A Nicely Crafted POV Lightsaber

May 27, 2018 by 7 Comments

We need to have a talk. As tough a pill as it is to swallow, we have to face that fact that some of the technology promised to us by Hollywood writers and prop makers just isn’t going to come true. We’re never going to have a flux capacitor, actual hoverboards aren’t a real thing, and nobody is going to have sword fights with laser beams.

But just because we can’t have real versions of these devices doesn’t mean we can’t make our own prop versions with a few value-added features, like this cool persistence-of-vision lightsaber. [Luni], better known around these parts as [Bitluni] and for his eponymous YouTube channel where he performs wizardry like turning an ESP32 into a software-defined television station, shows he’s no slouch at more mechanical builds either. The hardware is standard POV fare, with a gyro to sense the position of the lightsaber hilt and an ESP32 to run the long Neopixel strip in the blade. There’s also a LiPo pack and a biggish DC-DC converter; the latter contributes mightily to the look of the prop, with its large heatsinks that stick out from the end of the aluminum tubing hilt. There’s also a small speaker and amp for the requisite sound effects on startup and shutdown, and the position-sensitive thrumming is a nice touch too. Check out the POV action in the video below.

What’s that you say? You recall seeing a real lightsaber here before? Well, sort of, but that’s pushing things a bit. Or perhaps you’ve got this more destructive version in mind.

Continue reading “A Nicely Crafted POV Lightsaber” →

“Watch Dogs” Inspired Hacking Drone Takes Flight

May 27, 2018 by 19 Comments

They say that life imitates art, which in modern parlance basically means if you see something cool in a video game, movie or TV show, you might be inclined to try and build your own version. Naturally, such things generally come in the form of simple props, perhaps with the occasional embedded LED or noise making circuit. It’s not as if you can really build a phaser from Star Trek or a phone booth that’s bigger on the inside.

But after seeing the hacking quadcopter featured in the video game Watch Dogs 2, [Glytch] was inspired to start work on a real-world version. It doesn’t look much like the drone from the game, but that was never the point. The idea was to see how practical a small flying penetration testing platform is with current technology, and judging by the final build, we’d say he got his answer.

All the flight electronics are off the shelf quadcopter gear. It’s running on a Betaflight OMNIBUS F4 Pro V2 Flight controller with an M8N GPS mounted in the front and controlling the 2006 2400KV motors with a DYS F20A ESC. Interestingly [Glytch] is experimenting with using LG HG2 lithium-ion cells to power the quad rather than the more traditional lithium-polymer pack, though he does mention there are some issues with the voltage curve between the two battery technologies.

But the real star of the show is the payload: a Hak5 Pineapple Nano. As the Pineapple provides a turn-key penetration testing platform on its own, [Glytch] just needed a way to safely carry it and keep it powered. The custom frame keeps it snug, and the 5 Volt Battery Eliminator Circuit (BEC) on the DYS F20A ESC combined with a female USB port allows powering the Pineapple without having to make any hardware modifications.

We’ve seen quadcopters with digital weaponry before, though not nearly as many as you might think. But as even the toy grade quadcopters become increasingly capable, we imagine the airborne hacking revolution isn’t far away.

Continue reading ““Watch Dogs” Inspired Hacking Drone Takes Flight” →

A Li-Ion Booster Pack, Done Right

May 27, 2018 by 12 Comments

We’re all used to battery booster packs containing a Li-ion or Li-poly cell and a little inverter circuit, they are a standard part of 21st century daily survival for those moments when smartphone battery lives don’t perform as advertised. But how many of us have considered what goes into them, and further how many of us have sought to produce the best one possible rather than a unit built at the lowest price?

It’s a course [Peter6960] has followed, producing a PCB that sits on the back of an 18650 cell holder. It follows the work of [GreatScott] in particular in its use of the TP4056 charger, MT3608 boost converter, and FS312F protection ICs. Many commercial modules omit any protection circuit, and the FS312F is of particular interest because it has a low 2.9V cut-off voltage that should lengthen the life of the cell. Files for the PCB can be found in a zip file hosted on Google Drive.

You might think that there was nothing new that could be learned about a Li-ion battery booster, but it’s always worth a look at a well-executed piece of work. We noticed he refers to Li-poly cells while using what appears to be a Li-ion 18650 cell. Most likely this is merely an oversight.

There is a lot to know about the characteristics and safety of the lithium-chemistry rechargeables, you may find [Sean Boyce]’s article on the subject to be an interesting read.

A Classy SDR Chip, Decapped

May 27, 2018 by 20 Comments

If you are a regular searcher for exotic parts among the virtual pages of semiconductor supplies catalogs, you will have probably noticed that for a given function it is most often the part bearing the Analog Devices logo that is the most interesting. It may have more functionality, perhaps it will be of a higher specification, and it will certainly have a much higher price. [Zeptobars] has decapped and analyzed an AD chip that holds all three of those honors, the AD9361 SDR transceiver.

It’s placed under a slightly inflammatory title, “when microchips are more profitable than drugs“, but does make a good job of answering why a semiconductor device at the very cutting edge of what is possible at the time of release can be so expensive. The AD9361 is an all-in-one SDR transceiver with an astonishing bandwidth, and as such was a particularly special device when it reached the market in 2013. We see some particularly fine examples of on-chip inductors and PLL circuitry that must have consumed a significant design effort to preserve both bandwidth and noise characteristics. This is an item of physical beauty at a microscopic scale as well as one of technical achievement.

