Automatically Crack Safes With This Autodialer

March 30, 2025 by 13 Comments

When attempting to secure something, whether it’s a computer, sensitive data, or valuables, there’s always going to be a way to break that security. It might be impossibly hard, like taking centuries to brute-force an encryption algorithm, but it’s weakness is still there. And, like the future might make certain encryption obsolete, modern electronics has made security of the past somewhat obsolete as well. [Startup Chuck] has been using tools the creators of safes from the late 1800s could probably not have imagined.

The tool that [Startup Chuck] has come up with is known as an autodialer in the safe-cracking world, and as its name suggests it automates the process of opening the safe by trying as many combinations as possible. The autodialer attaches to the safe with three magnetic feet and couples to the dial through a chuck attached to a magnetic clutch, which allows the autodialer to disengage as soon as the correct combination is found. It’s driven with a stepper motor which can test out combinations so fast that [Startup Chuck] needed to take 240 fps video and slow it down to make sure that the mechanism was behaving properly.

The autodialer itself can’t actually open the safe, though. The last step of the process is taken care of by a bungie cord, attached to the safe handle to pre-tension it enough so that when the correct combination is finally entered the safe pops open automatically. For anyone looking to duplicate the project, [Startup Chuck] has added the program code to a GitHub page. If you’re looking at a more modern safe, though, there are of course ways to crack their security systems as well.

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Chip Glitching 101 With [Hash]

March 30, 2025 by 4 Comments

Ever want to get into reverse engineering but don’t know where to start? You’re in luck — [Hash] just dropped a case study in chip glitching that should get you off on the right foot.

The object of this reverse engineering effort in the video below is a Microchip SAM4C32C, removed from one of the many smart electrical meters [Hash] loves to tear into. This microcontroller was supposed to be locked to prevent anyone from sniffing around in the code, but after soldering the chip to a target board and plugging it into a Chip Whisperer, [Hash] was able to find some odd-looking traces on the oscilloscope. Of particular interest was an unusual pattern on the scope while resetting the chip, which led him to an AI-assisted search for potential vulnerabilities. This allowed him to narrow down the target time for a power glitch, and in only a few seconds, the chip was forced to bypass its security bit and drop into its boot loader. With the keys to the kingdom, [Hash] was able to read the firmware and find all sorts of interesting tidbits.

Obviously, chip glitching isn’t always as easy as this, and even when a manufacturer leaves a vector like this in the chip, exploiting it does take some experience and finesse. But, if you’re going to get started glitching, it makes sense to start with the low-hanging fruit, and having [Hash] along for the ride doesn’t hurt either.

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Yaydio, A Music Player For Kids

March 29, 2025 by 6 Comments

Music consumption has followed a trend over the last decade or more of abandoning physical media for online or streaming alternatives. This can present a problem for young children however, for whom a simpler physical interface may be an easier way to play those tunes. Maintaining a library of CDs is not entirely convenient either, so [JakesMD] has created the Yaydio. It’s a music player for kids, that plays music when a card is inserted in its slot.

As you might expect, the cards themselves do not contain the music. Instead they are NFC cards, and the player starts the corresponding album from its SD card when one is detected. The hardware is simple enough, an Arduino Nano with modules for MP3 playback, NFC reading, seven segment display, and rotary encoder. The whole thing lives in a kid-friendly 3D printed case.

Some thought has been given to easily adding albums and assigning cards to them, making it easy to keep up with the youngster’s tastes. This isn’t the first such kid-friendly music player we’ve seen, but it’s certainly pretty neat.

DIY Split Keyboard Made With A Saw

March 29, 2025 by 23 Comments

Split keyboards are becoming more popular, but because they’re still relatively niche, they can be rather expensive if you want to buy one. So why not make your own? Sure, you could assemble one from a kit, but why not take a cheap mechanical keyboard, slice it in half and just waves hands connect the two halves back together? If this thought appeals to you, then [nomolk]’s literal hackjob video should not be ignored. Make sure to enable English subtitles for the Japanese-language video.

