Hacking And Working On The Go

March 9, 2024 by 38 Comments

I’m off visiting my parents for a while, and have managed to bring nearly everything along with me that I need to get work done, and it all fit in a small backpack! This includes a portable audio interface to run my podcast mic, two (count them) two Linux computers, and all manner of simple hacking tools. Microcontrollers with USB/serial adapters built in are a godsend.

But putting together the minimal setup was no easy task! Alone the USB cable assortment I had to bring was astounding. And in the end, it looks like I forgot a USB-B mini, and good luck finding that at the local drug store. (I know! But the Zoom recorder wants mini. Don’t ask me why.)

And then there’s the power adapters — brick for the laptop, USB-C fast charger for the Steam Deck, another wall-plug USB for recharging the power banks. And of course, this silly custom keyboard which I’m so used to typing on, and which embodies so much muscle memory in its macros that I’m practically helpless without it.

So fundamentally, I’m astounded by the amount of functionality I could cram into my pack, but I’m also aghast at all the little things that add up around the edges. And I’m sure that I’ll find stuff that I’m missing in the next few weeks.

Do you need to travel for work with your full kit? What’s your approach? Minimal? Maximal? Leave us your hacker travel kit tips in the comments.

This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!
Infotainment system playing back from USB. (Folkert van Heusden)

Create Virtual USB Sticks With A Raspberry Pi Zero

March 9, 2024 by 28 Comments

Playing back music files from USB sticks is a common feature these days, and is built-into the infotainment system in [Folkert van Heusden]’s Opel Astra. Unfortunately such USB playback features often come with a range of limitations on things like audio codecs, and in the case of [Folkert]’s car, a 1000 file limit. This had him looking at an alternative to lugging a lot of USB sticks around to avoid the horror of hearing the same songs within a week while commuting. The solution? Make a Raspberry Pi Zero into a virtual USB mass storage device using the Mass Storage Gadget (MSG) driver in the Linux kernel.

Picking USB storage as the ideal option here comes mostly from the age of the infotainment system, which lacks Bluetooth, and the audio input jack is rather crackly. Of course, having the Raspberry Pi Zero pretend to be a storage device via the MSG driver wouldn’t solve the file limit, but to get around this two Python scripts were written: one which creates images from a folder of music files, and another which randomly picks one of the available images from the Zero’s SD card and configures the MSG driver to use it.

As for the list of future improvements, there is mounting the RPi Zero’s SD card as read-only to deal with the power-off when the car is shut down, and the creating of images requires to be run as root due to the use of loopback devices. As a Proof-of-Concept it does seem to be on the right track.

It’s not just the older infotainment systems that get to have all the fun. If you’re lucky enough to have Linux running in the dashboard, you might be little more than a Bash script away from bending the system to your will.

All the components of the Piggymeter interface laid out on a silicon mat

Simple Optical Meter Sets New Standards For Documentation

March 9, 2024 by 6 Comments

PiggyMeter is a wonderful example of a device that you never knew you needed – simple, elegant, easy to build, and accompanied by amazing documentation. It’s a snap-on interface for electric meters, dubbed so because its 3D printable shell looks like a pig nose, and it works with IEC62056-21 compliant meters. If you want to learn about your home’s power consumption in real time and your meter happens to fit the bill, look into building a PiggyMeter, it’s the kind of DIY project that a hacker was destined to design at some point.

All you need is a printed shell, a Wemos-compatible development board with an ESP32 MCU, an optical interface board, and a few small parts like a ring magnet. The optical interface board is not open source, but there’s drawings available, and the design is pretty simple, so it should be trivial to recreate. Plus, it’s also reasonably inexpensive if you don’t want to build your own board. Got parts? Simply put them all together, flash the firmware, and you have a meter adapter added to your smart home device family.

This device works with HomeAssistant, and it’s incredibly easy to set up, in part because of just how clearly everything is outlined in the blog post. Seriously, the documentation is written with love, and it shows. If you’re looking to learn how to document a device in a helpful way, take notes from the PiggyMeter. And, if you’d like to learn more about optically coupled power meter interfaces, here’s a different open source project we’ve covered before!

That’s A Lot Of Building Systems

March 8, 2024 by 9 Comments

The only thing makers like more than building things is making systems to build things. [Eric Hunting] has compiled a list of these modular building systems.

