Drawing On Glow In The Dark Surfaces With Lasers

December 17, 2014 by 16 Comments

What do you get when you have a computer-controlled laser pointer and a big sheet of glow in the dark material? Something very cool, apparently. [Riley] put together a great build that goes far beyond a simple laser diode and servo build. He’s using stepper motors and a proper motion control software for this one.

The theory behind the device is simple – point a laser at some glow in the dark surface – but [Riley] is doing this project right. Instead of jittery servos, the X and Y axes of the laser pointer are stepper motors. These are controlled by an Arduino Due and TinyG motion control software. This isn’t [Riley]’s first rodeo with TinyG; we saw him at Maker Faire NYC with a pendulum demonstration that was absolutely phenomenal.

Right now, [Riley] is taking SVG images, converting them to Gcode, and putting them up on some glow in the dark vinyl. Since the Hackaday Skull ‘n Wrenches is available in SVG format, that was an easy call to make on what to display in weird phosphorescent green. You can see a video of that along with a few others below.

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Lumographic Images Created With Lens Only

December 17, 2014 by 18 Comments

Lumographic images are those patterns you see at the bottom of swimming pools. When water works as a lens, the light patterns of bright and dark are random and wandering based on the waves above. [Matthew] figured out a way to create fixed images from lens shape alone. The images only morph into view clearly when light shines at the proper angle. At near angles an eerie fun-house mirror effect appears, but too far off and it scatters unrecognisably.

The exact method for designing the optics is not explained, though we are sure someone in our readership could figure it out. The artist claims it to be a hundred year old million-variable math problem. The lenses are often quite thick and do not resemble much of anything. The effect however, is sharp, clear and detailed.

At first he suspected he needed astronomically-expensive military-grade 50 nanometer (0.000002″) precision machining for the lenses, but some friends in the autobody industry gave him a few tips to squeeze good enough accuracy from more affordable industrial machines. The technique also allows for images to appear from mirrors and internal reflections. It is probably not something you can 3D print or machine yourself, but it would be interesting to see someone try.

[Matthew]’s work is on display in the “Composite” gallery at the National Museum of Math in New York (MoMath). See the video after the break for a peak at the machinery he uses to manipulate the lenses to enhance the visuals in the exhibit.

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The Most Minimal WS2812B Driver

December 17, 2014 by 32 Comments

Whether you call them individually controllable RGB LEDs, WS2812, or NeoPixels, there’s no denying they are extremely popular and a staple of every glowey and blinkey project. Fresh off the reel, they’re nearly useless – you need a controller, and that has led to many people coming up with many different solutions to the same problem. Here’s another solution, notable because it’s the most minimal WS2812 driver we’ve ever seen.

The critical component in this build is NXP’s LPC810, an ARM Cortex M0+ in an 8-pin DIP package. Yes, it’s the only ARM in a DIP-8, but still able to run at 30MHz, and hold a 4kB program.

JeeLabs is using the SPI bus on the LPC810 to clock out data at the rate required by the LEDs. The only hardware required is a small LED to drop the voltage from 5V to 3.3V and a decoupling capacitor. Yes, you could easily get away with this as a one-component build.

The build consists of a ring of sixty WS2812b RGB LEDs, and the chip dutifully clocking out bits at the correct rate. It’s the perfect start to an LED clock project, an Iron Man arc reactor (are we still doing those?), or just random blinkey LEDs stuffed into a wearable.

Thanks [Martyn] for sending this one in.

Tiptoe Through The Tulips In No Time With Ukule-LED

December 17, 2014 by 8 Comments

Take it from someone who has played at the guitar for over 20 years: reading sheet music can be a big stumbling block to musical enjoyment. Playing by ear is somewhat unreliable, tablature only works well if you’re already familiar with the tune and tempo, and pulling melody from chord charts is like weaving fiction from the dictionary. A lot can be said for knowing basic chord formations, but it can be difficult get your fingers to mimic what you see on the page, the screen, or someone else’s fretboard. Enter Ukule-LED, a learning tool and all-around cool project by [Raghav and Jeff] at Cornell.

Ukule-LED uses 16 NeoPixels across the first four positions of the fretboard to teach chord positions. All 16 NeoPixels are connected in series to a single pin on an ATMega1284P, which sits on a board mounted to the bottom of the uke along with power and serial. [Raghav and Jeff] set the NeoPixels below the surface so as not to interrupt playability. The uke can operate in either of two modes, ‘play’, and ‘practice’. In ‘play’ mode, the user feeds it a text file representing a song’s chords, tempo, and time signature. The LEDs show the chord changes in real-time, like a karaoke teleprompter for fingers. In ‘practice’ mode, the user enters a chord through the CLI, and the lights hold steady until they get a new assignment. Knowing which fingers to use where is up to the user.

