Hackaday Podcast 178: The Return Of Supercon, Victory For Open Source, Exquisite Timepieces, And Documentation To Die For

July 22, 2022 by Tom Nardi 2 Comments

Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week’s podcast off with an announcement the community has been waiting years for: the return of the Hackaday Supercon! While there’s still some logistical details to hammer out, we’re all extremely excited to return to a live con and can’t wait to share more as we get closer to November. Of course you can’t have Supercon without the Hackaday Prize, which just so happens to be wrapping up its Hack it Back challenge this weekend.

In other news, we’ll talk about the developing situation regarding the GPLv3 firmware running on Ortur’s laser engravers (don’t worry, it’s good news for a change), and a particularly impressive fix that kept a high-end industrial 3D printer out of the scrapheap. We’ll also fawn over a pair of fantastically documented projects, learn about the fascinating origins of the lowly fire hydrant, and speculate wildly about the tidal wave of dead solar panels looming menacingly in the distance.

Or download the fresh bitstream yourself.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 178: The Return Of Supercon, Victory For Open Source, Exquisite Timepieces, And Documentation To Die For” →

Throwback: Designing Addressable LEDs From Scratch

July 13, 2022 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

These days, addressable LEDs are all the rage. A little chip paired with each LED receives signals and modulates the light output as needed. [John Peterson] was working on a project along these very lines, designing his Curilights back in 2008!

[John] wasn’t the first to come up with the idea; he designed the Curilights to replicate a string of programmable LEDs he’d seen called Triklits. His design involved each RGB LED being fitted with a Microchip PIC 16F688 microcontroller, which could receive serial data and control the LED channels with PWM. These LEDs could then be strung up to create an addressable chain. It’s fundamentally the same concept as the WS2812, just in a larger format and built by hand. His design also had the benefit of non-volatile memory onboard the PICs, so animations could be stored even after power off. [John] later went on to build a controller for his lights, complete with sensors. It could be triggered by a motion sensor or light sensor, and would run animations on the string without the use of a computer.

While [John]’s design didn’t go on to bigger things or commercial success, it did win first place at the Third Annual Lantronix Wireless Design Contest. It also goes to show that many people will come around to the same idea when it makes good sense!

If you’re interested in the wider world of addressable LEDs, check out our breakdown on some of the products out there. Meanwhile, if you’re brewing up your own flashing, glowing projects, be sure to notify the tipsline!

ESP32 Powers Fresh Take On An IoT Geiger Counter

July 7, 2022 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Over the years we’ve covered many projects aimed at detecting elevated radiation levels, and a fair number of them have been Internet connected in some way. But as they are often built around the Soviet-era SBM-20 Geiger–Müller tube, these devices have generally adhered to a fairly conservative design. With the current situation in Europe heightening concerns over potential radiation exposure, [g3gg0] thought it was a good a time as any to revisit the idea of an Internet-connected Geiger counter using more modern components.

Now to be clear, even this modernized approach still makes use of that same SBM-20 tube. There’s such an incredible wealth of information floating around out there about how to work with them that you’d almost put yourself at a disadvantage to chose something else to base your design on. Put simply, it’s hard to go wrong with a classic.

An unfortunate bug was discovered in the HV circuit.

That said, [g3gg0] decided early on that the design would use as many SMD components as possible, a considerable departure from many of the SBM-20 counters we’ve seen. That meant coming up with a new high-voltage power supply capable of providing the tube with the necessary 400 V, which from the sound of things, took a few attempts to complete. The final result is perhaps the smallest and cleanest looking board we’ve ever seen play host to this particular tube.

To run the show, [g3gg0] selected the ESP32-PICO-D4. You certainly don’t need such a powerful microcontroller to read the impulses from the SBM-20 tube and publish them via MQTT, but to be fair, the chip has a number of other duties. It’s handling the WS2812 RGB LEDs that go off in response to detected particles, running the (apparently optional) 2.9 inch WaveShare electronic paper display, and also pulling data from a BME280 environmental sensor as well as a CCS811 VOC sensor — so it’s keeping fairly busy.

As impressive as this build is, we do hate that it had to be built. From certain world leaders dropping casual comments about the strength of their nuclear arsenal to foolhardy attempts to capture the Chernobyl power station, having access to a reliable Geiger counter isn’t an unreasonable precaution right now. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope the fancy RGB LEDs on this particular build remain as dark as possible.

