Hackaday Superconference: Rob Ryan Silva On Designing For Developing Environments

June 13, 2019 by 2 Comments

Throughout the six years of the Hackaday Prize we have seen a stream of projects tackling all manner of applications and challenges. Many of them have a goal of addressing issues faced by people in developing countries, and this was the topic upon which Rob Ryan Silva spoke at the Hackaday Superconference.

Rob’s perspective is an interesting one: he runs the maker lab at Development Alternatives Incorporated, or DAI, who are best described as a specialist contractor in the international development sector. Thus while many of the Prize entrants are hardware hackers who have become involved in development related projects, he is a development specialist who has made the opposite journey to becoming a hardware hacker.

Join me below for the video of Rob’s talk and a deep dive into it. Also of note, tickets for the 2019 Hackaday Superconference are now available, the Call for Proposals is now open, and of course, the 2019 Hackaday Prize is ready for your entry! Okay, now onto Rob’s talk.

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Up Your Game With A Battle Tested Input Device

June 13, 2019 by 12 Comments

If you’re looking to add some realism to your flight setup without converting the guest bedroom into a full-scale cockpit simulator, you might be interested in the compromise [MelkorsGreatestHits] came up with. He bolted a genuine military keypad to his PC joystick and instantly added 100% more Top Gun to his desktop.

The Rockwell Collins manufactured keypad came from eBay, and appears to have been used in aircraft such as the EA-6B Prowler and Lockheed C-130 Hercules for data input. Each key on the pad is wired to the 37 pin connector on the rear, which [MelkorsGreatestHits] eventually mapped out after some painstaking work with a breakout board.

Once the matrix was figured out, he made up a cable that would go from the connector to a Teensy 2.0 microcontroller. The Teensy reads the keypad status and converts button presses over to standard USB HID that can be picked up in any game.

The joystick side of the build is a VKB Gunfighter, which is already a pretty nice piece of kit on its own. No modifications were necessary to the joystick itself, other than the fact that it’s now mounted to the top of a black project enclosure. It still connects directly to the computer via its original USB cable, as the keypad has its own separate connection. As luck would have it, the joystick is almost a perfect fit in the opening on the keypad, which presumably would have been for a small screen when installed in the aircraft.

Finding cockpit components from military aircraft on eBay is not as hard as you may think; something to keep in mind if you ever decide to tackle that custom flight simulator build.

Perovskites: Not Just For Solar Cells Anymore

June 13, 2019 by 21 Comments

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know there’s a long history of advances in materials science that get blown far out of proportion by both the technical and the popular media. Most of the recent ones seem to center on the chemistry of carbon, particularly graphene and nanotubes. Head back a little in time and superconductors were all the rage, and before that it was advanced ceramics, semiconductors, and synthetic diamonds. There’s always some new miracle material to be breathlessly and endlessly reported on by the media, with hopeful tales of how one or the other will be our salvation from <insert catastrophe du jour here>.

While there’s no denying that each of these materials has led to huge advancements in science, industry, and the quality of life for billions, the development cycle from lab to commercialization is generally a tad slower than the press would have one believe. And so when a new material starts to gain traction in the headlines, as perovskites have recently, we feel like it’s a good opportunity to take a close look, to try to smooth out the ups and downs of the hype curve and manage expectations.

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Self-Cleaning Camera Lens Makes For Speckle-Free Video

June 13, 2019 by 32 Comments

People making videos about machining have a problem: the coolant gets everywhere. When you take a video to show the process of creating a device, the milky gunk that keeps everything cool gets all over your camera lens. AvE is experimenting with an interesting fix for this problem, with a self-cleaning camera lens. (Video embedded below, some salty language.) His prototype uses a spinning piece of clear PVC mounted on BB gun pellets, driven by compressed air. The camera can see through this spinning piece, but when the coolant hits the spinning piece, it is thrown off.

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SOICbite: A Program/Debug Connector For An SOIC Test Clip

June 13, 2019 by 40 Comments

The problem is well-known: programming and debug headers consume valuable board space and the connectors cost money. Especially troublesome are the ubiquitous 100-mil pin headers, not because they’re expensive, but because they’re huge, especially along the z-axis. If you’re building miniature devices, these things can take up a ridiculous amount of space. With some clever thinking, [Simon Merrett] has found a way to re-use something many of us already have — an SOIC-8 test clip — to connect to a special footprint on the PCB without requiring another connector. He calls the system SOICbite.

The SOIC clip attaches to a footprint consisting of eight pads, four on each side of the PCB, plus five non-plated-through holes, which serve to anchor the clip in place. The idea of mating a PCB footprint directly with a removable connector isn’t entirely new — Tag Connect has been doing this for a while, but the connectors are expensive and single-sourced. On the other hand, SOIC test clips of varying quality are available from a number of vendors, including dirt-cheap deals on your favorite websites. The one disadvantage we can see is that the SOICbite footprint must be at the edge of the PCB to properly mate with the clip. The savings in space and cost may well make up for this, however.

[Simon] has made his KiCAD footprint available in a GitHub repo, and has offered to host footprints for any other CAD package there as well. So, fire up your preferred tool and draw one up for him to get these things widely adopted, because we think this is a great idea.

For the commercial alternative, check out our coverage of Tag Connect back in 2014.

 

Magic Record Stand Can Play Your Records For You

June 12, 2019 by 21 Comments

Vinyl remains a popular format, despite taking a huge hit in popularity for a couple decades while CDs ruled the roost. It has a charm that keeps it relevant, and likely will continue to do so until everyone who grew up with a record player dies out. In the meantime, [sp_cecamp] has come up with a great way to experience your collection, with the magic of modern technology. It goes by the name of Plynth.

Fundamentally, it’s a small record stand with an excellent party trick. The prototype consists of a 3D-printed body, which holds a record sleeve at an attractive angle for display. A camera built into the base then images the artwork. The first image taken is run through the Google Vision API, and further images are then run through OpenCV to identify the record. This data is then passed to the Spotify API to play the track. The whole process takes a couple of seconds, and the music is then pumped out of whatever streaming device is connected to the rig.

It’s a fun way to play your old records, and would be a welcome change to those tired of screaming at Siri to play Weezer (Blue Album), not Weezer (Green Album). For those interested, [sp_cecamp] has thrown up a site to gauge interest in the project, and may make a limited production run in future.

Of course, you could instead just go about building your own turntable. To each their own!

He Comes To Bury Sensors, Not To Praise Them

June 12, 2019 by 11 Comments

[Adosia] has some interesting videos about their IoT platform controlling self-watering plant pots. However, the video that really caught our eye was the experience in sealing up sensors that are going to be out in the field. Even if you aren’t using the exact sensors, the techniques are useful.

We would have expected to see potting compound, but that’s messy and hard to use so their process is simpler. First, a few coats of clear urethane sealant goes over the electronics. Next, heat shrink goes over the assembly. It isn’t ordinary heat shrink though, instead it’s the kind that has heat-activated adhesive inside.

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