Author: Bryan Cockfield

1789 Articles

How Small Can The ESP32 Get?

September 7, 2023 by 25 Comments

At its core, the ESP32 chip is not much more than an integrated circuit, a huge mass of transistors sealed inside an epoxy resin package with some leads. Of course, most of us won’t buy discrete ESP32 chips with no support circuitry since it’s typically easier and often not that much more expensive to get them paired with development boards of some type for easy access to things like USB and GPIO. But these tiny chips need little in the way of support to get up and running as [Paul] demonstrates with this tiny ESP32 board.

The project started as a challenge for [Paul] to build the smallest ESP32 that would still function. That means carving away nearly everything normally found accompanying one of these chips. There is no charging circuitry, only one of the GPIO pins is accessible, and it even foregoes the WiFi antennas which eliminates the major reason most people would reach for this chip in the first place. But at this form factor even without wireless capabilities it still blows other chips of this stature, like the ATtiny series, out of the water.

Even though [Paul] built it as a challenge, it goes a long way to demonstrate what’s really needed to get one of these chips up and running properly. And plenty of projects don’t need a ton of I/O or Wi-Fi either, so presuming these individual chips can be found cheaply and boards produced for various projects its an excellent way to minimize size and perhaps even power requirements. You can make these boards even smaller than a USB-A connector if you want to take this process even further, too.

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Programming A Poker Game With GPT Help

September 7, 2023 by 10 Comments

Although ChatGPT generated a huge amount of hype around replacing white collar workers completely when it was first released to the public, the general consensus now is that it won’t outright replace anyone yet, but rather people who know how to use it as a tool will replace those who don’t. Getting started with it is not too hard, either, but you’ll of course need a project to work on to familiarize yourself with the tool. [Volos Projects] gave himself the challenge of writing a poker game using ChatGPT not as the opposing player, but as a co-designer in order to learn more about it as an assistant.

The poker game is being built on an ESP32 board with a built-in AMOLED screen. Five buttons are wired to the microcontroller to allow the player to select which cards to discard and which to keep. The bet for each hand can be raised or lowered much like the tabletop poker games often seen in bars and restaurants. To program it, though, ChatGPT was used to help design the code at each step of the way, first describing the overall goal and then building each function one-by-one like shuffling the deck, dealing the hand, and then replacing and dealing new cards.

For anyone who hasn’t yet explored using ChatGPT to help design their programming projects, this effort goes a long way to showing just how useful a tool it can be. For more complex tasks, though, it does take a little bit of knowledge on the part of the user because ChatGPT can often turn out nonsense or factually inaccurate information, but at least in a programming environment you’ll generally find out quickly when that happens. It’s not just a useful tool for writing programs, either. It can accomplish a lot of ancillary tasks related to programming as well, even if it’s not writing the code directly.

Thanks to [Peter] for the tip!

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Quake 2 Ported To Apple Watch

September 6, 2023 by No comments

DOOM always seems to spontaneously appear on any new device the day it’s released. From printers to industrial robots to pregnancy tests, it always makes its way on anything with an integrated circuit and a screen. But that’s not the only 90s video game with a cult following and and ability to run on hardware never intended for gaming. The early Quake games are still remarkably popular, and the second installment of this series was recently brought to the Apple Watch thanks to [ByteOverlord].

Building this classic for the Apple Watch requires using the original Quake files and some work with Xcode to get a package together that will run on the wrist-bound computer. There are a few other minimum system requirements to meet as well, but with all of that out of the way the latest release runs fairly well on this small watch. The controls have been significantly modified to use the Apple’s touch screen and digital crown instead of any peripherals, and as a result it’s not likely you’d win any matches if it was possible to cross-play with PC users with a setup like this, but it’s definitely playable although still missing a few features compared to the PC version.

This actually isn’t the first Quake game to be ported to the Apple Watch, either. The first version of Quake ran on this device thanks to [MyOwnClone]’s efforts a little over a year ago. It’s also not the first time we’ve seen Quake running on unusual Apple hardware, either. Take a look at this project which uses one of the early iPods to play this game, along with the scroll wheel for a one-of-a-kind controller.

Thanks to [Joni] for the tip!

Thin Keyboard Fits In Steam Deck Case

September 6, 2023 by 13 Comments

Although some of the first Android-powered smartphones had them and Blackberries were famous for them, physical keyboards on portable electronics like that quickly became a thing of the past. Presumably the cost to manufacture is too high and the margins too low regardless of consumer demand. Whatever the reason, if you want a small keyboard for your portable devices you’ll likely need to make one yourself like [Kārlis] did for the Steam Deck.

