Open Source ASICs Hack Chat With Matt Venn

March 14, 2022 by Dan Maloney No comments

Join us on Wednesday, March 16 at noon Pacific for the Open Source ASICs Hack Chat with Matt Venn!

When it comes to electronic designs, most of us are content to make (sometimes) useful circuits using chips that were designed by someone else. That’s the beauty of this game, really — a lot of the hard work has already been done for you in the form of microcontrollers, gates, memory, amps, and timers that are all well-characterized, cheap, and readily available. Well, maybe not that last one right now…

Supply chain issues notwithstanding, though, there’s plenty to be said for designing your own silicon. It’s not for everyone, of course, but if you need something custom, something that nobody else has ever dreamed up, then you really might want to consider rolling your own. Trouble is, most of us don’t really have the tools to design something as exquisitely complicated as a silicon chip, and we don’t exactly have access to a multi-billion dollar fab plant to spin up a couple when the whim strikes.

Or do we? As it turns out, we all do have access to the tools and technologies needed to turn our designs into silicon. We just need a little guidance, like that offered by Matt Venn and his “Zero to ASIC” course. You’ll no doubt recall that Matt made appearances at both the 2020 and the 2021 Remoticons to talk about his efforts, and his recent partial success with his application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Now’s your chance to ask Matt questions about the process, what the course is all about, and how you can make your silicon dreams come true.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 16 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter. Reminder: this is the first Hack Chat this year after the time change in North America, so check carefully.

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Careful Cuts Lets Logger Last A Year On A Coin Cell

March 14, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 21 Comments

Coin cells are great for backup power for things like real-time clocks, or even for powering incredibly small mechanical devices like watches. But for something like a data logger, running on a standard microcontroller, most people would reach for a lithium cell of some sort. Not so with this build, though, which squeezes every joule of energy from a coin cell in order to run a data logger for a full year.

Most of the design and engineering required to improve the efficiency of the data logger involve standard practices for low-power devices such as shutting off unnecessary components and putting the device to sleep when not actively running, but this build goes far beyond that. The Vcc pin on the RTC was clipped which disables some of its internal logic but still keeps its basic functionality intact.

All of the voltage regulators were removed or disabled in favor of custom circuitry that doesn’t waste as much energy. The status and power LEDs were removed where possible, and the entire data logger is equipped with custom energy-efficient code as well.

If you’re starting a low-power project, even one that isn’t a datalogger, it’s worth checking out this build to see just how far you can go if you’re willing to hack at a PCB with cutting tools and a soldering iron. As to why this data logger needed such a low power requirement, it turns out it’s part of a kit being used in classrooms and using a coin cell brought the price of the entire unit down tremendously. Even if you have lithium cells on hand, though, it’s still worthwhile to check out the low power modes of your microcontroller.

Thanks to [Adrian] for the tip!

The Tasmanian Tiger’s Comeback Tour, Powered By Science

March 14, 2022 by Lewin Day 53 Comments

Scientists estimate that approximately 900 species have gone extinct in the last five centuries alone, to say nothing of the thousands or millions that vanished from life in the billions of years before that.

Conventional wisdom states that once an animal has gone extinct, it’s gone forever. However, a team from the University of Melbourne hopes to change all that, with their new project aiming to bring the Tasmanian Tiger back to life.
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The Noble Effort To Put OpenSCAD In The Browser

March 14, 2022 by Jenny List 58 Comments

In a world of CAD packages with arcane or unfriendly interfaces there’s a stand-out player that’s remarkable because it has no interface. OpenSCAD is a CAD package for coders, in which all design elements are created in a scripting language rather than graphically. It’s maybe not for everyone but it has a significant following, and its reach has been extended further as you can now run it from within a modern web browser.

The origins of this project can be tracked back to August of 2021, when when Autodrop3D’s [mmiscool] offered a sizable bounty for anyone willing to port the parametric CAD modeler to web assembly. Developer [Dominick Schroer] ultimately answered the call with openscad-wasm, which implements the core of OpenSCAD as a JavaScript ES6 module. From there, it just needed to get paired with a user interface, and off to the cloud we go.

Opening it up and giving it a go, we found it to be a very usable OpenSCAD version, albeit a little slower to render than the desktop equivalent on a mediocre laptop. We didn’t try exporting and printing an STL, but so far it has given us no reason to believe it wouldn’t be every bit as useful as the version you’re used to.

But wait, there’s more! Parallel to this effort, [Olivier Chafik] has also been working on his own idea of what OpenSCAD in the web should be. He’s using the same core developed by [Dominick], but has combined it with the Monaco editor from Microsoft and a Javascript STL viewer. Despite being very similar, we’re happy to report there’s no rivalry here; in fact, according to the video after the break, it sounds like two the projects have already swapped a bit of code.

The move among desktop applications to move into the browser and often into a pay-to-play cloud has seemed relentless over recent years, so it’s pleasing to see a rare example of a browser migration that’s open-source. It has the handy effect of bringing the CAD package to platforms such as tablets or Chromebooks which wouldn’t normally be an OpenSCAD platform, and this we like, a lot.

