Day: October 5, 2018

3D Printed Sneakers Are Now A Thing

October 5, 2018 by 20 Comments

Shoes may seem simple at face value, but are actually rather complex. To create a comfortable shoe that can handle a full day of wear without causing blisters, as well as deal with the stresses of running and jumping and so on, is quite difficult. Is it possible to create a shoe that can handle all that, using a 3D printer?

[RCLifeOn] discovered these sneakers by [Recreus] on Thingiverse, and decided to have a go printing them at home. While [Recreus] recommend printing the shoes in their Filaflex material, for this build, one shoe was printed in thermoplastic polyurethane, the other in Ninjaflex. As two filaments that are both commonly known to be pliable and flexible, the difference in the final parts is actually quite significant. The Ninjaflex shoe is significantly more flexible and cushions the foot better, while the rigidity of the TPU shoe is better for ankle support.

Our host then takes the shoes on a long run through the woods, battling dirt, mud, and other undesirables. Both shoes hold up against the abuse, although [RCLifeOn] notes that the Ninjaflex shoe is much more comfortable and forgiving for longer duration wear.

We’ve seen other 3D printed shoe hacks before, too – like these nifty shoelace locks.

Easy FPGA CPU With MAX1000

October 5, 2018 by 8 Comments

Ok, we’ll admit it. We like FPGAs because it reminds us of wiring up a 100-in-1 kit when we were kids. But the truth is, many projects are just as well off to have a CPU. But there’s a real sweet spot when you have a CPU and an FPGA together. Intel (or Altera, if you prefer) has the NIOS II CPU core, but that’s hard to configure, right? Maybe not, thanks to a project by [jefflieu] over on GitHub. He’s assembled some basic definitions and libraries to easily — relatively speaking — use NIOS II on the MAX1000 as well as a few other boards. The MAX1000 is a pretty nice board for about $30, so this is a very inexpensive way to get into “System on Chip” (SOC) development.

[jeff] goes into more detail in a blog post, but the idea is pretty simple. We tried it, and it works very well, although we found a few things hard to follow so read on to see how we managed.

The idea behind SoC development is you define your CPU configuration and then your hardware devices. Then you write software to talk to those custom hardware devices and — of course — write your actual application code. So you don’t just write a program, you also define the CPU the program will run on and the hardware that it will talk to.

There are several ready-to-go I/O devices included in the project, but the real fun will be writing your own. The Intel tools have the C compiler and everything else you need. You could also do everything from scratch, but these tools make it much easier to get started.

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Displaying Bitmaps On The Apple II

October 5, 2018 by 34 Comments

The Apple II was the popular darling that truly kicked off the ascention of the company that would later bring you darlings such as the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. The brainchild of the legendary Steve Wozniak, it was a low-cost home computer that made use of some interesting compromises to create video output with the bare minimum components. This can make it difficult if you want to output full-bitmap graphics on the Apple II – but it is certainly possible.

[cybernesto] set about completing this task, and released VBMP on GitHub. Programmed in assembly, it builds upon the work of democoder Arnaud Cocquière to display bitmap images on the vintage 6502-powered machine. Capable of displaying monochrome images in 560 x 192 or sixteen colors in 140 x 192, it loads slowly but does get the job done.

We’ve seen similar development underway elsewhere, too – on this vintage satellite tracker project. [Keplermatic] reports that their code runs at a similar speed to the VBMP loader, despite doing several things differently. It’s also available over at GitHub, for your reading pleasure.

If you’re looking to achieve something similar with your vintage hardware, it’s worth a look. Having the source available makes integrating it into further projects a snap. Learning to program these older machines can be challenging, but that’s half the fun – and when you build something awesome, be sure to drop it on the tips line.

This Rocket Cookstove Is Hot Stuff!

October 5, 2018 by 32 Comments

If you search the web, you will learn that humans began to cook their food with fire a long time ago. Indeed, you might expect that there would be nothing new in the world of  flame-based cookery. Fortunately [Bongodrummer] didn’t get that particular memo, because he’s created a rather unusual rocket stove griddle that is capable of cooking a significant quantity of food.

A rocket stove is designed to achieve as efficient use of energy as possible by achieving the most complete burn of high surface area fuel. It features a small combustion area and a chimney with supplementary air feed to ensure that exhaust gasses also burn. This one feeds all those hot gasses directly to the griddle, before taking them away up a pair of flues. As an added bonus there is a dome attachment for a pizza oven, made when a previous project had some left-over building material. Take a look at the comprehensive build video below the break.

Perhaps alarmingly the combustion chamber and chimney are made from a gas cylinder, but the use of a central heating radiator for the griddle is an extremely good idea. A vortex air inlet at the bottom and a secondary air injector further up the chimney complete the unit, making for a worthy replacement for a traditional barbecue.

It’s worth saying, this isn’t the first rocket stove we’ve seen, there was this simple design as well as this very well engineered space heater.

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