A Merciless Environmental Monitoring System

August 10, 2022 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

We’ve seen plenty of environmental monitoring setups here on Hackaday — wireless sensors dotted around the house, all uploading their temperature and humidity data to a central server hidden away in some closet. The system put together by [Andy] from Workshopshed is much the same, except this time the server has been designed to be as bright and bold as possible.

The use of Mosquitto, InfluxDB, Node Red, and Grafana (M.I.N.G) made [Andy] think of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon, which in turn inspired the enclosure that holds the Raspberry Pi, hard drive, and power supply. Some 3D printed details help sell the look, and painted metal mesh panels make sure there’s plenty of airflow.

While the server is certainly eye-catching, the sensors themselves are also worth a close look. You might expect the sensors to be based on some member of the ESP family, but in this case, [Andy] has opted to go with the Raspberry Pi Pico. As this project pre-dates the release of the wireless variant of the board, he had to add on an ESP-01 for communications as well as the DTH11 temperature and humidity sensor.

For power each sensor includes a 1200 mAh pouch cell and a Pimoroni LiPo SHIM, though he does note working with the Pico’s energy saving modes posed something of a challenge. A perfboard holds all the components together, and the whole thing fits into an understated 3D printed enclosure.

Should you go the ESP8266/ESP32 route for your wireless sensors, we’ve seen some pretty tidy packages that are worth checking out. Or if you’d rather use something off-the-shelf, we’re big fans of the custom firmware developed for Xiaomi Bluetooth thermometers.

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Here’s The World’s Smallest Wood Plane…Probably

August 10, 2022 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Admittedly, we aren’t really in a position to confirm whether or not the miniature wood plane put together by [Daniel d’Entremont] is actually the smallest in the world, but we’re willing to take his word for it. At the very least, we certainly haven’t seen a smaller one.

In the video below, [Daniel] crafts the diminutive tool from a small block of wood by first slicing off a square using a band saw and then switching over to a small hand saw to cut out the individual pieces. These are glued together to make the body of the plane, and the shank of a small drill bit is used to hold down the wedge and blade. All told it’s about 1/2 of an inch long, and is fully functional…or at least, as functional as a 1/2 inch wood plane can be.

Interested in more miniature tools? Believe it or not, we’ve got you covered.

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Up Your Desk Toy Game With This 3D Printed Escalator

August 9, 2022 by Tom Nardi 21 Comments

Let’s be real, nobody needs a tiny motorized escalator for their desk. But now that you’ve seen it, can you really say you don’t want one of your own? The design comes our way from [AlexY], and is actually the logical evolution of a manually-operated version released previously. But for our money (and 3D printing time), we’d definitely go with this new motorized variant.

While the core mechanism is largely the same, the powered unit uses a N20 geared motor and an 18650 cell. There’s no fancy motor controller here — just flip the switch and you’ve got 30 RPMs worth of stair-steppin’ action. When you’ve run the cell down, and you will, there’s an onboard TP4056 charging module to keep the good times rolling.

[AlexY] hasn’t had a chance to document the build process for the motorized version of the escalator, but as most of the parts are compatible with the manual version, you should be able to figure it out by referencing the earlier assembly guide.

Hot squirted plastic not your thing? We’ve previously seen a wooden escalator designed to keep a Slinky in motion for as long as it takes for you to realize you could be using your skills for something more constructive.

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Mapping Out The LEDs On An Outlet Tester

August 9, 2022 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

The concept of an outlet tester is pretty simple: plug the gadget into a suspect wall receptacle, and an array of LEDs light up in various patterns to alert the user to any wiring faults. They’re cheap, reliable, and instantaneous. Most people wouldn’t give them much more thought than that, but like any good hacker, [Yeo Kheng Meng] wanted to know how these devices worked.

After picking up a relatively advanced model that featured an LCD display capable of showing various stats such as detected voltage in addition to the standard trio of LEDs, he started by using some test leads to simulate various fault conditions to understand the basic principle behind its operation. The next step was to disassemble the unit, which is where things went briefly sideways — it wasn’t until [Yeo Kheng Meng] and a friend had nearly cut through the enclosure that they realized it wasn’t ultrasonically welded liked they assumed, and that the screws holding it together were actually hidden under a sticker. Oops.

The write-up includes some excellent PCB shots, and [Yeo Kheng Meng] was able to identify several components and ascertain their function. He was even able to find some datasheets, which isn’t always such an easy task with these low-cost devices. Unfortunately the MCU that controls the device’s more advanced features is locked away with a black epoxy blob, but he was able to come up with a schematic that explains the rather elegant logic behind the LED display.