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3D Printing Snap Fit Joints

March 14, 2022 by Al Williams 10 Comments

Owning a 3D printer seems to progress through stages. You start printing simple shapes. Then you get serious about calibration and quality. Eventually, you move to trying to design and build practical things. To get practical, you often need to join parts together and that requires glue, fasteners, threaded inserts, and plastic welding. However, you can also make parts that fit together using friction and the springiness of plastic. For example, [Lucas Carolo] recently had a look at 3D printing snap-fit joints. These are commonly seen on the end of straps so that you can connect two ends together.

Of course, you can use them anywhere you need a secure connection. However, you might want to consider that since the jaws compress, there will be repeated stress on the part, so it might not be a good choice for items that you will frequently snap together. Also, brittle plastic such as PLA might not be the best choice of materials. There are several different kinds of joints. The cantilever version has a hook that bends into place and, as mentioned earlier, is common on luggage or backpack straps. The post offers tips on how to design a durable hook. In particular, the orientation of the hook during printing is critical because of the stress involved.

Another type of snap-fit joint is the kind you find on many snap electronic enclosures or things like pen caps. In these joints, a large bump (a boss) fits into a similar groove on the other part. The post has a little less information on these but does mention that you should form the bosses with a chamfer. If you want more details, the post links to a great guide and an enclosure tutorial that you should check out.

We’ve covered this topic before and have some other guides to check out. We’ve also seen some pretty innovative connecting methods.

Beautiful Engineering In This Laser Unit From A Tornado Jet Fighter

March 13, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 18 Comments

Those of use hailing from the UK may be quite familiar with the Royal Air Force’s Tornado fighter jet, which was designed to fight in a theoretical nuclear war, and served the country for over 40 years. This flying deathtrap (words of an actual serving RAF fighter pilot this scribe met a few years ago) was an extremely complex machine, with state-of-the-art tech for its era, but did apparently have a bit of a habit for bursting into flames occasionally when in the air!

Anyway, the last fleet is now long retired and some of the tech inside it is starting to filter down into the public domain, as some parts can be bought on eBay of all places. [Mike] of mikeselectricstuff has been digging around inside the Tornado’s laser head unit, which was part of the bomber’s laser-guided missile subsystem, and boy what a journey of mechanics and electronics this is!

This unit is largely dumb, with all the clever stuff happening deep in an avionics bay, but there is still plenty of older high-end tech on display. Using a xenon-discharge-tube pumped yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) laser, operating in pulsed mode, the job of the unit is to illuminate the ground target with an IR spot, which the subsequently fired missiles will home on to.

Designed for ground-tracking, whilst the aircraft is operating at speed, the laser head has three degrees of moment, which likely is synchronized with the aircraft movement to keep the beam steady. The optical package is quite interesting, with the xenon tube and YAG rod swimming in a liquid cooling bath, inside a metal housing. The beam is bounced around inside the housing using many prisms, and gated with a Q-switch which allows the beam to build up in intensity, before be unleashed on the target. Also of note is the biggest photodiode we’ve ever seen — easily over an inch in diameter, split into four quadrants, enabling the sensor to resolve direction changes in the reflected IR spot and track its error. A separate photodiode receiver forms part of the time-of-flight optical range finder, which is also important information to have when targeting.

There are plenty of unusual 3-phase positioning motors, position sensors, and rate gyros in the mix, with the whole thing beautifully crafted and wired-up military spec. It is definitely an eye opener for what really was possible during the cold war years, even if such tech never quite filtered down to civilian applications.

We’ve seen a few bits about the Tornado before, like this over-engineered attitude indicator, and here’s the insides of an old aircraft QAR (Quick Access Recorder)

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Reversible Ventilation Hack Keeps The Landlord Happy

March 13, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 26 Comments

When a person owns the home they live in, often the only approval they need for modifications is from their significant other or roommate. In the worst case, maybe a permit is required. But those who rent their dwellings are far more constrained in almost every case, and when it comes to environmental controls, they are most decidedly off limits. Unless you’re a resourceful hacker like [Nik], that is, who has seamlessly integrated his apartment’s ventilation system into his smart home controller — all without any permanent modifications!

The controller itself only gives three settings to vent the apartment: Low, Medium, High, and then High for 30 minutes, with all modes having to be actuated with a manual button press. [Nik] wanted automation and integration with his smart home.

A clean 3D printed enclosure wraps things nicely

Thankfully, the engineers who designed the controller used in [Nik]’s apartment made it very convenient to reverse engineer it. A flat ribbon cable conveniently breaks out all of the buttons and 12 VDC, and he can interface directly using its connector. First hack: done.

Next, [Nik] needed a longer cable to run between the controller and his ESP8266 based control module. Finding the connector on AliExpress was easy, but finding a compatible cable of length required some more resourcefulness. The cable was eventually sourced from the airbag controller of a Renault Megane! Second hack, using a car part in a controller: well done!

Integration into his smart home wasn’t just electronic. The module looks right at home above the original controller, and if you didn’t know better you’d never think it wasn’t original equipment. Final hack: Done!

Be sure to check out his build log over at Hackaday.io, and if home automation hacks are your cup of tea, check out this automatic tea maker.