Arduino-Based Power Failure Alert System

November 17, 2013 by 23 Comments

arduinoPowerFailBox

When the power went out at his parents’ shop and ruined the contents of their fridge, [Lauters Mehdi] got to work building a custom power failure alert system to prevent future disasters. Although some commercial products address this problem, [Lauters] decided that he could build his own for the same cost while integrating a specific alert feature: one that fires off an SMS to predefined contacts upon mains power failure.

The first step was to enable communication between an Arduino Micro and a Nokia cell phone. His Nokia 3310 uses FBus protocol, but [Lauters] couldn’t find an Arduino library to make the job easier. Instead, he prototyped basic communication by running an Arduino Uno as a simple serial repeater to issue commands from the computer directly to the phone, and eventually worked out how to send an SMS from the ‘duino. [Lauters] then took the phone apart and tapped into the power button to control on/off states. He also disconnected the phone’s battery and plugged it into an attached PCB. The system operates off mains power but swaps to a 1000mAH 9V backup battery during a power outage, logging the time and sending out the SMS alerts. A second message informs the contacts when power has been restored.

Head over to [Lauters’s] project blog for schematics and photos, then see his GitHub for the source code. If you want to see other SMS hacking projects, check out the similar build that keeps a remote-location cabin warm, or the portable power strip activated by SMS.

Google Glass? How About This Home-brew Solution?

November 17, 2013 by 22 Comments

[Codeninja] has been sending us some great hacks over the years, and we’ve just learned that his attention has been on building wearable computers lately! He’s currently on his third iteration of a Google Glass-like prototype, which features a motorized element which allows for the retraction of the screen.

There’s not too much info on his blog about them, but we do know he’s using a Raspberry Pi, a few small servos, and a pico LCD screen. Most of the frame is 3D printed, and it also features a hidden camera, accelerometers, and a few environmental sensors.

He’s uploaded an animated gif of the mechanism that moves the display away from his eye, and it looks straight out of some science fiction movie — check it out after break!

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Battery Backup For RasPi Keeps Your Data Safe

November 17, 2013 by 17 Comments

We’ve all raised a clench fist in anger over lost data, and it’s usually the result of unjustified optimism and lack of planning. [George] shared his solution that prepares for the worst: a circuit that provides backup power to a RasPi and its hard drives. [George’s] Pi setup runs as both an Apple Time Machine server and a website backup server, and a power outage could corrupt the data stored on the Pi’s attached hard drives.

Rather than turn to commercial solutions, however, [George] wanted to take advantage of the Pi’s low power consumption and create an inexpensive custom circuit that would safely and automatically power down the devices upon loss of power. To detect a power failure, the build connects one of the Pi’s GPIOs to an opto-isolator, which—through a zener diode—connects to the 12V wall adapter: though [George] welcomes suggestions for alternative methods of safely identifying a mains power loss. The rest of the circuit serves as a trickle charger for the two attached 9V batteries and as a regulator to supply the correct voltage to the RasPi. Power MOSFETs connected to a GPIO handle the delayed power off.

You can view (and edit!) the circuit online here and find the relevant source code on [George’s] website. If you want to build your own RasPi file server, try cramming all the parts into an old optical drive enclosure.

Getting A Shell On Any Android Device

November 17, 2013 by 29 Comments

If you’re an Evil Customs Agent or other nefarious Three Letter Agency Person, you’re probably very interesting in getting data off people’s phones. Even if the screen is locked, there’s a way around this problem: just use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB), a handy way to get a shell on any Android device with just a USB cable. The ADB can be turned off, though, so what is the Stasi to do if they can’t access your phone over ADB? [Michael Ossmann] and [Kyle Osborn] have the answer that involves a little-known property of USB devices.

USB mini and micro plugs have five pins – power, ground, D+, D-, and an oft-overlooked ID pin. With a particular resistance between this ID pin and ground, the USB multiplexor inside your phone can allow anyone with the proper hardware to access the state of the charger, get an audio signal, mess around with the MP3s on your device, or even get a shell.

To test their theory, [Michael] and [Kyle] rigged up a simple USB plug to UART adapter (seen above) that included a specific value of resistor to enable a shell on their test phone. Amazingly, it worked and the thought of having a secure phone was never had again.

