Infinity Mirror Hypercrystal Is As Beautiful As It Sounds

February 17, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 4 Comments

Sometimes, we feature projects that are full to the brim with advanced functionality or solve some tricky little problem for the end-user. Other times, we feature stuff that just looks super damn cool, and the Infinity Mirror Hypercrystal is firmly in that latter category.

This show-stopping build comes to us from [Inanna Malick], who put together the design using algorithmic and generative art techniques she’s been working on for years. The form is a non-symmetrical, non-platonic solid, with each of its eight faces laser cut from mirrored acrylic. Plywood sections are used to hold together the structure.

Initially, the build was illuminated from within by white LEDs, but [Inanna] wasn’t satisfied with the look, which was too rooted in regular human technology. They were instead covered up with transparent dichroic tape, creating the lurid shifting colors that do so much to add to the mystery of the legendary Hypercrystal.

The result is an infinity mirror piece that looks more advanced, more alien, and more luridly enticing than most we’ve ever seen. The dichroic shift placed on the LEDs goes a long way to elevating this sculpture to new aesthetic heights. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Infinity Mirror Hypercrystal Is As Beautiful As It Sounds” →

PendulumSynth Ties Music And Physics Together

February 17, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 2 Comments

Many musicians will be familiar with the metronome, a pendulum charged with generating a rhythmic tick to keep one’s performance in regular time. With PendulumSynth, [mrezanvari] takes the same basic pendulum but uses it in an altogether different musical way.

The build relies on a 10-inch plastic ball to serve as the weighted end of the pendulum, stuffed with a STM32F411CE BlackPill board, a BNO085 IMU, and an nRF radio module for sending out data for external processing. The pendulum’s motion is turned into MIDI data or CV for output to musical hardware which handles actually generating the output sounds.

The system operates in a variety of modes. Gravity mode outputs continuous MIDI data and CV relative to the continuous motion of the pendulum, while DIV3 mode tracks the pendulum’s motion and outputs 3 regular trigger points that correspond as such.

The combination of the intuitive physical nature of the pendulum and its sheer large size makes for an enticing musical exhibit. We’ve seen some other great musical installation pieces before, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “PendulumSynth Ties Music And Physics Together” →

Sending MIDI Wirelessly With The NRF24L01

February 17, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 6 Comments

MIDI is a standard known by musicians and instruments all over the world. The basic twist on regular serial has helped studios around the world to work more efficiently. [Kevin] wanted to try sending MIDI data wirelessly, but rather than the typical Bluetooth solution, decided to use the humble nRF24L01 instead.

The circuitry used is simple: [Kevin] simply wired up two Arduino Unos with nRF24L01 radio modules, which communicate over SPI. Alternatively, an even quicker solution is to use a Keywish Arduino RF Nano, which packs a nRF24L01 on board. One Arduino can then be hooked up to a MIDI OUT port on an instrument, and it will send out MIDI signals wirelessly. The second Arduino can then be plugged into a MIDI IN port and repeat out what it receives over the air.

The real work was in the firmware, which takes MIDI data and packages it in a suitable form to send out over the nRF24L01. The system can operate in a one-to-one mode, emulating a single MIDI cable, or a multicast mode, where one sender transmits information to many receivers.

It’s a neat hack and one we could imagine would be useful in some fun performance situations. We’ve seen others do work on wireless MIDI interfaces for Eurorack hardware, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Sending MIDI Wirelessly With The NRF24L01” →

Weird Phosphor Conversion LEDs Found In Cheap LED String

February 16, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 40 Comments

[Tim] recently found himself tinkering with a cheap string of LEDs. Far from an advanced, IC-controlled addressable set, these were merely a string with LEDs of four colors that could be switched on and off. However, digging in to the LEDs themselves turned up a curious find.

The LEDs were set up in a parallel/anti-parallel fashion. The two power lines ran the length of the string, with all the LEDs installed across them. If polarity was applied in one direction, the red and yellow LEDs would light up, in the other, the blue and green LEDs would light together.

This raised a question for [Tim], as typically, different LEDs light up at different forward voltages and this can cause issues when running different color LEDs in parallel together. What he instead found was that all the LEDs were actually blue LEDs in their fundamental construction. However, the red, yellow, and green LEDs had all been given a phosphor coating. In these devices, when the blue LED underneath lit up, the phosphor converted the light into the desired color. [Tim] was able to confirm this behaviour by illuminating the phosphor manually using an external UV-A LED.

It’s an interesting choice, but it’s certainly one way of making a multicolored string of LEDs. If you wanna get fancier though, consider studying this tutorial on working with addressable LED strings!

[Thanks to J Peterson for the tip!]

