How To Modify Your Car Stereo For Bluetooth Or Aux-In

July 28, 2021 by 42 Comments

If you’re an automotive enthusiast of taste, you can’t stand the idea of fitting a janky aftermarket stereo into your nice, clean ride. Flashy, modern head units can spoil the look of a car’s interior, particularly if the car is a retro, classic, or vintage ride.

Thus, we’re going to look at how to modify your existing stock car stereo to accept an auxiliary cable input or even a Bluetooth module. This way, you can pump in the latest tunes from your smartphone without a fuss, while still maintaining an all-original look on the dash.

Fundamentals

A simple Bluetooth module designed for wiring into car audio systems. There are two wires for 12 V power from the vehicle, and the audio signal is sent out over the RCA plugs. The RCA plugs can be cut off and the module hard wired inside your stereo if you have room. Cutting off the plastic case can help too.

Depending on your choice of audio player, you may prefer a 3.5 mm aux jack, or you might want to go with Bluetooth audio if your smartphone no longer has a headphone port. Whichever way you go, the process of modifying the stereo is largely the same. To achieve your goal, you need to find a way of injecting the audio signal into the head unit’s amplifier stage, while making sure no other audio sources are getting sent there as well.

Whether that audio source is a 3.5 mm jack or a Bluetooth module doesn’t matter. The only difference is, in the latter case, you’ll want to buy a Bluetooth module and hardwire it in to the auxiliary input you create, while also splicing the module into the stereo’s power supply. In the case of a simple headphone jack input, you simply need to wire up an aux cord or 3.5 mm jack somewhere you can get to it, and call it done.

This guide won’t cover every stereo under the sun, of course. Edge cases exist and depending on the minute specifics of how your original car radio works, these exact methods may or may not work for you. However, this guide is intended to get you thinking conceptually about how such mods are done, so that you can investigate the hardware in front of you and make your own decisions about how to integrate an external audio input that suits your usage case. Continue reading “How To Modify Your Car Stereo For Bluetooth Or Aux-In” →

Workshop Tools Are Available In First-Class

July 28, 2021 by 12 Comments

Most of dream of having a fully-stocked shop with all of the tools needed to build our projects, at least if we don’t already have such a shop. In the meantime, a lot of us are hacking together our own tools and working on whatever bench space might be available to us. While [Emiel] aka [The Practical Engineer] has an envious shop to work from, his latest project goes to show how repurposing some aircraft-grade equipment can result in a high-quality toolbox for himself, without shelling out for any consumer-level solution. (Video, embedded below.)

The core of his workshop cart build is actually a recycled food service cart from an airline. While the original probably only housed some soft drinks and ice, this one has been kitted out to be much more functional. Since [Emiel] is using this to wheel around his machine shop, he used a CNC machine to cut out slots in black MDF sheets which would hold his drill bits, taps, and other tools. Working with MDF on a CNC machine turned out to not be as simple as he thought, since the MDF would separate and break away unless the CNC tool heads were operated in a specific way.

The build also includes several buckets for other tools, and a custom enclosure for the top of the cart specifically built for his machine tools’ tools to sit while he is working. It’s certainly a more cost-effective solution to a wheeled shop toolbox than buying something off-the-shelf, and a clever repurposing of something which would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. [Emiel] is no stranger to building any tools that he might need, including this custom belt sander built completely from the ground up.

Continue reading “Workshop Tools Are Available In First-Class” →

More Than Just Hubble: The Space Observatories Filling The Skies Today And Tomorrow

July 28, 2021 by 9 Comments

Amidst the recent news about the Hubble Space Telescope’s troubles (and triumphant resurrection), it is sometimes easy to forget that although Hubble is a pretty unique telescope, it is just one of many space-based observatories that are currently zipping overhead right now or perched in a heliocentric orbit. So what is it that makes these observatories less known than the iconic Hubble telescope?

Hubble is one of the longest-lived space telescopes so far, and it is also the only space telescope that was both launched and serviced by the Space Shuttle. None of the other telescopes have this legacy, the high-profile, or troubled history of Hubble’s intended successor: the James Web Space Telescope (JWST).

Even so, the mission profiles of these myriad other observatories are no less interesting, least of the many firsts accomplished recently such as a long-term moon-based telescope (Chang’e 3’s LUT) and those of the many upcoming and proposed missions. Let’s take a look at the space observatories many of us have never heard of.

Continue reading “More Than Just Hubble: The Space Observatories Filling The Skies Today And Tomorrow” →

It Takes A Lot To Build A Hacker’s Laptop

July 28, 2021 by 80 Comments

An essential tool that nearly all of us will have is our laptop. For hardware and software people alike it’s our workplace, entertainment device, window on the world, and so much more. The relationship between hacker and laptop is one that lasts through thick and thin, so choosing a new one is an important task. Will it be a dependable second-hand ThinkPad, the latest object of desire from Apple, or whatever cast-off could be scrounged and given a GNU/Linux distro? On paper all laptops deliver substantially the same mix of performance and portability, but in reality there are so many variables that separate a star from a complete dog. Into this mix comes a newcomer that we’ve had an eye on for a while, the Framework. It’s a laptop that looks just like so many others on the market and comes with all the specs at a price you’d expect from any decent laptop, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it worth a glance.