The guys went farther with some proprietary Samsung hardware that could, if they had the service manual, unlock any samsung phone made in the last 15 years. They’re working on building a device that will automagically get a shell on any phone and have built some rather interesting hardware. If you’re interested in helping them out with their project, they have a project site up with all the information to get up to speed on this very ingenious hack.

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Real-Life Raspi-Controlled Redstone Lamp

November 16, 2013 by 2 Comments

redstone-lamp

Minecraft fanatics keep finding impressive ways to bring 8-bit components into the real world, and [Chris Tompson’s] Redstone Lamp Replica is no exception. [Chris] wanted to extend his connection to the game world by not only replicating this block, but also by controlling its light-up effect when an in-game cube is lit.

The lamp is a product of the gang at Hive76, who worked together to develop a quick prototype using the Minecraft Python client pyCraft, an Arduino, a transistor and a temporary papercraft lamp mockup. Hive76 member [Kyle] pitched in to write the plugin for pyCraft, which listens for an on/off message and sets one of the RasPi’s GPIO pins accordingly. The hardware for the actual lamp was designed to smooth out the 8-bit quality into something a bit more precise. The result are laser-cut pieces of MDF with a zebra wood veneer laminated on top. The interior was finished off with amber cathedral glass and then the cube’s sides were glued together. The RasPi, PCB and LEDs fit inside, all snugly affixed together.

Swing over to the Hive76 project page for more details and links to the plugin, and see the video demonstration below. For another Minecraft-inspired real-life project, check out [Bill’s] take on the BatBox.

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Opentilt: Tag, You’re Out!

November 16, 2013 by 35 Comments

opentilt

Have you ever heard of the game Johann Sebastian Joust? We haven’t either, but [Juerd] has come up with an open source version of it called Opentilt, and we have to admit — it looks like a lot of fun!

Johann Sebastian Joust uses motion controllers for a game that can be played indoors or out, without a screen. Everyone gets a motion controller, and the object of the game is to make everyone else move their controller too fast. It even has a music mode that lets you move your controller relative to the speed of the music! Anyway, it had an extremely successful kickstarter, and it has been debuted at many events around the world — but it’s simply not available to the general public just yet. [Juerd] couldn’t wait that long so he decided to make a similar open source version of it, with cheap off-the-shelf parts. The biggest difference is this one doesn’t have the music.

The build is quite simple and inexpensive. You’re looking at some PVC pipe, an Arduino Nano, a RGB LED, a 2.4GHz radio module, an accelerometer, a pingpong ball, a battery pack, and various other resistors and wire. Nothing to it really! All the source code, and instructions are available off of [Juerd’s] site, and he’s done a great job explaining everything, down to fixing a common problem that some people have on Arduino Nanos!

Stick around after the break to see how the original Johann Sebastian Joust game works!

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$13 Homemade RC Blimp

November 16, 2013 by 16 Comments

Here’s a great little RC hack you can do with the kids this weekend — make your very own RC Blimp!

First you’ll have to hack apart one of those little 1/64 scale RC cars you can get for a few dollars, and then all you need are a few household supplies, and a helium filled balloon. [Masynmachien] says the total cost of this project can be as little as $13 — depending on where you get your supplies.

So how does it work? Well, an 11″ helium filled party balloon can lift about 10g quite easily — if you strip away the body and chassis of one those RC cars you’ll be well under that weight. The RC cars typically have one small DC motor and a steering actuator, but [Masynmachien] found you can actually connect a second DC motor to the leads for the actuator and it works just fine. Doing this you can create a main prop to drive the blimp, and a secondary tail rotor to steer it. The Instructable uses mostly recycled components, but we’re sure if you had more time you could design and build an even nicer one. When the blimp is properly trimmed it sinks slowly in the air, so the main prop is responsible for keeping it at a certain altitude — this takes a bit of getting used to but it’s an easy way to get around steering in all directions.

Looking for a more advanced project using these little cars? How about building a RC plane with them! Or if you’re feeling ambitious, you can also control them using your computer! Stick around after the break to see it in action!

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