Author: Zoe Skyforest

3703 Articles

Awning Motorized And Automated To Avoid Wind Damage

July 13, 2023 by 30 Comments

Awnings can be architecturally beautiful, and they provide lovely shelter from the sun and even a bit of rain. They don’t always like taking a pounding from high winds though. [Steve Carey] installed some nice awnings, but wanted to avoid any potential issues, so he built an automated system to extend and retract them for him. 

An ESP32 serves as the brains of the operation. It’s set up to open and close the blinds using a high-torque brushed motor run by a BTS7960 motor driver. The motor turns the awning’s rod via a hook, so it can be readily removed in the event [Steve] moves house. Reed switches are used as end stops to ensure the motor stops when the awning is fully open or closed. The ESP32 is hooked up to an accelerometer mounted on the awning. It’s set up to sum the accelerations detected in all three axes, and close the awning in the event conditions get too windy.

There’s a certain peace of mind that comes with having your awning hooked up with a preventative safety system. We don’t have a lot of awning posts on Hackaday, but we have seen a good number of automated blinds in the past. If you’ve been working on your own outdoor home automation gear, be sure to hit up the tipsline! Happy…awnings…ing? Anyway.

 

Roboticized Zelda Ocarina Plays Itself

July 13, 2023 by 10 Comments

[3DSage] has long been obsessed with a certain type of musical instrument after playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It spawned a project to robotically control an ocarina, which turned out beautifully.

The first step was to build an air blower that could excite the ocarina into making noise. With that completed, [3D Sage] then 3D scanned an ocarina so he could design a mechanism that would fit the instrument and let it be played. The final design uses a set of solenoids with rubber caps to plug the various holes of the ocarina to play different notes. The solenoids are actuated according to notes pressed on a printed keyboard. Alternatively, it can be programmed to play pre-stored songs by itself.

The results are charming, though the ocarina does sound a little off-pitch. Overall, though, the project is a great use case for a 3D scanner, since the instrument itself is such an odd irregular shape.

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Horror Instrument Is Truly Astounding To Listen To

July 12, 2023 by 9 Comments

Truly new musical instruments don’t come along every day; much of the low hanging fruit has already been taken. [Simon the Magpie] has been working on something that’s just a little innovative, and built what he refers to as an “Incredible Horror Instrument.” It’s all about feedback.

The build started with the Suzuki Andes 25F, a so-called “keyboard recorder.” It has the appearance of a melodion but produces flute-like sounds. [Simon]’s idea was to combine the breath-powered instrument with a talk box. If you’re unfamiliar, a talk box is designed for playing amplified guitar sounds through a tube that is placed in a player’s mouth so they can “shape” the guitar sound with their mouth.

In this role, though, the talk box’s input is hooked up to a microphone which captures the output of the Andes 25F. It then plays this back through a tube connected to the breath input of the Andes 25F. [Simon] thus created a feedback look that can effectively be “played” via the keyboard on the Andes 25F.

The audible results are eerie and haunting, and seem more than fitting for even a well-budgeted horror film. [Simon] also demonstrates some neat possibilities when combining the setup with a further feedback loop that feeds in other tones.

We’ve covered [Simon’s] work before; it’s often noisy and always entertaining. Video after the break.

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PicoDebugger Makes Development Easier

July 12, 2023 by 12 Comments

Debugging a Raspberry Pi Pico is straightforward enough; it simply involves hooking up something up to the USB and SWD pins. [Mark Stevens] whipped up the PicoDebugger to make this job easier than ever before.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation developed the Picoprobe system to allow a RP2040 to act as a USB to SWD and UART bridge for debugging another Pico or RP2040. The problem is that hooking it up time and time again can be fussy and frustrating.

To get around this, [Mark] whipped up the PicoDebugger board, which directly connects most of the important pins for you. Drop a Pico into the “Target” slot, and you can hook up the PicoDebugger to its UART lines with the flick of a DIP switch. The SWD pins can then also be connected via jumpers if so desired.  It also features a 2×20-pin header to allow the target to be wired into other hardware as necessary.

It’s a neat project, and it certainly beats running a bird’s nest of jumper wires every time you want to debug a Pico project. Simply dropping a board in is much more desirable.

We’ve seen some other neat debug tools over the years, too. If you’ve got your own development productivity hacks in the works, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Building A Digital Compass With An Arduino

July 12, 2023 by 8 Comments

The magnetic compass has been a crucial navigational tool for around a thousand years or so, perhaps longer. While classical versions still work perfectly well, you can now get digital magnetometers that work in much the same way. [mircemk] decided to whip up a digital compass to demonstrate the value of these parts.

The build uses a HMC5883L magnetometer. While this can detect magnetic fields in three axes, just one is necessary for building a device that operates akin to a traditional compass. The output of the device is read by an Arduino Nano, which is hooked up to a string of WS2812B LEDs and a small OLED display. The LEDs display the bearing of magnetic north, while the OLED screen shows the current angle between the compass’s arrow and magnetic north.

It’s a tidy build that would be a great educational resource for teaching both electronics and navigational skills. We’ve seen similar projects before, like the hilarious Pizza Compass. Video after the break.

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Miners Vs NASA: It’s A Nevada Showdown

July 6, 2023 by 74 Comments

Mining projects are approved or disapproved based on all kinds of reasons. There are economic concerns, logistical matters, and environmental considerations to be made. Mining operations can be highly polluting, or they can have outsized effects on a given area by sheer virtue of the material they remove or the byproducts they leave behind.

For a proposed lithium mining operation north of Las Vegas, though, an altogether stranger objection has arisen. NASA has been using the plot of land as a calibration tool, and it doesn’t want any upstart miners messing with its work. 

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Remote Driving Controversial In UK, But It’s Already Here

July 5, 2023 by 46 Comments

The automotive industry is rushing towards autonomous vehicles as a futuristic ideal. They haven’t got the autonomous part sorted just yet. However, as part of this push, the technology to drive vehicles remotely via video link has become mature.

In the United Kingdom, there has been great controversy on whether this should be allowed, particularly for vehicles piloted by individuals outside the country’s borders. That came to a head with a Law Commission repot published earlier this year, but since then, innovative companies have continued to work on remote driving regardless. Let’s dive in to the current state of play.

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