Teardown: Bug Zapper Bulb

February 9, 2021 by Tom Nardi 17 Comments

Up here in the Northern Hemisphere, mosquitoes and other flying pests are the last thing on anyone’s mind right now. The only bug that’s hindering gatherings at the moment goes by the name of COVID-19, but even if we weren’t social distancing, insects simply aren’t a concern at this time of year. So it’s little surprise that these months are often the best time to find a great deal on gadgets designed to deter or outright obliterate airborne insects.

Case in point, I was able to pick up this “Bug Zapper LED Bulb” at the big-box hardware store for just a few bucks. This one is sold by PIC Corporation, though some press release surfing shows the company merely took over distribution of the device in 2017. Before then it was known as the Zapplight, and was the sort of thing you might see advertised on TV if you were still awake at 3 AM. It appears there are several exceptionally similar products on the market as well, which are likely to be the same internally.

In all fairness, it’s a pretty clever idea. Traditional zappers are fairly large, and need to be hoisted up somewhere next to an electrical outlet. But if you could shrink one down to the size of a light bulb, you could easily dot them around the porch using the existing sockets and wiring. Extra points if you can also figure out a way to make it work as a real bulb when the bugs aren’t out. Obviously the resulting chimera won’t excel at either task, but there’s certainly something to be said for the convenience of it.

Let’s take a look inside one of these electrifying illuminators and see how they’ve managed to squeeze two very different devices into one socket-friendly package.

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Interfacing A Z80 CPU With The Raspberry Pi

February 9, 2021 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

The Z80 was a big deal in the 1970s and 1980s, and while its no longer a dominant architecture today, its legacy lives on. [James Andrew Fitzjohn] is a fan of the Z, and decided to interface the real silicon with the Raspberry Pi, by and large for the fun of it!

The Z80’s address and data lines, as well as the clock, are hooked up to the Raspberry Pi through several MCP23017 GPIO expanders. The Pi’s GPIO lines aren’t known for their speed, of course, and using expanders through I2C isn’t exactly quick either. However, speed isn’t necessary, as the clock only goes as fast as the Raspberry Pi desires, since it’s controlling the clock along with everything else. There’s also an LCD for viewing the Z80s status, along with some era-appropriate blinkenlights.

This setup allows the Pi to run code directly on the Z80 itself, while managing the CPU’s RAM in its own memory, all through a Python script. It’s a fun hack that lets you run retro code on retro silicon without using an emulator. Techniques like these are useful for finding undocumented or edge case performance of a processor. If this hack isn’t enough Zilog for your liking, consider throwing one in your pocket as well!

Cyberattack On Florida City’s Water Supply

February 9, 2021 by Lewin Day 62 Comments

The city of Oldsmar, Florida was the source of disturbing news this week, among reports that someone gained unauthorized access to a water treatment facility. In an era where more systems than ever are connected to the Internet, the story is a sobering one for the vast majority of people reliant on grid utilties.

The hacker was first noticed to have gained remote access to a computer system at the plant at 8 a.m. on February 5. An operator at a workstation controlling chemical dosing at the plant observed a remote connection, though did not initially raise the alarm as such access is common practice at the facility for troubleshooting purposes. However, at 1:30 pm, the hacker connected again, this time commanding the dosing system to raise levels of sodium hydroxide in the water from 100 to 11,000 ppm – dangerous levels that would make the city’s water unsafe to drink. The increased level command was immediately overridden by the operator, who then raised the alarm.

The city notes that other safeguards such as pH monitors at the plant would have triggered in the event the original intrusion went undetected. However, the event raises renewed questions about the level of security around critical utility systems connected to the internet. In the last decade, cyberattacks on physical infrastructure have become a reality, not a vague future threat.

Nothing’s known yet about the perpetrator, or how secure the system was (or wasn’t?) before the event. It’s been long known that a lot of infrastructure is simply connected to the internet, as Dan Tentler has been showing us since at least 2012. (Video, ranting.) Indeed, it’s amazing that we’ve seen so few malicious attacks.

This Joy-Con Grip Steers Its Way To Sweaty Victory

February 8, 2021 by Kerry Scharfglass No comments

Here at Hackaday we’re always exited to see hacks that recycle our favorite childhood consoles into something new and interesting. In that context, it’s not so uncommon to see mods which combine new and unusual control methods with old devices in ways that their manufacturers never intended. What [Mike Choi] has built with the Labo Fit Adventure Kit is the rare hack that combines radically new control schemes with a modern console: without actually modifying any hardware.

In short, the Labo Fit Adventure Kit lets the player play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch by riding a stationary exercise bike, steering with a wheel, and squeezing that wheel to use items. The Fit Kit combines the theme of Labo, Nintendo’s excellent cardboard building kit for the Nintendo Switch with the existing Ring-Con accessory for the unrelated Nintendo game Ring Fit Adventure plus a collection of custom hardware to tie it all together. That hardware senses cadence on the stationary bike, watches for the user to squeeze the handheld wheel controller, and translates those inputs to button presses on the controller to play the game.

