Month: January 2021

Extensive Modification Of DSLR Includes High Quality Audio

January 15, 2021 by 15 Comments

Modern DSLR cameras are incredible pieces of technology that can take excellent high-quality photos as well as record video and audio. However, as they become jacks of all trades they risk being masters of none, and the audio quality in modern DSLRs certainly reflects that old cliche. To get true high-quality audio while recording with a camera like this Canon 80d, you’ll either need a secondary audio recording device or you’ll need to interface one directly into the camera itself.

This build from [Tony] aka [Carnivore] goes into the inner workings of the camera to add an audio mixer to the camera’s audio input, allowing for multiple audio streams to be recorded at once. First, he removed the plastic around the microphone port and attached a wire to it that extends out of the camera to a 1/8″ plug. While he had the case open he also wired a second shutter, added a record button to a custom location on the front of the camera, and bypassed a switch which prevents the camera from operating if the battery door isn’t closed.

With those modifications in place, he removed the internal flash from the camera before closing the body. A custom 3D printed mount was placed in the vacant space which now houses the audio mixer, a SR-AX100 from Saramonic. This plugs in to the new microphone wire from earlier in the build, allowing the camera to have an expanded capacity for recording audio.

While [Tony] has a fairly unique use case for all of these modifications to an already $1000 camera, getting into the inner workings of DSLRs isn’t something to shy away from if you need something similar done. We’ve even seen modifications to cameras like these to allow for watercooling during video recording.

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You’re Going To Flip Out Over This Rocket League RC Car

January 15, 2021 by 10 Comments

Rocket League is a video game famous for being wildly popular despite being virtually unplayable without several hours practice. It involves hyper fast cars playing soccer, complete with the ability to flip, jump, and rocket boost into the ball. [mrak_ripple] decided he wanted some of that action in a real RC car, and set to work.

While rocket boosts were out of scope for this build, [mrak_ripple] was pretty confident he could build a jumping, flipping RC car modelled after the Rocket League Octane vehicle. Initial experiments involved a custom 3D printed spring mechanism, but the results were underwhelming. Instead, in the true hacker spirit, a jumping mechanism was taken from an existing toy, and installed in the car instead. This was combined with a mechanism built out of a brushless motor with a flywheel added to generate a flipping moment in mid-air.

The final result is impressive, with the car flipping relatively cleanly once refined and lightened from its original design. We’d love to see a two-axis build that can front- and back-flip as well. It’s a step up in complexity from the last build we saw from [mrak_ripple], the amusing mashed potato trebuchet. Video after the break.

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A Surefire Way To Make Masks

January 15, 2021 by 41 Comments

By now, the wearing of a facemask to protect ourselves from pandemic infection is for many of us a daily fact of life. Perhaps that means a cheap disposable mask, but there’s no reason that has to be the case. It’s easy to make more durable masks that can be washed and re-used time and time again, and our Hackaday colleague [Kristina Panos] has shared her pattern and workflow to help you do it.

Her pattern isn’t a complex cut-out but a simple rectangle, and the trick of sewing them together and flipping them inside out makes for a very tidy result. With three pleats pressed in and the elastic sewn up the result is a mask that’s neat, attractive, effective, and cheap, which is a win in our book.

It’s worth repeating her important point that these are not for use in medical environments, instead they’re the standard street-wear aerosol catchers we’re all used to. This isn’t the first time we’ve looked at masks here at Hackaday, or indeed though [Kristana]’s are by far the tidier neither is it first time one of us has made a mask. We looked at them in depth last year in our surviving the pandemic as a hacker series.

Circuit VR: Even More Op Amps

January 15, 2021 by 23 Comments

In the last Circuit VR we looked at some basic op amp circuits in a simulator, including the non-inverting amplifier. Sometimes you want an amplifier that inverts the signal. That is a 5V input results in a -5V output (or -10V if the amplifier has a gain of 2). This corresponds to a 180 degree phase shift which can be useful in amplifiers, filters, and other circuits. Let’s take a look at an example circuit simulated with falstad.

