Author: Kristina Panos

1861 Articles

Lunchbox Cyberdeck Is A Tasty Build

June 9, 2020 by 25 Comments

One of our favorite things about the cyberdeck concept has got to be the versatility of this mobile computing medium. Some cyberdecks lean toward making the user into a full-on Snow Crash gargoyle, and others are more fold-and-go like laptops. This discreet deck from [Andres Borray] looks as though it might have a PB&J and a bag of chips inside.

Instead, there’s a Gherkin. What? For the uninitiated, that’s a handmade 40% 30% mechanical keyboard right there and it’s called the Gherkin. It has more keys than it appears, thanks to layers in the firmware. By long pressing any key on the bottom row, the entire map changes to access stuff like numbers and F keys.

This lunchbox is powered by a Raspberry Pi 4 and uses the official Pi display with the touch input enabled. Even so, there’s a baby trackball right there under the thumbs. [Andres] designed and printed panels for both sides to mount everything, and those files will be available soon along with a more detailed build log.

You can do anything you want with a cyberdeck build — it’s kind of the point. Want to program microcontrollers wherever? Get your feet wet with a cyberduck.

Via reddit

Bertha Benz Pushed The Automobile Toward Production

June 9, 2020 by 25 Comments

Who invented the automobile? The answer depends a little bit on your definition of the word. The first practical gas-powered carriage was built by Karl Benz, who later merged his company with Daimler Motor Group to form Mercedez-Benz.

Karl Benz was a design visionary whose first fascinations were with locomotives and bicycles. His 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen was the first automobile to generate its own power, which was made with a two-stroke engine and transmitted to the rear axle by a pair of chains. He didn’t think it was ready for the road, and he was mostly right.

Bertha Benz, Karl’s wife and business partner, believed in her husband’s invention. She had been there since the beginning, and provided much of the funding for it along the way. If she hadn’t taken it out for a secret, illegal joyride, the Motorwagen may have never left the garage.

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Bust Your Own Ghosts With A PKE Meter

June 7, 2020 by 17 Comments

You know, we wouldn’t be that surprised if aliens or ghosts show up for real before this year is out. If paranormal becomes part of the new normal, it might be nice to have a PKE meter that can detect spirits and help get a head start on figuring out what they want from us.

Yes, that’s right — instead of just lighting up whenever ghosts are near, [starscream205]’s meter goes the extra yard and translates spiritual energy into English words that scroll across the LED matrix. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3B+ and a sense HAT, which takes spatial and environmental readings and assigns different words based on the results.

Now [starscream205] can go fearlessly into the night, guided by the night vision camera on the end, and watch for ghosts on the screen. Instead of a typical Pi-compatible screen, this is from a car back-up camera system and has been modified to work with the Pi.

We’ve seen a few PKE meters around here before, but they usually do things such as detect radiation. It’s nice to see one that’s faithful to the original purpose.

Automatic Planet Finder Is Out Of This World

June 5, 2020 by 5 Comments

When the world is on your shoulders, it can be relaxing to remember that we’re just hairless monkeys hurtling through space on a big rock alongside a lot of other rocks. If you find yourself wondering where exactly the other major rocks are instead of worrying, we think that’s a good sign.

Wherever [snowbiscuit] lives, there’s a large planet finder in a public square somewhere that stopped locating rocks a long time ago. Hungry to watch such a thing in action, [snowbiscuit] built a great-looking tabletop version that uses the Horizontal Coordinate System to locate planets. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3, which queries NASA for azimuth and altitude data and combines that data with a predetermined north reading to point out whatever planet was selected by spinning the printed telescope on top. The telescope itself is non-working, and returns to north after a few seconds to wait for input.

This project is wide open for remixing if you want to make your own. As lovely as it is now, designing around a slip ring would eliminate all those long wires and make it more sleek. Take a peek after the break.

Don’t stop your desktop space toy collection there — build an ISS-tracking lamp to go with it.

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Day Clock Monitors Air Quality Of The Great Indoors

June 4, 2020 by 6 Comments

As the world settles into this pandemic, some things are still difficult to mentally reckon, such as the day of the week. We featured a printed day clock a few months ago that used a large pointer to provide this basic psyche-grounding information. In the years since then, [Jeff Thieleke] whipped up a feature-rich remix that adds indoor air quality readings and a lot more.

Like [phreakmonkey]’s original day tripper, an ESP32 takes care of figuring out what day it is and moves a 9 g servo accordingly. [Jeff] wanted a little more visual action, so the pointer moves a tad bit every hour. A temperature/humidity sensor and a separate CO₂ sensor output their readings to an LCD screen mounted under the pointer. Since [Jeff] is keeping this across the basement workshop from the bench, the data is also available from a web server running on the ESP32 via XML and JSON, and the day clock can get OTA updates.

Need a little more specificity than just eyeballing a pointer? Here’s a New Times clock that gives slightly more detail.

Rotary Controller Dials In PC Volume

June 4, 2020 by 9 Comments

As wonderful as mechanical keyboards are, most of the pre-fab and group buy models out there have zero media controls. If you want rotary encoders and OLED screens to show what function layer you’re working in, you’ll probably have to build your own keyboard from the ground up.

Hackaday alum [Cameron Coward] got around this problem by building an electromechanical buddy for his keyboard that works as a volume control. Now that we don’t rely on them to make phone calls, rotary dials are a fun throwback to a time that seems simpler based on its robust and rudimentary technology. This one is from a lovely burnt orange Bell Trimline phone, which was peak rotary dial and one of the idea’s last gasps before tone dialing took over completely.

Operationally speaking, [Cameron] is reading in the dial’s pulses with an Arduino Nano and using a Python script to monitor the serial connection and translate the pulses to volume control. We like that this is isn’t a volume knob in the traditional sense — it’s a game of percentages. Dialing ‘2’ gives 20% volume across all programs, and ‘8’ raises it to 80% of maximum. Need to mute? Just dial ‘0’, and you’ll begin to understand why people wanted to move on from rotary dialing. It won’t take that long, but it’s not instant. Check out the demo after the break.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a rotary dial used to control volume, but that’s one of the minor selling points of this rotary cell phone.

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