Month: August 2019

3D Printing Glass

August 8, 2019 by 26 Comments

For most of us, 3D printing means printing in plastic of some sort — either filament or photo resin. However, we have all wanted to print in other materials — especially more substantial materials. Metal printers exist but they aren’t cheap. However, it is possible to print molds and cast metal parts using them. [Amos Dudley] prints molds. But instead of metal, he casts parts out of glass.

[Amos] covers several techniques. The first is creating a relief (that is a 3D shape that grows out of a base). According to the post, this prevents difficult undercuts. He then casts a mold from silica and uses a kiln to melt glass into the mold. You might expect to do that with a full-size kiln, but you can actually get an inexpensive small kiln that fits in your microwave oven.

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First Look At DEF CON 27 Official Badge; Kingpin Is Back!

August 8, 2019 by 15 Comments

The first big surprise Vegas had in store for everyone is that the DEF CON badge is an electronic badge this year. It’s traditionally been the DC practice to alternate years between electronic and non-electronic badges. Last year we had a fantastic electronic badge designed by the ToyMakers, so I had expected something more passive like the vinyl LP badge from a few years ago. What a pleasant surprise to learn otherwise!

Second up on the surprise list is the badge maker himself. The design is a throwback to days of yore as Joe Grand steps up to the plate once again. Veterans know him as Kingpin, and his badge-making legacy runs deep. Let’s jump in and take a look.

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CNC Machine Rolls Up An Axis To Machine PVC Pipe

August 8, 2019 by 31 Comments

Whether it’s wood, metal, plastic, or otherwise, when it comes to obtaining materials for your builds, you have two choices: buy new stock, or scrounge what you can. Fresh virgin materials are often easier to work with, but it’s satisfying to get useful stock from unexpected sources.

This CNC router for PVC pipe is a great example of harvesting materials from an unusual source. [Christophe Machet] undertook his “Pipeline Project” specifically to explore what can be made from large-diameter PVC pipe, of the type commonly used for sewers and other drains. It’s basically a standard – albeit large-format – three-axis CNC router with one axis wrapped into a cylinder. The pipe is slipped around a sacrificial mandrel and loaded into the machine, where it rotates under what looks like a piece of truss from an antenna tower. The spindle seems a bit small, but it obviously gets the job done; luckily the truss has the strength and stiffness to carry a much bigger spindle if that becomes necessary in the future.

The video below shows the machine carving up parts for some lovely chairs. [Christophe] tells us that some manual post-forming with a heat gun is required for features like the arms of the chairs, but we could see automating that step too. We like the look of the pieces that come off this machine, and how [Christophe] saw a way to adapt one axis for cylindrical work. He submitted this project for the 2019 Hackaday Prize; have you submitted your entry yet?

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The GENIAC Lives Again

August 8, 2019 by 31 Comments

[Mike Gardi] credits his professional successes in the world of software development on the fact that he had access to logic-based educational games of a sort that simply don’t exist anymore. Back in the 1960s, kids who were interested in electronics or the burgeoning world of computers couldn’t just pick up a microcontroller or Raspberry Pi. They had to build their “computers” themselves from a kit.

One of those kits was the GENIus Almost-automatic Computer (GENIAC), a product which today is rare enough to essentially be unobtainable. Using images and documentation he was able to collect online, [Mike] not only managed to create a functioning replica of the GENIAC, but he even took the liberty of fixing some of the issues with the original 60-odd year old design.

Fundamentally, the GENIAC is composed of rotary switches which feed into each other to perform rudimentary logical functions. With banks of incandescent bulbs serving as the output, users could watch how placing the switches in different positions would influence the result.

This might seem a little silly to modern audiences, but thanks to a well written manual that featured a collection of compelling projects, the GENIAC managed to get a lot of mileage out of a couple light bulbs and some wire. In fact, [Mike] says that the GENIAC is often considered one of the first examples of an interactive electronic narrative, as the carefully crafted stories from the manual allowed players to go on virtual adventures long before the average kid had ever heard of a “video game”. A video about how one of these stories, “The Uranium Shipment and the Space Pirates“, can be seen after the break. Even today it would be an interesting enough toy, but back in 1955 it would have been mind-blowing.