Easy split keyboard tip: just reconnect both halves... (Credit: nomolk, YouTube)
Easy split keyboard tip: just reconnect both halves… (Credit: nomolk, YouTube)

In it, the fancy (but cheap) mechanical keyboard with Full RGB™ functionality is purchased and tested prior to meeting its demise. Although the left side with the cable and controller still works, the right side now needs to be connected, which is where a lot of tedious wires have to be soldered to repair traces.

Naturally this will go wrong, so it’s important to take a (sushi) break and admire the sunset before hurling oneself at the tracing of faulty wiring. This process and the keyboard matrix is further detailed on the blog entry (in Japanese) for this process.

Although this was perhaps easier than the other split keyboard project involving a membrane keyboard, this tongue-in-cheek project demonstrates the limits of practicality with this approach even if it could be cleaned up more with fancier wiring.

We give it full points for going the whole way, however, and making the keyboard work again in the end.

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An ESP32 Pomodoro Timer

March 29, 2025 by 15 Comments

The Pomdoro technique of time management has moved on a little from the tomato-shaped kitchen timer which gave it a name, as [Rukenshia] shows us with this nifty ESP32 and e-paper design. It’s relatively simple in hardware terms, being a collection of off-the-shelf modules in a 3D printed case, but the software has a custom interface for the friend it was built for.

At its heart is a NodeMCU board and a Waveshare display module, with a rotary encoder and addressable LED as further interface components. A lot of attention has been paid to the different options for the interface, and to make the front end displayed on the screen as friendly and useful as possible. Power comes via USB-C, something that should be available in most working environments here in 2025.

We’ve tried a variant on this technique for a while now with varying success, maybe because a mobile phone doesn’t make for as good a timer as a dedicated piece of hardware such as this. Perhaps we should follow this example. If we did, the Hackaday timer couldn’t possibly use an ESP32.

AMSAT-OSCAR 7: The Ham Satellite That Refused To Die

March 29, 2025 by 46 Comments

When the AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) amateur radio satellite was launched in 1974, its expected lifespan was about five years. The plucky little satellite made it to 1981 when a battery failure caused it to be written off as dead. Then, in 2002 it came back to life. The prevailing theory being that one of the cells in the satellites NiCd battery pack, in an extremely rare event, failed open — thus allowing the satellite to run (intermittently) off its solar panels.

In a recent video by [Ben] on the AE4JC Amateur Radio YouTube channel goes over the construction of AO-7, its operation, death and subsequent revival are covered, as well as a recent QSO (direct contact).

The battery is made up of multiple individual cells.

The solar panels covering this satellite provided a grand total of 14 watts at maximum illumination, which later dropped to 10 watts, making for a pretty small power budget. The entire satellite was assembled in a ‘clean room’ consisting of a sectioned off part of a basement, with components produced by enthusiasts associated with AMSAT around the world. Onboard are two radio transponders: Mode A at 2 meters and Mode B at 10 meters, as well as four beacons, three of which are active due to an international treaty affecting the 13 cm beacon.

Positioned in a geocentric LEO (1,447 – 1,465 km) orbit, it’s quite amazing that after 50 years it’s still mostly operational. Most of this is due to how the satellite smartly uses the Earth’s magnetic field for alignment with magnets as well as the impact of photons to maintain its spin. This passive control combined with the relatively high altitude should allow AO-7 to function pretty much indefinitely while the PV panels keep producing enough power. All because a NiCd battery failed in a very unusual way.

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Open Source Framework Aims To Keep Tidbyt Afloat

March 29, 2025 by 10 Comments

We recently got a note in the tips line from [Tavis Gustafson], who is one of the developers of Tronbyt — a replacement firmware and self-hosted backend that breaks the Tidbyt smart display free from its cloud dependency. When they started the project, [Tavis] says the intent was simply to let privacy-minded users keep their data within the local network, which was itself a goal worthy enough to be featured on these pages.

But now that Tidbyt has been acquired by Modal and has announced they’ll no longer be producing new units, things have shifted slightly. While the press release says that the Tidbyt backend is going to stay up and running for existing customers, the writing is clearly on the wall. It’s now possible that the Tronbyt project will be able to keep these devices from ending up in landfills when the cloud service is inevitably switched off, especially if they can get the word out to existing users before then.

What’s that? You say you haven’t heard of Tidbyt? Well, truth be told, neither had we. So we did some digging, and this is where things get really interesting.

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