You’ve certainly heard of LEGO, grid beam, and 80/20, but what about Troxes or Clickaloo? The 70 page document has a helpful index at the beginning arranged in families of similar systems followed by information about each and some helpful links.

As the well-known XKCD comic likes to point out, the issue with standards is that they tend to proliferate instead of getting adopted, so this might be a good list to check before you start to implement your brilliant spin on modular construction. It’s possible the right system is already waiting for you.

The list certainly isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start. If you do have the modular building system that will solve all the world’s problems though, by all means, send it to the tipsline!

Inside America’s Last Morse Code Station

March 8, 2024 by 42 Comments

The Titanic famously (or infamously) used Morse code to call out in distress at the end of its final voyage. Ships at sea and the land-based stations that supported them used Morse code for decades, but with the growing use of satellites, maritime Morse code ended in 1999. With one notable exception. [Saahil Desai] writing in the Atlantic tells the story of  America’s last Morse code station, KPH just north of San Francisco.

In fact, KPH did shut down in 1997 as part of the wind down of Morse code in ocean vessels. But some radio enthusiasts, including [Tom Horsfall] and [Richard Dillman], have brought the venerable station back to life. The radio squirrels, as they call themselves, dutifully send news and weather every Saturday to anyone interested in listening. They also exchange radio traffic, primarily with the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a World War II-era ship parked nearby. N2FQ visited the station and operated the station on video, which you can see below. Or, check out the tour in the second video, below.

Continue reading “Inside America’s Last Morse Code Station” →

Phenolic board from an RC car - a well-known sight for a hacker

Pairing A New Remote To A Cheap RC Car

March 8, 2024 by 10 Comments

The cheap little RC cars are abundant anywhere you are, and if you’ve ever disassembled one, you are familiar with how the PCB looks. A single-sided phenolic paper PCB with a mystery chip driving a bunch of through-hole transistors, a sprinkle of through-hole capacitors, and a few supporting components for the wire antenna. It might not feel reusable, but [Chris Jones] begs to differ, with a Twitter thread showing us how he’s paired a scrap board from one RC car with a remote control from another, all to help a little family project.

These mystery ICs turn out to be RC-car-on-a-chip modules, and Chris lucked out in that his IC has a detailed datasheet available, complete with code pulse examples for different commands. The datasheet for the chip in the remote control is nowhere to be found, though, so we have to dig deeper. How about scoping the RF output? Turns out the supported codes between the two ICs are basically identical! The scrap board wouldn’t move any motors though, so it was time to narrow down the issue.

The RC car board has a 128KHz oscillator, and scoping that has shown the issue – it was producing 217KHz for some reason. It turned out that the oscillator’s load resistor was 100 kiloohms instead of recommended 200k, and switching that put it back on course. We would assume that, wherever the original remote control for that car is, it is similarly mis-tuned, or otherwise the RC car could never have worked.

Through sheer luck and tactical application of an oscilloscope, the RC car moves again, paired to a remote it was never meant to be, and the family project moves forward. Got a RC car, but no remote? Perhaps a HackRF can help.

Ferrules And 3D Prints Revive Classic Microphone

March 8, 2024 by 3 Comments

Contrary to what our readers may think, we Hackaday writers aren’t exactly hacking layabouts. True, we spend a great deal of time combing through a vast corpus of material to bring you the best from all quadrants of the hacking galaxy, but we do manage to find a few minutes here and there to dip into the shop for a quick hack or two.

Our own [Jenny List] proves that with this quick and easy vintage microphone revival. The mic in question is a Shure Unidyne III, a cardioid pattern dynamic microphone that has been made in the millions since the 1950s. She’s got a couple of these old classics that have been sidelined thanks to their obsolete Amphenol MC3M connectors. The connectors look a little like the now-standard XLR balanced connector, but the pin spacing and pattern are just a touch different.

Luckily, the female sockets in the connector are just the right size to accept one of the crimp-on ferrules [Jenny] had on hand with a snug grip. These were crimped to a length of Cat 5 cable (don’t judge) to complete the wiring, but that left things looking a bit ratty. Some quick OpenSCAD work and a little PLA resulted in a two-piece shell that provides strain relief and protection for the field-expedient connections. It’s not [Roger Daltry] secure, mind you, but as you can see in the video below the break it’s not bad — nothing a few dozen yards of gaffer’s tape couldn’t fix. Come to it, looks like The Who were using the same microphones. Small world.

Continue reading “Ferrules And 3D Prints Revive Classic Microphone” →