Continue reading “ESP32 Powers Fresh Take On An IoT Geiger Counter” →

A wristwatch similar to the Berlin Uhr, with the actual Berlin Urh in the background

Tiny Berlin Clock Replica Also Counts Seconds

July 5, 2022 by Robin Kearey 7 Comments

If you’re a clock aficionado and have ever visited Berlin, you’re probably familiar with the Berlin Clock on Budapester Straße: a minimalist design of yellow and orange lights that displays the time in a base-5 number system. This clock has been telling the time to the few that can read it since 1975, and is but one of several unusual clocks that can be found in the city.

Berlin resident [jjoeff] decided to make a miniature replica, appropriately called the Berlin Uhr Nano, in order to watch the unusual display at any time of day. Built around a Wemos D1 Mini, it connects to WiFi in order to synchronize its internal clock to an NTP time server. It then drives a custom PCB that holds 39 WS2812 LEDs to display the time in its proper format. Unlike the original though, it also includes a full counter to tell the number of seconds; the bigger clock just flashes a single lamp to show the seconds passing.

Powered by a 500 mAh lithium battery, it can be converted into a wristwatch by simply threading a strap through slots in the PCB. With no buttons for adjustment or any functionality other than displaying the time, it serves the same purpose as the original, just in a portable format. We’ve seen a slightly larger Berlin Clock replica made of wood before, as well as a round one that uses the same base-5 encoding scheme. Continue reading “Tiny Berlin Clock Replica Also Counts Seconds” →

RGB 7-Segment Display Module Glows In All The Colours

June 19, 2022 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

While 7-segment displays are all well and good, they’re considered a bit old hat these days. This project from [Matt Deeds] brings them screaming into the future, though, sporting every color under the rainbow.

[Matt’s] build consists of a PCB filled with SK6812 side-mount LEDs, laid out in a typical 7-segment pattern. Each PCB features two 7-segment digits. The SK6812 LEDs can be driven in the same way as the famous WS2812B addressable LEDs, though they have the benefit of being more stable in color and brightness over a range of supply voltages.

With the LEDs installed, and a second PCB used solely as a diffuser by leaving out sections of solder mask, it’s a compact 7-segment solution at just 2.7 mm thick. The bonus is that each segment can be set to a different color thanks to the nature of the addressable RGB LEDs. Going too ham in this regard will make the displays difficult to read, but it can be used to easily display green, red, or yellow numbers, for example, to create a visual guide to a numerical range.

It’s a great build, and we love to see 7-segment displays re-imagined in different ways – even mechanically! It also takes fewer pins to drive compared to the old way of doing things in the non-addressable LED era. If you’ve got your own neat 7-segment projects under development, please do let us know!

Big Audio Visualizer Pumps With The Music

May 13, 2022 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

A spectrum analyzer is a great way to create exciting visuals that pulse in time with music. [pyrograf] wanted a big one as a display piece, so set about whipping up something of their very own.

An ESP32 microcontroller serves as the heart of the build, with its high clock rate and dual cores making it a highly capable choice for the job. Audio from a microphone is amplified and pumped into the ESP32’s analog input. Core 0 on the ESP32 then runs a Fast Fourier Transform on the input audio in order to determine the energy in each frequency band. The results of this FFT are then passed to Core 1, which is used to calculate the required animations and pipe them out to a series of WS2812B LEDs.

Where this build really shines, though, is in the actual construction. Big chunks of acrylic serve as diffusers for the LEDs which light up each segment of the spectrum display. Combine the big pixel size with a nice smooth 30 Hz refresh rate on the LEDs, and the result is a rather large spectrum analyzer that really does look the business.

We’ve seen some similar builds over the years, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Big Audio Visualizer Pumps With The Music” →

Easy Network Config For IoT Devices With RGBeacon

May 11, 2022 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

When you’re hooking up hardware to a network, it can sometimes be a pain to figure out what IP address the device has ended up with. [Bas Pijls] often saw this problem occurring in the classroom, and set about creating a simple method for small devices to communicate their IP address and other data with a minimum of fuss.

[Bas] specifically wanted a way to do this without adding a display to the hardware, as this would add a lot of complexity and expense to simple IoT devices. Instead, RGBeacon was created, wherin a microcontroller flashes out network information with the aid of a single RGB WS2812B LED.

In fact, all three colors of the RGB LED are used to send information to a computer via a webcam. The red channel flashes out a clock signal, the green channel represents the beginning of a byte, and the blue channel flashes to indicate bits that are high. With a little signal processing, a computer running a Javascript app in a web browser can receive information from a microcontroller flashing its LEDs via a webcam.

It’s a neat hack that should make setting up devices in [Bas]’s classes much easier. It needn’t be limited to network info, either; the code could be repurposed to let a microcontroller flash out other messages, too. It’s not dissimilar from the old Timex Datalink watches which used monitor flashes to communicate!