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Hackaday Links: July 22, 2018

July 22, 2018 by 26 Comments

KiCad Version 5 has been released! Footprints are going to be installed locally, and the Github plugin for library management is no longer the default. You now have the ability to import Eagle projects directly, Eeschema has a better configuration dialog, better wire dragging, and Pcbnew now has complex pad shapes. The changelog also says they’ve gone from pronouncing it as ‘Kai-CAD’ to ‘Qai-CAD’.

Kids can’t use computers because of those darn smartphones. Finally, the world is ending not because of Millennials, but because of whatever generation we’re calling 12-year-olds. (I’m partial to Generation Next, but that’s only because my mind is polluted with Pepsi commercials from the mid-90s.)

Need a NAS? The Helios4 is built around the Marvell Armada 388 SoC and has four SATA ports, making it a great way to connect a bunch of hard drives to a network. This is the second run from the team behind the Helios, and now they’re looking to take it into production.

A while ago, [Dan Macnish] built Draw This, a camera that takes an image, sends it through artificial intelligence, and outputs a cartoon on a receipt printer. It’s a camera that prints pictures of cartoons. Of course, some people would want to play with this tech without having to build a camera from scratch, so [Eric Lu] built Cartoonify, a web-based service that turns pictures into cartoons.

Grafitti is fun to spell and fun to do, and for all the proto-Banskys out there, it’s all about stencils. [Jeremy Cook] did a quick experiment with a 3D-printed spray paint stencil. It works surprisingly well, and this is due to leveraging the bridging capability of his printer. He’s putting supports for loose parts of the stencil above where they would normally be. The test sprays came out great, and this is a viable technique if you’re looking for a high-quality spray paint stencil relatively easily.

HOPE XII: Chelsea Manning

July 22, 2018 by 96 Comments

Saturday’s talk schedule at the HOPE conference was centered around one thing: the on-stage interview with Chelsea Manning. Not only was a two-hour session blocked out (almost every other talk has been one hour) but all three stages were reserved with live telecast between the three rooms.

I was lucky enough to get a seat very close to the stage in the main hall. The room was packed front to back. Even the standing room — mapped out on the carpet in tape and closely policed by conference “fire marshals” — was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder. The audience was alive with energy, and I think everyone lucky enough to be here today shares my feeling that moments like these tie our community together and help us all focus on what is important in life, as individuals and as a society.

Chelsea was very recently released from prison. So recently, that the last time this conference was held back in 2016, she and her close circle of friends were under the impression that she was very far from the end of her sentence. One such friend, Yan Zhu, joined Chelsea on stage in a comfortable armchair-setting to guide the interview.

Chelsea Manning was sentenced to serve 35 years in Leavenworth maximum-security prison, having been convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage Act. This talk (and the article I’m writing now) was not about the events leading up to that conviction, but rather about Chelsea’s life since being released, with a bit of background on the experience of being incarcerated. Her early release came as the result of a commutation of sentence by President Barack Obama that returned her freedom just over one year ago.

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Classroom Gadget Turned Arduino Compatible

July 22, 2018 by 25 Comments

Cheap second-hand hardware is usually a fertile ground for hacking, and by looks of this project, the digital classroom aids that were all the rage a few years back are no exception. [is0-mick] writes in to tell us how he managed to hack one of these devices, a SMART Reponse XE, into an Arduboy compatible game system. As it turns out, this particular gadget is powered by an ATmega128RFA, which is essentially an Arduino-compatible AVR microcontroller with a 2.4GHz RF transceiver tacked on. This makes it an extremely interesting platform for hacking, especially since they are going for as little as $3 USD on eBay.

There’s no USB-Serial converter built into the SMART Response XE, so you’ll need to provide your own external programmer to flash the device. But luckily there’s a labeled ISP connector right on the board which makes it pretty straightforward to get everything wired up.

Of course, getting the hardware working was slightly more complicated than just flashing an Arduino Sketch onto the thing. [is0-mick] has provided his bootloader and modified libraries to get the device’s QWERTY keyboard and ST7586S controlled 384×160 LCD working.

