DIY DynDNS With ESP8266 And Dweets

You’re on a home router, and your IP address keeps changing. Instead of paying a little bit extra for a static IP address (and becoming a grownup member of the Internet) there are many services that let you push your current IP out to the rest of the world dynamically. But most of them involve paying money or spending time reading advertisements. Who has either money or time?!

[Alberto Ricci Bitti] cobbled together a few free services and an ESP8266 module to make a device that occasionally pushes its external IP address out to a web-based “dweet” service. The skinny: an ESP8266 gets its external IP address from ipify.org and pushes it by “dweet” to a web-based data store. Freeboard reads the “dweet” and posts the resulting link in a nice format.

Every part of this short chain of software services could be replaced easily enough with anything else. We cobbled together our own similar solution, literally in the previous century, back when we were on dialup. But [Alberto R B]’s solution is quick and easy, and uses no fewer than three (3!) cloud services ending in .io. Add an ESP8266 to the WiFi network that you’d like to expose, and you’re done.

Customize Your Ratios With A 3D-Printed Gearbox

Small DC motors are easy to find — you can harvest dozens from old printers and copiers. You might even get a few with decent gearboxes too. But will you get exactly the motor with exactly the gearing your project needs? Unlikely, but you can always just print a gearbox to get exactly what you need.

There’s nothing fancy about [fortzero]’s gearboxes. The motors are junk bin specials, and the gears are all simple spur gears 3D-printed from PLA. There are four gears in the train, each with a 2:1 reduction, giving a 16:1 overall ratio. The gears ride on brass shafts that are press-fit into the housing, and there’s not a bearing in sight — just a few washers to keep the gears spaced apart and plenty of grease. Despite the simplicity, the gearboxes turned out to be pretty capable, lifting a 3.5 kg load. The design files are available and should make it easy for you to get just the ratio you want for the motor you have.

Of course more complicated gearboxes are possible with a 3D printer, including a split-harmonic planetary gear, or a strain wave gear using a timing belt. No 3D printer? No problem! Just build a LEGO gearbox.

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Keep An Eye On The Sky With RDuinoScope

We’ve all enjoyed looking up at a clear night sky and marveled at the majesty of the stars. Some of us have even pointed telescopes at particular celestial objects to get a closer view. Anyone who’s ever looked at anything beyond Jupiter knows the hassle involved.  It is most unfortunate that the planet we reside on happens to rotate about a fixed axis, which makes it somewhat difficult to keep a celestial object in the view of your scope.

It doesn’t take much to strap a few steppers and some silicon brains to a scope to counter the rotation of earth, and such systems have been available for decades. They are unfortunately quite expensive. So [Dessislav Gouzgounov] took matters into his own hands and developed the rDuinoScope – an open source telescope control system.

Based on the Arduino Due, the systems stores a database of 250 stellar objects. Combined with an RTC and GPS, the rDunioScope can locate and lock on to your favorite nebula and track it, allowing you to view it in peace. Be sure to grab the code and let us know when you have your own rDuinoScope set up!

 

$10 Orange Pi 2G-IoT Released To Compete With Pi Zero W

A new single-board computer by Orange Pi has popped up for sale on AliExpress. The Orange Pi 2G-IoT is designed to compete with the Raspberry Pi Zero, and if specs are anything to go by they have done a nice job.

There are a lot of options for extra small single board computers these days and there’s a growing list at the lowest price points. Let’s call it the sub-$20 cost range (to quell the argument of shipping fees). We have seen C.H.I.P., the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the Pi Zero W (an update to the Zero line that included WiFi and Bluetooth), the already available Orange Pi Zero (which was featured in a project on Monday), and now add to that list the unfortunately named Orange Pi 2G-IoT.

The 2g-IoT is sporting an ARM Cortex-A5 32bit clocked at 1GHz with 256MB DDR2 RAM. It’s nice to see 500 MB of on-board NAND to go along with an SD card slot for larger storage. It also has a CSI camera connector, WiFi, Bluetooth, an FM Radio and GSM/GPRS with a sim card slot on the bottom. It is pin compatible with Raspberry Pi’s almost standardized GPIO layout.

All this for $10 is quite impressive to say the least, especially the addition of GSM/GPRS. Will it kill Raspberry Pi Zero W sales? We think not. While the Orange Pi’s are great little computers, they don’t have the community support that is afforded to Raspberry Pi products making for less support online when you run into a problem. That’s if you can even get the thing running in the first place. The Orange Pi’s website has not yet been updated to reflect the new release. However if you are interested in getting one for yourself right now, head over to your favorite Chinese electronics supplier.

