Hackday Links: March 10, 2012

BTTF

We're throwing money at our monitor and nothing's happening! Sometimes we get hacks sent into our tip line that are outrageously awesome, but apart from a YouTube video we've got nothing else to write about. So begins the story of the flying Back to the Future DeLorean quadrocopter. Sadly, the story ends with the video as well. (If you've got any info, send it in!) Fine, we'll throw in … [Read more...]

3D Graphics on an oscilloscope

tie

Armed with four wingtip-mounted Sienar Fleet Systems L-s9.3 laser cannons and a SFS P-s5.6 twin ion engine, the TIE Interceptor has become the scourge of the Rebel fleet, nearly capable of out-running and out-maneuvering the beloved A-wings of Nomad Squadron. Because of [Matt]'s tireless work, we can now visualize TIE Interceptors on approach with our targeting computers … [Read more...]

Reverse engineering an oscilloscope circumvents vendor crippleware

oscope-reverse-engineering

The crew over at the Hungarian Autonomous Center for Knowledge (H.A.C.K.) say they aren’t the most well-funded organization out there, so they were stoked when they found they could afford to bring a slightly used UNI-T UT2025B digital oscilloscope into the shop. As they started to tinker with it, the scope revealed one major shortcoming - screenshots were only accessible via a USB connection to … [Read more...]

Make a simple O-scope with a FTDI board and a couple of ADC’s

Untitled

[RandomTask] has posted a nice tutorial on how to use a FTDI serial to usb converter, and a couple analog to digital converters to make a simple software oscilloscope. Using a “Universal Serial to USB converter” and one of many FTDI break out boards, he first reprograms the chip using FTDI's programming software to put the device into a FIFO (first in first out) mode. From there a pair of … [Read more...]

Oscilloscope clock made possible by dumpster diving

scopeclock

We see people driving around the night before trash collection and reclaiming items doomed to the land fill (or on their way to recycling... who knows). We're beginning to think we need to join those ranks. Case in point is this vintage oscilloscope which [Bob Alexander] plucked from the curb in the nick of time. Here's the kicker, when he got it home he found it still worked! He couldn't let this … [Read more...]

Homebrew on the Rigol DS1052E ‘scope

rygol

We love our little Rigol 1052E oscilloscope. It's seen us through some perplexing problems and loved being upgraded from 50 MHz to 100 MHz. We've always been pleased with its role dictating waveforms for us, but we never thought we'd see homebrew apps for our little 'scope. We're not exactly sure who [Krater] is, but he's been working on some homebrew development for the Rigol DS1052E … [Read more...]

Hackaday Links: December 16, 2011

ornament

Free-form Christmas ornament Here's [Rob]'s free form circuit that's a Christmas ornament for geeks. It looks great, but sadly isn't powered through a Christmas light strand. It's just as cool as the skeletal Arduino we saw. Prototyping with flowers Well this is interesting: protoboard that's specifically made to make SMD soldering easier. The guys at elecfreaks went through a lot of … [Read more...]