Tiny Ethernet Cable Arms Race Spawns From Reddit Discussion

February 16, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 58 Comments

If you’ve had any dealings with Cat 5 and Cat 6 cable, and let’s be honest, who hasn’t, you’ve probably wrestled with lengths anywhere from 1 meter to 25 meters if you’re hooking up a long haul. Network admins will be familiar with the 0.1 m variety for neat hookups in server cabinets. However, a Reddit community has recently taken things further.

It all started on r/ubiquiti, where user [aayo-gorkhali] posted a custom-built cable just over 2 inches long. The intention was to allow a Ubiquiti U6-IW access point to be placed on a wall. The tiny cable was used to hook up to the keystone jack that formerly lived in that position, as an alternative to re-terminating the wall jack into a regular RJ45 connector.

Naturally this led to an arms race, with [darkw1sh] posting a shorter example with two RJ-45 connectors mounted back to back with the bare minimum of cable crimped into the housings. [Josh_Your_IT_Guy] went out the belt sander to one-up that effort, measuring just over an inch in length.

[rickyh7] took things further, posting a “cable” just a half-inch long (~13 mm). In reality, it consists of just the pinned section of two RJ-45 connectors mounted back to back, wired together in the normal way. While electrically it should work, and it passes a cable tester check, it would be virtually impossible to actually plug it into two devices at once due to its tiny length.

We want to see this go to the logical end point, though. This would naturally involve hacking away the plastic casings off a pair of laptops and soldering their motherboards together at the traces leading to the Ethernet jack. Then your “cable” is merely the width of the solder joint itself.

Alternatively, you could spend your afternoon learning about other nifty hacks with Ethernet cables that have more real-world applications!

Classic IPods Are Super Upgradeable In 2022

February 16, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 35 Comments

The classic iPod was the MP3 player to beat back in the day, loaded with storage and with its characteristic click-wheel interface. [Ellie] had an iPod Video laying around, one of the more capable models that came out near the end of the product’s run, and set out upgrading it for duty in the pandemic-wracked badlands of 2022.

The iPod in question was a 5.5th generation model, prized for being the last to feature the Wolfson DAC with its good audio quality. [Ellie] used the ever-helpful iFixit guide to learn how to disassemble the device safely. Careful hands and a spudger are key to avoid marring the pressed-together metal case.

Once opened, an iFlash Quad board was installed inside that lets the iPod use up to four micro SD cards for storage instead of the original hard disk drive. With two 512 GB cards installed, [Ellie] won’t be short of storage. A new battery was then subbed in, along with a fancy clear front casing for the aesthetic charm of it all.

After the hardware modifications were complete, the iPod needed to be restored with iTunes to start working again. She then installed the open source Rockbox firmware, which opens up the capabilities of the hardware immensely. Perhaps best of all, it can play DOOM! Alternatively, you can use the clickwheel to control the volume on your MacBook if you so desire.

[Ellie’s] project goes to show that modifying an iPod these days can be a fun weekend build thanks to the great software and hardware now available. It’s wonderful to see that the platform still has such great support years after it has been discontinued. If you really want to look back though, take a gander at the early prototype of Apple’s breakout MP3 player.

You Can Send MIDI Over I2C If You Really Need To

February 15, 2022 by Zoe Skyforest 11 Comments

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface has a great acronym that is both nice to say and cleanly descriptive. The standard for talking to musical instruments relies on a serial signal at 31250 bps, which makes it easy to transmit using any old microcontroller UART with a settable baud rate. However, [Kevin] has dived into explore the utility of sending MIDI signals over I2C instead.

With a bit of hacking at the Arduino MIDI library, [Kevin] was able to get the microcontroller outputting MIDI data over the I2C interface, and developed a useful generic I2C MIDI transport for the platform. His first tests involved using this technique in concert with Gravity dual UART modules. After he successfully got one running, [Kevin] realised that four could be hooked up to a single Arduino, giving it 8 serial UARTS, or, in another way of thinking, 8 MIDI outputs.

At its greatest level of development, [Kevin] shows off his I2C MIDI chops by getting a single Raspberry Pi Pico delivering MIDI signals to 8 Arduinos, all over I2C. All the Arduinos are daisy-chained with their 5V and I2C lines wired together, and the system basically swaps out traditional MIDI channels for I2C addresses instead.

There’s not a whole lot of obvious killer applications for this, but if you want to send MIDI data to a bunch of microcontrollers, you might find it easier daisy-chaining I2C rather than hopping around with a serial line in the classic MIDI-IN/MIDI-THRU fashion.

We’ve seen [Kevin]’s work before too, like the wonderful Lo-Fi Orchestra. Video after the break.

Continue reading “You Can Send MIDI Over I2C If You Really Need To” →