To add another layer of learning, major chords alight in green, minor chords in red, and 7th chords in blue. These are the currently supported chord types, but the project was built with open, highly extendable Python sorcery available for download and subsequent tinkering. Go on tour after the break.

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ESP Gets FCC And CE

December 17, 2014 by 58 Comments

The ESP8266 Internet of Things module is the latest and greatest thing to come out of China. It’s ideal for turning plastic Minecraft blocks into Minecraft servers, making your toilet tweet, or for some bizarre home automation scheme. This WiFi module is not, however, certified by the FCC. The chipset, on the other hand, is.

Having a single module that’s able to run code, act as a UART to WiFi transceiver, peek and poke a few GPIOs, all priced at about $4 is a game changer, and all your favorite silicon companies are freaking out wondering how they’re going to beat the ESP8266. Now the chipset is FCC certified, the first step to turning these modules into products.

This announcement does come with a few caveats: the chipset is certified, not the module. Each version of the module must be certified by itself, and there are versions that will never be certified by the FCC. Right now, we’re looking at the ESP8266-06, -07, -08, and -12 modules – the ones with a metal shield – as being the only ones that could potentially pass an FCC cert. Yes, those modules already have an FCC logo on them, but you’re looking at something sold for under $5 in China, here.

Anyone wanting to build a product with the ESP will, of course, also need to certify it with the FCC. This announcement hasn’t broken down any walls, but it has cracked a window.

Trinket EDC Contest Drawing #3 Results

December 16, 2014 by 6 Comments

We’ve held our third drawing for the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest. Once again we’ve used a Pro Trinket to pick the random winner. This week’s winner is [Scissorfeind] with his project Stylin’ safety jacket

jacket3In true hack style, [Scissorfeind] went into this project with two goals: A jacket that will be visible at night, and keep him “looking f*cking sick”. The jacket itself is a faux leather affair from a thrift store. [Scissorfeind] added some studs for bling, and he’s working on adding a ton of electronics for light.

The Pro Trinket will be driving a series of LED matrices, which [Scissorfeind] is working on turning into POV displays. The matrices come from an LED clock which [Scissorfeind] saved from the landfill. In fact, most of the parts in the jacket are upcycled from e-waste. The jacket is just starting to come together. We can’t wait to see the final results!

buspirate2

We hope that [Scissorfeind] enjoys his Bus Pirate V3.6  from The Hackaday Store. The Bus Pirate was designed by former Hackaday writer [Ian Lesnet] as a Swiss Army knife of electronic communications. If you’re trying to connect to a circuit with  SPI, I²C, JTAG, or UART, the Bus Pirate has you covered. It can do plenty more though – from reading analog data to programming components. Check out [Brian Benchoff’s] full review on the Bus Pirate V3.6 product page!

trinket-prize-cordwoodIf the pseudo random number gods didn’t smile on you this week, don’t worry, there are still two more chances to win a random drawing! Our next drawing will be on 12/23/2014 at 9pm EST. The prize will once again be a Cordwood Puzzle! To be eligible you need to submit your project as an official entry and publish at least one project log during the week.

The main contest entry window closes on January 2, 2015 – but don’t wait for the last minute! Hit the contest page and build some awesome wearable or pocketable electronics!

DRM Protection Removed For… Coffee?

December 16, 2014 by 75 Comments

Keurig, the manufacturer of a single-serve coffee brewing system, has a very wide following amongst coffee drinkers. Their K-cup (pre-packaged coffee grounds with a coffee filter, all in a plastic container) is an interesting concept and makes brewing a single cup of coffee much more efficient over making a whole pot. Their newer line of coffee makers, the Keurig 2.0, has some interesting (and annoying) security features though, which [Kate Gray] has found an interesting and simple way around.

The DRM security in these coffee makers is intended to keep third-party “cups” from being used in the Keurig. It can recognize an authentic Keurig cup, and can stop the operation of the coffee pot if a knockoff is placed in the machine. We can only assume that this is because Keurig makes a heap of cash by selling its canisters of coffee. One simple solution was already covered a few days ago by taping an authentic lid to the machine. This one doesn’t require any authentic pods but just removes one wire from a wiring harness inside of the case.

There are other ways around the security on these devices, but when [Kate Gray] actually investigated, she found the security decidedly lacking. With something this simple, one can only speculate how much Keurig has really invested in making sure users don’t use third-party cups of coffee in their machines, but it also brings up the classic question of who really owns hardware if we can’t use it in the way we want, rather than the way the manufacturer wants.

You can read more about the project on its Reddit page. Thanks to [MyOwnDemon] for the tip!