[via Geeky Gadgets and CNX]

Hackaday Prize Entry: Experiments With Wheeled Legs

If you’ve been keeping tabs on recent developments in robotics, you surely remember Handle — the awesome walking, wheeled robot from Boston Dynamics. There’s a good reason why such a combination is a good choice of locomotion for robots. Rolling on wheels is a good way to cover smooth terrain with high efficiency. But when you hit rocky patches or obstacles, using legs to negotiate these obstacles makes sense. But Handle isn’t the only one, nor is it the first.

[Radomir Dopieralski] has been building small robots for a while now, and is especially interested in how they move. He is sharing his experience while Experimenting with Wheeled Legs, with the eventual aim of “building an experimental walking+rolling robot, to more efficiently kill all humans and thus solve all the problems”. His pithy comments aside, investigating and experimenting with different forms of locomotion to understand which method is most efficient will pay rich dividends in the design of future robots.

During an earlier version of the Hackaday Prize, [Radomir] snagged a coupon for laser cutting services. He used it to build a new robot based on a fresh look at some of his earlier designs. This resulted in the Logicoma-kun — a functional model of a Logikoma (a logistics robot designed to be a fast all-terrain vehicle for transporting weapons and ammunition) from “Ghost in the Shell: Arise”. Along the way, he figured out how to save some servo channels. For gripping function, he needed to drive two servos in sync with each other, but in opposing directions. This would usually require two GPIO’s and a few extra lines of code. Instead, he dismantled a servo and reversed the motor AND the servo potentiometer connections.

But this is still early days for [Radomir]. He is fleshing out ideas, looking for feedback and discussions on robotic locomotion. This fits in perfectly with the “Design Your Concept” phase of the Hackaday Prize 2017. He has already made some progress on Logicoma-kum by having it move in either the wheeled or walking modes — check out the videos after the break.

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Making Metal Dominoes

Nearly as versatile as a deck of playing cards, dominoes are a great addition to any rainy-day repertoire of game sets. [Apollo] from the Youtube channel [carbide3d] has manufactured for themselves a custom set of domino tiles replete with brass pips.

Cutting the bar stock to the appropriate size, [Apollo] ran a few test engravings and hole sizes for the brass pips. That done, all they had to do was repeat the engraving and milling process another couple dozen times, as well as all the requisite wet and dry sanding, and buffing. [Apollo] opted to use paint marker to add a little extra style to the tiles, and advises any other makers who want to do the same to set their engraving depth to .01″ so  the paint marker won’t be rubbed off when buffing the pieces.

When it came to installing the brass balls, [Apollo] undersized the holes by .001″-.002″ for a snug press fit — adding that the hole depth is a little greater than half the ball’s diameter. They used 1/8″ balls for the pips, and 3/16 balls for the center of the tiles which also allows the tiles to be spun for a bit of fidgeting fun during play. Check out the build video after the break.

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World Create Day: Get Together And Hack On April 22nd

Venture away from your workbench and see what others have been building this year. It’s time for Hackaday World Create Day when hackers all over the world get together to work on projects.

On April 22nd, join the creative minds in your area for a few hours of build time. It’s an opportunity to inspire and be inspired by others. There’s no better way to make those leaps forward on a project than to share your work with others. This pollination of ideas is what sparks creativity, and it’s a great excuse to meet new people.

Find a meetup near you right now. Don’t see one in your area? Become a host, it’s easy and we’ll help!

What’s It Like at a World Create Day Meetup?

When the Hackaday community gets together it’s always a fun time. Each meetup on April 22nd will be unique. These are organized locally and given life by those who show up. Bring an open mind and something you’re excited about and you’ll be right at home.

We’re sending out stickers like this one, along with other swag, to meetups that sign up early. Do it now!

For instance, if I were Brian Benchoff I might bring along my 3D printed WiFi antenna and a few different WiFi devices to see if anyone wanted to do some distance measurements and signal strength characterization. I myself have been working on an art project that uses computer vision and replacement display for my exercise machine so I’ll bring one of those. After a few hours of hacking, it’s customary to go around the room and have people give a very brief explanation of their work.

World Create Day is the perfect place to put together you Hackaday Prize Team. As the ideas fly, keep in mind the power of one idea to change the world. Consider picking a challenge, brainstorming an idea, and entering it in the Hackaday Prize.

Pics or It Didn’t Happen

Don’t let the great ideas live for only one day. Make sure you tell the story of your World Create Day. Post your pictures and descriptions on social media with hashtag #WorldCreateDay during the event. Pictures, project links, and a brief summary should be added on your meetup’s Hackaday.io event page. We want to cover as many of these as possible on Hackaday, so don’t be bashful about telling everyone what people at your meetup were working on — finished project or pencil drawing, we want to hear it!