These USB-C based modules are a neat idea.
These USB-C based modules are a neat idea.

Probably the most obvious among them is that as well as the off-the-shelf models, it can be bought as a customised kit for self-assembly. Bring your own networking, memory, or storage, and configure your new laptop in a much more personal way than the norm from the big manufacturers. We like that all the parts are QR coded with a URL that delivers full information on them, but we’re surprised that for a laptop with this as its USP there’s no preinstalled open source OS as an option. Few readers will find installing a GNU/Linux distro a problem, but it’s an obvious hole in the line-up.

On the rear is the laptop’s other party trick, a system of expansion cards that are dockable modules with a USB-C interface. So far they provide USB, display, and storage interfaces with more to come including an Arduino module, and we like this idea a lot.

It’s all very well to exclaim at a few features and party tricks, but the qualities that define a hacker’s laptop are only earned through use. Does it have a keyboard that will last forever, can it survive being dropped, and will its electronics prove to be fragile, are all questions that can be answered only by word-of-mouth from users. It’s easy for a manufacturer to get those wrong — the temperamental and fragile Dell this is being typed on is a case in point — but if they survive the trials presented by their early adopters and match up to the competition they could be on to a winner.

Emulating The IBM PC On An ESP32

July 28, 2021 by 60 Comments

The IBM PC spawned the basic architecture that grew into the dominant Wintel platform we know today. Once heavy, cumbersome and power thirsty, it’s a machine that you can now emulate on a single board with a cheap commodity microcontroller. That’s thanks to work from [Fabrizio Di Vittorio], who has shared a how-to on Youtube. 

The full playlist is quite something to watch, showing off a huge number of old-school PC applications and games running on the platform. There’s QBASIC, FreeDOS, Windows 3.0, and yes, of course, Flight Simulator. The latter game was actually considered somewhat of a de facto standard for PC compatibility in the 1980s, so the fact that the ESP32 can run it with [Fabrizio’s] code suggests he’s done well.

It’s amazingly complete, with the ESP32 handling everything from audio and video to sound output and keyboard and mouse inputs. It’s a testament to the capability of modern microcontrollers that this is such a simple feat in 2021.

We’ve seen the ESP32 emulate 8-bit gaming systems before, too. If you remember [Fabrizio’s] name, it’s probably from his excellent FabGL library. Videos after the break. Continue reading “Emulating The IBM PC On An ESP32” →

Rooting The Atari VCS 800

July 27, 2021 by 9 Comments

The Atari VCS 800 is a modern product, a hybrid of a PC and a games console. Fundamentally, its a bunch of modern chips in a box running Linux that will let you browse the web or emulate some old games. Now, thanks to [ArcadeHustle], you can have persistent root access to the VCS 800 at your leisure.

The trick is simple, and begins by interrupting the systemd startup scripts on boot. One can then merge files into the /etc directory to achieve root access, either by the tty terminal or over TCP. It’s all wrapped up in the script available at the Github link above.

You can actually run a variety of OSs on the hardware, as it’s powered by an AMD Ryzen R1606G CPU and runs straightforward PC architecture. However, if you want to customize the existing OS to do your bidding, this hack is the way to go.

Hacking to get root access is key if you want to get anywhere with a system. We’ve seen it done on thin clients as well as car infotainment systems to give the owner full control over the hardware they own. If you’ve got your own root exploit you’d like to share, do drop us a line, won’t you?

 

Black And White TV Was Hiding A Special Input Board

July 27, 2021 by 71 Comments

[John Floren] found a nice old black & white TV in a thrift store, and as so many of us would, he decided to take it home. He was surprised upon getting it there that it had, in addition to the VHF and UHF antenna inputs, a mysterious extra connector on the back. Naturally, he set about investigating.

On the rear was an obviously hacked-in F-type connector, paired with a toggle switch, both unlabelled. Running the output of an RF modulator to the connector didn’t net an image on the screen, even though the same method worked when hooked up to the antenna inputs. Undeterred, [John] dug deeper.

Inside, a little PCB bearing the mark “TVM.04” was inside, bearing a handful of components. The device turned out to be a Pickes and Trout TVM-04 adapter, designed in the 1970s for hooking a computer up to a television for use as a monitor. The adapter board allows the Hitachi TV to accept a composite video input. [John] was able to test the TV with a NES clone outputting composite video and voila, it worked! [John] then went further, adding an audio input and installing standard RCA jacks to make it easier to use the input with more modern electronics.

It’s a great example of how simply opening up some electronics and poking around can teach you something. Hacking on old-school TVs is a popular pastime around these parts, it seems. If you’ve been working on your own retro display hack, be sure to let us know.