Year: 2017

Wake Up To Fresh Coffee!

May 21, 2017 by 18 Comments

Be careful what you say when you are shown a commercial product that you think you could make yourself, you might find yourself having to make good on your promise.

When he was shown a crowdfunded alarm clock coffee maker, [Fabien-Chouteau] said “just give me an espresso machine and I can do the same”. A Nespresso capsule coffee machine duly appeared on his bench, so it was time to make good on the promise.

The operation of a Nespresso machine is simple enough, there is a big lever on the front that opens the capsule slot and allows a spent capsule to drop into a hopper. Drop in a new capsule, pull the lever down to load it into the mechanism, then press one of the buttons to tell it to prime itself. After a minute you can them press either of the large cup or the small cup buttons, and your coffee will be delivered.

To automate this with an alarm clock there is no necessity to operate the lever, it’s safe to leave loading a capsule to the user. Therefore all the clock has to do is trigger the process by operating the buttons. A quick investigation with a multimeter on the button PCB found that the voltage present was 15 V, well above the logic level of the STM32F469 board slated for the clock. Thus a simple circuit was devised using a MOSFET to  do the switching.

Finally, the clock software was created for the STM32F469. The chip’s 2D graphics acceleration hardware and the development board’s high quality display make for a very slick interface indeed.

You can see the resulting clock in the video below the break. It’s an alarm clock coffeemaker we’d be proud to have beside our beds, but there’s one slight worry. On a mains-powered device like the Nespresso the low voltage rails are not always mains-isolated, and it’s not clear whether or not this is the case. Maybe we’d have incorporated an opto-isolator, just in case.

Continue reading “Wake Up To Fresh Coffee!” →

Multipurpose ESP8266 Keychain

May 21, 2017 by 30 Comments

One of the best feature of the ESP8266 is its ability to self-host a web server, allowing for fairly complicated user interactions. The dEEbugger by [S-March] is a nifty little ESP8266 based device with a plethora of features in a small package.

The USB-powered device has a web user interface that enables it to be used as a low-bandwidth oscilloscope, I2C terminal, or UART terminal. As a scope, you may connect to it via your tablet and then use it as a remote voltage monitor. There is a peak detection feature which is a nice touch and gives the entire project a premium feel.

The serial terminal on an ESP8266 is not something new yet it is helpful in disconnecting the console window from the bench. The I2C terminal is where the device really shines as it can scan for connected devices on the connected bus. This Bus-Pirate like feature is useful for beginners as the software can scan the registers addresses of the devices as well.

[S-March] has made the schematic in PDF format as well as the entire code for the project available on GitHub so go right ahead and make it your own. We have had an ESP8266 based VT Terminal device in the past and merging the two would make for an excellent maker tool.

Thanks for the tip [René Arts]

Dis-Integrated 6502 Running Programs; Acting Like Computer

May 20, 2017 by 31 Comments

[Eric Schlaepfer] tends to turn up to Maker Faire with projects you simply don’t want to miss. This year is no different. Twelve months ago we delighted in seeing his 6502 processor built from an enormous reel of discrete MOSFETs. At the time it was freshly built and running random code to happily blink the LEDs reflecting activity in the registers. This year he’s given that blinking meaning and is running real programs on his Monster 6502 processor.

Continue reading “Dis-Integrated 6502 Running Programs; Acting Like Computer” →

The Tiniest Mechanical Keyboard Ever

May 20, 2017 by 34 Comments

Owning a mechanical keyboard makes you a better person. It puts you above everyone else. Of course, owning a mechanical keyboard does come with some downsides. Carrying a mechanical keyboard around all the time to tell everyone else you’re better than them is usually impractical, but [cahbtexhuk Joric] has come up with a solution. It’s a miniature Bluetooth mechanical keyboard that’s also a keychain.

Continue reading “The Tiniest Mechanical Keyboard Ever” →

Arduino Cinque – The RISC-V, ESP32, WiFi, Bluetooth Arduino

May 20, 2017 by 61 Comments

This weekend at the Bay Area Maker Faire, Arduino in conjunction with SiFive, a fabless provider of the Open Source RISC-V micros, introduced the Arduino Cinque. This is a board running one of the fastest microcontrollers available, and as an added bonus, this board includes Espressif’s ESP32, another wonderchip that features WiFi and Bluetooth alongside a very, very powerful SoC.

Details on the Arduino Cinque are slim at the moment, but from what we’ve seen so far, the Cinque is an impressively powerful board featuring the RISC-V FE310 SoC from SiFive, an ESP32, and an STM32F103. The STM32 appears to be dedicated to providing the board with USB to UART translation, something the first RISC-V compatible Arduino solved with an FTDI chip. Using an FTDI chip is, of course, a questionable design decision when building a capital ‘O’ Open microcontroller platform, and we’re glad SiFive and Arduino found a better solution. It’s unknown if this STM32 can be used alongside the FE310 and ESP32 at this point.

We’ve taken a look at SiFive’s FE310 SoC, and it is an extremely capable chip. It was released first at the HiFive1, and our hands-on testing revealed this is a chip that outperforms the current performance champ of the Arduino world, the Teensy 3.6. Of course, with any new architecture, there will be a few problems porting the vast number of libraries over to the FE310, but SiFive has included an Arduino compatible SDK. It’s promising, and we can’t wait to see SiFive’s work in more boards.

FAA’s Drone Registration System Struck Down For Hobbyists

May 20, 2017 by 76 Comments

The US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has struck down a rule requiring recreational drone users and model aircraft pilots to register their drones with the FAA.

This began when [John Taylor], an RC hobbyist and attorney, filed suit against the FAA questioning the legitimacy of the FAA’s drone registration program. This drone registration began early last year, with the FAA requiring nearly all drones and model aircraft to be registered in a new online system. This registration system caused much consternation; the FAA Modernization And Reform Act of 2012 states, ““…Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft…”, defining model aircraft as any unmanned aircraft flown within visual line of sight for hobby or recreational purposes. Despite this mandate from Congress, the FAA saw fit to require registration for every model aircraft weighing between 0.55 and 55 pounds, regardless of the purpose of its flight.

In our coverage of the FAA’s drone registration program, we couldn’t make heads or tails of the reasons behind this regulation. In addition to the questionable legality of this regulation, there are questions over the FAA’s mandate to regulate anything flying under the 400 foot ceiling cited in the FAA’s rules. The question of safety is also open — a 2 kg drone is likely to cause injury to a passenger on a commercial flight only once every 187 million years of operation. In short, the FAA might not have the mandate of managing the air traffic, certification, and safety of the nation’s airspace when it comes to model aircraft.

While the Circuit court struck down the rule for registration concerning model aircraft, this still only applies to small (under 55 pounds) planes and quads flown within line of sight. Commercial drone operators still fall under the purview of the FAA, and for them the drone registration system will stand.

BAMF: Hard Drive Platter Launcher Among All-Time Favorites

May 20, 2017 by 32 Comments

The hard drive platter launcher that [Krux] built has been among my all-time favorite builds and I am so excited that he is showing it off at this year’s Bay Area Maker Faire. At its core the concept is quite simple; dump a large amount of current through a coil all at once, and the magnetic current generated spontaneously repels the aluminum hard drive platter. The devil is in the details and this is where [Krux’s] work really shines.

Continue reading “BAMF: Hard Drive Platter Launcher Among All-Time Favorites” →