Wave That Roman Candle Around Without Risking Your Digits

December 31, 2012 by 11 Comments

fun-with-fireworks

Some people don’t mind missing a finger or two, but we’re quite attached to all of ours. That’s why we’ve never held on to the fireworks after lighting the fuse. [Dzl] and his son wanted to be (at least somewhat) safe while still having that kind of fun. So they built this rig which lets you wave around a roman candle from a safe distance. It’s not strictly limited to one type of firework either. You can see there is a PVC barrel which will send a bottle rocket off in whichever direction the thing is pointed. As you’ve guessed, a test run is shown off in the video after the jump.

The rig is build from laser cut nylon parts. Don’t fret if you lack the equipment to automatically reproduce this. It’s not that hard to fabricate these types of parts by hand. And the motors that make it go are just hobby servos rigged for continuous rotation. [Dzl] did add external potentiometers for position feedback.

This is a tame way to celebrate the New Year, which is nice if yesterday’s project was a bit too hard-core for you.

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Make Your Own Plastic Friction Welder

December 31, 2012 by 63 Comments

[Fran] shows us how to build a plastic friction welder. It’s a method of connecting plastic pieces. While it’s new to us, apparently this type of tool was given to kids about forty years ago to use with craft project (when plastic was all the craze).

The tip of the friction welder is a styrene rod. If it’s spun fast enough the friction will cause the material to heat to the melting point, depositing a bead of styrene into the joint. The tool seen here is a cheap DC rotary tool acquired from Harbor Freight. It really did a horrible job, but [Fran] discovered that it was the power supply that was under-rated. When she replace the wire that feeds it and used her bench supply it spit out 16,000 rpm without any trouble. The welding rods can be found at the craft store and fit the chuck of the tool quite nicely. You can see her demo in the video after the break. The seam she’s working on comes out very strong, surviving a slew of violent whacks on the workbench.

We’ve seen a few other methods of welding plastic. One used a tool much like a soldering iron, the other depends on ultrasonic waves and clamping pressure.

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Tamagotchi Hacking, In Depth

December 31, 2012 by 26 Comments

In this strangely fascinating talk, you can follow along as [Natalie Silvanovich] reverse engineers some Tamagotchi. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in digital pets, you’ll probably pick up a trick or two by listening to how she went about taking over the toy. She can now push her own images to the screen, and evolve her Tamagotchi at will.

Listening to her story you might be able to pick up a few tricks as she takes almost every angle possible. She uncovers the black blobs, she attempts to socially engineer her way into datasheets, decaps chips, she dumps and breaks down code. It is also worth noting that, in the beginning, internet electronics enthusiasts were adamant that it just had a PIC processor inside and they were wrong. Having an internet full of experts is a wonderful thing, except when it isn’t.

Then again, having that internet full of experts might be her savior in the end, she’s missing a piece of software and asking if anyone has it available.

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Building A Hardware Security Module

December 31, 2012 by 32 Comments

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[Stefan] was nervous about putting the secret key for his Amazon Web Services account in his config file. In the security world, storing passwords in plain text is considered a very bad thing. but luckily there are ways around it. [Stefan]’s solution was to make a hardware security module out of the newest ARM-powered Arduino Due.

The build puts the secret key for [Stefan]’s AWS account right in the firmware of the Arduino Due (with the security bit on the Arduino flipped, of course). A Python web service then receives sign requests and talks to the Due over a serial port. The Due then signs the request and sends it off to another bit of Python code that handles the AWS API.

Hardware security modules are frequently used by three-letter government agencies to manage cryptography keys and ensure their data are encrypted properly. Instead of a hardware module costing tens of thousands of dollars, [Stefan]’s only cost the price of an Arduino Due; not too shabby for a hardware security module that can sign more than 2000 requests per second.

Ringing In The New Year With An Arduino And Calcium Carbide

December 30, 2012 by 23 Comments

carbide

It’s the first we’ve heard of it, but a New Year’s Eve tradition in The Netherlands called Carbidschieten sounds like it’s just up our alley. Basically, a small chunk of calcium carbide and a little bit of water is placed in a metal milk churn. The carbide decomposes into acetylene and a flame is held up to a small hole in the milk churn. The resulting explosion sends the lid of the milk churn across a field and much fun is had by all.

[Edwin Eefting],  [Johan Postema], [Elger Postema] are exploding 1000 liters of acetylene this New Years and needed a safe way to detonate their celebration. They came up with an electronic ignition system based on an Arduino that probably makes just as much noise as the explosion itself.

The build is basically an Arduino with a few relays. When a pair of buttons are pressed for longer than a second, the Arduino goes into countdown mode with the requisite alarms and ringing bells. When it’s time to fire the carbide cannon, a power supply is turned on that heats up a glow plug, igniting the acetylene. It’s a great build, and adds an adequate amount of safety for an event involving exploding 1000 liters of acetylene.

You can check out the videos of the countdown timer after the break, or check out the Facebook group here.

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USB Microscope Used For Soldering Very Small Things

December 30, 2012 by 48 Comments

solder

Lasik eye surgery is pretty common these days, but there are of course easier and cheaper ways to solder SMD components. [techpawpanda] wanted a video camera to see what was going on when he placed and soldered very tiny components on his board, but commercial SMD video cameras were terribly expensive. He wound up using a USB microscope to place and solder these tiny parts, and we’re thinking his SMD soldering station is the bee’s knees.

[techpawpanda]’s video-based SMD station is built around a USB microscope available at the usual online retailers for $40. This camera is mounted on a wooden base with a USB hub allowing the camera to be plugged in along with a few USB LED lights and a USB fan for a rudimentary form of fume extraction.

The results are impressive – even at 11x magnification, [techpawpanda] can put paste on pads and place even the smallest SMD parts. All this in a device that is small enough to fit in a shoe box, or be tucked neatly away whenever it is not needed.

Breaking The New Neo Geo Handheld Wide Open

December 30, 2012 by 23 Comments

neo

In case you weren’t aware, there’s a new Neo Geo console on the block. It’s called the Neo Geo X and brings back more than a few pains of nostalgia for classic arcade games of the 90s. After receiving their brand new Neo Geo portables, members of the Neo Geo forum decided to do a teardown on one of their newest consoles and found something interesting: this thing was made for hacking.

Officially, the Neo Geo X will get new games released on SD cards. The first run of these consoles – the gold edition – have 20 games preloaded onto the system convientently stored on a microSD card buried underneath the screen. After looking at this microSD card, forum user [Lectoid] discovered the 20 preloaded games and the bios for the system, all completely unlocked and ready for hacking.

Already a few forum members have  the AES Unibios running on this tiny portability Neo Geo, giving them the capability to play every Neo Geo game ever made. Since the Neo Geo X uses the same processor as some other handhelds, there’s great hope for completely unlocking this new console and running emulators on it.