Reamer Regrinding Using A Toolpost Spindle

August 19, 2017 by 16 Comments

How often have you wished you could reduce the size of a drillbit? [Ben Katz] has a bunch of projects in mind that use a tight-tolerance 22mm bore–but he didn’t have a 22mm reamer handy. Rather than buy one, he thought, why not regrind a larger one to the right size?

He first ground down the shank to fit in the lathe’s drill chuck. Once it was loaded into the chuck,  he reground the edge of a 7/8″ (22.225mm) reamer, reducing its diameter down to 22mm by spinning it on his lathe in conjunction with a toolpost spindle with a grinding wheel attached. The final diameter was 21.995mm—off by 5 microns!

[Ben]’s homebuilt spindle is a cool project in itself, and we publish a lot of posts about those handy tools. Check out our pieces on a brushless DC motor used as a CNC spindle, and this 3D printer outfitted with a spindle. Also check out [Ben]’s electric tricycle build we featured a few years ago.

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Logic Gates Under (Air) Pressure

August 19, 2017 by 10 Comments

We’ve always been fascinated at the number of ways logic gates can spring into being. Sure, we think of logic gates carrying electrons, but there are so many other mechanical means to do the same thing. Another method that sometimes has a practical use is fluidic or pneumatic logic. We guess [dAcid] has a similar interest since he’s written two posts on how to construct the gates. One post covers making them with ordinary tools. The other requires an SLA printer.

According to [dAcid], the design is effectively the same either way, but the SLA printing is more precise. Silicone is an important component, either way. Fluidic logic has applications in some mechanical systems, although digital logic has made it less important than it once was. However, it is very possible that nanotechnology systems will implement logic mechanically, so this is still an interesting technique to understand. You can see videos of how a D latch looks using both methods, below.

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Project Kino: Robotic Jewelry And Tech Accessory

August 19, 2017 by 11 Comments

Researchers from MIT and Stanford are taking the ‘person’ in ‘personal assistant’ to mean something more literal with these robots that scurry around on the user’s clothing.

Project Kino — inspired by living jewelry — are robotic accessories that use magnetic gripping wheels on both sides of the clothing to move about. For now they fill a mostly aesthetic function, creating kinetic accents to one’s attire, but one day they might be able to provide more interactive functionality. They could act as a phone’s mic, adjust clothing to suit the weather, function as high-visibility wear for cyclists or joggers, as haptic feedback sensors for all manner of applications (haptic sonar bodysuit, anyone?), assemble into large displays, and even function as a third — or more! — hand are just the tip of the iceberg for these ‘bots.

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Fresh-Pressed Clothes Courtesy Of TEO, The Iron Man

August 19, 2017 by 13 Comments

As with many tasks, robots may soon be ironing our clothes for us before we leave for work. Built by a team from the University Carlos III de Madrid’s robotics lab in Getafe, Spain, TEO is a highly articulated robot, that can climb stairs, open doors, and has recently added ironing to its skill set.

Data from a depth-sensing camera in TEO’s head is combed over by an algorithm, breaking it down into thousands of points — 0 being smooth and 1 a defined line in the clothing. Comparing those point values to those of its neighbours allows TEO to identify wrinkles without any preexisting notion of what a freshly-pressed garment looks like.

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It’s An Angle Grinder! No, It’s A Floor Sander!

August 18, 2017 by 21 Comments

Faced with the potentially arduous task of sanding a wood floor, what would you do? Hire a pro? Rent the proper tools and do it yourself? Perhaps even shell out big bucks to buy professional grade tools? Or would you root around in your junk pile and slap together a quick and dirty floor sander from an old angle grinder?

That’s what [Donn DIY] did when looking at the wide expanse of fresh floorboards in his new sauna. Never one to take the easy way out, and apparently with a thing for angled gear boxes, [Donn DIY] took the guts out of a burnt-out angle grinder for his impromptu floor sander. A drill attached to the old motor rotor provides the spin, and a couple of pieces of scrap wood make the platen. Sandpaper strips are clamped between the discs, and as seen in the video below, the whole contraption does an admirable job.

We’ve seen lots of angle grinder hacks before, some useful, some silly. This one gets the job done and is a nice quick hack that speaks to the value of a well-stocked junk pile.

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PiCorder: Raspberry Pi Stands In For Stone Knives And Bearskins

August 18, 2017 by 26 Comments

In a classic episode of Star Trek, Spock attempts to get data from a tricorder while stuck in the 1930s using what he described as “stone knives and bearskins.” In reality, he used vacuum tubes, several large coils, and a Jacob’s ladder. Too bad they weren’t in the year 2017. Then Spock could have done like [Directive0] and used a Raspberry Pi instead. You can see the result in the video below.

The build starts with a Diamond Select Toys model tricorder. The Raspberry Pi, a battery, a TFT screen, and a Pi Sense Hat make up the bulk of the build.

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Apple’s Secure Enclave Processor (SEP) Firmware Decrypted

August 18, 2017 by 14 Comments

The decryption key for Apple’s Secure Enclave Processor (SEP) firmware Posted Online by self-described “ARM64 pornstar” [xerub]. SEP is the security co-processor introduced with the iPhone 5s which is when touch ID was introduced. It’s a black box that we’re not supposed to know anything about but [xerub] has now pulled back the curtain on that.

The secure enclave handles the processing of fingerprint data from the touch ID sensor and determines if it is a match or not while it also enables access for purchases for the user. The SEP is a gatekeeper which prevents the main processor from accessing sensitive data. The processor sends data which can only be read by the SEP which is authenticated by a session key generated from the devices shared key. It also runs on its own OS [SEPOS] which has a kernel, services drivers and apps. The SEP performs secure services for the rest of the SOC and much more which you can learn about from the Demystifying the Secure Enclave Processor talk at Blackhat

[xerub] published the decryption keys here. To decrypt the firmware you can use img4lib and xerub’s SEP firmware split tool to process. These tools make it a piece of cake for security researchers to comb through the firmware looking for vulnerabilities.