Unlike a more familiar mechanical keyboard build which prioritizes the feel and sound of the keyboard experience, this one sacrifices nearly every other design consideration in order to be thin enough to fit in the Steam Deck case. The PCB is designed to be flexible using copper tape cut to size with a vinyl cutter with all the traces running to a Raspberry Pi Pico which hosts the firmware and plugs into the Steam Deck’s USB port. The files for the PCB are available in KiCad and can be exported as SVG files for cutting.

In the end, [Kārlis] has a functioning keyboard that’s even a little more robust than was initially expected and which does fit alongside the Deck in its case. On the other hand, [Kārlis] describes the typing experience as “awful” due to its extreme thinness, but either way we applaud the amount of effort that went in to building a keyboard with this form factor. The Steam Deck itself is a platform which lends itself to all kinds of modifications as well, from the control sticks to the operating systems, and Valve will even show you how.

Streaming Video From An ESP32

September 5, 2023 by 11 Comments

The ESP32, while first thought to be little more than a way of adding wireless capabilities to other microcontrollers, has quickly replaced many of them with its ability to be programmed as its own platform rather than simply an accessory. This also paved the way for accessories of its own, such as various sensors and even a camera. This guide goes over taking the input from the camera and streaming it out over the network to multiple browsers.

On the server side of things, the ESP32 and its attached camera are set up with MQTT, a lightweight communications protocol which uses a publish/subscribe model to send information. The ESP32 is configured to publish its images only, but not subscribe to any other nodes. On the client side, the browser runs a JavaScript program which is able to gather these images and stitch them together into a video.

This can be quite a bit of data to send out over the ESP32’s compact hardware, so there are some tips and tricks for getting more out of these little devices, including using an external antenna for better Wi-Fi signal, or omitting it entirely in favor of Ethernet. As far as getting a lot out of a tiny microcontroller, though, leveraging MQTT really helps the ESP32 go a long way. These chips have come along way since they were first introduced; they’re powerful enough to act as 8-bit gaming consoles too.

Thanks to [Surfskidude] for the tip!

USB-C Power For Ham Radio

September 5, 2023 by 28 Comments

Even though manufacturers of handheld ham radios have been busy adding all sorts of bells and whistles into their portable offerings, for some reason, many of them lack a modern USB-C port. In the same vein, while some have USB for programming or otherwise communicating between the radio and a computer, very few can use USB for power. Instead , they rely on barrel jacks or antiquated charging cradles. If you’d like to modernize your handheld radio’s power source, take a look at what [jephthai] did to his Yaesu.

In the past, USB ports could be simply soldered onto a wire and used to power basically anything that took 5 VDC. But the radio in question needs 12 volts, so the key was to find a USB-C cable with the built-in electronics to negotiate the right amount of power from USB-PD devices. For this one, [jephthai] cut the barrel connector off his radio’s power supply and spliced in some Anderson power pole connectors so he could use either the standard radio charger or one spliced onto this special cable.

With this fairly simple modification out of the way, it’s possible to power the handheld radio for long outings with the proper USB battery bank on hand. For plenty of situations this is much preferable to toting around a 12 V battery, which was the method of choice for powering things like QRP rigs when operating off-grid.

Hands-Free Compass Uses Haptic Feedback

September 5, 2023 by 15 Comments

If you’ve never experienced it before, getting turned around on a cloudy day in the woods or getting lost during an event like a snowstorm can be extremely disorienting and stressful — not to mention dangerous. In situations where travel goes outside the beaten path, it’s a good idea to have some survival gear around, including a good compass. But if you need your hands for other things, or simply don’t want to have to stop often to check a compass, you might want to try out something like this belt-mounted haptic feedback compass.

The compass is based around a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller and uses a ULN2803a transistor array chip to control a series of motors. The motors are mounted all along a belt using custom 3D printed clips with wires woven to each through the holes in the belt. The firmware running on the belt communicates with an Android app via USB to control each of the motor’s vibration based on the direction the wearer is traveling and their desired heading. With certain patterns, the wearer can get their correct heading based on the vibrations they feel through the belt.

While it does rely on having a functioning phone, a modern smartphone’s built-in compass doesn’t require a signal to work. We would still recommend having a good simple compass in your pack as backup if you’re going to be far off the beaten path, though. There are other ways of navigation besides by compass, map, or GPS too. Have a shot at inertial navigation if you want a challenge.

Thanks to [Peter] for the tip!