Showing a USB-C tester running the DingoCharge script, charging a battery pack at 7V. To the right is a battery pack being charged, and a USB-C charger doing the charging.

Use USB-C Chargers To Top Up Li-Ion Packs With This Hack

January 1, 2023 by Arya Voronova 5 Comments

In USB-C Power Delivery (PD) standard, the PPS (Programmable Power Supply) mode is an optional mode that lets you request a non-standard voltage from a charger, with the ability to set a current limit of your choice, too. Having learned this, [Jason] from [Rip It Apart] decided to investigate — could this feature be used for charging Li-Ion battery packs, which need the voltage and current to vary in a specific way throughout the charging process? Turns out, the answer is a resounding “yes”, and thanks to a USB-C tester that’s programmable using Lua scripts, [Jason] shows us how we can use a PPS-capable USB-C charger for topping up our Li-Ion battery packs, in a project named DingoCharge.

The wonderful write-up answers every question you have, starting with a safety disclaimer, and going through everything you might want to know. The GitHub repo hosts not only code but also full installation and usage instructions.

DingoCharge handles more than just Li-Ion batteries — this ought to work with LiFePO4 and lithium titanate batteries, too. [Jason] has been working on Ni-MH and lead-acid support. You can even connect an analog output thermal sensor and have the tester limit the charge process depending on the temperature, showing just how fully-featured a solution the DingoCharge project is.

The amount of effort put into polishing this project is impressive, and now it’s out there for us to take advantage of; all you need is a PPS-capable PSU and a supported USB-C tester. If your charger’s PPS is limited by 11V, as many are, you’ll only be able to fully charge 2S packs with it – that said, this is a marked improvement over many Li-Ion solutions we’ve seen. Don’t have a Li-Ion pack? Build one out of smartphone cells! Make sure your pack has a balancing circuit, of course, since this charger can’t provide any, and all will be good. Still looking to get into Li-Ion batteries? We have a three-part guide, from basics to mechanics and electronics!

A DIY Pulse Tube Cryocooler In The Quest For Home-Made Liquid Nitrogen

January 1, 2023 by Maya Posch 5 Comments

What if you have a need for liquid nitrogen, but you do not wish to simply order it from a local supplier? In that case you can build your very own pulse tube cryocooler, as [Hyperspace Pirate] is in the process of doing over at YouTube. You can catch part 1 using a linear motor and part 2 using a reciprocating piston-based version also after the break. Although still very much a work-in-progress, the second version of the cryocooler managed to reduce the temperature to a chilly -75°C.

The pulse tube cryocooler is one of many types of systems used for creating a cooling effect. Commercially available refrigerators and freezers tend to use Rankine cycle coolers due to their low cost and effectiveness at (relatively) warmer temperatures. For cryogenic temperatures, Stirling engines are commonly used, although they find some use in refrigeration as well. All three share common elements, but they differ in their efficiency over a larger temperature range.

In this video series, the viewer is taken through the physics behind these coolers and the bottlenecks which prevent them from simply cooling down to zero Kelvin. Despite the deceptive simplicity of pulse tube cryocoolers — with just a single piston, a regenerator mesh, and some tubing — making them work well is an exercise in patience. We’re definitely looking forward to the future videos in this series as it develops.

Continue reading “A DIY Pulse Tube Cryocooler In The Quest For Home-Made Liquid Nitrogen” →

pulse oximeter as a small sticker that sticks on your fingernail and measures heart rate, motion, and blood oxygen

This Fingernail Sticker Can Detect When You Stop Breathing

January 1, 2023 by Orlando Hoilett 8 Comments

Sometimes we dig through the archives to see what kind of crazy hacks we can pull out of the depths of the world wide web and this one was worth sharing. Researchers at Northwestern University developed a sticker that’s applied to the fingernail and measures heart rate, motion, and blood oxygen, all without a battery.

The photoplethysmograph (PPG) system is similar to what we’ve covered before and the motion sensor is simply an accelerometer, so we won’t go over those aspects of the device. The parts of the device that did catch our attention were the battery-less operation as well as its size. It’s just so dang small! And fits snuggly on a fingernail or on even on your earlobe. The size here is actually a very interesting feature and not just a marketing plug. Because the device is so small and lightweight, it is very easy to adhere to the fingernail or skin with very little sensory perception. Basically, the person wearing the device won’t even notice it’s there. That’s definitely an advantage over the traditional, bulky, hospital-grade instruments we’ve grown accustomed to.

