ACK1 Makes Getting To Know The ATtiny1616 Easy

August 30, 2023 by 13 Comments

Many readers will be familiar with Microchip’s ATtiny85, which has been a popular choice for DIY projects in the past for its low price and (for the time) small size. But those looking for a more modern and capable 8-bit chip may find the ATtiny1616-MNR of interest. It offers expanded flash storage, more GPIO, and ditches SPI programming in favor of UPDI — a protocol that can be done using nothing more than an USB-UART converter and a resistor.

The contents of the ACK1 kit
What’s in the kit if you buy it.

But here’s the catch: the new chip is only available in SMD and there are far fewer tutorials for it! That’s why [Bradán Lane] has created ACK1, a cute little AVR Coding Kit for those of us who want to play with the ATtiny1616 and a companion for his free and open-source course.

The board contains an array of 6 by 7 LEDs in a charlieplexed configuration, a large piezo buzzer, two push buttons, an on/off switch, and a CR2032 battery holder to keep it on without the need for a cable. The kit looks gorgeous in its white-on-black theme with gold plated contacts and can be had for $20 on Tindie at the time of writing.

The ATtiny1616 itself runs at up to 20 MHz and has 17 GPIO pins, 16 KiB of flash storage, 2 KiB of RAM, and 256 bytes of EEPROM for configuration — making it roughly on par with the original Arduino Uno.

The course that goes hand-in-hand with the ACK1 is all about the features of the ATtiny1616, from the basics of using the programmer to reading the buttons, using timers, driving the charlieplexed LEDs, storing data in the EEPROM and much more. Though it does not cover the basics of C, the course is free, and even licensed MIT, so that anyone can share it and improve upon it.

If you enjoy seeing beautiful microcontrollers, you’ll definitely want to see the stylish Uno Plus+.

Polish Railways Fall Victim To Cheap Radio Attack

August 29, 2023 by 41 Comments

Poland’s railways have recently come under a form of electronic attack, as reported by Wired. The attack has widely been called a “cyber-attack” in the mainstream media, but the incident was altogether a more simple affair pursued via good old analog radio.

The attacks were simple in nature. As outlined in an EU technical document, Poland’s railways use a RADIOSTOP system based on analog radio signals at around 150 MHz. Transmitting a basic tone sequence will trigger any duly equipped trains receiving the signal to engage emergency braking. It’s implemented as part of the PKP radio system on the Polish railway network. Continue reading “Polish Railways Fall Victim To Cheap Radio Attack” →

$1 Graphene Sensor Identifies Safe Water

August 29, 2023 by 15 Comments

If you live in a place where you can buy Arduinos and Raspberry Pis locally, you probably don’t spend much time worrying about your water supply. But in some parts of the world, it is nothing to take for granted, bad water accounts for as many as 500,000 deaths worldwide every year. Scientists have reported a graphene sensor they say costs a buck and can detect dangerous bacteria and heavy metals in drinking water.

The sensor uses a GFET — a graphene-based field effect transistor to detect lead, mercury, and E. coli bacteria. Interestingly, the FETs transfer characteristic changes based on what is is exposed to. We were, frankly, a bit surprised that this is repeatable enough to give you useful data. But apparently, it is especially when you use a neural network to interpret the results.

What’s more, there is the possibility the device could find other contaminants like pesticides. While the materials in the sensor might have cost a dollar, it sounds like you’d need a big equipment budget to reproduce these. There are silicon wafers, spin coating, oxygen plasma, and lithography. Not something you’ll whip up in the garage this weekend.

Still, it is interesting to see a FET used this way and a cheap way to monitor water quality would be welcome. Using machine learning with water sensors isn’t a new idea. Of course, the sensor is one part of the equation. Monitoring is the other.

IKEA’s Billy Bookshelf Is A Useful 3D Printing Enclosure

August 29, 2023 by 49 Comments

The results from your 3D printer may be improved if you use a dedicated enclosure for the job. This is particularly helpful for printing certain materials which are more sensitive to cold drafts or other thermal disruptions to the working area.  If you want an elegant solution to the problem, consider getting yourself an IKEA Billy bookshelf, says [wavlew].

The Billy makes a remarkably elegant 3D printing workstation, overall. It’s got a nifty slide-out drawer that makes a perfect mounting point for a 3D printer. It lets you slide out the printer for maintenance, using the controls, or extracting finished prints. It also naturally features plenty of storage for your filament, tools, and other accoutrements. When it comes to the business of actually printing though, you just slide the printer inside and shut the door. Its thermal and noise isolating performance can also be further improved by adding a silicone door seal.

