Using FTDI Chips With Python

December 19, 2018 by 38 Comments

FTDI are a company known for producing chips for USB applications. Most of us have a few USB-to serial adapters kicking about, and the vast majority of them run on FTDI hardware (or, if we’re honest, counterfeit copies). However, FTDI’s hardware has a whole lot more to offer, and [jayben] is here to show us all how to take advantage of it using Python.

FTDI chips are an effective way to debug ARM projects, using the SWD protocol.

FTDI’s chips have varying capabilities, but most can do more than just acting as a USB-connected COM port. It’s possible to use the chips for SPI, I2C, or even bitbanging operation. [jayben] has done the hard work of identifying the best drivers to use depending on your operating system, and then gone a step further to demonstrate example code for sending data over these various interfaces. The article not only covers code, but also shows oscilloscope traces of output, giving readers a strong understanding of what should be happening if everything’s operating as it should. The series rounds out with a primer on how to use FTDI hardware to speak the SWD protocol to ARM devices for advanced debugging use.

It’s a great primer on how to work effectively with these useful chips, and we imagine there will be plenty of hackers out there that will find great use to this information. Of course, it’s important to always be careful when sourcing your hardware as FTDI drivers don’t take kindly to fake chips.

Lighting Up The Night Sky With A Flying POV Display

December 19, 2018 by 14 Comments

We’ve seen loads of persistence of vision displays before, but this sky-writing POV display seems as though it may be a first. And we have to agree with its creators that it’s pretty cool.

The idea man on this was [Ivan Miranda], who conceived of a flying POV as a twist on his robotic dot-matrix beach printer. But without any experience in RC flight, he turned to fellow YouTuber [Tom Stanton], whose recent aerial builds include this air-powered plane, for a collaboration. [Ivan]’s original concept was a long strip of Neopixels that would be attached to the underside of a wide-wingspread plane. WIthout much regard for the payload limits of most RC planes, he came up with a working display that was 3 meters long. His video below shows it in use in his shop, with some pretty impressive long exposure images.

[Tom]’s part was to make the POV display flyable. He cut the length down to 2 meters and trimmed the weight enough to mount it to a quadcopter. Ungainly as the machine was, he was able to master its control enough to start painting pictures across the twilight sky. The images at the end of his video are actually stunning – we’re especially fond of Thunderbird 2, which takes us back to our childhood.

We’re not sure what the practical uses of this are, but that’s hardly the point. It’s enough that it’s an interesting project from an unlikely duo. Continue reading “Lighting Up The Night Sky With A Flying POV Display” →

Rigol MSO5000 Hacked, Features Unlocked

December 19, 2018 by 103 Comments

Rigol’s test gear has something of a history of being hacked. Years ago the DS1022C oscillocope was hacked to increase bandwidth, and more recently the DS1054Z was hacked to unlock licensed features. Now, it’s the MSO5000’s turn.

Over on the EEVBlog forums a group has been working on hacking another Rigol, the MSO5000, a 70 MHz oscilloscope which can be upgraded to 350 MHz via software licensing. Various other features including a two channel, 25 MHz arbitrary waveform generator are also built-in, but locked out unless a license key is purchased. The group have managed to enable all the locked options without license keys.

The hack is quite simple. The Linux system running on the scope has a default root password of, you guessed it, “root”. After logging in over SSH with these credentials, the user just needs to modify the startup file to add the “-fullopt” flag to the “appEntry” application. This starts the application in a fully unlocked state, which gives access to all the features.

The MSO5000 costs about $1000, and the bandwidth option alone adds over $3000 to the price. If you’re willing to risk your warranty, and you have the skills to edit a file with vi, this hack provides a serious upgrade for free.

If you have a DS1022C you’ll find our reporting on its hack here, and likewise DS1054Z owners will find theirs here.

Header image: EEVBlog.

PIC-Powered Game Console Is Blocky Goodness

December 19, 2018 by 5 Comments

Picking up new skills in the electronics field is often best served by the classic mantra – “learn by doing”. [Juan] and [Leo] did just that, deciding to build a handheld game console for a University project, and delivering the PGC-32.