The device adheres really well given its small and lightweight design, so motion artifacts are significantly reduced. Motion artifacts in PPG-based devices are due to the relative motion between the optode (LED and photodiode) and the skin. The traditional approaches of ensuring the device don’t move are for the patient to keep very still during a recording, to wear the device tightly against the skin (think of how tightly you need to wear your smartwatch to get consistent readings), or use some seriously tough and uncomfortable adhesive as you may have done if you’ve ever gotten an electrocardiogram reading before. This device eliminates those three problems.

The other aspect of the device that caught our attention is its use of wireless power instead of a battery. In some senses, this could be seen as an advantage or as a disadvantage. The device relies on NFC for power and data transmission, a pretty common approach for devices that only need to be used intermittently. Wireless power could be a bit problematic for continuous monitoring devices which provide readings every second or several times a second. But who knows, wireless power seems to be everywhere these days.

Digging into the details a bit, the double-layer antenna is designed around the circumference of the device using wet etching to create traces on a copper polyimide foil. The team electroplated holes through the different layers of the device (optode layer, first antenna layer, polyimide, second antenna layer, component layer, protective top coat) connecting the antenna to the die pad NFC chip (SL13A, AMS AG). Connecting the chip requires some pretty fine-pitch soldering techniques, but nothing we’re not accustomed to here at Hackaday. Overall, they seemed pretty successful, obtaining a Q factor of 16 and a transmission distance of 30 mm using a smartphone and not some giant reader antenna.

Definitely, a really cool project that we recommend checking out.

NABU PC Gets CPU Upgrade, Emulates A TRS-80

January 1, 2023 by Robin Kearey 11 Comments

The NABU PC caused a bit of a buzz in the retrocomputing community a couple weeks back. After all, it doesn’t happen often that a huge batch of brand-new computers from the 1980s suddenly becomes available on eBay. Out of the box, the computer itself isn’t that useful: with no internal storage, or any application software whatsoever, it can really only serve as a bare-bones development platform. But since its hardware is quite similar to that of other contemporary home computers, emulating one of those shouldn’t be too difficult, which is exactly what [Ted Fried] did: he managed to turn his NABU into a TRS-80 clone by using his MCLZ8 CPU emulator.

The MCLZ8 is basically an 800 MHz Teensy CPU with an adapter board that allows it to be plugged into a Z80 socket. It emulates the Z80 CPU in real-time, but it also holds the TRS-80 ROM and performs real-time translation between peripherals. On the input side, it reads out the ASCII characters coming in from the NABU’s 8251A UART and stores them in the virtual TRS-80’s keyboard buffer. On the output side, it transfers the TRS-80’s video data to the NABU’s TMS9918 video chip.

One problem [Ted] ran into was a difference in screen resolution: the NABU has a 40×24 character display, while the TRS-80 generates a 64×16 character image. [Ted] solved the vertical difference by simply keeping the NABU logo on the screen at all times, and decided to just ignore the 24 characters that drop off the right side – it’s not a big issue for a typical BASIC program anyway.

The repurposed NABU might not be a perfect TRS-80 clone, but that’s not the point: it shows how easily the NABU’s hardware can be reprogrammed to do other things. For example, [Ted] has already started work on a new project that doesn’t emulate the Z80, but instead runs code directly on the Teensy’s ARM A9 processor. As you might imagine, this gives the NABU several orders of magnitude more processing power, although the practical use of this is limited because the CPU still has to wait for the NABU’s slow data bus and display chip. [Ted] explains the setup and runs a few impressive demos in the video embedded below.

[Ted]’s NABU experiments are a great example of the Teensy board’s flexibility: we’ve already seen how it can emulate a Z80 as well as an 8088. We’re also curious to see what others will develop with the NABU’s hardware — if they can still buy it, of course.

Continue reading “NABU PC Gets CPU Upgrade, Emulates A TRS-80” →

Raspberry Pi biosensor with screen-printed electrodes

Raspberry Pi And PpLOGGER Make A Low-Cost Chemiluminescence Detector

December 31, 2022 by Orlando Hoilett 11 Comments

[Laena] and her colleagues at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science in Melbourne, Australia used a Raspberry Pi to make a low-cost electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detector to measure inflammation markers, which could be used to detect cardiovascular disease or sepsis early enough to give doctors a better chance at saving a patient’s life.