Remember the Rules

Last time I mentioned two made up rules that are good shortcuts for analyzing op amp circuits:

  1. The inputs of the op amp don’t connect to anything internally.
  2. The output mysteriously will do what it can to make the inputs equal, as far as it is physically possible.

As a corollary to the second rule, you can easily analyze the circuit shown here by thinking of the negative (inverting) terminal as a virtual ground. It isn’t connected to ground, yet in a properly configured op amp circuit it might as well be at ground potential. Why? Because the + terminal is grounded and rule #2 says the op amp will change conditions to make sure the two terminals are the same. Since it can’t influence the + terminal, it will drive the voltage through the resistor network to ensure the – terminal is at 0V.

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Hackaday Podcast 101: Lasering And Milling Absolutely Everything

January 15, 2021 by 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss our favorite hacks of the past week. We accidentally chose a theme, as most of the projects use lasers and are about machining work. We lead off with a really powerful laser that can directly etch circuit boards, only to be later outdone by an even more powerful laser using a chemistry trick to etch glass. We look at how to mix up your own rocket motors, bootstrap your own laser tag, and go down the rabbit hole of building tools for embedded development. The episode wraps up as we discuss what exactly NVMe is and where hardware hacking might take it.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~65 MB)

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

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Civil Defense Disco Ball Rocks Ground Zero

January 15, 2021 by 9 Comments

Old Civil Defense survey meters like the V-715 are interesting conversation starters, but of very little practical use today. These devices were intended to be a sort of litmus test that survivors of a nuclear blast could use to determine when it was safe to venture out of their radiation shelter: if the needle on the meter moves, even when it’s on the most sensitive setting, you should probably go back inside. Since [Hamilton Karl] would (hopefully) never need such an indicator, he decided to have a little fun with this Cold War holdover and turn it into a Disco Containment Unit.

Technical details are a little sparse on this one, but we can infer most of it just from the pictures. In place of the original meter [Hamilton] has mounted a tiny mirrored ball inside of a protective cage, which is spun by a geared motor that’s occupying the space that used to be taken up by the ion chamber.

A handful of Adafruit NeoPixel RGB LEDs, an Arduino Nano, and a few switches to control it all round out the functional aspects of the build, and a new disco-themed trefoil replaces the original Civil Defense logo on the side. The project page mentions there’s a piezo buzzer onboard that performs a stirring rendition of “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, but alas there’s no video that shows it in action.

Thanks to the rugged construction and built-in handle of these old survey meters, [Hamilton] can now take the party with him wherever he goes. Not that he can really go anywhere with this whole global pandemic hanging over our heads, but at least he’ll be ready when things start trending towards normal. In a way the device’s functionality has now been reversed from how it originally worked, since the meter going wild will now be an indicator that its safe to come out.

While the V-715 isn’t of much use outside of a post-apocalyptic hellscape, the V-700 is actually a proper Geiger counter that’s still useful for surveying or research. An important distinction to remember if you ever get a chance to snap one of them up at a swap meet or flea market. Whenever we can start having those again, anyway.

This Week In Security: Ubiquiti, Nissan, Zyxel, And Dovecot

January 15, 2021 by 27 Comments

You may have been one of the many of us who received an email from Ubiquiti this week, recommending a password change. The email stated that there was an unauthorized access of Ubiquiti systems, and while there wasn’t evidence of user data being accessed, there was also not enough evidence to say emphatically that user data was not accessed. Ubiquiti has mentioned that the database that may have been accessed contains a user’s name, email address, hashed password, and optionally the mailing address and phone number.

Depending on how the Ubiquiti authentication system is designed, that hashed password may be enough to log in to someone’s account. In any case, updating your password would invalidate the potentially compromised hash. This event underscores a complaint voiced by Ubiquiti users: Ubiquiti has been making it difficult to administrate hardware without a cloud-enabled account. Continue reading “This Week In Security: Ubiquiti, Nissan, Zyxel, And Dovecot” →