Construction of this replica will require access to a laser cutter so you can approximate the original’s drilled Masonite backing and rotors. From there, [Mike] has produced an array of 3D printable components which are attached to the board to serve as contacts, spacers, and various other pieces of bric-a-brac. Some of the parts he couldn’t find pictures of, so he was forced to come up with his own designs. But considering the finicky nature of the original, he thinks his printed parts may actually be better than what the toy shipped with.

If you like his work with GENIAC, be sure to check out the 3D printed replica of “The Amazing Dr. Nim” that [Mike] made last year, or his breathtaking recreation of the Minivac 601.

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Cash Register Hotkey Board Is On The Money

August 8, 2019 by 8 Comments

When presented with a pile of free electronics, sometimes you grab things for their ‘someday’ potential. Other times, you know exactly what you’re after. [Bryce] got a big old cash register for free from school because they’ve moved on to using Square or something. He scored two VFDs and a solenoid as a side effect, but he was really after that sturdy keypad and its paper-label keycaps, ripe for customization.

Two hours of reverse engineering later, he knew where the button presses were going well enough to reach for a knockoff Arduino Pro Micro and a couple of shift registers. [Bryce] wanted his hotkey-board to handle keyboard presses as well as media key input, so he went with the HID-Project library over the standard-issue Arduino version. Of course, the whole point of making your own hotkey-board is customization. For [Bryce], that means Word shortcuts and quick access to Greek letters for all those engineering reports he must write. Dig that Half-Life lambda!

What? You don’t have access to free electronics? You could make a hotkey-board out of arcade buttons. Those things can really take a beating.

Putting Carbs On A Miata, Because It’s Awesome

August 8, 2019 by 100 Comments

Carburettors versus electronic fuel injection (EFI); automotive fans above a certain age will be well versed in the differences. While early EFI systems had their failings, the technology brought with it a new standard of reliability and control. By the early 1990s, the vast majority of vehicles were sold with EFI, and carburettors became a thing of the past.

The Mazda Miata was no exception. Shipping in 1989, it featured not only multiport fuel injection, but also a distributorless ignition system. Consisting of two coilpacks in a wasted spark configuration, with computer-controlled timing, the system was quite advanced for its time, especially for a budget sports car.

Despite the Miata’s technological credentials, those in the modified car scene tend to go their own way. A man by the name of Evan happened to be one such individual and decided to do just this — scrapping the EFI system and going with a retro carburetor setup. It was around this point that this I got involved, and mechanical tinkering ensued.

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This WiFi Spoofing Syringe Is For External Use Only

August 8, 2019 by 6 Comments

A browse through his collected works will tell you that [El Kentaro] loves to build electronics into interesting enclosures, so when he realized there’s enough room inside a 150 ml plastic syringe to mount an ESP8266, a battery, and a copious amount of RGB LEDs, the “Packet Injector” was the inescapable result.

Granted, the current incarnation of this device doesn’t literally inject packets. But [El Kentaro] wasn’t actually looking to do anything malicious, either. The Injector is intended to be a fun gag for him to bring along to the various hacker cons he finds himself at, like his DEAUTH “bling” necklace we saw at DEF CON 26, so having any practical function is really more icing on the cake than a strict requirement.

In the end, the code he came up with for the Adafruit Feather HUZZAH that uses the FakeBeaconESP8266 library to push out fictitious networks on demand. This is a trick we’ve seen used in the past, and makes for a relatively harmless prank as long as you’re not pumping out any particularly unpleasant SSIDs. In this case, [El Kentaro] punctuates his technicolor resplendency with beacons pronouncing “The WiFi Doctor is Here.”

But the real hack here is how [El Kentaro] controls the device. Everything is contained within the syringe chamber, and he uses a MPL3115A2 I2C barometric pressure sensor to detect when it’s being compressed. If the sensor reads a pressure high enough over the established baseline, the NeoPixel Ring fires up and the fake beacon frames start going out. Ease up on the plunger, and the code detects the drop in pressure and turns everything back off.

If this build has piqued your interest, [El Kentaro] gave a fascinating talk about his hardware design philosophy during the WOPR Summit that included how he designed and built some of his “greatest hits”; including a Raspberry Pi Zero enclosure that was, regrettably, not limited to external use.