This film projecter is hiding an Arduino Uno that controls a water-based cooling system.

Cool The Shop With A Thermal Battery-Based System

January 1, 2022 by 64 Comments

Having any kind of shop is pretty great, no matter how large it may be or where it’s located. If the shop is in an outbuilding, you get to make more noise. On the other hand, it will probably get pretty darn hot in the summer without some kind of cooling system, especially if you don’t have a window for a breeze (or a window A/C unit).

Five 55-gallon tanks of tap water are buried just outside the shop.[Curtis in Seattle] built an awesome thermal battery-based cooling system for his shop. The battery part consists of five 55-gallon drums full of tap water that are connected in series and buried a foot underground, about two feet out from the wall. There are two radiators filled with water and strapped to 20″ box fans  — one inside the shop, which sends heat from the shop into the water, and another outside that transfers heat out of the water and into the cool night air. Most summer days, the 800-square-foot shop stays at a cool 71°F (21.7°C).

We love that the controls are housed in an old film projector. Inside there’s an Arduino Uno running the show and taking input from four DS18B20 one-wire temperature sensors for measuring indoor, outdoor, battery, and ground temperatures. There are four modes accessible through the LCD menu — idle, cool the shop, recharge mode, and a freeze mode in case the outside temperature plummets. Why didn’t [Curtis in Seattle] use anti-freeze? It’s too expensive, plus it doesn’t usually get that cold. (Although we hear that Seattle got several inches of snow for Christmas.) Check it out after the break.

If you can’t just go burying a bunch of 55-gallon drums in the ground where you live, consider building a swamp cooler out of LEGO.

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Genius Or Cursed, This USB-C Connector Is Flexible

January 1, 2022 by 18 Comments

USB connectors have lent themselves to creative interpretations of their mechanical specifications ever since the first experimenter made a PCB fit into a USB-A socket. The USB-C standard with its smaller connector has so far mostly escaped this trend, though this might be about to change thanks to the work of [Sam Ettinger]. His own description of his USB-C connector using a flexible PCB and a BGA-packaged ATTiny84A microcontroller is “cursed”, but we can’t decide whether or not it should also be called “genius”.

Key to this inspired piece of connector fabrication is the realization that the thickness of BGA and flex PCB together comes to the required 0.7 mm. The BGA provides the necessary stiffness, and though it’s a one-sided connector it fits the space perfectly. There are several demo boards as proofs-of-concept, and the whole lot can be found in a GitHub repository.

We can see this technique finding a use in all kinds of diminutive USB-C projects, however cursed or genius it may be. We like to see projects that push the edges of what can be done with the medium, with a nod to a previous cursed USB-C device.

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Blackberry Will Run Out Of Juice On January 4th

January 1, 2022 by 47 Comments

Happy New Year, though it may not be for Blackberry fans. The company that has so often had their products compared to a certain addictive substance recently announced that they are ending support for Blackberry OS and Blackberry 10 devices.

What does this mean? While they won’t be bricking phones outright, they might as well be. On January 4th, Blackberry will be shutting off all the key services — data, SMS, phone calls, and 911 support. In official terms, they are ending network provisioning for these older devices, meaning that they won’t be able to join any cellular or WiFi networks.

Unless you’re old enough to remember, it may seem strange that these half-screen, half-keyboard machines once dominated the mobile market. But back then, the people who used them were texting wizards who had broken free from the chains of the T9 keyboard.

Though this news may not mean much except to a select few, it’s still sad to see the Blackberry era come to a true end. We never had one ourselves during the heyday, though we did pick up a cheap used model to carry around as a tiny mobile writing device and calendar. We sure do miss phones with real keyboards though, and would love to see them come back. At least the keyboards themselves get love in the hacker community.

[Main and thumbnail images via Digital Trends]

Virtual Eurorack Based CPU Computes To The Beat Of A Different Drum Module

January 1, 2022 by 3 Comments

In Arthur C. Clarke’s 1972 story “Dial F for Frankenstein”, the worlds first global network of phone exchanges was created by satellite link, and events happened that caused the characters in the story to wonder if the interconnected mesh of machinery had somehow become sentient. And that’s what we wondered when we saw this latest virtual CPU construction built by GitHub user [katef] and made from a virtual analog synthesizer software called VCV Rack.

Analogous to a Redstone computer in Minecraft, there’s no physical hardware involved. But instead of making crazy synth sounds for a music project, [katef] has built a functioning CPU complete with an Arithmetic Logic Unit, an adder, and other various things you’ll find in a real CPU such as registers and a clock.

While no mention is made of whether the construct is sentient, [katef] fully documented the build on their GitHub page, and so go check that out for animated pictures, links to more information, and more. It’s quite impressive, if not just a little bonkers. But most good hacks are, right?

