Water Your Plants Just Four Times Per Year

May 19, 2022 by Kristina Panos 20 Comments

While it’s true that some plants thrive on neglect, many of them do just fine with a few ounces of water once a week, as long as the light level is right. But even that is plenty to remember and actually do in our unprecedented times, so why bother trying? [Martin] has solved this problem for us, having given every aspect of automatic plant care a lot of thought. The result of his efforts is Flaura, a self-watering open-source plant pot, and a YouTube channel to go with it.

The 3D-printed pot can easily be scaled up or down to suit the size of the plant, and contains a water reservoir that holds about 0.7 L of water at the default size. Just pour it in through the little spout, and you’re good for about three months, depending on the plant, the light it’s in, and how much ~~current~~ water it draws. You can track the dryness level in the companion app.

Whenever the capacitive soil moisture sensor hidden in the bottom of the dirt detects drought conditions, it sends a signal through the Wemos LOLIN32 and a MOSFET to a small pump, which sends up water from the reservoir.

The soil is watered uniformly by a small hose riddled with dozens of tiny holes that create little low-pressure water jets. This is definitely our favorite part of the project — not just because it’s cool looking, but also because a lot of these types of builds tend to release the water in the same spot all the time, which is. . . not how we water our plants. Be sure to check out the project overview video after the break.

No printer? No problem — you could always use an old Keurig machine to water a single plant, as long as the pump is still good.

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The BluePill board used for this hack, wired to the DYMO RFID reader, after all the wires for this hack have been soldered onto the BluePill board.

#FreeDMO Gets Rid Of DYMO Label Printer DRM

March 30, 2022 by Arya Voronova 49 Comments

DYMO 550 series printer marketing blurb says “The DYMO® LabelWriter® 550 Turbo label printer comes with unique Automatic Label Recognition™”, which, once translated from marketing-ese, means “this printer has DRM in its goshdarn thermal stickers”. Yes, DRM in the stickers that you typically buy in generic rolls. [FREEPDK] didn’t like that, either, and documents a #FreeDMO device to rid us of yet another consumer freedom limitation, the true hacker way.

The generic BluePill board and two resistors are all you need, and a few extra cables make the install clean and reversible – you could definitely solder to the DYMO printer’s PCBs if you needed, too. Essentially, you intercept the RFID reader connections, where the BluePill acts as an I2C peripheral and a controller at the same time, forwarding the data from an RFID reader and modifying it – but it can also absolutely emulate a predetermined label and skip the reader altogether. If you can benefit from this project’s discoveries, you should also take a bit of your time and, with help of your Android NFC-enabled phone, share your cartridge data in a separate repository to make thwarting future DRM improvements easier for all of us. Continue reading “#FreeDMO Gets Rid Of DYMO Label Printer DRM” →

IoT flower pot monitors moisture and temperature levels.

Smart Flower Pot Build Is All About That Base

October 26, 2021 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

For some reason, it seems like most of the plant monitoring setups we see separate the plant and the monitoring system. This makes sense in a don’t-own-a-waterbed-and-a-cat kind of way, but it also doesn’t from an aestheitc standpoint. This build by [Jorge Enrique Gamboa Fuentes] sure does look nice and tidy as an all-in-one unit, and fortunately is built with obvious issues in mind. It tracks water level, soil moisture, and soil temperature with a single device — a STEMMA-connected soil sensor that does all the monitoring work.

This attractive beginner build is a Python-powered project that runs on a PyPortal Titano and has a speaker that anthropomorphizes the thing so it can ~~berate you~~ politely ask for water in English. But the real magic of this build is in the enclosure itself. Thankfully, it’s designed with a drip tray, but it also keeps the electronics out of the water, allowing just the tip of the sensor to get wet. You can view the vital signs directly on the device, or on a web dashboard whenever you’re away.

In the future, [Jorge] wants to experiment with GCP and Azure, connect more flower pots together, and add more sensors so that it is more autonomous. One of the major lessons learned was that you probably shouldn’t start with a succulent, because they need very little water and this will drag out your development time considerably unless you over-water it, which will kill it. Check it out after the break.

If [Jorge] wanted to go the easy route, they might stick this plant under an old Keurig that’s been converted to an automatic watering device.

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New Contest: Reinvented Retro

May 4, 2021 by Mike Szczys 22 Comments

There are so many ways to make things look awesome by pulling inspiration from great retro hardware. And combining today’s futuristic functionality with yesterday’s lines, colors, and kitsch is the quick path to a winning combination. So why not give it a try and show us what you got? That’s the gist of Hackaday’s Reinvented Retro Contest which begins right now and runs through June.