We love this idea. Too often, 3D printers are left chugging away on messy desks, where they’re subject to blasts from AC vents and other disruptions. Having everything tidily tucked away in a cupboard neatens things significantly, and could also prove helpful if you pursue fume extraction, too.

If you’ve identified any other nifty maker applications for IKEA furniture, be sure to let us know!

Checking Belt Tension Gets Easier For (Some) Prusa 3D Printers

August 29, 2023 by 22 Comments

Belts on a 3D printer should be tight enough, but not too tight. That can be an iffy thing to get right for someone who lacks familiarity with CNC platforms. Prusa Research aims to make it a bit easier with a web app that can measure tension via your mobile phone’s microphone and diagnose belt tightness, at least for their MK4 and XL printers.

Using different tools to analyze belt tightness (including belt acoustics) have been tried in the past with mixed results, but this is a pretty focused approach that aims to give exact guidance for specific printer models. It’s pretty useful to provide someone with a reliable go/no-go number, after all.

What happens to a printer if a belt’s tension is not right? Well, there’s actually a pretty forgiving range within which the printer will mostly work fine, but not as well as it could be. Loose belts can have novices chasing other problems, and overly-tightened belts definitely put extra strain on parts. It’s one of those things that’s worth a little extra work to get right.

3D printable tension meter is a different option for Prusa MK3 and Mini printers, if one has some Prusament PETG to print it in.

Everything about belt tension for Prusa printers is covered in their documentation, but did you know there’s also neat 3D printable tension meter for Prusa MK3 and Mini printers? It’s meant to be printed in Prusament PETG (printing in other materials may have different results) but it’s a pretty neat idea for a tool.

If you have a Prusa MK4 or XL and want to try their new method, go here and allow access to your device’s microphone. Then select a printer model and an axis to test. Gently strum the upper part of the belt (avoid touching the bottom belt in the process) and watch live results telling you whether the belt is too tight, too loose, or just right. Prusa have a video demonstrating the process, also embedded below.

Continue reading “Checking Belt Tension Gets Easier For (Some) Prusa 3D Printers” →

A WiFi RGB Camera Grip Is Probably Not Ideal For Night Shoots

August 29, 2023 by 1 Comment

RGB LEDs can be found on everything from motherboards to sticks of RAM these days. [dslrdiy] wanted to bring this same visual flair to his camera setup, so built what he’s calling the world’s first RGB camera grip.

The build is based on an existing off-the-shelf camera grip. It’s disassembled for the build, with a pair of 18650 lithium batteries installed inside as a power supply. They run a small DC-DC converter, which powers a Raspberry Pi Zero and a WS2812B LED strip which provides the lovely colorful lighting effects. The LEDs light up a translucent spacer installed in the camera grip solely for the purpose of aesthetics.

So far, so straightforward. However, [dslrdiy] also implemented one more useful feature. The Pi Zero is able to scrape photos from the camera, and automatically load them on to a Windows network share. That’s a nice zero-fuss way to get pictures off your camera when you return to your home network.

We’re not sure too many professional photographers will rush after the RGB grip, as it’s often poor practice to introduce strange uncontrolled colorful lights into a scene. However, the wireless tethering feature does seem attractive depending on your usual workflow. Video after the break.

Continue reading “A WiFi RGB Camera Grip Is Probably Not Ideal For Night Shoots” →

Retro Gadgets: The 1974 Breadboard Project

August 29, 2023 by 36 Comments

It is hard to imagine experimenting with electronics without the ubiquitous solderless breadboard. We are sure you have a few within arm’s reach. The little plastic wonders make it easy to throw together a circuit, try it, and then tear it down again. But, surprisingly, breadboards of that type haven’t always been around, and — for a while — they were also an expensive item. Maybe that’s what motivated [R. G. Cooper] to build Slip-n-Clip — his system for quickly building circuits that he published in a 1974 edition of the magazine Elementary Electronics.

The system isn’t really what you would think of as a breadboard today, but it was effective and certainly cheap to build. The biggest problem? It wasn’t something you’d use with DIP ICs. But in the early 1970s, you might not be building very much with ICs, and the ones you used might be in oddball transistor-like packages. Things were strange in the 70s!

A Brief History of Breadboards

In the very old days, people built radios and such on wooden substrates that were actually bread-cutting boards. That’s where the name came from. It was common to draw a diagram with the physical layout you had in mind, glue it to the board, and use it as a guide for building and troubleshooting. Wood was easy to drill and cut. A nail or a thumbtack would make dandy terminals. Probably the last time we saw that done was about a dozen years ago in Make Magazine. Even then, it was only a novelty — few people still build circuits like this, but you can see how [Colin] did it in the video below.

Continue reading “Retro Gadgets: The 1974 Breadboard Project” →