Coleco Chameleon Is A Kickstarter Scam

March 10, 2016 by Will Sweatman 67 Comments

Retro gaming consoles exploded with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi and other similar single-board Linux computers. They all work the same way in that they emulate the original game console hardware with software. The game ROM is then dumped to a file and will play like the original. While this works just fine for the vast majority of us who want to get a dose of nostalgia as we chase the magic 1-up mushroom, gaming purists are not satisfied. They can tell the subtle differences between emulation and real hardware. And this is where our story begins.

Meet the Coleco Chameleon. What appears to be just another run-of-the-mill retro gaming console is not what you think. It has an FPGA core that replicates the actual hardware, to the delight of hardcore retro game enthusiasts around the world. To get it to the masses, they started an ambitious 2 million US dollar Indiegogo campaign, which has unfortunately come to a screeching halt.

Take a close look at the header image. That blue circuit board in there is nothing but an old PCI TV tuning card. To make matters worse, it also appears that their prototype system which was displayed at the Toy Fair in New York was just the guts of an SNES Jr stuffed into their shell.

This scam is clearly busted. However, the idea of reconstructing old gaming console hardware in an FPGA is a viable proposition, and there is demand for such a device from gaming enthusiasts. We can only hope that the owners of the Coleco Chameleon Kickstarter campaign meant well and slipped up trying to meet demand. If they can make a real piece of hardware, it would be welcomed.

Tools Of The Trade – Solder Paste Dispensing

March 10, 2016 by Bob Baddeley 50 Comments

The general process of circuit board assembly goes like this: You order your PCBs. You also order your components. For surface mount components, you apply solder paste to the pads, put the components on top, and then heat the board up so the solder paste flows and makes a bond. Then for through hole components you put the leads through the holes, and solder them with an iron or a solder wave or dip. Then you do an inspection for defects, program any microcontrollers, and finally test the completed board to make sure everything runs.

The tricky part is in volumes. If you’re only doing a few boards, it’s usually easiest to assemble them by hand. In the thousands you usually outsource. But new tools, and cheap hacked tools, have made it easier to automate small batches, and scale up into the thousands before outsourcing assembly.

In this new series which we’re calling Tools of the Trade we’ll be covering a variety of tools used for building products, and we’re starting with circuit board assembly. Let’s investigate our tools of the trade: solder paste dispensing. Continue reading “Tools Of The Trade – Solder Paste Dispensing” →

Shoot Hard Drive Platters Skywards On The Power Of Magnetism

March 10, 2016 by Jenny List 35 Comments

Project Hathor is an electromagnetic ring launcher that launches aluminium hard drive platters 45 feet skywards at the touch of a button. The hard work is done by a bank of capacitors which are charged to 2kV from a microwave oven transformer, before being discharged into a coil of wire on which the hard drive platter is sitting. The resulting burst of magnetic field induces a huge current in the platter, and that current in turn creates an opposing field which launches the ring into the air.

The launcher is the work of [Krux], at the Syn Shop hackerspace in Las Vegas, and he’s made a beautiful job of it. The capacitor bank has ten 3900uF 400V electrolytic capacitors wired as a single 1560uF 2kV capacitor, there are two 225W 2Kohm wire wound discharge resistors, and a beautifully designed home-made high voltage contactor featuring tungsten electrodes. The whole project has been carefully built into an acrylic case for safety, for as [Krux] points out, microwave oven transformers will kill you.

As well as the project web site, there is a YouTube playlist, an image gallery, and a GitHub repository containing all the project’s details. You can see the launcher in action in the video below, launching platters into the Nevada night right on cue.

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Stolen Tech: The Soviet Superfortress

March 10, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 78 Comments

Boeing’s B-17 was the most numerous heavy bomber of World War II, and its reputation of being nigh indestructible in the face of Messerschmidts and flak cannons is stuff of legend. The first flight of the B-17 was in 1935, and a decade later at the close of World War II, the B-17 would begin to show its age. It could only carry 6,000 pounds of ordnance; the first atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, weighed 9,700 pounds and 10,300 pounds, respectively. The Avro Lancaster notwithstanding, a new aircraft would be needed for the Allied invasion of Japan. This aircraft would be the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

On paper, the B-29 nearly holds its own against all but the most modern bombers of aviation history. Yes, the B-29 is slow, but that’s only because jet engines were in their infancy in 1944. This bomber was a forgotten super weapon of World War II, and everyone – Japan, German, Great Britain and the USSR – wanted their own. Only the Soviets would go as far to build their own B-29, reverse engineering the technology from crashed and ditched American bombers.

