Reverse-Engineering A Shahed-136 Drone Air Data Computer

July 15, 2024 by Maya Posch 22 Comments

Top of the air data computer module, with pressure sensors, RS232 driver and DC-DC converter visible. (Credit: Le Labo de Michel, YouTube)

An air data computer (ADC) is a crucial part of an avionics package that can calculate the altitude, vertical speed, air speed and more from pressure (via pitot tubes) and temperature inputs. When your airplane is a one-way attack drone like Iran’s Shahed-136, you obviously need an ADC as well, but have to focus on making it both cheap and circumvent a myriad of sanctions. As [Michel] recently found out while reverse-engineering one of these ADCs. Courtesy of the Russo-Ukrainian war, hundreds of these Shahed drones are being destroyed every month, with some making it back down again intact enough for some parts to end up on EBay.

The overall design as captured in the schematic is rather straightforward, with the component choice probably being the most notable, as it uses an STM32G071 MCU and Analog Devices ADM3232 RS-232 driver, in addition to the two pressure sensors (by Silicon Microstructures Inc., now owned by TE). The DC-DC converter is a Mornsun URB24055-6WR3.

With the board in working condition, [Michel] hooks it up to a test setup to see the output on the serial interface when applying different pressures to the pressure sensor inputs. This results in a lot of ASCII data being output, all containing different values that were calculated by the firmware on the STM32 MCU. In the drone this data would then be used by the flight computer to make adjustments. Overall it’s a rather basic design that doesn’t seem to have a dedicated temperature sensor either, though [Michel] is still analyzing some details. A firmware dump would of course be rather fascinating as well.

Continue reading “Reverse-Engineering A Shahed-136 Drone Air Data Computer” →

Hackaday Podcast Episode 279: Solar Flares, Flash Cells, And Free Airline WiFi

July 12, 2024 by Al Williams 1 Comment

Get your weekly fix of great hacks with your guides, Elliot Williams and Al Williams. This week, the guys talk about hacking airline WiFi, vanishing cloud services, and hobbies adjacent to hacking, such as general aviation. Things go into the weird and wonderful when the topic turns to cavity filters, driving LEDs with a candle, and thermite.

Quick hacks? Everything from vintage automated telescopes to home fusion reactors and ham radio mobile from a bicycle. Then there’s the can’t miss articles about the Solar Dynamics Observatory and an explainer about flash memory technology.

Check out the links below and leave your favorite hack of the week in the comments below!

As always, this week’s episode is freeze-dried as an MP3 for your convenience.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 279: Solar Flares, Flash Cells, And Free Airline WiFi” →

Keep Your Lungs Clean And Happy With A DIY Supplied-Air Respirator

July 9, 2024 by Dan Maloney 13 Comments

The smell of resin SLA printing is like the weather — everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it. At least until now, as [Aris Alder] tackles the problem with an affordable DIY supplied-air respirator.

Now, we know what you’re thinking, anything as critical as breathing is probably best left to the professionals. While we agree in principle, most solutions from reputable companies would cost multiple thousands of dollars to accomplish, making it hard to justify for a home gamer who just doesn’t want to breathe in nasty volatile organic compounds. [Aris] starts the video below with a careful examination of the different available respirator options, concluding that a supplied air respirator (SAR) is the way to go.

His homebrew version consists of an affordable, commercially available plastic hood with a built-in visor. Rather than an expensive oil-free compressor to supply the needed airflow, he sourced a low-cost inline duct fan and placed it outside the work zone to pull in fresh air. Connecting the two is low-cost polyethylene tubing and a couple of 3D printed adapters. This has the advantage of being very lightweight and less likely to yank the hood off your head, and can be replaced in a few seconds when it inevitably punctures.

Another vital part of the kit is a pulse oximeter, which [Aris] uses to make sure he’s getting enough oxygen. His O₂ saturation actually goes up from his baseline when the hood is on and powered up, which bodes well for the system. Every time we pick up the welding torch or angle grinder we wish for something like this, so it might just be time to build one.

Continue reading “Keep Your Lungs Clean And Happy With A DIY Supplied-Air Respirator” →

The ring shown on someone's index finger

The ErgO Ring Makes Computer Interactions Comfortable

July 3, 2024 by Arya Voronova 6 Comments

[Sophia Dai] brings us a project you will definitely like if you’re tired of traditional peripherals like a typical keyboard and mouse combo. This is ErgO, a smart ring you can build out of a few commonly available breakouts, and it keeps a large number of features within a finger’s reach. The project has got an IMU, a Pimoroni trackball, and a good few buttons to perform actions or switch modes, and it’s powered by a tiny Bluetooth-enabled devboard so it can seamlessly perform HID device duty.

