Here’s How To Sniff Out An LCD Protocol, But How Do You Look Up The Controller?

July 30, 2021 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

Nothing feels better than getting a salvaged component to do your bidding. But in the land of electronic displays, the process can quickly become a quagmire. For more complex displays, the secret incantation necessary just to get the things to turn on can be a non-starter. Today’s exercise targets a much simpler character display and has the added benefit of being able to sniff the data from a functioning radio unit.

When [Amen] upgraded his DAB radio he eyed the 16×2 character display for salvage. With three traces between the display and the controller it didn’t take long to trace out the two data lines using an oscilloscope. Turing on the scope’s decoding function verified his hunch that it was using I2C, and gave him plenty of data to work from. This included a device address, initialization string, and that each character was drawn on screen using two bytes on the data bus.

He says that some searching turned up the most likely hardware: a Winstar WO1602I-TFH- AT derived from an ST7032 controller. What we’re wondering is if there is a good resource for searching this kind of info? Our go-to is the LCD display and controller reference we covered here back in March. It’s a great resource, but turns up bupkis on this particular display. Are we relegated to using DuckDuckGo for initialization strings and hoping someone’s published a driver or a logic dump of these parts in the past, or is there a better way to go about this? Let us know in the comments!

Hackaday Podcast 128: 3D-Printing Injection Molds, Squiggly Audio Tape, Curvy Mirrors, And Space Cadets

July 23, 2021 by Mike Szczys No comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys bubble sort the best hardware hacks so you don’t miss ’em. This week we’re smitten by the perfection of a telephone tape loop message announcer. We enjoyed seeing Blender’s ray tracing to design mirrors, and a webcam and computer monitor to stand in for triple-projector-based fractal fun. There’s a bit of injection molding, some Nintendo Switch disassembling, and the Internet on a calculator. We close the show with a pair of Space stories, including the happy news this week that Wally Funk finally made it there!

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Reimagine Supportive Tech For The Newest Hackaday Prize Challenge

July 19, 2021 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

Beginning right now, the 2021 Hackaday Prize challenges you to Reimagine Supportive Tech. Quite frankly, this is all about shortcuts to success. Can we make it easier for people to learn about science and technology? Can we break down some barriers that keep people from taking up DIY as a hobby (or way of life)? What can we do to build on the experience and skill of one another?

For instance, to get into building your own electronics, you need a huge dedicated electronics lab, right? Of course that’s nonsense, but we only know that because we’ve already been elbow-deep into soldering stations and vacuum tweezers. To the outsider, this looks like an unclimbable mountain. What if I told you that you could build electrics at any desk, and make it easy to store everything away in between hacking sessions? That sounds like a job for [M.Hehr’s] portable workbench & mini lab project. Here’s a blueprint that can take a beginner from zero to solder smoke while having fun along the way.

What about breaking down complex topics into something us newbies can swallow? Radio signals are all around us, but again the barriers to getting into SDR are many and varied. A great bit of supportive tech would be a project that shows simple hardware and shares a virtual machine with the open source software toolchain already set to go. A beginner could pick something like this up and be listening for transponders from airplanes passing by in a matter of hours.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve spent countless joyful hours learning how to do some difficult and fascinating stuff. Share the wealth! Take an existing hardware concept and make it modular and easy to use. Refine an existing design to make it more approachable for users with any range of mobility challenges. Or pull together a beginner-friendly project to move STEM education forward.

Ten finalists from this round will win $500 and be shuttled onto the final round judging in October for a chance at the $25,000 Hackaday Prize and four other top prizes. Start your project page on Hackaday.io and use the dropdown in the left sidebar to enter it into the 2021 Hackaday Prize.

Final Weekend For Work-From-Home Challenge Of The Hackaday Prize

July 16, 2021 by Mike Szczys No comments

This is the final weekend to enter your work-from-home project in the 2021 Hackaday Prize. We know how much fun it is to be creative with home setups that keep let you work without disrupting your non-work life. Show off what you’ve done and you’ll be in the running for some big cash prizes.

Among the lowest hanging fruit is improving your home’s window to the work world. Anything you can do to make your audio and video experience better on video calls is going to make you happier and make the virtual office feel more like a team. [Andy Lustig] built a dedicated video call control panel that can cut off mic and camera, share his screen, switch views, and leave the meeting. Having always-available physical controls for these is a huge power-up for your cubicle-away-from-the-office.