ECL reactions emit light as a result of an electrically-activated chemical reaction, making them very useful for detecting biochemical markers in blood, saliva, or other biological samples. ECL setups are fundamentally fairly straightforward. The device includes a voltage reference generator to initiate the chemical reaction and a photomultiplier tube (PMT) to measure the emitted light. The PMT outputs a current which is then converted to a voltage using a transimpedance amplifier (TIA). That signal is then sampled by the DAQCplate expansion board and the live output can be viewed in ppLOGGER in real-time.

Using the RPi allowed the team to do some necessary, but pretty simple signal processing, like converting the TIA voltage back to a photocurrent and integrating the current to obtain the ECL intensities. They mention the added signal processing potential of the RPi was a huge advantage of their setup over similar devices, however, simple integration can be done pretty easily on most any microcontroller. Naturally, they compared their device to a standard ECL setup and found that the results were fairly comparable between the two instruments. Their custom device showed a slightly lower limit of detection than the standard setup.

Their device costs roughly $1756 USD in non-bulk quantities with the PMT being the majority of the cost ($1500). Even at almost $2000, their device provides more than $8000 in savings compared to ECL instruments on the market. Though cost is much more than just the bill of materials, we like seeing the community making efforts to democratize science, and [Laena] and her colleagues did just that. I wonder if they can help us figure out the venus fly trap while they’re at it?

Showing the same thumbdrive plugged into the same USB-C port in two different orientations, enumerating as two different USB ports

Dirty USB-C Tricks: One Port For The Price Of Two

December 31, 2022 by Arya Voronova 48 Comments

[RichardG] has noticed a weird discrepancy – his Ryzen mainboard ought to have had fourteen USB3 ports, but somehow, only exposed thirteen of them. Unlike other mainboards in this lineup, it also happens to have a USB-C port among these thirteen ports. These two things wouldn’t be related in any way, would they? Turns out, they are, and [RichardG] shows us a dirty USB-C trick that manufacturers pull on us for an unknown reason.

On a USB-C port using USB3, the USB3 TX and RX signals have to be routed to two different pin groups, depending on the plugged-in cable orientation. In a proper design, you would have a multiplexer chip detecting cable orientation, and routing the pins to one or the other. Turns out, quite a few manufacturers are choosing to wire up two separate ports to the USB-C connector instead.

In the extensive writeup on this problem, [Richard] explains how the USB-C port ought to be wired, how it’s wired instead, shows telltale signs of such a trick, and how to check if a USB-C port on your PC is miswired in the same way. He also ponders on whether this is compliant with the USB-C specification, but can’t quite find an answer. There’s a surprising amount of products and adapters doing this exact thing, too, all of them desktop PC accessories – perhaps, you bought a device with such a USB-C port and don’t know it.

As a conclusion, he debates making an adapter to break the stolen USB3 port out. This wouldn’t be the first time we’re cheated when it comes to USB ports – the USB2 devices with blue connectors come to mind.

Get To Know Touch With This Dev Board

December 31, 2022 by Jenny List 5 Comments

In the catalogue of the Chinese parts supplier LCSC can be found many parts not available from American or European suppliers, and thus anyone who wants to evaluate them can find themselves at a disadvantage. [Sleepy Pony Labs] had just such a part catch their eye, the Sam&Wing AI08 8 channel capacitive touch controller. How to evaluate a chip with little information? Design a dev board, of course!

The chip tested is part of a family all providing similar functionality, but with a variety of interface options. The part tested has eight touch inputs and a BCD output. Said output is used to feed a 74 series decoder chip and drive some LEDs. The touch pads were designed with reference to a Microchip application note which incidentally makes for fascinating reading on the subject as it covers far more than just simple touch buttons.

Whether or not you’ll need this touch chip is a matter for your own designs, however, what this project demonstrates is that with the ready availability of cheap custom PCBs and unexpected parts it’s not beyond reason to create boards just for evaluation purposes.

Perhaps the subject of a previous Hackaday piece would have found this board useful.