The financial analysis puts Analog Devices’s gross profit at about $103 of the $275 retail purchase price of an AD9361. The biggest slice at $105 goes to the distributor, and surprisingly the R&D and manufacturing costs are not as large as you might expect. How accurate these figures are is anybody’s guess, but they are derived from an R&D figure in the published financial report, so there is some credence to be given to them.

We’ve featured [Zeptobar’s] work before more than once. A look at fake Nordic Semi parts for example or a Soviet i8080 clone have received their treatment. Always a source to watch out for!

Flash Your Libre Firmware With A Libre Programmer

May 26, 2018 by 34 Comments

Whether or not you personally agree with all the ideals of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), you’ve got to give them credit: they don’t mess around. They started by laying the groundwork for a free and open source operating system, then once that dream was realized, started pushing the idea of replacing proprietary BIOS firmware with an open alternative such as Libreboot. But apparently, even that’s not enough, as there’s still more freedom to be had. We’re playing 4D Libre Chess now, folks.

To flash your libre boot firmware on your libre OS running computer without any proprietary funny business, you’re going to need a libre chip programmer. Luckily, the FSF has just awarded the Zerocat Chipflasher their “Respects Your Freedom” certification, meaning every element of the product is released under a free license for your hacking enjoyment. According to the FSF, this is a major milestone towards their goal of providing users a truly free and open source computer, from the browser all the way down to the BIOS.

Of course, you don’t need to be Richard Stallman to appreciate a fully open chip programmer. With the software, wiring diagrams, and PCB files available on the Chipflasher’s website, the project is an excellent educational reference. Is also means that with a clone the Chipflasher’s Git repository, you’re well on the way to spinning up your own build of the device.

Given the roughly $350 USD price tag on the first generation Zerocat Chipflasher, it seems fairly likely we’ll be seeing some DIY builds of this device before too long. Not that we want to deprive Zerocat commercial success for this very neat piece of gear, but for many it’s a mighty steep price; even if you do get all the Freedoms.

It may use a device of slightly more nebulous morality than the Zerocat Chipflasher, but our own [Bryan Cockfield] documented the saga of getting Libreboot installed on a Thinkpad X200 if you’d like to know more about the high stakes world of BIOS replacement. Whatever it takes to get that Intel Management Engine off your penguin-powered box.

DIY Submersible Aims For Low Cost, Ease Of Operation

May 26, 2018 by 4 Comments

If you’re like us, a body of water is a source of wonder and awe. The wonder comes from imagining what lies hidden below the surface, and the awe is from the fear of trying to find out and becoming one of those submerged objects on a permanent basis. So if you want to explore the depths in relative comfort and safety, a DIY remotely operated underwater vehicle might be the thing you need to build.

Most ROV builds these days seem to follow more or less similar designs, which is probably because they all share project goals similar to those of [dcolemans]: build something to take a look around under the water, make it easy to operate, and don’t spend a ton of money. To achieve that, he used 1/2″ PVC pipe and fittings to build the frame and painted it yellow for visibility. A dry tube for the electronics was fashioned from 4″ ABS pipe. The positive buoyancy provided by the dry tube is almost canceled out by the water flooding the frame through weep holes and the lead shot ballast stored in the landing skids. Propulsion is provided by bilge pump cartridges with 3D-printed ducted propellers. A nice touch is a separate topside control box with a screen for the ROV’s camera that talks to a regular RC controller, along with simplified controls and automatic station keeping. Check out the recent swimming pool test in the video below.

There’s a lot going on under the sea, and plenty of ways to explore it. You could deploy sensors shaped like clams, zap underwater lice with lasers, or even glide your way to a Hackaday Prize.

Continue reading “DIY Submersible Aims For Low Cost, Ease Of Operation” →

An Oscilloscope For The Nuclear Age

May 26, 2018 by 30 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we’re suckers for vintage instruments. More than one of our staffers has a bench adorned with devices spanning many decades, and there’s nothing more we like reading about that excursions into the more interesting or unusual examples. So when a Tweet comes our way talking about a very special oscilloscope, of course we have to take a look! The Tektronix 519 from 1962 has a 1GHz bandwidth, and [Timothy Koeth] has two of them in his collection. His description may be a year or two old, but this is the kind of device for which the up-to-the-minute doesn’t matter.

A modern 1GHz oscilloscope is hardly cheap, but is substantially a higher-speed version of the run-of-the-mill ‘scope you probably have on your bench. Its 1962 equivalent comes from a time when GHz broadband amplifiers for an oscilloscope input were the stuff of science fiction. The 519 takes the novel approach of eschewing amplification or signal conditioning and taking the input directly to the CRT deflection plates. It thus has a highly unusual 125Ω input impedance, and its feed passes through a coiled coaxial delay line to give the trigger circuits time to do their job before going into the CRT and then emerging from it for termination. It thus has a fixed deflection in volts per centimeter rather than millivolts, and each instrument has the calibration of its CRT embossed upon its bezel.

The 519 would not have been a cheap instrument in 1962, and it is no accident that there are reports of many of them coming back to Tek for service with radioactive contamination from their use in Government projects. We can’t help wondering whether the Russian equivalent super-high-speed ‘scope used the same approach, though we suspect we’ll never know.

If vintage Tek is your thing, have a look at their PCB manufacture from the 1960s.

Thanks [Luke Weston] for the tip.