Long hours hunched over the computer are going to take a toll on your body. There are a number of projects entered in the contest that remind you to take breaks, but [ImageryEel] took at different approach. It’s a wearable posture pack that uses an IMU to measure the position of your spine. You’ll get push notifications when the posture pack notices your upper back is beginning to slump. Hopefully this makes it a self-correcting problem!

Having a cozy place to do you work is great for both your physical and emotional health. [Peter van der Walt] is taking the concept of a home “battlestation” to another level, with a reclining chair design that wraps dual monitors around you as you settle in for the work day.

It’s not too late. Make this weekend into your own mini hackathon and get those entries in by Monday morning. Ten finalists will each receive a $500 cash prize and be in the running for the final round beginning at the end of October. Ultimately, one entry will claim the $25,000 Hackaday Prize along with top prizes for four other finalists.

Begin your project on Hackaday.io today, and use the “Submit Project To” dropdown box in the left sidebar of your project page to enter it in the contest. Good luck!

Hackaday Podcast 127: Whippletree Clamps, Sniffing Your Stomach Radio, Multimeter Hum Fix, And C64 Demo; No C64

July 16, 2021 by Mike Szczys No comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams help you get caught up on a week of wonder hacks. We don’t remember seeing a floppy drive headline the demoscene, but sure enough, there’s a C64 demo that performs after the computer is disconnected. What causes bench tools to have unreliable measurements? Sometimes a poor crystal choice lets AC ruin the party. We dive into the ongoing saga of the Audacity open source project’s change of ownership, and talk about generator exciter circuits — specifically their role in starting grid-scale generators from shutdown.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)

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Down The Fabrication Rabbit Hole To Build A Recumbent Bike

July 14, 2021 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

‘Tis the time of the year to find as many reasons as possible to shut off the smartphone and get yourself outside. [Rich Olson’s] newest excuse is a recumbent bicycle he built from at least three donor bikes. Of course we’ve seen any number of bike mods over the years (the tall bikes that integrate a ladder to climb up to the saddle have always held a special place in our hearts), but [Rich] left us a nice trail of bread crumbs on how to get into this yourself without breaking the bank.

He worked from a set of open source plans, with additional instructions laid out by [Brian in Ohio] in a bicycle hacking series on the Hacker Public Radio podcast. We learn in the first installment that you can get your hands on a torch that uses oxygen and MAP gas to braze the pipe joints — a quick Duck Duck Go search turns up kits that have the torch and both gases for about eighty bucks. Ask around your neighbourhood and you’re likely to find some bike frames from the disused and broken cycles lurking in dark garage corners. That first podcast page even has images that show you how to lay out fishmouth cuts where the tubes will meet.

But what really grabbed our attention is the tube bending for the recumbent seat. This is a speciality part that you’re not going to be able to salvage from traditional bikes. [Rich’s] project shows off this image of a bend template and the two main rails he used from the seat; but how did he make those bends? The third episode of [Brian in Ohio’s] series covers the one simple trick that electricians don’t want you to know. Those rails are made out of electrical conduit and you can easily buy/rent/borrow a commonplace conduit bending tool which has the handy advantage of including angle guides.

You’ll find [Rich’s] video after the break which begins with a slideshow and ends with a demo ride. That lets us see the lacing on the back side of the seat fabric that keeps it taught, yet comfy in a way a standard bike saddle just can’t be.

If this still hasn’t convinced you to pick up a torch, you can also build a recumbent with a wooden frame.

Continue reading “Down The Fabrication Rabbit Hole To Build A Recumbent Bike” →

Hackaday Podcast 126: Cable 3D-Scanner, Tesla Charger Robot, Ultrasonic Anemometer, And A Zoetrope

July 9, 2021 by Mike Szczys No comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys dive into a week of exceptional hacks. Tip-top of the list has to be the precision measuring instrument that uses a cable spooling mechanism. There’s news that the Starlink base station firmware has been dumped and includes interesting things like geofencing for the developer modes. We saw a garage robot that will plug in your electric vehicle if you’re the forgetful sort. And we close up by talking about heavier-than-air helium airships and China’s Mars rover.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (55 MB or so.)