ODB-II Hacking Using An Android Tablet

April 28, 2013 by 71 Comments

What a strange message to read on the digital dashboard display of your car. This is proof that [Kristoffer Smith] was able to control the ODB-II bus on his Eagle Grand Cherokee.

He’s not just doing this for the heck of it. It stems from his goal of adding an Android tablet on the dashboard which has been a popular hack as of late. This left [Kristoffer] with steering wheel controls that did nothing. They originally operated the radio, so he set out to make them control the tablet.

He had seen an Arduino used to control the CAN bus, but decided to go a different route. He grabbed a USB CAN bus interface for around $25. The first order of business was to use it with his computer to sniff the data available. From there he was able to decode the traffic and figure out the commands he needed to monitor. The last piece of the puzzle was to write his own Android code to watch for and react to the steering wheel buttons. You can check out the code at his repository and see the demo after the break.

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Arduino-controlled MIDI Sequencer

February 22, 2013 by 34 Comments

am808vx3-arduino-synth

[Christian] wrote in to tell us about his third-generation Arduino MIDI sequencer (translated) called the AM808 VX3. He had already laid a strong base for the project in his previous versions. But the user interface was still frustrating at times and that’s where this version comes in. it features a nice clean dashboard like interface, but also includes a configurable virtual interface.

The obvious components seen above include the slider and potentiometer band, as well as the repository of buttons mounted below that. But in the center of the board is a touchpad which [Christian] pulled out of an old Laptop. It interfaces as a PS2 device which makes it pretty simple to use in conjunction with the Arduino. But that’s not the only touch-enabled input device. The rectangle to the right of the touch pad is an LCD screen with a touch overlay. As you can see (and hear) in the clip after the break, the touch screen made it possible for him to rework the controls until they became simple and intuitive.

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Tie Tack Sends Morse Code Seasons Greetings

January 3, 2013 by 6 Comments

morse-code-tie-tack

For [Davide Gironi] made a holiday tie tack this year. It’s not made to look like Santa Claus, Frosty, or a Christmas tree. He simply wishes you a Merry Christmas (‘Buon Natale’ in Italian) by flashing the message in Morse code.

Two LEDs have been added to a plain tie tack. It is tethered to the logic circuitry that provides power and drives the red and blue lights accordingly. As you can see in the video after the break, red signifies the end of a letter, and long or short blue flashes correspond to dashes or dots. This doesn’t require much horsepower so he’s gone with an 8-pin ATtiny13 microcontroller (you might be able to find one of these in a light bulb if you look hard enough). The rest of the equipment includes a few resistors, a push button, and a coin cell for power. [Davide] uses a byte-packing technique he learned from a different project to store each letter as an 8-bit packet which means there’s plenty of room to store your message in the chip’s memory.

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Tinkering With ODB II And The CAN Bus

April 17, 2012 by 13 Comments

[Debrah] is taking his next project out to the garage. He built his own CAN bus reader using a dsPIC.

The nice thing about working with Control Area Network is that it’s a universal standard found on every modern production line automobile. And because of this, the chip you need in order to communicate using that protocol will cost just over a dollar. [Debraj] chose the MCP2551, which comes in several different 8-pin packages. There is even an application note tailored for use with the dsPIC33F family.

The project is running on both 5V and 3.3V rails. This complicates things just a bit, but a level converter makes sure that there’s no communications problems between the chips. A four line character LCD acts as the output during the tests (you can see this in the clip after the break) but he’s already got a second version which looks quite a bit better on the dashboard.

What else can be done with this hack? Well, we’ve seen a method used to read control buttons from the steering wheel before. It all depends on what data your vehicle is transmitting and one way to find that out is to build some hardware and start logging the packets. Continue reading “Tinkering With ODB II And The CAN Bus” →

8-bit Computer Project Lands In A Philco Radio Case

March 5, 2012 by 17 Comments

We’ve enjoyed seeing the development progress of Veronica, [Quinn Dunki’s] 8-bit computer project. It started out on a breadboard, then moved to edge-connected PCBs, and now [Quinn] has given Veronica a body of her own.

The donor is a Philco Model 42-327T and was produced in 1942. It was chosen because it is non-functional and missing several pieces. We wonder about the collector’s value of the piece but since [Quinn] snagged it from eBay there can’t be in huge demand right now. The teardown images are priceless. There seems to be no reasoning behind component placement for the beast. It looks more like a junk drawer packed full of relic components than something that actually worked once upon a time.

But we digress. After gutting the retro wooden case [Quinn] set out to fabricate her own face plate. Since she’s comfortable working with copper clad, she whipped up a negative design and etched the dashboard seen above. It mounts in the original dial opening, and hosts all of the controls she needs to work with the 8-bit computer. Just below is where the present buttons used to be located. You can just see the hexout display for reading data from the registers mounted in that void.

Modular Controllers You Can’t Wait To Show Off To Your Friends

January 25, 2012 by 12 Comments

Let’s get this straight, [Alex] is going to show us how to make controllers like this one? Where do we sign up? Even without seeing it in action we want one, but the urge to build is even greater after he shows it off (check the clip after the break). He’s a design student who made an open source project aimed at making it easier to build hardware controllers that pair with just about any software application.

The need for external controllers is on the rise, starting with music-based applications like DJ tools, and Midi controllers for musicians (we’re thinking Monome clones). But anything that can take input from a USB HID can be controlled with something like this. That’s because [Alex] is using the Teensy controller board as an interface. Just select the input types you want – sliders, potentiometers, buttons, switches – then wire them up to the microcontroller pins. If you start to run out of inputs he also discusses some add-on chips to use as port expanders.

Of course there’s a lot to be said for the physical appearance as well. Even though he used point-to-point connections for all of the controls, that wiring is hidden behind the aesthetically pleasing laser-cut dashboard. Follow his advice for layout and find a friend with access to a sweet laser cutter and you’re in business. Continue reading “Modular Controllers You Can’t Wait To Show Off To Your Friends” →

Hackaday Links: January 16, 2012

January 16, 2012 by 18 Comments

Finally the 13-year-old on Battlefield 3 will get their comeuppance

[Shawn] sent in his fully adjustable auto-fire mod for an XBox360 controller. It’s pretty simple – just an ATtiny85 soldered to a button with a pot to adjust the rate and switch to turn it on and off. It could have been done with a 555, but this is good enough.

Now one for the PS3 bronies

[Capt-Nemo] loves and tolerates everyone so he modded his 60 Gig PS3 with a bunch of LEDs to display Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark. Yes, it’s from My Little Pony. Don’t judge us. Watch the demo video instead.

How do you organize resistors?

A while ago we saw a neat way to store resistors in a piece of foam with a grid according to the first and third color bands. [Greg] did it another way that just puts a label on a piece of foam. Can you think of a better way?

It’s not a synthesizer, but is it fake?

A lot of people have been sending in this video of [Stephen] turning his kitchen into a synthesizer. We’re thinking he turned a bunch of bowls and cans into an MPC / MIDI controller at best, or it was all done in post. We’ll let our readers duke it out in the comments.

Blinky things spinning very fast

A gracious Hack a Day reader sent in a mechanical television demo he found during late night intertube browsing. We know it’s from a 1992 episode of Computer Club that aired in Germany. It’s four rotating bars of 232 LEDs that will display a standard TV signal. We think it might be time for an RGB LED version of this. Any takers?