Playing games is fun, but when his friend [en4rab] sent him the SMART Response XE to fiddle with, the goal was actually to turn them into cheap 2.4 GHz analyzers similar to what was done with the IM-ME. It seems they’re well on their way, and [is0-mick] invites anyone who might be interested in filling in some of the blanks on the RF side to get involved.

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A 3D-Printed Bowl Feeder For Tiny SMD Parts

July 22, 2018 by 30 Comments

[Andrzej Laczewski] has something big in mind for small parts, specifically SMD resistors and capacitors. He’s not talking much about that project, but from the prototype 3D-printed bowl feeder he built as part of it, we can guess that it’s going to be a pretty cool automation project.

Bowl feeders are common devices in industrial automation, used to take a big pile of parts like nuts and bolts and present them to a process one at a time, often with some sort of orientation step so that all the parts are the right way around. They accomplish this with a vibratory action through two axes, which [Andrzej] accomplishes with the 3D-printed ABS link arms supporting the bowl. The spring moment of the arms acts to twist the bowl slightly when it’s pulled down by a custom-wound electromagnet, such that the parts land in a slightly different place every time the bowl shifts. For the parts on the shallow ramp spiraling up the inside of the bowl, that means a single-file ride to the top. It’s interesting to see how changing the frequency of the signal sent to the coil impacts the feed; [Andrzej] used a function generator to find the sweet spot before settling on a dedicated circuit. Watch it in action below.

We’re really impressed with the engineering that went into this, even if we wonder what the vibration will do to the SMD components. Still, we can’t wait to see this in a finished project – perhaps it’ll be integrated like this Arduino-fied bowl feeder.

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Out Of Batteries For Your Torch? Just Use A Mini Nitro Engine

July 22, 2018 by 18 Comments

We can certainly relate to an incomplete project sowing the seed for a better one, and that’s just what happened in [JohnnyQ90]’s latest video. He initially set out to create an air compressor powered by a nitro engine, and partially succeeded – air was compressed, but not nearly enough to be useful.

Instead, he changed tack and decided to use the 1 cc engine to make a small electric generator. [JohnnyQ90] is, of course, no stranger to the nitro engine, having previously brought us the micro chainsaw conversion, and nitro powered rotary tool. This time round, the build is a conceptually simple task: connect an engine to a DC motor and you’re done. But physically implementing it in an elegant way is a different story, and this is always where [JohnnyQ90] shines; we never get tired of watching him produce precision parts on the lathe. A fuel tank is made from a modified Zippo can and, courtesy of a CNC milled fan and 3D printed shroud, the motor air cools itself.

Towards the end of the video, [JohnnyQ90] plays with the throttle a little, causing the bulb connected to the generator to brighten accordingly. It might be fun to control the throttle with a servo and try to regulate the voltage on the output under different load conditions.

We love novel ways of creating electricity; previously we’ve written about how to generate power from a coke can, as well as this 120 W thermoelectric generator (TEG) setup.

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Repairing A Capacitor Inside A Potted Transformer

July 22, 2018 by 12 Comments

We always enjoy watching [Mr. Carlson’s] videos because he looks like he is taping in a rocket ship set from a 1950s drive-in movie. In a recent video, he identified an old oscilloscope that had a transformer assembly that is potted with a pair of capacitor inside. The capacitor failed so [Carlson] decided he would repair it. The problem? The transformer and capacitor are potted together with some sort of tar compound. You can see the result in the video below.

He actually didn’t know for sure the capacitor was really in the transformer, but they were in the schematic and by process of elimination, it had to be inside. Once he liberated the transformer, he did some tests to identify the capacitor before the depotting. The depotting takes a lot of heat and could damage the transformer, so he wanted to make sure it was really in there.

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Recycle LCDs Into LEDs

July 21, 2018 by 12 Comments

We always find it funny when we see ads for modern LED TVs. These TVs don’t use LEDs to show the picture. They are nothing more than LCD screens with LED backlighting instead of cold cathode fluorescent lamps. [Akshaylals] had a few LCD laptop and phone panels that were defunct and decided to recycle them to get to the LEDs within.

Most panels are lit from one or two edges with a bar of LEDs. You only have to peel off some tape and plastic. If you wonder what all those plastic sheets do, see the [Engineer Guy’s] video, below.

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