Singleboard: Alpha Is A Very Stylish Computer On A Single PCB

April 30, 2024 by 28 Comments

When we think single-board computers, we normally envision things like the Raspberry Pi. But Arduboy creator [Kevin Bates] has recently come up with his own take on the SBC that’s a bit like a modernized take on the early computers of the 1980s. Introducing Singleboard: Alpha.

The build has an incredibly pleasing form factor — it’s a single PCB with a capacitive keyboard etched right into the copper. The brains of the Singleboard is an ESP32, which provides plenty of grunt as well as wireless connectivity. Display is via a small LCD, currently configured with a green-on-black terminal that looks fantastic.

You’re not gonna run a fully-fledged GUI operating system on this thing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be useful. We could imagine a device like this being a flexible wireless terminal for working with headless systems, for example, and it would be a charming one at that.

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Keep Tabs On PC Use With Custom Analog Voltmeter

April 26, 2024 by 8 Comments

With the demands of modern computing, from video editing, streaming, and gaming, many of us will turn to a monitoring system of some point to keep tabs on CPU usage, temperatures, memory, and other physical states of our machines. Most are going to simply display on the screen but this data can be sent to external CPU monitors as well. This retro-styled monitor built on analog voltmeters does a great job of this and adds some flair to a modern workstation as well.

The build, known as bbMonitor, is based on the ESP32 platform which controls an array of voltmeters via PWM. The voltmeters have been modified with a percentage display to show things like CPU use percentage. Software running on the computers sends this data in real time to the ESP32 so the computer’s behavior can be viewed at a glance. Each voltmeter is also augmented with RGB LEDs that change color from green to red as use increases as well. The project’s creator, [Corebb], also notes that the gauges will bounce around if the computer is under heavy load but act more linearly when under constant load, also helping to keep an eye on computer status.

While the build does seem to rely on a Windows machine to run the software for export to the monitor, all of the code is open-sourced and available on the project’s GitHub page and could potentially be adapted for other operating systems. And, as far as the voltmeters themselves go, there have been similar projects in the past that use stepper motors as a CPU usage monitor instead.

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PC Watercooling Prototype Is Pumpless

April 18, 2024 by 23 Comments

Watercooling is usually more efficient than air cooling for the same volume of equipment, and — important for many people — it is generally quieter. However, you still have water pump noises to deal with. [Der8auer] got a Wieland prototype cooler that doesn’t use a pump. Instead, it relies on the thermosiphon effect. In simple terms, the heat moves water — possibly boiling it — upwards to a radiator. Once the water is cool, it falls down back to the heat exchanger again.

It looks like any other AIO, but the block is extremely flat compared to normal coolers, which have the pump on top of the plate. As you might expect, orientation matters, and you can’t have tight bends in the hoses. The system also has to be totally airtight to function properly. The test was meant to be against a commercial AIO unit with the same number of fans. However, there was a problem, and the final test was done with a larger radiator with one of its three fans removed.

The prototype performed fine and was quiet. It didn’t do as well as the commercial cooler, but it wasn’t bad. Of course, this is a prototype. Maybe a final product will do better. Around the ten-minute mark, the IR camera came out, and it didn’t show any major unexpected hot spots.

We’ve seen water-cooled printer hotends, and pumping is a problem there. We wondered if this technology might work there. The whole thing reminded us of heat pipes without the internal wick to move cold working fluid. We’ve even seen a water-cooled calculator.

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Cyberpunk Guitar Strap Lights Up With Repurposed PCBs

April 16, 2024 by 5 Comments

Sometimes, whether we like it or not, ordering PCBs results in extra PCBs lying around, either because of board house minimums, mistakes on either end, or both. What’s to be done with these boards? If you’re Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook], you make a sound-reactive, light-up guitar strap and rock out in cyberpunk style.

The PCBs in question were left over from [Jeremy]’s JC Pro Macro project, and each have four addressable RGB LEDs on board. These were easy enough to chain together with jumper wires, solder, and a decent amount of hot glue. Here’s a hot tip: you can use compressed air to rapidly cool hot glue if you turn the can upside down. Just don’t spray it on your fingers.

