FallingWater Clock Puts New Spin On A Common LCD

December 27, 2024 by 4 Comments

Sometimes, all it takes is looking at an existing piece of tech in a new way to come up with something unique. That’s the whole idea behind FallingWater, a gorgeous Art Deco inspired clock created by [Mark Wilson] — while the vertical LCD might look like some wild custom component, it’s simply a common DM8BA10 display module that’s been rotated 90 degrees.

As demonstrated in the video below, by turning the LCD on its side, [Mark] is able to produce some visually striking animations. At the same time the display is still perfectly capable of showing letters and numbers, albeit in a single column and with noticeably wider characters.

In another application it might look odd, but when combined with the “sunburst” style enclosure, it really comes together. Speaking of the enclosure, [Mark] used OpenSCAD to visualize the five layer stack-up, which was then recreated in Inkscape so it could ultimately be laser-cut from acrylic.

Rounding out the build is a “Leonardo Tiny” ATmega32U4 board, a DS3221 real-time clock (RTC), a couple of pushbuttons, and a light dependent resistor (LDR) used to dim the display when the ambient light level is low. All of the electronics are housed on a small custom PCB, making for a nicely compact package.

This build is as simple as it is stylish, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it inspired more than a few clones. At the time of writing, [Mark] hadn’t published the source code for the ATmega, but he has provided the code to generate the cut files for the enclosure, as well as the Gerber files for the PCB. If you come up with your own version of this retro-futuristic timepiece, let us know.

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Where This Xmas Card’s Going, We Don’t Need Batteries!

December 19, 2024 by 17 Comments

Energy harvesting, the practice of scavenging ambient electromagnetic fields, light, or other energy sources, is a fascinating subject that we don’t see enough of here at Hackaday. It’s pleasing then to see [Jeff Keacher]’s Christmas card: it’s a PCB that lights up some LEDs on a Christmas tree, using 2.4 GHz radiation, and ambient light.

The light sensors are a set of LEDs, but the interesting part lies in the RF harvesting circuit. There’s a PCB antenna, a matching network, and then a voltage multiplier using dome RF Schottky diodes. These in turn charge a supercapacitor, but if there’s not enough light a USB power source can also be hooked up. All of this drives a PIC microcontroller, which drives the LEDs.

Why a microcontroller, you ask? This card has an interesting trick up its sleeve, despite having no WiFi of its own, it can be controlled over WiFi. If the 2.4 GHz source comes via proximity to an access point, there’s a web page that can be visited with a script generating packets in bursts that produce a serial pulse train on the DC from the power harvester. The microcontroller can see this, and it works as a remote. This is in our view, next-level.

Boss Byproducts: Calthemites Are Man-Made Cave Dwellers

November 20, 2024 by 6 Comments
Some lovely orange calthemite flowstone colored so by iron oxide from rusting steel reinforcing.
Some lovely orange calthemite flowstone colored so by iron oxide from rusting steel reinforcing. Image via Wikipedia

At this point, we’ve learned about man-made byproducts and nature-made byproducts. But how about one that’s a little of both? I’m talking about calthemites, which are secondary deposits that form in those man-made caves such as parking garages, mines, and tunnels.

Calthemites grow both on and under these structures in forms that mimic natural cave speleothems like stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and so on. They are often the result of an hyperalkalinic solution of pH 9-14 seeping through a concrete structure to the point of coming into contact with the air on the underside. Here, carbon dioxide in the air facilitates the necessary reactions to secondarily deposit calcium carbonate.

These calcium carbonate deposits are usually white, but can be colored red, orange, or yellow thanks to iron oxide. If copper pipes are around, copper oxide can cause calthemites to be blue or green. As pretty as all that sounds, I didn’t find any evidence of these parking garage growths having been turned into jewelry. So there’s your million-dollar idea.

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Custom Fan Controller For Otherwise Fanless PCs

October 29, 2024 by 6 Comments

Most of us using desktop computers, and plenty of us on laptops, have some sort of fan or pump installed in our computer to remove heat and keep our machines running at the most optimum temperature. That’s generally a good thing for performance, but comes with a noise pollution cost. It’s possible to build fanless computers, though, which are passively cooled by using larger heat sinks with greater thermal mass, or by building more efficient computers, or both. But sometimes even fanless designs can benefit from some forced air, so [Sasa] built this system for cooling fanless systems with fans.

The main advantage of a system like this is that the fans on an otherwise fanless system remain off when not absolutely necessary, keeping ambient noise levels to a minimum. [Sasa] does have a few computers with fans, and this system helps there as well. Each fan module is WiFi-enabled, allowing for control of each fan on the system to be set up and controlled from a web page. It also can control 5V and 12V fans automatically with no user input, and can run from any USB power source, so it’s not necessary to find a USB-PD-compatible source just to run a small fan.

Like his previous project, this version is built to easily integrate with scripting and other third-party software, making it fairly straightforward to configure in a home automation setup or with any other system that is monitoring a temperature. It doesn’t have to be limited to a computer, either; [Sasa] runs one inside a server cabinet that monitors the ambient temperature in the cabinet, but it could be put to use anywhere else a fan is needed. Perhaps even a hydroponic setup.

