EPaper Tablet Gets Desktop Linux Install

May 27, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 34 Comments

ePaper is an interesting thing, providing a non-backlit viewing experience that is much more akin to reading a book than staring at a screen. The reMarkable tablet is a device designed around just such a display, and [Davis Remmel] has been hacking away at the platform. His latest work brings full-fat Linux to the fore.

The work builds upon [Davis]’s earlier work, installing a microSD slot in the tablet to make development easier. Getting Linux running required a custom kernel, but once sorted, working with the reMarkable is easy. apt is available for easy software installs, and the tablet is demonstrated using several different pieces of software, like mtPaint and Xournal.

The golden part of all this has been getting automated partial screen refreshes working. ePaper displays take a long time to refresh the whole screen. Being able to do faster partial writes makes for a much faster interface, which is evident when some of the drawing software is demonstrated. Even Doom runs, but remains largely unplayable, sadly – the ePaper is still a long way off hitting 25 fps.

We look forward to seeing where [Davis] takes this project, and how display performance improves with newer reMarkable tablets. With the reMarkable 2 out for pre-order, there could be a step change in display speed on the horizon. We’re betting that there’s big things to come yet for ePaper – 2020 may finally be its year.

Hacking Dell Laptops To Use Off-Brand Chargers

May 27, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 67 Comments

Dell, along with many other manufacturers, have begun to implement smart features into their laptop charging circuitry. This leaves the user out of luck if they wish to use an off-brand part, or get caught short when their original charger fails. [Neutrino] was in just such a position, and decided to hack around the problem.

The laptop verifies the identity of the attached charger by a third pin. This communicates with a One-Wire IC embedded in the charger, which reports the charger’s identity when queried by the laptop. When [Neutrino]’s charger broke, an attempt was made to use an off-brand charger, with the third pin hooked up to the original failed unit. This tricked the laptop into charging successfully.

For a more permanent workaround, [Neutrino] harvested the One-Wire IC from inside the original charger, and instead hooked it up inside the laptop, directly to the charge port. Thus, the laptop always thinks a Dell charger is connected when power is applied. There is some risk, in that if the user plugs in a lower-power charger than the original, there could be an overload event, but that’s just the risk inherent in the hack.

It’s a tidy workaround for an annoying problem that is all too common in the post-DRM world. Laptop chargers are often prime candidates for failure too; we’ve seen fixes as creative as repairing a Magsafe with a pistacchio nut before!

[Thanks to Levi for the tip]

Telco Curio Hacked Into Simple Counter

May 26, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 6 Comments

The tikkenteller was a device used to measure the duration of telephone use. 70 Volts were sent down the telephone line at 50Hz to run an electromechanical counter, and the devices were often used in communal areas where several users shared a single phone. [Charles Babbadge] decided to repurpose the stout 1950s hardware into a simple counter.

The build uses an ATtiny13 to generate pulses for the original hardware, when receiving inputs from the tikkenteller’s buttons. A solid state relay is triggered by the microcontroller, which connects the original solenoid to mains power to jog the counter. An HLK-PM01 5V power supply is used to run the micro, allowing the entire project to run off a single mains supply.

It’s a big, heavy, beautiful hunk of metal, built in a style that we simply don’t see anymore. It’s in no way the cheapest or most efficient counter you could build, but it’s got a charm you can’t find on more modern hardware. You could use such a device to track your Youtube subs, that is… if the API hadn’t broken that for everyone. Video after the break.

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Nintendo Switch Gets A Stylish Dock In A Broken NES

May 26, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 13 Comments

The Switch is Nintendo’s latest home console, which has forever blurred the line between handhelds and consoles you plug in to your TV. It does both! Typically, hooking up to a screen is done through the dock, but that wasn’t quite cool enough for [sturm]. He took a NES and turned it into a tidy Switch dock instead!

The build starts with an original NES shell, which is gutted of its original hardware. The PCB from the original dock is installed, and a slot cut in the top of the NES to allow the Switch to be inserted. Naturally, there’s a spring flap reminiscent of the Super NES to keep the dock looking clean when not in use. When it is installed, a series of cables and bezels break out the USB ports to the original controller ports on the NES.

It’s a tidy build that brings a touch of nostalgia to the modern console. We’re sure an official version would sell like hotcakes, too. There’s plenty of similarly inspired builds for the Switch, with the Gamecube Joycons a particular highlight!

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Herb Garden Is Smarter Than The Average… Garden

May 25, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 11 Comments

After 13 days, the herbs are showing good signs of growth.

Herbs are a great way to spice up any dish. Often they don’t need much, meaning that it’s possible to grow a useful amount in a fairly compact area. [Sunyecz22] wanted to do just that, so built a convenient indoor herb garden, giving it some smarts along the way.

The project is built around an Arduino Mega, a venerable stalwart of the scene that comes in handy on projects requiring plenty of digital I/O. It’s paired with four soil moisture sensors, one per planter pot to keep an eye on water levels. The system also controls LEDs which provide light based on the time of day to help the herbs grow. Finally, a tidy 3D printed enclosure gives the project a neat, finished look.

It’s a build that’s a straightforward way to get into automatic plant maintenance, and leaves plenty of scope for future work. With the capable Arduino Mega on hand, it would be a cinch to upgrade to automatic watering down the track. We’ve seen similar builds before, too. Video after the break.

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Lasercut Puzzlebox Is Safe-Cracking Fun

May 25, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 3 Comments

If you head out into the real world and start twiddling knobs on random safes, you might find yourself being hauled away by uniformed police. A safer pastime might be playing with your own puzzlebox at home, which is precisely what [thediylife] has done with this build.

The design implements a basic safe-cracking game, in which players try to guess the combination to the safe in a series of rounds. Input is via a rotary encoder, hooked up to the Arduino Uno inside. This project really wins because the finish looks so amazing. The safe is constructed out of 3mm MDF, which is lasercut to shape — an easy one to whip up in the average makerspace. The interface is fleshed out with a small OLED screen and some LEDs, while a servo acts as the lock which holds the door shut. When you see the underside of the face plate with components hot glued into holes you’ll really pale at how clean the business side ended up.

It’s a simple build, and one that would make a great party game with a prize hidden inside. We’ve seen other puzzle-box builds before, too — like the GPS-based reverse geocache build. Video after the break.

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Adding MIDI To An Old Casio Keyboard

May 23, 2020 by Zoe Skyforest 22 Comments

Not content to rule the world of digital watches, Casio also dominated the home musical keyboard market in decades past. If you wanted an instrument to make noises that sounded approximately nothing like what they were supposed to be, you couldn’t go past a Casio. [Marwan] had just such a keyboard, and wanted to use it with their PC, but the low-end instrumented lacked MIDI. Of course, such functionality is but a simple hack away.

The hack involved opening up the instrument and wiring the original keyboard matrix to the digital inputs of an Arduino Uno. The keys are read as a simple multiplexed array, and with a little work, [Marwan] had the scheme figured out. With the Arduino now capable of detecting keypresses, [Marwan] whipped up some code to turn this into relevant MIDI data. Then, it was simply a case of reprogramming the Arduino Uno’s ATMega 16U2 USB interface chip to act as a USB-MIDI device, and the hack was complete.

Now, featuring a USB-MIDI interface, it’s easy to use the keyboard to play virtual instruments on any modern PC DAW. As it’s a popular standard, it should work with most tablets and smartphones too, if you’re that way inclined. Of course, if you’re more into modular synthesizers, you might want to think about working with CV instead!