Continue reading “Stolen Tech: The Soviet Superfortress” →

Gigabit Ethernet Through The Air

March 10, 2016 by Elliot Williams 70 Comments

There are a couple of really great things about transmitting data using light as the carrier. It can be focused so that it doesn’t spill all over the neighborhood like radio signals do — giving it both some security against eavesdropping and preventing one signal from stepping on another’s toes. And while you can modulate radio signals up nearly to the carrier frequency, the few gigahertz we normally use for radio just won’t cut it for really high bit rates. Light gets you terahertz.

The Koruza project is an open-source, “inexpensive” system that aims to transmit 1 Gb/sec over distances around 100 meters, using modulated infrared light. The intended use-case is urban building-to-building communication at speeds that would otherwise require laying fiber-optic cables. Indeed, the system piggy-backs on existing fiber-optic equipment to get the job done, but the hard part is aligning the units to get maximum signal from point A to point B.

Koruza does this by including motorized lenses on the 3D-printed chassis. You make a rough alignment with a visible green laser, and then fine-tune the IR beams from a web console where you get immediate feedback on how the received signal strength is changing. Both Koruza boxes have a Raspberry Pi inside and use normal networking for calibration and signal-strength statistics. It’s a really neat system, and it’s fully DIY’able except for the commodity fiber-optic bits.

We’ve always had a soft-spot in our heart for transmitting data over light beams. The Ronja project has been doing so since 2001, and over longer distances, with completely DIY hardware, if at a slower bitrate. And now that Li-Fi seems to be getting traction, we might see an unfocused equivalent running inside our homes.

Thanks [Pavel] for the tip!

Aligning Invisible Lasers On-the-cheap

March 10, 2016 by Sonya Vasquez 29 Comments

Lining up the beam from your homebrew (or retrofitted) laser cutter doesn’t come without its challenges. For instance, how do I use my remaining eye to align an invisible beam that has enough power to burn through some objects in its path? Some of us will go through the extra hassle and expense of mixing in a visible guide that traces the path of the CO2 laser. For the penny-pinchers out there, though, [Stephen] has us covered with an inexpensive technique that will cut you down by only a few strips of masking tape.

Stephan’s technique is simple, but elegant. He covers each mirror with tape, fires the laser, and leaves a burn mark, working his way from the last mirror that the laser hits to the first. With a burn mark on each mirror, and one through a guide made from a sheet of plywood, [Stephen] has a pretty good idea where the native direction of the beam is headed. He then swaps a red dot laser in to line up with the burn marks, and then aligns the mirrors using visible, and safe, light. Phew! Now that’s a lot easier than iteratively firing the beam and replacing the tape on the mirror each time we want to tweak the mirror alignment.

With all that burnt masking tape, the process can get a bit smelly. Nevertheless, we’ve filed this one away for later when we start getting that itching, burning sensation that kicks us into building our own homebrew laser cutter.

Continue reading “Aligning Invisible Lasers On-the-cheap” →

Solder At Room Temperature

March 9, 2016 by Al Williams 16 Comments

Have you ever seen the science experiment (or magic trick?) where you get water supercooled to where it isn’t frozen, but then it freezes when you touch it, pour it, or otherwise disturb it? Apparently, ice crystals form around impurities or disturbances in the liquid and then “spread.” A similar effect can occur in metals where the molten metal cools in such a way that it stays melted even below the temperature that would usually cause it to melt.

[Martin Thuo] at Iowa University used this property to make solder joints at room temperature using Field’s metal (a combination of bismuth, indium, and tin). The key is a process that coats the molten metal with several nanolayers that protect it from solidifying until something disturbs the protective layer.

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