Google’s OnHub Goes Toe To Toe With Amazon Echo

August 19, 2015 by 46 Comments

Yesterday Google announced preorders for a new device called OnHub. Their marketing, and most of the coverage I’ve seen so far, touts OnHub as a better WiFi router than you are used to including improved signal, ease of setup, and a better system to get your friends onto your AP (using the ultrasonic communication technique we’ve also seen on the Amazon Dash buttons). Why would Google care about this? I don’t think they do, at least not enough to develop and manufacture a $199.99 cylindrical monolith. Nope, this is all about the Internet of Things, as much as it pains me to use the term.

google-onhub-iot-router-thumbOnHub boasts an array of “smart antennas” connected to its various radios. It has the 2.4 and 5 Gigahertz WiFi bands in all the flavors you would expect. The specs also show an AUX Wireless for 802.11 whose purpose is not entirely clear to me but may be the network congestion sensing built into the system (leave a comment if you think otherwise). Rounding out the communications array is support for ZigBee and Bluetooth 4.0.

I have long looked at Google’s acquisition of Nest and assumed that at some point Nest would become the Router for your Internet of Things, collecting data from your exercise equipment and bathroom scale which would then be sold to your health insurance provider so they may adjust your rates. I know, that’s a juicy piece of Orwellian hyperbole but it gets the point across rather quickly. The OnHub is a much more eloquent attempt at the same thing. Some people were turned off by the Nest because it “watches” you to learn your heating preferences. The same issue has arisen with the Amazon Echo which is “always listening”.

Google has foregone those built-in futuristic features and chosen a device to which almost  everyone has already grown accustom: the WiFi router. They promise better WiFi and I’m sure it will deliver. What’s the average age of a home WiFi AP at this point anyway? Any new hardware would be an improvement. Oh, and when you start buying those smart bulbs, fridges, bathroom scales, egg trays, and whatever else it’ll work for them as well.

As far as hacking and home automation, it’s hard to beat the voice-activated commands we’ve seen with Echo lately, like forcing it to control Nest or operate your Roku. Who wants to bet that we’ll see a Google-Now based IoT standalone device quickly following the shipment of OnHub?

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The EM Drive Might Not Work, But We Get Helicarriers If It Does

August 19, 2015 by 226 Comments

There is a device under test out there that promises to take humans to another star in a single lifetime. It means vacations on the moon, retiring at Saturn, and hovercars. If it turns out to be real, it’s the greatest invention of the 21st century. If not, it will be relegated to the history of terrible science right underneath the cold fusion fiasco. It is the EM drive, the electromagnetic drive, a reactionless thruster that operates only on RF energy. It supposedly violates the laws of conservation of momentum, but multiple independent lab tests have shown that it produces thrust. What’s the real story? That’s a little more complicated.

The EM Drive is a device that turns RF energy — radio waves — directly into thrust. This has obvious applications for spacecraft, enabling vacations on Mars, manned explorations of Saturn, and serious consideration of human colonization of other solar systems. The EM drive, if proven successful, would be one of the greatest inventions of all time. Despite the amazing amount of innovation the EM drive would enable, it’s actually a fairly simple device, and something that can be built out of a few copper sheets.

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Color By Number 3D Printing Style

August 19, 2015 by 6 Comments

Remember paint-by-number kits? Your canvas has outlines with numbered regions that you paint with correspondingly numbered paints. When you are done, you’ve recreated the Mona Lisa. [KurtH3] uses a similar technique to coax multicolor prints from his 3D printer.

The technique isn’t general purpose, but it still is an interesting way to add some color to your usually monochrome prints. The idea is simple: You find a paint-by-number layout (apparently, you can find them with a Google search). Use your favorite method to get the outline into a CAD program. [KurtH3] doesn’t really get into the details about this, but some CAD programs will directly import images. Others will require you to trace in Inkscape (or a similar program) and convert to a vector format like DXF that the 3D CAD program can import.

Here’s the trick: instead of extruding the 2D image as one piece, you extrude the numeric regions to slightly different heights. Say you wanted to print a red, white, and blue flag to a thickness of about 5mm and you use 0.2mm layers. You could extrude the white part to 5mm, for example. Then the red parts could be extruded to 5.2mm (one layer higher) and the blue parts to 5.4mm. You could extend the idea to do multiple layers, although that will increase the surface roughness.

[KurtH3] pauses the print at the end of the layers to change filament, but we would probably edit the sliced G-Code to put pauses in the right places (for example, Repetier Host lets you put @pause in your file). You could also use software to split the G-Code as we’ve previously covered.  The resulting print, using our example, would be white from the bottom up but would have thin red and blue layers over the top in the right places. The few hundred microns difference from the white surface to the other colors means you won’t get a perfectly smooth surface, but a few hundred microns shouldn’t be too noticeable.

