Discrete 6502 Processor Sucked Into Linux By A BeagleBone

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

Often when we see projects using embedded Linux we think of them as not being hardware hacks. But this is a horse of an entirely different color. [Matt Porter] is leveraging a little known feature to directly access a 6502 processor from inside a Linux environment. In other words, this hack lets you write code for a 6502 processor, then load and execute it all from the same Linux shell.

The project leverages the best parts of the BeagleBone, which is an ARM development board running embedded Linux. It’s got a lot of GPIO pins that are easy to get via the boards pin sockets. And the design of the processor makes it fast enough to work well as a host for the 6502 chip. Which brings us back to how this is done. The Linux kernel has support for Remote Processors and that’s the route [Matt] traveled. With everything wired up and a fair amount of kernel tweaking he’s able to map the chip to the /dev/bvuart directory. If you want all the details the best resource is this set of slides (PDF) from his talk at Embedded Linux Conference – Europe.

This is one way to get out of all that hardware work [Quinn Dunki] has been doing to build her own computer around a 6502 chip.

[Thanks Andrew via Dangerous Prototypes]

Outlet Charging Station Retrofitted With The Guts Of A WiFi Router

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 1 Comment

While wandering around the aisles of his local electronics store this Westinghouse USB charging station caught [James’] eye. He sized it up and realized it would make the perfect enclosure for a small WiFi router. And so began his project to turn a TP-Link TL-WR703N into a DIY Pwn Plug.

The basic idea is to include hidden capabilities in an otherwise normal-looking device. For instance, take a look at this ridiculously overpriced power strip that also happens to spy on your activities. It doesn’t sound like [James] has any black hat activities planned, but just wanted an interesting application for the router.

He removed the original circuit board from the charging station to make room for his own internals. He inserted a cellphone charger to power the router, then desoldered the USB ports and RJ-45 connector for the circuit board to be positioned in the openings of the case. He even included a headphone jack that breaks out the serial port. There’s a lot of new stuff packed into there, but all of the original features of the charging station remain intact.

Pick And Place That Can’t Pick Or Place… But It Looks Very Promising

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

This sexy piece of CNC can really fly. It’s a pick and place machine which [Danh Trinh] has been working on. The thing is, so far it lacks the ability to move components at all. But the good news is the rest of the system seems to be there.

He posted a demo video of his progress so far which you can see embedded after the break. He starts of by showing off his computer vision software which he wrote in C#. The demonstration includes the view from the gantry-mounted camera, as well as the computer filtering which seems to accurately locate the solder pads and silk screen on the PCB. The second half of the video looks at the hardware seen above. It’s just executing some static code but the whine of those stepper motors is music to our ears. [Danh] reports that the movements of the needle that will eventually serve as the tip of the vacuum tweezer seem to be very accurate.

These home-built pick and place projects are quite a challenge, but we’ve seen a lot of really awesome work on them lately.

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More Continuous Wave Radar Fun

November 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

[Gregory Charvat] continues to have a great time testing out radar systems. He and a friend have pointed the radar out the garage door and are using it to see who can reach a high running velocity.

The last time we looked in on [Greg’s] work he had acquired an old police radar unit and wired it up to use with a laptop. The hardware he’s working with now is a lot more bulky and we don’t think it will be hitting the road with him anytime soon (although it is on wheels). The video after the break starts off which an overview of the test system which is mounted in a waist-high rack. He illustrates how Labview is monitoring the radar inputs and then moves on to show off the hardware which is actually harvesting the data. The box is quite versatile, able to run five different systems and includes a slew of different connector types.

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Bathroom Fan That Switches Itself On When It Gets Steamy Or Smelly

November 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

At first we thought that [Brandon Dunson] was writing in to tell us he’s too lazy to fix his bathroom fan. What he really meant is that simply replacing the unit isn’t nearly enough fun. Instead, he developed his own bathroom fan trigger based on stinky or humid air conditions. He didn’t publish a post about the project but we’ve got his entire gallery of build images after the break.

The initial inspiration for the project came from a twitter-connected fart sensing office chair. Hiding behind the character display you can see the MQ-4 methane gas sensor which he picked up for the project. But since there’s also a shower in the bathroom he included a humidity sensor with the project. Both are monitored by an ATmega328 which averages 10 readings from each sensor before comparing the data with a set threshold. If the sensors read above this level a relay turns on the bathroom fan.

Don’t be confused by the small DC fans seen above; [Brandon] is still using a proper exhaust fan. These are just used to help circulate the air around the sensors so that low-hanging smells will still trigger the system. This has got to be the perfect thing for a heavily used restroom.

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Raspberry Pi Reaches Critical Mass As XBMC Hardware

November 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 96 Comments

For years I’ve been dreaming of a streaming media device that could just be stuck to the back of a television. Since XBMC has been far and away my favorite set-top box software, I’ve closely monitored hardware developments that can run that package. Now I think it’s time to declare that the Raspberry Pi has achieved the base specifications to be branded the XBMC device that rules them all.

There are a huge range of opinions on this topic, but please hear me out after the break to see what has brought me to this conclusion.

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MSP430 Launchpad Game Of Life Shield

November 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

[100uf] built an LED matrix shield for the MSP430 launchpad. His goal with this design was to have it play Conway’s Game of Life. It does just that, as you can see in the clip after the break. But it’s just waiting to learn some more tricks. After he tires of watching the cellular automaton he can try his hand at making some LED pendant animations.

As you can tell, the board was made in his home workshop. It’s not etched, but milled using the CNC machine shown in this image gallery. This is a single-sided PCB, which works well enough for the surface mount components and the downward facing pin sockets. But we wonder how difficult it was to solder the legs of that 8×8 LED matrix. It does have plastic feet at each corner that serve as standoffs to separate the body from the copper layer. But it still looks like a tight space into which he needed to get his iron and some solder.

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