Goodbye Hackaday, I’ll Miss You.

July 1, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 139 Comments

Farewell Hackaday, the time has come for me to move on. Don’t worry, hackaday will keep going, just like it did when [Eliot] moved on, and [Phil] before him.

I wrote my first post on July 9th, 2008. Since then I’ve had so much fun, and written a total of 1,552 posts (including this one). In my opinion, there is simply no other site like Hackaday.com, our readers are passionate and knowledgeable and it shows, even if some of you are incredibly rude to each other(that’s a sign of passion right?).

While some projects stand out in my mind, it is the people I have enjoyed the most. The people I met when I went to all the different hackerspaces, my co-writers[Mike Szczys] and[Brian Benchoff], past hackaday employees, our commenters, and even my boss [Jason Calacanis].

If you want to find me, I’ll be at calebkraft.com or on facebook or G+. I have a twitter too, that I guess I’ll start using today.

Join me after the break just one more time while a take a trip down memory lane with a few of my favorite moments from the last few years. Oh, and yes, I think saying “after the break” is stupid. What else do you say though?

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Working With Very Cool LCD Modules From Sharp

July 1, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

LCD

Here’s some interesting hardware for you: Sharp came out with a very cool series of LCD displays, gong by the name Sharp Memory LCD. Not only are these displays very low power – on the order of about 5 microAmps to keep the display alive – but some of the smaller displays are reflective, making them eminently readable even in daylight. [Mike] decided he’d take a look at these displays and liked what he found.

While these displays are still pretty new, there are a few breakout boards available to make them accessible to desktop tinkerers. The folks at MakerDyne have a breakout board available and there’s one by kuzyatech over on Tindie.

While these displays are readable in daylight and are extremely low power, don’t expect to display LCD video on them anytime soon. The refresh rate is still fairly slow, but you might be able to get away with simple animations with interlacing and so forth. Still, outside of eink, you’re not going to find a better display in terms of power consumption and daylight readability.

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Designing A Marble Track From Scratch

July 1, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 1 Comment

Woodworker extraordinaire [Matthais] was approached by a toy company to create a ‘marble run’ toy. [Matthais]’ jig-building skills are beyond reproach, so whipping up a prototype for this toy was pretty easy for him.

The basic unit of construction for this marble run is a simple ramp block with inputs and outputs at either end. These were crafted from blocks of wood, with the ramp carved out with a slot mortising machine. To make the side cuts on each block, [Matthais] used his pantograph router and a jig that cuts the wood for marble inputs on either side.

After taking his creation to a hackerspace for some very large kids to play with, [Matthais] found a few problems with his initial design. The blocks didn’t want to stay aligned when marbles were moving down the ramps, so a small mortise and tenon – looking very much like a piece of Lego – were added in several locations on the underside of each block.

Making one of something is relatively easy, but [Matthais] is making hundreds of pieces for his marble run prototype, each interchangeable with another. That’s impressive for something crafted by hand, but when you’re a master at making jigs like [Matthais], everything goes by pretty easily.

3D Printed Pip-Boy, Geiger Counter Not Included

July 1, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

pip

Yes, we all love portal guns and crowbars, but there’s one piece of video game paraphernalia that could conceivably be a useful piece of hardware for the modern technologist. It’s the Pip-Boy 3000, the wrist-wearable computer from Fallout, and now you can print on on your 3D printer.

All the pieces for this Pip-Boy are available over on Thingiverse. Included in those files are a dozen plastic parts that, when assembled, come together to form a wrist-mounted computer. You could, of course, print out a static image of a Pip-Boy screen for this build, but [dragonator] made a little addition to his model – he put in a space for a smartphone, so all your environmental sensors and inventory management also work with this 3D printed model.

This is far from the first wearable Pip-Boy we’ve seen, but it is the first that’s able to be fabricated on a 3D printer, and comes with the nice bonus of being the best phone case ever. It’s still a lot of work to put this together, but we’re going to say the results are fantastic.

You can check out the demo video of the Pip-Boy below.

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Build Your Own Steel Reinforced Storm Shelter

July 1, 2013 by Mike Szczys 58 Comments

build-a-steel-reinforced-storm-shelter

The last few years have seen a lot of dangerous storms rip through middle section of the United States. We’re surprised to hear that many residents in that part of the country don’t have basements to take refuge in when in imminent danger. But a resourceful hacker will always be able to find a way to improve their own situation. This example is particularly useful. It’s a steel storm shelter which opens into the garage.

It all starts with a cage made of square tube. With the skeleton fully assembled it is wrapped in steel plate, adding weld joints running nearly the entire length of each of the cage’s ribs. The image at the left shows the steel door frame clamped in position. Check out the finished version on the right after the shelter has been slid into place and bolted to the concrete slab.

The Reddit discussion includes a debate on whether the door should swing in or out. Swinging out means you could be trapped if the opening is blocked by debris. But there may be scientific research that proves this is a better orientation. Either way, we hope the three dead bolts, door latch, and heavy-duty hinges will stand up to the pressure if this is ever used.

Reverse Engineering A Wireless Protocol

July 1, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 31 Comments

logic

Like all good tinkerers, [Andrew] decided to figure out how his wireless security system worked. Yes, it’s an exercise in reverse engineering, and one of the best we’ve seen to date.

After breaking out the handheld spectrum analyzer and TV tuner SDR, [Andrew] cracked open a few devices and had a gander at the circuit boards. The keypad, PIR sensor, and base station all used a TI radio chip – the CC11xx series – that uses SPI to communicate with a microcontroller.

Attaching a logic analyzer directly to the radio chip and reading the bits directly, [Andrew] started getting some very good, if hard to understand data. From the security system specs, he knew it used a ’20-bit code’, but the packets he was reading off the SPI bus were 48 bits long. The part of this code was probably the system’s address, but how exactly does the system read its sensors?

The easiest way to figure this out was to toggle a few of the sensors and look at the data being transmitted. With a good bit of reasoning, [Andrew] figured out how the alarm system’s code worked. This theory was tested by connecting one of the radios up to an Arduino and having his suspicions confirmed.

While [Andrew]’s adventure in reverse engineering is only a benefit for people with this model of security system, it’s a wonderful insight into how to tear things apart and understand them.

Hackaday Links: Sunday, June 30th, 2013

June 30, 2013 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

The race is on to squeeze cycles out of an 8MHz AVR chip in order to better drive the WS2811 LED protocol.

[Asher] doesn’t want to buy charcoal aquarium filters if he can just build them himself. He filled a couple of plastic drink bottles with charcoal, cut slots in the sides, and hooked them up to his pump system. A gallery of his work is available after the break.

Is the best way to make microscopic sized batteries to 3d print them? Harvard researchers think so. [Thanks Jonathan and Itay]

The Ouya gaming console is now available for the general public. [Hunter Davis] reports that the Retrode works with Ouya out-of-the-box. If you don’t remember hearing about it, Retrode reads your original cartridge ROMs for use with emulators.

Making a cluster computer out of 300 Raspberry Pi boards sounds like a nightmare. Organization is the key to this project.

Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] is working on an animatronic cigar box. Here he’s demonstrating it’s ability to listen for voice commands.

A Kelvin clips is a type of crocodile clip that has the two jaws insulated from each other. [Kaushlesh] came up with a way to turn them into tweezer probes.

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