB-capable microcontroller (Atmel SAMD21) designed to support the Spaceball 360, 4000, and 5000 series. Ultimately, after tinkering with the code to support the 2003 and 3003 Spaceballs, he had some reasonably usable with some rough edges. For example, acceleration curves still need tweaking, and going too fast can get you stuck. The downside was the rubber coating on the ball that had degraded over the years, making it horrendously sticky.

All the code changes are on GitHub. We’d love to see more spacemice integrated into things, like this ergonomic keyboard. Or even an open-source version of a spacemouse. After the break, we have a video of [Adafruit] showing a Spaceball 2003 working with a serial adapter.

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Recreating A Numpad For The ADM-3A

January 8, 2023 by 1 Comment

[Evan] already had a working ADM-3A (a dumb terminal from 1976) but was starting to eye the accessories hungrily. He had only seen the numpad on Wikipedia and in the manual. So when he found some authentic stackpole numpads on a surplus sale, he grabbed them and converted them to be ADM-3A compatible.

Looking at the schematic for the ADM-3A, [Evan] figured out that the numpad was parallel to the keyboard matrix, not adjacent. This meant that pressing a five on the keyboard was electrically equivalent to pressing a five on the keyboard. So holding shift while punching on the numpad leads to some unexpected characters for those of us used to more modern keyboards. Since [Evan] only needed to make one or two of these, he soldered wires directly to switch contacts in the matrix that the ADM-3A expects. A 3d printed housing, some rubber feet, and a ribbon cable later, it was done. While it looks slightly different from the original, the vibe is right, and given that it is a stackpole switch, it has the same feel. With the spare numpads, he created a replacement PCB that runs QMK and connects to a more modern computer via USB-C. The files for the 3d printed housing are also up on GitHub, along with the PCBs and QMK configuration files.

If you’re interested in what more you can do with an ADM-3A, why not hook it up to a Raspberry Pi?

Building A Giant Remote Controlled Model Airbus A380 In A Year

January 8, 2023 by 21 Comments

A year ago [Ramy RC] set out on a momentous challenge: to build a 1:21 scale Airbus A380-800 RC model with functional engines, landing gear and all other details. Recently he finished the project and published a video with a summary of the whole build process (also linked below). The full video series can be found on the Ramy RC channel. The final RC airplane came out at a massive wingspan of 3.9 meters (12.7′), a length of 3.6 meters (11.8′) and a weight of 25 kg. This weight is carried by the full landing gear of multiple bogeys that can retract much like on the real airplane.

A range of materials were used for the body, including carbon fiber and wood, with each part carefully modeled with CAD software and 3D-printed or cut on a CNC cutter. Four ducted fans provide the propulsive power that lift this enormous model airplane into the skies, which is the only part where the noise profile doesn’t quite match that of the real A380. Even so, seeing the airplane taxing, taking off and flying through the skies makes you look twice to realize that it is in fact a scale model and not a real Emirates A380-800, also courtesy of the excruciating amount of detail to the model’s final look, down from the logos to the silver-grey lines.

We’re also quite convinced that the maiden flight of such an exquisite model has to be one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable.

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Hackaday Links: January 8, 2023

January 8, 2023 by 12 Comments

Something odd is afoot in the mountains around Salt Lake City, Utah, at least according to local media reports of remote radio installations that have been popping up for at least the past year. The installations consist of a large-ish solar panel, a weatherproof box full of batteries — and presumably other electronics, including radios — and a mast bearing at least one antenna. Local officials aren’t quite sure who these remote setups belong to or what they’re intended to do, but the installations obviously represent a huge investment in resources.

The one featured in the story was located near the summit of Twin Peaks, which is about 11,000 feet (3,300 meters) in elevation, which with that much gear was probably a hell of a hike. Plus, the owner took great pains to make sure the site would withstand the weather, with antenna mast guy wires that must have required lugging a pretty big drill up with them. There aren’t any photos of the radios in the enclosure, but one photo shows a 900-MHz LORA antenna, while another shows what appears to be a panel antenna, perhaps pointing toward another site. So maybe a LORA mesh network? Some comments in the Twitter thread show most people are convinced this is a Helium crypto mining rig, but the Helium Explorer doesn’t show any hotspots listed in that area. Either way, the owners are out of luck, since their gear is being removed if it’s on public land.

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Can AI Replace Your DM?

January 8, 2023 by 18 Comments

The current hotness is anything to do with artificial intelligence, and along with some interesting experiments comes a lot of mindless hype. The question is, what can it do for us! [Jesse] provides a fun answer by asking ChatGPT to perform as a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master.

There are many ways to approach a game of D&D, and while some take the whole thing very seriously indeed we prefer to treat it as a lightly inebriated band of intrepid heroes smacking each other and assorted monsters with imaginary swords and war hammers. Would the AI follow the nerdiest cliches to their pedantic conclusions, or would it sense that the point of a game is to have fun?

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Low-Cost 433 MHz Door Sensors Get Open Firmware

January 8, 2023 by 38 Comments

It’s an unfortunate reality these days that if you see a cheap piece of consumer electronics, there’s a good chance its only cheap because it’s designed to lock you into some ecosystem where you’ll either end up paying a subscription, or worse, have your personal information sold behind your back. One of the best tools we have against these sort of anti-consumer practices is the development of open source firmware replacements that put control of the device into the hands of the community, rather than a corporation.

Now, thanks to the work of [Jonathan Armstrong] we have such a firmware for the 433 MHz magnetic door and window sensors that you can pick up on AliExpress for $4 USD a piece. The new firmware not only ensures you can use these sensors with a wide array of receivers, but adds a number of new features over their stock configuration. Continue reading “Low-Cost 433 MHz Door Sensors Get Open Firmware” →