Using 30 Year Old Microcontrollers

July 24, 2013 by 29 Comments

chips

Like a lot of electronic tinkerers, [Andrew] has a lot of ancient components floating around his parts bin. His latest rediscovery in his cornucopia of components are a few Intel MCS-48 microcontrollers, dating back to 1977. Along with a few old EPROMs, [Andrew] decided it was worth getting these chips running again, if only for a historical curiosity.

[Andrew]’s had a few Intel 8035L microcontrollers on his hands, but this particular model of MCS-48 micros lacks any way to store code. This is where the EPROMs come in. With a modern EPROM programmer, [Andrew] was able to write some code to the extremely common for their vintage 27256 EPROMs. Erasing them, though, does require a UV lamp.

With the ROM programmed and the chips connected, [Andrew] was able to make a simple blinking LED circuit. Sure, it’s the simplest thing you can do with a microcontroller, but [Andrew]’s off to a great start in his explorations of older hardware.

Predator Suit For Monsterpalooza Includes Over-engineered Shoulder Cannon

July 24, 2013 by 11 Comments

off-the-hook-predator-suit

This Predator suit was premiered at this year’s Monsterpalooza conference. It’s nothing short of incredible. But the shoulder cannon is really what caught our attention. The thing is fully motorized and includes sound and light firing effects.

We saw a glimpse of what [Jerome Kelty] is capable of about two years ago. He was showing off an Arduino-based animatronics platform he put together for a Predator shoulder cannon that tracked based on where the predator’s helmet was pointing. But other than a video demonstration there wasn’t much info on the that actual build. This post makes up for that and then some.

A replica of this quality is rarely the work of just one person. A team of fans joined in to make it happen. After getting the molded parts for the backpack and canon from another team member [Jerome] set out to fit the support structure, motors, and control electronics into the space available. That meant a ton of milling, cutting, and shaping parts like the support arm seen above which integrates a servo motor into its rectangular outline. All of the controls fit in the backpack, with cables running to the helmet, as well as the cannon.

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A Keygen For The Rigol 2000-series Scopes

July 24, 2013 by 111 Comments

A few weeks ago it came to our attention that Rigol’s DS2000-series oscilloscopes were easily unlocked with a few USB commands. We had expected a small microcontroller device would be developed to send these bits to a scope automatically, and we never imagined the final version of this tool hack would be so elegant. Now it’s possible to unlock a DS2072 o’scope using just a serial number and a great encryption hack.

The engineers over a Rigol (bless their hearts) used the same hardware for the $800, 70MHz DS2072 and the $1600, 200MHz DS2202. The only difference between the two are a few bits in the scope’s memory that are easily unlocked if you have the right key. A few folks over on the EEV Blog forum figured out the private key for the scope’s encryption and the user [cybernet] wrote a keygen.

The upgrade process is extremely simple: get the serial number of your DS2072, put it in the keygen, and enter the resulting key into the scope. Reboot, and you have a $1600 scope you bought for half price.

Easy LCD Control For Arduino Mega

July 24, 2013 by 10 Comments

arduino-mega-easy-lcd-adapter

[Andy Brown] wrote in to show off the TFT LCD adapter he’s been working on for connecting inexpensive displays to an Arduino Mega.

These TFT LCD screens can be picked up on eBay for a few dollars. But they’re more suited for 16-bit microcontrollers which operate at 3.3V levels. His adapter board, which plugs directly into the Mega’s dual-row pin header, makes it easier to control these with an 8-bit chip that is running at 5V.

There’s a couple of things that make this happen. First off, he’s included level converter chips to managed the 3.3V/5V issues. Second, he uses latch chips to translate eight pins on the Arduino Mega to sixteen pins on the display. Those chips have a latch pin which holds the output values in memory while the input pins are changed. He manages to drive the latch on just one of the chips using the chip select (CS) line called for by the LCD protocol. This means you don’t lose any extra pins.

Another way to uses the displays with Arduino is to use a smart controller for TFT screens.

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A Video Game With Custom LCD Characters

July 23, 2013 by 12 Comments

LCD

[Nakul] wanted to build a video game, and with a few projects worth of Arduino experience decided he could finally attain his goal. He used a character LCD display to make his game, and instead of a text-based adventure, he went with a graphical side scroller.

The display for this space-based side scroller isn’t a graphical display like a CRT or a graphic LCD. Instead, [Nakul] is using the ubiquitous Hitachi HD44780 character LCD display. Normally these are used to display text, but they all have the ability to display custom 5 by 8 pixel characters. The code puts these custom characters – a spaceship, missile, and barrier – into the display’s memory and uses them as the sprites for the video game.

You can grab [Nakul]’s code over on his git or check out the action videos below.

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[Travis Goodspeed] Starts A Space Agency In Southern Appalachia

July 23, 2013 by 14 Comments

travis-goodspeed-space-tracker

His space agency hardware might be in Southern Appalachia, but he can control it from anywhere in the world. That’s right, [Travis Goodspeed] started his own space agency — well kinda. The first piece of hardware operated by the organization is this dish for tracking moving targets in near space.

The main part of the build is a Felcom 82B dish which  was designed to be a satellite link for naval vessels. The image showing the back side of it exposes all of the extras he built into the system. Don’t worry though, a dome goes over the top to keep the weather out without encumbering its operation.He uses an SDR dongle to handle the radio communications. That connects to a BeagleBone which pipes the data to his handheld over the Internet.

It’s amazing to see this type of hobby project. It wasn’t that long ago that you needed an entire room of hardware to communicate with satellites.

Wooden Flatbed Truck Conversion

July 23, 2013 by 55 Comments

wooden-flatbed-truck-conversion

This pickup truck to flatbed conversion is very impressive. [Caswell_Etheredge] says he was channeling his inner redneck. That must mean rednecks in his area are craftsmen of the highest caliber.

He wanted a bit more flexibility on the size and shape of the cargo he was able to haul. Just six lag bolts held the original stamped steel bed on the truck. A bit of work with a pipe and a breaker bar did the trick. A mess of packed on mud and grime was there to greet him. After chipping, vacuuming, and power washing the underbody he gave it a fresh paint job using an undercoating product.

From there the wood flatbed build starts, and he’s not messing around with scrap wood. What you can see of the bed is fashioned from cedar and ipe. The underpinnings which fasten to the frame with those same six lag bolts are pressure treated 2×4 boards. The 4×6 bumper includes the license plate and lights for it. Brake and turn signals are built into the bed along with cleats for easy fastening of a tarp or to secure the cargo.

[via Reddit]