We love unique CPU builds, and you might get a kick out of this one made from- that’s right- 555 timers. Thanks to [Myself] on the Hackaday Discord server for the tip, and be sure to send in your favorite outrageous projects to the Hackaday tip line!

Attack Of The Eighty-Foot String Shooter

January 1, 2022 by 24 Comments

String shooters are exciting because they adhere to the laws of physics in that peculiar way that makes us ask, “How?” and “Why?” After a bit of poking and prodding, maybe some light rope burn, we probably have a few ideas on how we’d make our own. [Nick Belsten] and [Joey Rain] saw some desktop models and thought, “Let’s make that puppy eighty feet long!” Video also embedded after the break.

Instead of hobby motors, flashlight batteries, and toy car wheels, they choose a washing machine motor and bike tires, then plug into an extension cord. The three-minute video isn’t a how-to build because once you start welding this kind of hardware together, you are already flying by the seat of your pants. You will see a front yard with people delighting in the absurdity of launching rope continuously over the treetops. There’s plenty of room for observing a wave traveling along the cord or polishing your fingernails in a hurry.

We want to make string shooters for the office and add our personal flavor, like lights or colored string so they’re safe to touch. If you have a unique twist on any physics experiments, drop us a line, but for insurance reasons, we’ll add that you should not make a chainsaw without a guide bar, aka, the forbidden chain-saber.

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Facial Recognition For Covid-19 Tracking In Seoul

December 31, 2021 by 32 Comments

The city of Bucheon, population 830,000, is a satellite city southwest of Seoul and part of the greater metropolitan area and the site of a pilot program to apply AI facial recognition and tracking technologies to aid Covid-19 epidemiological investigators. South Korea has been generally praised for its rapid response to coronavirus patient tracking since the beginning of the outbreak. People entering public facilities enter their information on a roster or scan a QR code. Epidemiologists tracking outbreaks use a variety of data available to them, including these logs, electronic transaction data, mobile phone location logs, CCTV footage, and interviews. But the workload can be overwhelming, and there are only a fixed number of workers with the required training available, despite efforts to hire more.

As contract tracing has been done to-date, it takes one investigator up to an hour to trace the movements of one patient. When the system goes online in January, it should be able to trace one patient in less than a minute, handling up to ten traces simultaneously. Project officials say there is no plan for this system to expand to the rest of Seoul, nor nationwide. But with the growing virus caseloads and continued difficulties hiring and training investigators, it’s not unexpected that officials will be turning to these technologies more and more to keep up with the increasing workload.

Like the controversy surrounding the recent facial recognition project at Incheon International Airport, people are becoming concerned about the privacy implications and the specter of a Big Brother government that tracks each and every move of its citizens — a valid fear, given the state of technology today. The project planners note that the data is being legally collected and its usage subject to strict rules. Korean privacy law requires consent for the collecting and storage of biometric data. But there are exceptions for situations such as disease control and prevention.

Even if all the privacy concerns are solves, we wonder just how effective these AI systems will be for tracking people wearing masks. This is not an issue unique to South Korea or even Asia. Many countries around the world are turning to such technologies (see this article from the Columbia School of Law) and are having similar struggles striking the balance between privacy and public health requirements.

[Banner image: “facial-recognition-1” by Electronic_Frontier_Foundation. Thanks for all you do!]

A circuit sculpture based on an indicator tube

“Buggy” Circuit Sculpture Based On A Tuning Indicator Tube

December 31, 2021 by 4 Comments

If you’ve ever used an old tube radio, you might be familiar with that mysterious little green display that helps you to tune exactly to a station. That display is called a tuning indicator, or magic eye tube; in essence it’s a minimalistic cathode ray tube that can sweep its electron beam along only one axis. It thereby outputs a kind of bar graph that varies with the input voltage.

With few modern uses other than being pretty, it only makes sense that these tubes find their way into works of art: [Patrice] used one to make an insect-like piece of circuit sculpture. The tube he used is an EM34, which is one of the most common indicator tubes around and has a circular, iris-like display area. This becomes a large eye, peering forward from the bug’s body. The legs are made from 1.5 mm thick brass wire, while a DC/DC converter generates the 210 Volts DC needed to operate the tube.

An interesting “touch” is the addition of two antennae that are hooked up in such a way that the tube’s image changes when you push them; this interactivity makes the bug come alive a little bit. Speaking of touch, we think it would be prudent to put some insulation around the 210 V wires; even though the bug is battery-powered, touching the high voltage and ground wires simultaneously would deliver a nasty shock.

Nevertheless, the bare-wire retro design looks beautiful and would make a great ornament for any electronics-lover’s office. We’ve seen magic eye tubes being used for various purposes: you can turn them into a spectrum analyzer, measure capacitors with them, or simply use them as a bar-graph display. Continue reading ““Buggy” Circuit Sculpture Based On A Tuning Indicator Tube” →