Built as a final project for the Digital Systems Design course at Cornell University, the PGC-32 takes on a daunting chunk of functionality, and pulls it off in time to get the grades. The team coded a basic block-based game for the hardware, and control is switchable between the analog stick and a built-in accelerometer. Gameplay is displayed on a 320 x 280 color TFT display. Learning to code a basic game is useful, as it teaches student engineers to consider important concepts like timing, race conditions, interrupts, and display routines.

As a university project, it is well documented and the team step through each detail in their code with explanations as to how and why things are done. The internals are particularly neat, too, with a tidy PCB layout and 3D printed case holding everything together.

We’ve seen plenty of work from Cornell’s courses before, too – like this sleep quality monitor.  Video after the break.

Continue reading “PIC-Powered Game Console Is Blocky Goodness” →

Seeing Like Bees With Ultraviolet Photography

December 19, 2018 by 14 Comments

When it comes to seeing in strange spectrums, David Prutchi is the guy you want to talk to. He’s taken pictures of rocks under long, medium and short UV light, he’s added thermal imaging to consumer cameras, and he’s made cameras see polarization. There’s a lot more to the world than what the rods and cones on your retina can see, and David is one of the best at revealing it. For this year’s talk at the Hackaday Superconference, David is talking about DIY Ultraviolet Photography. It’s how bees see, and it’s the bees knees.

Continue reading “Seeing Like Bees With Ultraviolet Photography” →

Hexagrow Robot Packs A Serious Sensor Package

December 19, 2018 by 15 Comments

Automation is a lofty goal in many industries, but not always straightforward to execute. Welding car bodies in the controlled environment of a production line is relatively straightforward. Maintaining plants in a greenhouse, however, brings certain complexities due to the unpredictable organic processes at play. Hexagrow is a robot that aims to study automation in this area, developed as the final year project of [Mithira Udugama] and team.

The robot’s chassis is a very modern build, consisting of carbon fiber panels and 3D printed components. This kind of strength is perhaps overkill for the application, but it makes for a very light and rigid robot when the materials are used correctly.

Testing soil pH isn’t easy, but Hexagrow is up to the challenge.

It’s the sensor package where this build really shines, however. There’s the usual accoutrement of temperature and humidity sensors, and a soil moisture probe, as we’d expect. But there’s more, including an impressive soil pH tester. This involves a robotic arm with a scoop to collect soil samples, which are then weighed by a load cell. This is then used to determine the correct amount of water to add to the sample. The mixture is then agitated, before being tested by the probe to determine the pH level. It recalls memories of the science packages on Mars rovers, and it’s great to see this level of sophistication in a university project build. There’s even a LIDAR mounted on top for navigation purposes, though it’s not clear as to whether this sensor is actually functionally used at this point in development.

Plants can be demanding of their caretakers, so perhaps you’d best check you’re measuring your soil moisture correctly? Video after the break.

[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!]

Continue reading “Hexagrow Robot Packs A Serious Sensor Package” →

GoPro Factory Goes Nomad To Dodge Tariff Threat

December 19, 2018 by 71 Comments

Despite the fact that the United States and China are currently in the middle of a 90-day “cease fire” in their ongoing trade war, with new tariffs on hold until March 2019 while the two countries try to reach agreement, not everyone is waiting around to see who comes out on top. In a recent press release, action camera manufacturer GoPro has announced their intention to move some production out of China in the face of potential tariff expansions; which many analysts fear will be the result of the current stalemate. That’s right, only some of their production is moving.

“We’re proactively addressing tariff concerns by moving most of our US-bound camera production out of China,” says GoPro CFO Brian McGee. “We believe this diversified approach to production can benefit our business regardless of tariff implications.” Reading his words carefully, the key phrase here is “diversified approach”. GoPro doesn’t intend to move their entire production capability out of China, but only the production of the cameras which are designated for importation into the United States. GoPro models which are to be sold to other parts of the world will still be made in China.

This might seem an extravagant move just to avoid US tariffs, but with better than 40% of GoPro’s revenue for the third quarter of 2018 coming from the Americas, the company stands to be hit hard by the proposed 25% tax. Combined with the fact they shuttered their drone division last year citing “an extremely competitive aerial market”, and the proliferation of “GoPro clones” available for pennies on the dollar, it seems pretty clear that belt-tightening is the name of the game for the company that was once synonymous with action cameras.

Continue reading “GoPro Factory Goes Nomad To Dodge Tariff Threat” →