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Putting The New CryoGrip Build Plate To The Test

October 25, 2024 by 15 Comments

BIQU has released a new line of low-temperature build plates that look to be the next step in 3D printing’s iteration—or so YouTuber Printing Perspective thinks after reviewing one. The Cryogrip Pro is designed for the Bambu X1, P1, and A1 series of printers but could easily be adapted for other magnetic-bed machines.

The bed adhesion strength when cold is immense!

The idea of the new material is to reduce the need for high bed temperatures, keeping enclosure temperatures low. As some enclosed printer owners may know, trying to print PLA and even PETG with the door closed can be troublesome due to how slowly these materials cool. Too high an ambient temperature can wreak havoc with this cooling process, even leading to nozzle-clogging.

The new build plate purports to enable low, even ambient bed temperatures, still with maximum adhesion. Two versions are available, with the ‘frostbite’ version intended for only PLA and PETG but having the best adhesion properties.  A more general-purpose version, the ‘glacier’ sacrifices a little bed adhesion but gains the ability to handle a much wider range of materials.

An initial test with a decent-sized print showed that the bed adhesion was excellent, but after removing the print, it still looked warped. The theory was that it was due to how consistently the magnetic build plate was attached to the printer bed plate, which was now the limiting factor. Switching to a different printer seemed to ‘fix’ that issue, but that was really only needed to continue the build plate review.

They demonstrated a common issue with high-grip build plates: what happens when you try to remove the print. Obviously, magnetic build plates are designed to be removed and flexed to pop off the print, and this one is no different. The extreme adhesion, even at ambient temperature, does mean it’s even more essential to flex that plate, and thin prints will be troublesome. We guess that if these plates allow the door to be kept closed, then there are quite a few advantages, namely lower operating noise and improved filtration to keep those nasty nanoparticles in check. And low bed temperatures mean lower energy consumption, which is got to be a good thing. Don’t underestimate how much power that beefy bed heater needs!

Ever wondered what mini QR-code-like tags are on the high-end build plates? We’ve got the answer. And now that you’ve got a pile of different build plates, how do you store them and keep them clean? With this neat gadget!

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Photochromic Dye Makes Up This Novel Optical Memristor

October 10, 2024 by 20 Comments

Despite being much in the zeitgeist lately, we have to confess to still being a bit foggy about exactly what memristors are. The “mem” part of their name seems to be the important bit, implying a memory function, but the rest of the definition seems somewhat negotiable — enough so that you can make a memristor from a bit of photochromic dye.

Now, we’ll leave the discussion of whether [Markus Bindhammer]’s rather complex optical memory cell officially counts as a memristor to the comments below, and just go through the technical details here. The heart of this experimental device is a photochromic dye known as cis-1,2-dicyano-1,2-bis(2,4,5-trimethyl-3-thienyl)ethene, mercifully shortened to CMTE, which has the useful property of having two stable states. Transitioning from the open state to the closed state occurs when UV light shines upon it, while switching back to the closed state is accomplished with a pulse of green light. Absent the proper wavelength of light, both states are stable, making non-volatile information storage possible.

To accomplish this trick, [Markus] filled a quartz cuvette with a little CMTE-doped epoxy resin. Inside a light-tight enclosure, two lasers — one at 405 nm wavelength, the other at 532 nm — are trained on the cuvette through a dichroic mirror. On the other side of the CMTE resin, he placed a VEML7700 high-accuracy ambient light sensor. An Arduino Nano reads the light sensor and controls the lasers. Writing and erasing are accomplished by turning on the proper laser for a short amount of time; reading the state of the cell involves a carefully timed pulse from the 405 nm laser followed by a 532 nm pulse and watching the output of the sensor.

Is a one-bit memory device that uses a dye that goes for €300 per gram and a pair of laser diodes practical? Of course not, but it’s still pretty cool, and we appreciate all the effort and expense [Markus] went to with this one. Now, if you want some fuel for the “It’s not a memristor” fire, memristors might not even be a thing.

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HackFest Enschede: The Type Of Indoor Event We Wanted All Along

October 4, 2024 by 6 Comments

I’m sitting at a table writing this in the centre of a long and cavernous industrial building, the former print works of a local newspaper, I’m surrounded by hardware and software hackers working at their laptops, around me is a bustling crowd admiring a series of large projects on tables along the walls, and the ambient sound is one of the demoscene, chiptunes, 3D-printed guitars, and improbably hurdy-gurdy music. Laser light is playing on the walls, and even though it’s quite a journey from England to get here, I’m home. This is Hackfest Enschede, a two-day event in the Eastern Dutch city which by my estimation has managed the near-impossible feat of combining the flavour of both a hacker event and a maker faire all in one, causing the two distinct crowds to come together.

The Best Of Both Worlds, In One Place

To give an idea of what’s here it’s time for a virtual trip round the hall. I’ll start with the music, aside from the demosceners there’s Printstruments with a range of 3D-printedmusical instruments, and Nerdy Gurdy, as you may have guessed, that hacker hurdy-gurdy I mentioned. This is perhaps one of few places I could have seen a spontaneous jam session featuring a 3D-printed bass and a laser-cut hurdy-gurdy. Alongside them were the Eurorack synthesisers of Sound Force, providing analogue electronic sounds aplenty. Continue reading “HackFest Enschede: The Type Of Indoor Event We Wanted All Along” →