This isn’t the first time [Yeo Kheng Meng] has taken apart an interesting piece of hardware for our viewing pleasure, and given the fine job he does of it, we hope it’s not the last either.

Load Your Icebreakers, The 2022 Cyberdeck Contest Starts Now

August 8, 2022 by Tom Nardi 22 Comments

TL;DR: Enter the 2022 Cyberdeck Contest, starting right now!

When William Gibson first described the “cyberspace deck” used by the protagonists in Burning Chrome and Neuromancer, he offered only a few concrete details: they allow the user to explore cyberspace, are generally portable, and more adept owners often modify them to fit their particular needs. Anything else was left to the individual’s imagination, due in no small part to the fact that he author himself didn’t exactly know what the things would look like at the time. Still, not bad for a guy who was hammering it all out on a typewriter at the time.

Build your deck like Gibson is watching, because he is.

Now 40 years later, fact has caught up with fiction. The hacker and maker community have embraced the cyberdeck idea in a big way, and we’ve been blown away by the incredible creativity that goes into these bespoke computing devices.

Which is why we’re happy to announce the first, but very likely not the last, 2022 Cyberdeck Contest. Impress the judges with your Sprawl-ready rig, and you could claim one of three $150 USD Digi-Key shopping sprees to help fund your next cyberpunk masterpiece. You’ve got until Sept. 30, 2022.

So what is a cyberdeck, exactly? That’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, but since we’re running a contest here, we’ll have to give it a shot…

It needs to be a computer of some sort, certainly. It should also serve a practical purpose; as impressive as your cosplay prop might be, we’re really looking for functional devices here. Nominally that means it will have a keyboard and some kind of display, but figuring out how it all connects and what form the components will take is where things get interesting.

Above all, it needs to be personal. What would your dream computer look like? What features would it have? There’s no right or wrong answer here — a good cyberdeck should be a reflection of the person who built it, and no two should ever be quite the same.

Need some inspiration? Not to worry, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve seen dozens of these custom machines over the last couple of years if you need some help to get moving in the right direction.

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Martian Successes Reshape Sample Return Plans

August 8, 2022 by Tom Nardi 19 Comments

For as long as humans have been sending probes to Mars, there’s been a desire to return rock, soil, and atmosphere samples back to Earth for more detailed analysis. But the physics of such a mission are particularly demanding — a vehicle that could land on the Martian surface, collect samples, and then launch itself back into orbit for the return to Earth would be massive and prohibitively expensive with our current technology.

Instead, NASA and their international partners have been working to distribute the cost and complexity of the mission among several different vehicles. In fact, the first phase of the program is well underway.

The Perseverance rover has been collecting samples and storing them in 15 cm (6 inch) titanium tubes since it landed on the Red Planet in February of 2021. Considerable progress has also been made on the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) which will carry the samples from the surface and into orbit around the planet, where they will eventually be picked up by yet another vehicle which will ultimately return them to Earth.

But there’s still some large gaps in the overall plan. Chief among them is how the samples are to be transferred into the MAV. Previously, the European Space Agency (ESA) was to contribute a small “fetch rover” which would collect the sample tubes dropped by Perseverance and bring them to the MAV launch site.

But in a recent press release, NASA has announced that those plans have changed significantly, thanks at least in part to the incredible success of the agency’s current Mars missions.

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PC Hardware Monitor Uses Tricorder-Derived Tech

August 8, 2022 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

The visually striking hardware monitor that [Mangy_Dog] recently put together for his new custom PC build might look like something out of the Alien franchise, but the hardware he’s built it around actually comes from a very different science-fiction property: Star Trek. Or at least, from a very impressive line of Star Trek props, anyway.

Given the incredible amount of time and effort that [Mangy_Dog] has put into developing his Star Trek: Voyager tricorder, it’s no surprise that he would decide to reuse its graphics chip and microcontroller. But while the familiar hardware might have helped jump-start this build, this was no weekend project.

He’s steadily been working on it for several months now, and even entered it into the 2022 Sci-Fi Contest back in April. Obviously he wasn’t able to complete it before the Contest deadline, but looking at the final results, we’re happy to see he kept chugging away at it.

Of course, with a project like this, the hardware is only half the battle. In the video below, [Mangy_Dog] explains the challenges involved in creating not only the firmware that runs on the monitor, but the accompanying PC-side application. This included modifying existing libraries to add support for the device’s unique flash storage arrangement, and pulling the relevant system status information out of the operating system and into a series of customizable widgets.

As impressive as the project is, [Mangy_Dog] says he’s not done yet. A second revision of the hardware and software will address several issues and add new capabilities, and considering the high degree of polish we’ve come to expect from his creations, we’re not surprised

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