While the hardware itself appears to be in a relatively early state, there’s no shortage of features, and the whole experience looks quite polished. Want to lay back in your chair yet keep scrolling the web, clicking through links as you go? This ring lets you do that, no need to hold your mouse anymore, and you can even use it while exercising. Want to do some quick text editing on the fly? That’s also available; the ErgO is designed to be used for day to day tasks, and the UX is thought out well. Want to use it with more than just your computer? There is a device switching feature. The build instructions are quite respectable, too – you can absolutely build one like this yourself, just get a few breakouts, a small battery, some 3D printed parts, and find an evening to solder them all together. All code is on GitHub, just like you would expect from a hack well done.

Looking for a different sort of ring? We’ve recently featured a hackable cheap smart ring usable for fitness tracking – this one is a product that’s still being reverse-engineered, but it’s alright if you’re okay with only having an accelerometer and a few optical sensors.

Continue reading “The ErgO Ring Makes Computer Interactions Comfortable” →

Swapping Vinyl For Cardboard With This ESP32 Turntable

June 30, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 15 Comments

Cardboard is a surprisingly durable material, especially in its corrugated form. It’s extremely lightweight for its strength, is easy to work, can be folded and formed into almost any shape, is incredibly inexpensive, and when it has done its duty it can be recycled back into more paper. For these reasons, it’s often used in packaging material but it can be used to build all kinds of things outside of ensuring that products arrive at their locations safely. This working cardboard record player is one example.

While the turntable doesn’t have working records in the sense that the music is etched into them like vinyl, each has its own RFID chip embedded that allows the ESP32 in the turntable’s body to identify them. Each record corresponds to a song stored on an SD card that instructs the ESP32 to play the appropriate song. It also takes care of spinning the record itself with a small stepper motor. There are a few other details on this build that tie it together too, including a movable needle arm held on with a magnet and a volume slider.

As far as a building material goes, cardboard is fairly underrated in our opinion. Besides small projects like this turntable, we’ve also seen it work as the foundation for a computer, and it even has the strength and durability to be built into a wall or even used as shelving material. And, of course, it’s a great material to use when prototyping new designs.

Continue reading “Swapping Vinyl For Cardboard With This ESP32 Turntable” →

Camera And Lens Repair Hack Chat

May 27, 2024 by Dan Maloney 13 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, May 29 at noon Pacific for the Camera and Lens Repair Hack Chat with Anthony Kouttron!

Unlike the normies, most of us are pretty comfortable looking under the hood of just about anything electronic or mechanical. Whether it’s to effect a repair, make a modification, or just to take a look around, voiding warranties is what we do. A lot of us have hard limits, though, and will shy away from certain types of equipment. High voltages and radiation come to mind, as well as machines with lots of spinny bits that can devour your hands in a trice. One mustn’t be foolhardy, after all.

But one place that we’ve always feared to tread for some reason is camera equipment. Perhaps it has to do with all those impossibly tiny screws with subtly different lengths and the knowledge that putting the wrong screw in the wrong hole could have disastrous results. Or maybe it’s just the general fear that messing around with the insides of lenses could knock something slightly off-kilter and ruin the optics.

We’re certainly glad that Anthony Kouttron doesn’t share this trepidation. We recently featured a lens repair that he accomplished that was packed with tips and tricks for optical repairs. It turns out that Anthony has been repairing cameras for leisure since 2010, and has serviced both consumer and high-end cinema equipment — so he’s seen his fair share of broken camera bits. We’ve asked him to drop by the Hack Chat, so if you’ve been hesitant to dive into optical fixes, now might be your chance to learn about the dos and don’ts of camera and lens repair.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, May 29 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.

Hackaday Podcast Episode 271: Audio Delay In A Hose, Ribbon Cable Repair, And DIY Hacker Metrology

May 17, 2024 by Al Williams No comments

What did Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams find interesting on Hackaday this week? Well, honestly, all the posts, but they had to pick some to share with you in the podcast below. There’s news about SuperCon 2024, and failing insulin pumps. After a mystery sound, the guys jump into reverbing garden hoses, Z80s, and even ribbon cable repair.

Adaptive tech was big this week, with a braille reader for smartphones and an assistive knife handle. The quick hacks ranged from a typewriter that writes on toast to a professional-looking but homemade ham radio transceiver.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download a file chock full of podcast here.