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Microcontroller Adjustment Of A DC To DC Converter

August 19, 2015 by 44 Comments

[Hugatry] wanted to replace the adjustment pot on an LM2596 buck converter with a microprocessor-controlled voltage. The regulator IC uses a divider to generate a 1.25V reference from the output. The pot is part of a divider circuit that sets the output voltage. For example, if the divider is 10:1, the controller will keep the output at 1.25V and, therefore, the output voltage will be 12.5V.

[Hugatry’s] strategy was to use a filtered PWM signal from a microcontroller to offset the 1.25V signal. By adding a small voltage to the control point, the output voltage would not need to rise as high as before to maintain the 1.25V reference. For example, adding 0.25V to the reference input would only require 1V, which corresponds to a 10V output.

The video has a nice view of a scope showing the relationship between the PWM duty cycle and the output voltage. Although he didn’t mention it, it struck us that since PWM is proportional to the supply voltage, the voltage on the microcontroller and PWM output stage probably needs to be fixed. That implies you couldn’t use the buck converter to directly power the microcontroller itself. Then again, what kind of microcontroller needs to adjust its own power supply?

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Hackaday Prize Entry: The 70s Called. They Want This Calculator

August 18, 2015 by 32 Comments

For those of us who grew up during TI’s calculator revolution, the concept of reverse polish notation (RPN) might be foreign. For other more worldly calculator users, however, the HP calculator was ubiquitous. Hewlett-Packard peaked (at least as far as calculators are concerned) decades ago and the market has remained dominated by TI since. Lucky for those few holdouts there is now a new microcode emulator of these classic calculators.

Called the NP25 (for Nonpariel Physical), the calculator fully emulates the HP-21, HP-25C and HP-33C. It’s a standalone microcode emulator, which means that these calculators work exactly as well as the original HP calculators of the 70s did. The new calculators, however, are powered by a low power MSP430G2553 processor and presumably uses many, many fewer batteries than the original did. It has an LED display to cut power costs as well, and was built with the goal of being buildable by the average electronics hobbyist.

Even if you didn’t grow up in the 70s with one of these in your desk drawer, it’d still be a great project and would help even the most avid TI user appreciate the fact that you don’t have to use RPN to input data into calculators anymore. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. This isn’t the only calculator we’ve featured here, either, so be sure to check out another free and open calculator for other calculator-based ideas.

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clock

Ferrofluid Clock Is A Work Of Art

August 18, 2015 by 58 Comments

It is not usually too difficult to separate functionality from art. Consider a clock. It’s a machine that has a clear and distinct function. It provides information. Nothing could be more different from a clock on a wall than a piece of artwork.  A painting, for instance has no clear function and provides no information. It’s just…art. It’s nice to look at. If we were to ask you to build a functioning, information providing clock that is also a piece of artwork, you would surely have your hands full. Where would you even start? If your name was [Zelf Koelma], you’d grab a bottle of ferrofluid and build us a beautiful, almost mesmerizing clock.

clock_01There’s little to no information on the details of how the clock works other than the use of ferrofluid. But it’s not hard to guess that it uses dozens of electromagnets and an Arduino. You can even pick one up for a cool $8,300 if you’re lucky enough to get a spot on the list, as he’s only making 24 of them.

Want to make one of your own? Pick up some ferrofluid and keep us updated. We’d love to hear from you in the comments on how you’d implement a build like this one. We had a fun time hearing your ideas when we covered the clock made of clocks.

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Reflow Solder Your Micro SD To Ensure It Doesnt Go Anywhere

August 18, 2015 by 49 Comments

SD cards are great inexpensive storage for your embedded project. Using SPI,  they only take a few wires to hook up, and every micro-controller has a FAT file system interface to drop in your project. Problem with SD cards are the connectors.

Usually connectors cost more than the brains of your project,  and the friction fit, spring loaded contacts are not ideal for temperature swings, humidity and high vibration applications. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just solder the thing down, especially if you know you are never going to remove it?

[Timothée] decided to try and succeeded in reflow soldering a Micro SD card direct to a breakout board. While starting as a what if experiment, the PCB was laid out in Ki-Cad and sent off to a fab. Once returned the Micro SD was fluxed, tinned and fluxed again, then reflowed using an IR setup.

The end result is a handy breakout board where you never have to worry about someone swiping the card to jam in their camera, and is ready for any breadboard project.