A Handheld Replica Sound Voltex Game

November 11, 2024 by Lewin Day No comments

Sound Voltex is a music game from Konami; in fact, it’s a whole series of arcade games! [Luke] is a big fan, so decided to build a hardware handheld to play the Unnamed Sound Voltex Clone. No—Voltex is not a typo, that’s the name.

If you’re unfamiliar, the Unnamed SDVX Clone is basically a community-built game that’s inspired by the original Konami titles. [Luke] decided to build a handheld console for playing the game, which is more akin to the arcade experience versus playing it on a desktop computer.

[Luke’s] build relies on a Raspberry Pi 4B, which donates its considerable processing power and buckets of RAM to the project. The Pi was installed into a 3D-printed case with a battery pack, touchscreen, and speakers, along with multiple arcade buttons and rotary encoders for controlling the game. Booting the Pi and clicking the icon on the desktop starts up the Unnamed Sound Voltex Clone. The game itself will be fairly familiar to any rhythm game player, though it’s a tough more sophisticated than Audiosurf. [Luke] demonstrates the gameplay on YouTube, and the finished project looks great.

We always love seeing handheld hacks, from PlayStations that never were to retro DIY creations. Video after the break.

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Photo manipulation of Skynet-1A hovering a planet

Britain’s Oldest Satellite On The Move: A Space Curiosity

November 11, 2024 by Heidi Ulrich 9 Comments

Space and mystery always spark our curiosity, so when we stumbled upon the story of Skynet-1A, Britain’s first communication satellite from 1969, we knew it was worth exploring. The BBC recently highlighted its unexpected movement across the sky – you can check out their full coverage here. The idea that this half-century-old hunk of metal mysteriously shifted orbits leaves us with more questions than answers. Who moved Skynet-1A, and why?

Launched just months after the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Skynet-1A stood as a symbol of Cold War innovation, initially placed above East Africa to support British military communications. But unlike the silent drift of inactive satellites heading naturally eastward, Skynet-1A defied orbital norms, popping up halfway across the globe above the Americas. This wasn’t mere chance; someone or something had made it fire its thrusters, likely in the mid-1970s.

Experts like Dr. Stuart Eves and UCL’s Rachel Hill suggest the possibility of control being temporarily transferred to the US, particularly during maintenance periods at the UK’s RAF Oakhanger. Still, the specifics remain buried in lost records and decades-old international collaborations. Skynet-1A’s journey serves as a stark reminder of the persistent challenges in space and the gaps in our historical data.

Looking for more space oddities? Hackaday has some interesting articles on space debris. You can read the original BBC article here.

Automated Weed Spraying Drone Needs No Human Intervention

November 11, 2024 by Danie Conradie 4 Comments

Battling weeds can be expensive, labor intensive and use large amounts of chemicals. To help make this easier [NathanBuilds] has developed V2 of his open-source drone weed spraying system, complete with automated battery swaps, herbicide refills, and an AI vision system for weed identification.

The drone has a 3D printed frame, doubling as a chemical reservoir. V1 used a off-the-shelf frame, with separate tank. Surprisingly, it doesn’t look like [Nathan] had issues with leaks between the layer lines. For autonomous missions, it uses ArduPilot running on a PixHawk, coupled with RTK GPS for cm-level accuracy and a LiDAR altimeter. [Nathan] demonstrated the system in a field where he is trying to eradicate invasive blackberry bushes while minimizing the effect on the native prairie grass. He uses a custom image classification model running on a Raspberry Pi Zero, which only switches on the sprayers when it sees blackberry bushes in the frame. The Raspberry Pi Global Shutter camera is used to get blur-free images.

At just 305×305 mm (1×1 ft), the drone has limited herbicide capacity, and we expect the flights to be fairly short. For the automated pit stops, the drone lands on a 6×8 ft pad, where a motorized capture system pulls the drone into the reload bay. Here a linear actuator pushes a new battery into the side of the drone while pushing the spend battery one out the other side. The battery unit is a normal LiPo battery in 3D-printed frame. The terminal are connected to copper wire and tape contacts on the outside the battery unit, which connect to matching contacts in the drone and charging receptacles. This means the battery can easily short if it touches a metal surface, but a minor redesign could solve this quickly. There are revolving receptacles on either side of the reload bay, which immediately start charging the battery when ejected from the drone.

Developing a fully integrated system like this is no small task, and it shows a lot of potential. It might look a little rough around the edges, but [Nathan] has released all the design files and detailed video tutorials for all the subsystems, so it’s ready for refinement.