The brains of this operation is Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, which runs off of a lipstick battery and conveniently brings a microphone to the table. These two are united by a 3D print, which is hot-glued to the guitar strap along with all the boards. In the second video after the break, there’s a bonus easy-to-make version that uses an RGB LED strip in place of the repurposed PCBs. There’s no solder or even hot glue involved.

Want to really light up the night? Print yourself a sound-reactive LED guitar.

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PCB Design Review: Tinysparrow, A Module For CAN Hacking Needs

April 3, 2024 by 21 Comments

I enjoy seeing modules that can make designing other devices easier, and when I did a call for design reviews, [enp6s0] has submitted one such board to us. It’s a module called TinySparrow (GitHub), that helps you build your own vehicle ECUs and any other CAN-enabled things. With a microcontroller, plenty of GPIOs, a linear regulator and a CAN transceiver already onboard, this board has more than enough kick for anyone in hobbyist-range automotive space – and it’s surprisingly tiny!

You could build a lot of things around this module – a CAN bus analyzer or sniffer, a custom peripheral for car dashes, or even a full-blown ECU. You can even design any hardware for a robot or a piece of industrial technology that uses CAN for its backbone – we’ve all seen a few of those! It’s a great board, but it uses six layers. We’ll see if we can do something about that here.

Modules like TinySparrow will make your PCBs cheaper while ordering, too! Thanks to the carefully routed microcontroller and the CAN transmitter, whatever board you design around this chip definitely wouldn’t need six layers like this one does – and, unlike designing your own board, you can use someone’s well-tested and tailored libraries and reference circuits!

With TinySparrow, you save a lot of time, effort and money whenever you want to design a car or industrial accessory. After looking at the board files, my proposal for helping today’s board is – like last time – to make its production cheaper, so that more people can get this board into their hands if the creator ever does try and manufacture it. I also have some tips to make future improvements on this design easier, and make it more friendly for its userbase.

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PCB Design Review: ESP32-S3 Round LCD Board

March 19, 2024 by 6 Comments

For our next installment, I have a lovely and daring PCB submitted by one of our readers, [Vas]. This is an ESP32-S3 board that also has an onboard round TFT display, very similar to the one we used on the Vectorscope badge. The badge is self-sufficient – it has an ESP32, it has a display, a programming connector, two different QWIIC ports you could surely use as GPIOs – what’s not to love?

This is a two-layer board, and I have to admit that I seriously enjoy such designs. Managing to put a whole lot of things into two layers is quite cool in my book, and I have great fun doing so whenever I get the opportunity. There’s nothing wrong with taking up more layers than needed – in fact, if you’re concerned about emitted/received noise or you have high-speed interfaces, four-layer is the way to go. But making complex boards with two layers is a nice challenge, and, it does tend to make these boards cheaper to manufacture as a very nice bonus.

Let’s improve upon it, and support [Vas]’s design. From what I can see looking at this board, we can help [Vas] a lot with ease of assembly, perhaps even help save a hefty amount of money if they go for third-party PCBA instead of sitting down with a stencil – which you could do with this board pretty easily, since all of the components on it, save for the display, are the ones you’d expect JLCPCB to stock.

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Faux Silkscreen On A PCB Made With A Laser Cutter

March 18, 2024 by 11 Comments

If you’re getting PCBs professionally made, silkscreen usually comes free as part of the package. However, if you’re making your own, the job is on you. [Tony Goacher] makes his own PCBs on a CNC router, so he’s not getting any silkscreening as part of that bargain. But he wondered—could he do something analogous with a laser cutter?

The answer is yes. The silkscreen layer was first exported from DesignSpark, with the file then sent to LightBurn to prep it for laser cutting. The board outline layer was first engraved on to a piece of scrap as an alignment aid. Then, the board was placed in the laser cutter, with the silkscreen scorched directly on to the fiberglass.

The results are encouraging, if imperfect. [Tony] says he ran at “quite fast speed at quite high power.” The markings are all there, but they’re a little melty and difficult to read. He noted at lower speeds and lower power, the results were a bit more readable.

PCBs aren’t really an ideal engraving or laser marking material, but this technique could be servicable for some basic markings on DIY PCBs. We look forward to seeing how [Tony] improves the process in future. Video after the break.
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