Author: Dan Maloney

3367 Articles

Retrotechtacular: Circuit Potting, And PCBs The Hard Way

June 15, 2023 by 8 Comments

There was a time when the very idea of building a complex circuit with the intention of destroying it would have been anathema to any electrical engineer. The work put into designing a circuit, procuring the components, and assembling it, generally with point-to-point wiring and an extravagant amount of manual labor, only to blow it up? Heresy!

But, such are the demands of national defense, and as weapons morphed into “weapon systems” after World War II, the need arose for electronics that were not only cheap enough to blow up but also tough enough to survive the often rough ride before the final bang. The short film below, simply titled “Potted and Printed Circuits“, details the state of the art in miniaturization and modularization of electronics, circa 1952. It was produced by the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), the main electronics R&D entity in the UK during the war which was responsible for inventions such as radar, radio navigation, and jamming technology.

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Flipper Zero “Smoking” A Smart Meter Is A Bad Look For Hardware Hackers

June 14, 2023 by 126 Comments

Alright, we’re calling it — we need a pejorative equivalent to “script kiddie” to describe someone using a Flipper Zero for annoyingly malign purposes. If you need an example, check out the apparent smart meter snuff video below.

The video was posted by [Peter Fairlie], who we assume is the operator of the Flipper Zero pictured. The hapless target smart meter is repeatedly switched on and off with the Flipper — some smart meters have contactors built in so that service can be disconnected remotely for non-payment or in emergencies — which rapidly starts and stops a nearby AC compressor. Eventually, the meter releases a puff of Magic Smoke, filling its transparent enclosure and obscuring the display. The Flipper’s operator mutters a few expletives at the results, but continues turning the meter on and off even more rapidly before eventually running away from the scene of the crime.

We qualify this as “apparent” because the minute we saw this over on RTL-SDR.com, we reached out to reverse engineer par excellence and smart meter aficionado [Hash] for an opinion. Spoiler alert: [Hash] thinks it’s an elaborate hoax; the debunking starts at the 4:32 mark in the second video below. The most damning evidence is that the model of smart meter shown in the video doesn’t even have a disconnect, so whatever [Peter] is controlling with the Flipper, it ain’t the meter. Also, [Hash] figured out where [Peter] lives — he doxxed himself in a previous video — and not only does the meter shown in the video not belong to the Canadian power company serving the house, StreetView shows that there’s a second meter, suggesting that this meter may have been set up specifically for the lulz.

It should go without saying that Hackaday is about as supportive of hardware experimentation as an organization can be. But there have to be some boundaries, and even if this particular video turns out to be a hoax, it clearly steps over the line. Stuff like this paints a poor picture of what hardware hacking is all about, and leads to unintended consequences that make it harder for all of us to get the tools we need.

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Hacking Headaches: Keeping A Neurostimulator Working

June 13, 2023 by 11 Comments

We’ve heard a ton of stories over the years about abandoned technology — useful widgets, often cloud-based, that attracted an early and enthusiastic following, only to have the company behind the tech go bankrupt or decide to end operations for business reasons, which effectively bricks hundreds or perhaps millions of otherwise still-usable devices. Now imagine that happening to your brain.

[Markus Möllmann-Bohle] doesn’t have to imagine it, because he’s living it. [Markus] suffers from chronic cluster headaches, an often debilitating condition that leaves a person with intractable pain. Having lived with these headaches since 1987, and treating them with medications with varying degrees of success, [Markus] was finally delivered from his personal hell by a sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) neuromodulator. The device consists of an unpowered stimulator implanted under the cheekbone that’s wired into the SPG, a bundle of nerves that supply the sinuses, nasal mucosa, tear glands, and many other structures in the face.

To reverse a cluster headache, [Markus] applies an external transmitter to the side of his face, which powers the implant and directs it to stimulate the SPG with low-frequency impulses, which interferes with a reflex loop that causes the symptoms associated with a cluster headache. [Markus] has been using the implant for years, but now its manufacturer has rolled up operations, leaving him with a transmitter in need of maintenance and the possibility of facing his debilitating headaches once again.

The video below shows [Markus]’s workaround, which essentially amounts to opening up the device and swapping in a new LiPo battery pack. [Markus], an electrical engineer by training, admits it’s not exactly a major hack, but it’s keeping him going for now. But he’s clearly worried because eventually, something will happen to that transmitter that’s beyond his skills to repair.

There’s cause for hope, though, as the intellectual property of the original implant company has been purchased by an outfit called Realeve, with the intention to continue support. That would be a lifesaver for [Markus] and everyone relying on this technology to live a normal life, so here’s hoping there’s no need for future hacking heroics. But as the video below details, there is a lot of neurotechnology out there, and the potential for having that bricked by a corporate decision has to be terrifying to the people who depend on them. Continue reading “Hacking Headaches: Keeping A Neurostimulator Working” →

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Hackaday Links: June 11, 2023

June 11, 2023 by 20 Comments

As Tom Nardi mentioned in this week’s podcast, the Northeast US is pretty apocalyptically socked in with smoke from wildfires in Canada. It’s what we here in Idaho call “August,” so we have plenty of sympathy for what they’re going through out there. People are turning to technology to ease their breathing burden, with reports that Tesla drivers are activating the “Bioweapon Defense Mode” of their car’s HVAC system. We had no idea this mode existed, honestly, and it sounds pretty cool — the cabin air system apparently shuts off outside air intake and runs the fan at full speed to keep the cabin under positive pressure, forcing particulates — or, you know, anthrax — to stay outside. We understand there’s a HEPA filter in the mix too, which probably does a nice job of cleaning up the air in the cabin. It’s a clever idea, and hats off to Tesla for including this mode, although perhaps the name is a little silly. Here’s hoping it’s not one of those subscription services that can get turned off at a moment’s notice, though.