This smart TV should help get you thinking in a retro-modern way. You’d never know it wasn’t stock… except when it starts streaming The Falcon and the Winter Soldier via the Roku hidden inside. Fit and finish on this one is spectacular and that woodgrain remote is a piece of artwork!

So what will it be? Keurig in a 1960’s Perculator? Desk lamp in a rotary telephone? GHz oscilloscope where a CRT used to live? Perhaps a Raspberry Pi laptop in a 1990’s form-factor? You get to decide what “Retro” means, just make sure you thoroughly show off the build!

Digi-Key is sponsoring this contest and there are $200 shopping sprees from their warehouse up for grabs for each of three top winners. Make a project page over on Hackaday.io and use the “Submit project to…” dropdown in the left side bar to enter it in the Reinventing Retro Contest.

Nissan’s Office Pod Concept Is A Productivity Paradise On Wheels

February 28, 2021 by Kristina Panos 40 Comments

All this working from home is pretty great, but we have to admit that we miss packing up the Hackaday office and heading for the local coffeehouse once in a while to spend a few hours writing against the buzzing background. One thing we don’t miss about the experience is that you’re never guaranteed a place to sit and spread out. And unless you trust a friendly stranger to keep an eye on your stuff while you’re in the bathroom, you have to take it with you at the risk of losing your table.

If only we could afford one of Nissan’s mobile office pod concept vehicles. We’ve always wanted to pretend we’re doing surveillance and would probably have the thing wrapped with graphics for a fake flower shop or something. That would certainly make it easier to park somewhere and borrow someone’s open Wi-Fi network — maybe even from the coffeehouse parking lot after we hit the drive-thru.

As you’ll see in the extended tour video below, Nissan seem to have thought of everything except restroom facilities. The cab-over-engine design and all-terrain tires would make it easier to drive out into nature and really get away from it all. Once you’ve found the perfect spot, you can open the lift gate for some fresh air, or get some sun while you work by pulling out the motorized unibody-constructed cubicle which includes a built-in Herman Miller Cosm chair. (Evidently the Aeron is old and busted now; we disagree). For some reason, the cubicle is edge-lit, and not in a way that would help you work at the desk. According to the video, it’s based on the Caravan NV350, which looks far more comfortable but not as cool when outfitted as an alternate mobility concept.

The office pod has some nice amenities like a DC-AC converter so you can run your Keurig or Nespresso, and there’s even a UV-disinfecting lamp in the glove box. The larger windows behind the cab can be electronically shaded so you don’t bake in the sun. Here’s where things get a bit ridiculous: the floor is made of clear polycarbonate in case you want to park lengthwise over a small stream and watch the surviving fish go by underneath your feet. And if you really want to take a break, climb up to the roof deck and stretch out in the chaise lounge beneath the deck umbrella.

If we lived anywhere but America, we might forego the flower shop graphics wrap and dress it up to look like a TV detector van instead.

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Meticulous Bionic Hand

November 12, 2020 by Matthew Carlson 12 Comments

[Will Cogley] is slowly but surely crafting a beautiful bionic hand. (Video, embedded below.) The sheer amount of engineering and thought that went into the design is incredible. Those who take their hands for granted often don’t consider the different ways that their digits can move. There is lateral movement, rotation, flexion, and extension. Generally, [Will] tries to design mechanisms with parts that can be 3D printed or sourced easily. This constrains the hand to things like servos, cable actuation, or direct drive.

However, the thumb has a particularly tricky range of motion. So for the thumb [Will] designed to use a worm geared approach to produce the flexing and extension motion of the thumb. These gears need to be machined in order to stand up to the load. A small side 3d printed gear that connects to the main worm gear is connected to a potentiometer to form the feedback loop. Since it isn’t bearing any load, it can be 3d printed. While there are hundreds of little tiny problems still left to fix, the big problems left are wire management, finalizing the IP (Interphalangeal) joints, and attaching the whole assembly to the forearm.

All the step files, significants amounts of research, and definitions are all on [Will’s] GitHub. If you’re looking into creating any sort of hand prosthetic, the research and attention [Will] has put into this is work incorporating into your project. We’ve seen bionic hands before as well as aluminum finger replacements, but this is a whole hand with fantastic range and fidelity.

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