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Thermoelectric Blaster Flings Ice Projectiles

November 11, 2024 by Lewin Day 37 Comments

Nerf blasters are fun and all, but flinging foam can get old. Picking it up again, even moreso. This blaster from [Concept Crafted Creations] gets around that annoying problem by shooting ice instead.

The concept was to build a better water gun with longer range—and what better way to do that than by shooting ice instead? The blaster relies on a PVC air tank for propulsion—one of the most controversial design choices you can make if you read the comments around here. It’s charged by a small air compressor, and dumping the air is handled by a solenoid valve. So far, so simple.

What makes this blaster special is where it gets its ammunition from. The blaster uses a custom CNC-machined block from PCBway to act as a freeze chamber. Water enters an aluminum block, and is cooled by thermoelectric elements. Once the projectile has frozen inside the chamber, it’s stuck in place, so the chamber is then heated by a small heating element. This melts the projectile just enough to allow it to be fired.

It’s a complicated but ingenious way of building an ice blaster. It does pack some real punch, too. It shoots the ice projectiles hard enough to shatter wine glasses. That’s enough to tell us you don’t want to be aiming this thing at your pals in a friendly match of Capture the Flag. Stick to paintballs, perhaps. Video after the break. Continue reading “Thermoelectric Blaster Flings Ice Projectiles” →

Making A Unique Type Of Wind Gauge For Home Assistant Use

November 11, 2024 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Sometimes, it’s nice to know how windy it is outside. Knowing the direction of the wind can be a plus, too. To that end, [Sebastian Sokołowski] built himself an unusual anemometer—a wind gauge—to feed into his smart home system.

[Sebastian’s] build is able to tell both wind speed and direction—and with no moving parts! Sort of, anyway. That makes the design altogether different from the usual cup type anemometers with wind vanes that you might be used to seeing on home weather stations. [Sebastian] wanted to go a different route—he wanted a sensor that wouldn’t be so subject to physical wear over time.

The build relies on strain gauges. Basically, [Sebastian] 3D printed a sail-like structure that will flex under the influence of the wind. With multiple strain gauges mounted on the structure, it’s possible to determine the strength of the wind making it flex and in what direction. [Sebastian] explains how this is achieved, particularly involving the way the device compensates for typical expansion and contraction due to temperature changes.

It’s a really unique way to measure wind speed and direction; we’d love to learn more about how it performs in terms of precision, accuracy, and longevity—particularly with regards to regular mechanical and ultrasonic designs. We’ll be keeping a close eye on [Sebastian’s] work going forward. Video after the break.

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Retrogadgets: Oscilloscope Cameras

November 11, 2024 by Al Williams 23 Comments

Today, if you want to get a picture from your oscilloscope — maybe to send to a collaborator or to stick in a document or blog post — it is super easy. You can push an image to a USB stick or sometimes even just use the scope’s PC or web interface to save the picture directly to your computer. Of course, if it is on the computer, you could use normal screen capture software. But that hasn’t always been the case. Back in the days when scopes were heavy and expensive, if you wanted to capture an image from the tube, you took a picture. While you might be able to hold up your camera to the screen, they made specific cameras just for this purpose.

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Videonics: The Dawn Of Home Video Editing, Revisited

November 11, 2024 by Heidi Ulrich 3 Comments

Here’s a slice of history that will make any retro-tech fan grin: before TikTok and iMovie, there was a beast called the Videonics DirectED Plus. This early attempt at democratizing video editing saved enthusiasts from six-figure pro setups—but only barely. Popular Science recently brought this retro marvel back to life in a video made using the very system that inspired it. Picture it: 1987, VHS at its peak, where editing your kid’s jazz recital video required not just love but the patience of a saint, eight VCRs, three Videonics units, two camcorders, and enough remotes to operate a space shuttle.

The Videonics DirectED Plus held promise with a twist. It offered a way to bypass monstrous editing rigs, yet mastering its panel of buttons felt like deciphering hieroglyphs. The ‘Getting Started’ tape was the analog era’s lifeline, often missing and leaving owners hunting through second-hand stores, forgotten basements, and enthusiast forums. Fast forward to today, and recreating this rig isn’t just retro fever—it’s a scavenger hunt.

Once assembled, the system resembled a spaghetti junction of cables and clunky commands. One wrong button press could erase precious minutes of hard-won footage. Still, the determination of DIY pioneers drove the machine’s success, setting the stage for the plug-and-play ease we now take for granted.

These adventures into retro tech remind us of the grit behind today’s seamless content creation. Curious for more? Watch the full journey by Popular Science here.

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