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2023 Hackaday Prize: The Primordial Soup’s On With This Modified Miller-Urey Experiment

June 10, 2023 by 5 Comments

It’s a pretty sure bet that anyone who survived high school biology has heard about the Miller-Urey experiment that supported the hypothesis that the chemistry of life could arise from Earth’s primordial atmosphere. It was literally “lightning in a bottle,” with a mix of gases like methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and water in a closed-loop glass apparatus and a pair of electrodes to provide a spark to simulate lightning lancing across the early prebiotic sky. [Miller] and [Urey] showed that amino acids, the building blocks of protein, could be cooked up under conditions that existed before life began.

Fast forward 70 years, and Miller-Urey is still relevant, perhaps more so as we’ve extended our reach into space and found places with conditions similar to those on early Earth. This modified version of Miller-Urey is a citizen science effort to update the classic experiment to keep up with those observations, plus perhaps just enjoy the fact that it’s possible to whip up the chemistry of life from practically nothing, right in your own garage. Continue reading “2023 Hackaday Prize: The Primordial Soup’s On With This Modified Miller-Urey Experiment” →

Listening To The ISS On The Cheap

June 10, 2023 by 36 Comments

Like any hobby, amateur radio has no upper bounds on what you can spend getting geared up. Shacks worth tens of thousands of dollars are easy to come by, and we’ll venture a guess that there are hams out there pushing six figures with their investment in equipment. But hands down, the most expensive amateur radio station ever has to be the one aboard the  International Space Station.

So what do you need to talk to a $100 billion space station? As it turns out, about $60 worth of stuff will do, as [saveitforparts] shows us in the video below. The cross-band repeater on the ISS transmits in the 70-cm ham band, meaning all that’s needed to listen in on the proceedings is a simple “handy talkie” transceiver like the $25-ish Baofeng shown. Tuning it to the 437.800-MHz downlink frequency with even a simple whip antenna should get you some reception when the ISS passes over.

In our experience, the stock Baofeng antenna isn’t up to the job, so something better like the Nagoya shown in the video is needed. Better still is a three-element Yagi tuned down slightly with the help of a NanoVNA; coupled with data on when the ISS will be within line-of-sight, picking up the near-constant stream of retransmissions from the station as Earth-based hams work it should be a snap — even though [saveitforparts] only listened to the downlink frequency here, for just a bit more of an investment it’s also possible for licensed hams to uplink to the ISS on 145.900 MHz.

For those who want a slightly higher level of difficulty, [saveitforparts] also has some tips on automating tracking with an old motorized mount for CCTV cameras. Pitchfork notwithstanding, it’s not the best antenna tracker, but it has promise, and we’re eager to see how it pans out — sorry. But in general, the barrier to entry for getting into space communications is so low that you could easily make this a weekend project. We’ve been discussing this and other projects on the new #ham-shack channel over on the Hackaday Discord. You should pop over there and check it out — we’d be happy to see you there.

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These 3D Printed Biocatalytic Fibers Scrub Carbon Dioxide

June 9, 2023 by 12 Comments

On today’s episode of “What If?” — what if the Apollo 13 astronauts had a 3D printer? Well, for one thing, they may have been able to avoid all the futzing with duct tape and procedure list covers to jury rig the lithium hydroxide filters, at least if they’d known about these 3D printed enzymatic CO2 filters. And time travel…they probably would have needed that too.

A bit of a stretch, yes, but environmental CO2 scrubbing is at least one use case for what [Jialong Shen] et al from the Textile Engineering Department at North Carolina State University have developed here. The star of the show isn’t so much the 3D printing — although squirting out a bio-compatible aerogel and cross-linking it with UV light on the fly is pretty cool. Rather, the key to developing a CO2-scrubbing textile is carbonic anhydrase, or CA, a ubiquitous enzyme that’s central to maintaining acid-base homeostasis. CA is a neat little enzyme that coordinates a zinc ion in its active site and efficiently catalyzes the addition of water to carbon dioxide to produce bicarbonate and hydrogen ions. A single CA molecule can catalyze the conversion of up to a million CO2 molecules per second, making it very attractive as a CO2 filter.

In the current work, an aerogel of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate/poly(ethylene oxide) (PEG-DA/EO) was used to entrap CA molecules, holding them in place in a polymer matrix to protect them from denaturation while still allowing access to gaseous CO2. The un-linked polymers were mixed with photoinitiators and a solution of carbonic anhydrase and extruded through a fine nozzle with a syringe pump. The resulting thread was blasted with 280–450 nm UV light, curing the thread instantly. The thread is either wound up as a mono-filament for later weaving or printed directly into a 2D grid.

The filament proved to be quite good at CO2 capture, managing to scavenge 24% of the gas from a mixture passed over it. What’s more, the entrapped enzyme appears to be quite stable, surviving washes with various solvents and physical disruptions like twisting and bending. It’s an exciting development in catalytic textiles, and besides its obvious environmental uses, something like this could make cheap, industrial-scale bioreactors easier to build and run.

Photo credits: [Sen Zhang] and [Jialong Shen], NC State; [Rachel Boyd], Spectrum News 1

[via Phys.org]