Hackaday Links: August 30, 2014

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Adafruit did another Circuit Playground, this time concerning frequency. If you’re reading this, no, it’s probably not for you, which is great because it’s not meant to be. If you have some kids, though, it’s great. Not-muppet robots and oscilloscopes. Just great.

The Hack42 space in Arnhem, Neterhlands recently got an offer: clean out a basement filled with old computer equipment, and it’s yours. Everything in the haul had to fit through an 80cm square door, and there are some very heavy, very rare pieces of equipment here. It’ll be a great (and massive) addition to their museum. There’s a few pics from the cleanout here and here.

[Mike] has been working on a project to convert gerber files into SVGs and it’s great.

[Carl] did a roundup of all the currently available software defined radios available. It’s more than just the RTL-SDR, HackRF, and BladeRF, and there’s also a list of modifications and ones targeted explicitly to the ham crowd.

This is a Facebook video, but it is pretty cool. It’s a DIY well pump made in Mexico. A few rubber disks made out of an old inner tube, a bit of PVC pipe, and a string is all you need to bring water to ground level.

What can you do with a cellphone equipped with a thermal imaging camera? Steal PIN codes, of course. Cue the rest of the blogosphere sensationalizing this to kingdom come. Oh, what’s that? Only Gizmodo took the bait?

About a year ago, we saw a pretty cool board made by [Derek] to listen in on the CAN bus in his Mazda 3. Now it’s a Kickstarter, and a pretty good one at that.

Your connectors will never be this cool. This is a teardown of a mind bogglingly expensive cable assembly, and this thing is amazing. Modular connectors, machined copper shields, machined plastic stress relief, and entire PCBs dedicated to two caps. Does anyone know what this mated to and what the list price was?

 

18 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: August 30, 2014

    1. SGI: one Onyx, one Origin 2000, pair of O2’s, pair of Personal Irises, a Challenge S and an Indy

      PDP stuff: one 11/84 (PSU problems, does not start), an 11/73 (memory taken out), an Micro11 (not yet inspected/tested), couple of empty BA11 QBus boxes, and an unholy stack of QBus and Unibus boards. There are also a number of PCS systems that are in essence QBus systems with an 680×0 processor, and a Terak 8510.

      We’ve just managed to get everything stored so that we can use the rest of the space again; testing and fixing will proceed as time (and knowledge) permits. In quite a number of cases we’ll need cables that may or may not be in one of the boxes …

    2. Oh, and free? Let’s see, we needed to rent a van (the average car would have sufficed for just the Onyx, but the deal was “all or nothing”), get a dozen or so helpers lined up (again, “all or nothing”), get hold of a conveyor system (alternative: extensive physiotherapist bills for all involved) and food and drink for the crew.

      Next time we’re offered one we’ll let you know. If you come and help, we’ll let you have the Onyx for its scrap metal value.

      1. Wow, great video, and you’re right no need for an iphone, but unfortunately it needs a technical competance higher than what I have to utilise the FLIR module.

        Lets hope other companies do bring in some serious competition and so drive down the price of the modules and increase the accessability of them.

    1. EMAS International is an organization dedicated to providing low-cost methods and technologies to the developing world for clean water:

      http://www.emas-international.de/

      They have a ton of great videos and other information on a variety of pumping systems, mostly made with PVC pipe and other bits of ordinary parts (most of which can be found in junk piles).

  1. That water well pump is a modification to improve the simple rope pump. also resembles the chain and buckets of a type of cistern pump. Simple and cheap to make and repair Using a wood blocks to mount the axle would make for quieter operation. Cover that well before someone falls in injuring themselves so that can’t use that ladder to get out, not to mention some diseased critter falling in and spending the night. I probably should make some sort of simple pump so I can use my well after the predicted zombie apocalypse. A next step for the Mexico location would be a windmill and water tower. Something I’d like to do here,but I doubt I’d live long enough. Because one could expect it to get to -20 F. I was perplex as to how to keep the water from freezing because not enough is used to keep it moving so it wouldn’t freeze. I have come up with what should work, if ever get the chance to try it.

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