The most fascinating element of this project is the TAPBO module which adapts the Joy-Con controller to remote input. The module includes electronics, actuators, and a clever mechanical design to allow it to be mounted to the Ring-Con in place of an unmodified Joy-Con. Electrically the components will be familiar to regular Hackaday readers; there is a breakout board for a Teensy which also holds an XBee module to receive inputs remotely and drive a pair of servos. The entire module is described in detail starting at 4:42 in the video.

Mechanically the TAPBO relies on a pair of cam-actuated arms which translate rotational servo motion into linear action to press shoulder or face buttons. The module directly measures flex of the Ring-Con with an added flexible resistor and receives cadence information from another module embedded in the stationary bike via Zigbee. When these inputs exceed set thresholds they drive the servos to press the appropriate controller buttons to accelerate or use an item.

We’ve focused pretty heavily on the technical aspects of this project, but this significantly undersells the level of polish and easy to understand documentation [Mike] has produced. It includes a TAPBO Amiibo in customized packaging, and more. Check out the full video to get the complete scope of this project.

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Building A Cheap Kubernetes Cluster From Old Laptops

February 8, 2021 by Lewin Day 28 Comments

Cluster computing is a popular choice for heavy duty computing applications. At the base level, there are hobby clusters often built with Raspberry Pis, while the industrial level involves data centers crammed with servers running at full tilt. [greg] wanted something cheap, but with x86 support – so set about building a rig his own way.

The ingenious part of [greg]’s build comes in the source computers. He identified that replacement laptop motherboards were a great source of computing power on the cheap, with a board packing an i7 CPU with 16GB of RAM available from eBay for around £100, and with i5 models being even cheaper. With four laptop motherboards on hand, he set about stacking them in a case, powering them, and hooking them up with the bare minimum required to get them working. With everything wrapped up in an old server case with some 3D printed parts to hold it all together, he was able to get a 4-node Kubernetes cluster up and running for an absolute bargain price.

We haven’t seen spare laptop motherboards used in such a way before, but we could definitely see this becoming more of a thing going forward. The possibilities of a crate full of deprecated motherboards are enticing for those building clusters on the cheap. Of course, more nodes is more better, so check out this 120 Pi cluster to satiate your thirst for raw FLOPs.

Recreating The Mac SE Logic Board

February 8, 2021 by Matthew Carlson 27 Comments

When [Kai Robinson] found himself faced with the difficult task of saving as many Mac SE’s as he possibly could, the logical but daunting answer was to recreate the Mac SE logic board for machines that would otherwise be scrapped. These machines are over 30 years old and the PRAM battery often leaks, destroying parts and traces. Given that the logic board is a simple through-hole ~~two~~ four-layer board, how hard could it be?

The first step was to get some reference photos so [Kai] set to desoldering everything on the board. The list of components and the age of solder made this an arduous task. Then a composite image was produced ~~by merging images together using a scanner and some Inkscape magic.~~ in graphics software.

Rather than simply putting the pins in the right place and re-routing all the netlists, [Kai] elected instead to do a copy, trace for trace of the original SE board. [Kai] and several others on the forum have been testing the boards and tracking down the last few bugs and kinks in the design. An unconnected pin here and an improperly impedance matched resistor there. Hopefully, soon they’ll have Gerbers and design files ready for anyone should they need a new logic board PCB.

It’s no secret that we love the Macintosh SE here at Hackaday. We’ve seen new custom cases for it and now new PCBs for it. It does cause the mind to ponder though and wonder, what’s next?

Thanks [Toru173] for sending this one in!

VESA Arm Turned Low-Cost Overhead Camera Rig

February 8, 2021 by Tom Nardi 8 Comments

Whether you’re live streaming builds or just want to take your project photography to the next level, you can’t beat an overhead camera setup. Unfortunately, they tend to be cumbersome and more often than not quite pricey. Looking for an affordable solution that could easily be moved out of the way when not in use, [Jay Doscher] had the clever idea of adapting a common VESA monitor arm to give his camera a bird’s eye view of the action.

If you think about it, one of these monitor arms is a nearly perfect base for a camera rig. They’re easily mounted to a desk or work bench, can be quickly repositioned by design, and perhaps best of all, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a decent one. A camera is also a far lighter and less awkward payload than the arm was designed to hold, so you don’t have to worry about it potentially dropping your expensive gear. Or cheap webcam, as the case may be.

All [Jay] had to do was come up with a way to securely mount his Sony A7R3 on the end of one. While there’s certainly a few ways you could solve this particular problem, he went the extruded plastic route and 3D printed a beefy adapter plate with the standard VESA bolt pattern. His Smallrig camera cage attaches to the plate, and thanks to a pair of press-fit bubble levels from McMaster Carr, he’s able to get everything lined up properly over the bench.

Of course, there’s an excellent chance you don’t have the same camera as [Jay]. But that doesn’t mean you can’t modify the design of his adapter to fit your own gear. To that end, he’s not only shared the final STLs, but he’s provided a link to the TinkerCAD project that you can actually edit right in the browser.

If you’ve got a light enough camera, you could put something similar together with PVC pipes or even an articulated arm intended for a desk lamp. But if you’ve got a DSLR or other full-sized camera, we think it’s more than worth the $30 USD one of these will cost you on Amazon to make sure your gear doesn’t end up smashing into the deck during a live stream.