Hackaday Columns

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This excellent content from the Hackaday writing crew highlights recurring topics and popular series like Linux-Fu, 3D-Printering, Hackaday Links, This Week in Security, Inputs of Interest, Profiles in Science, Retrotechtacular, Ask Hackaday, Teardowns, Reviews, and many more.

Resurrecting An Amiga 500+

January 25, 2019 by 37 Comments

Recently, I was lucky enough to receive a big haul of retro computer gear from a friend who was emptying out his garage. Even better, the haul was almost entirely old Amiga gear — my favorite computing platform of all time. Upon returning home, I gleefully sorted through the boxes, powering things up one by one. Amazingly, everything worked… except for one lonely Amiga 500+. I was greeted by a dull grey screen. This wouldn’t do, so naturally, I got to work.

It seemed like a shame to be opening the machine, as after almost 30 years of life, this one still had its warranty seal intact. Regardless, nothing ventured, nothing gained – the Torx bits were at hand and the screws were coming out.

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Samy Kamkar’s LED Balloon Network

January 24, 2019 by 8 Comments

Writing this in the frigid darkness of a Northern Hemisphere January evening, I have to admit to more than a little envy of Samy Kamkar and his friends. One of their summer events is a private party at a secluded campground somewhere that looks quite warm, which from here seems mighty attractive.

Samy wanted to provide a spectacle for his friends. What he came up with is glowing orbs; LED balloons that would float above the campsite and wow his friends with their pretty synchronised illumination. Thus an adventure in wireless communications, lighter-than-air flammable gasses versus electronics weight calculations, and code optimization began, the details of which were shared in Samy Kamkar’s 2018 Hackaday Superconference talk embedded below.

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Cool Tools: A Little Filesystem That Keeps Your Bits On Lock

January 24, 2019 by 52 Comments

Filesystems for computers are not the best bet for embedded systems. Even those who know this fragment of truth still fall into the trap and pay for it later on while surrounded by the rubble that once was a functioning project. Here’s how it happens.

The project starts small, with modest storage needs. It’s just a temperature logger and you want to store that data, so you stick on a little EEPROM. That works pretty well! But you need to store a little more data so the EEPROM gets paired with a small blob of NOR flash which is much larger but still pretty easy to work with. Device settings go to EEPROM, data logs go to NOR. That works for a time but then you remember that people on the Internet are all about the Internet of Things so it’s time to add WiFi. You start serving a few static pages with that surprisingly capable processor and bump into storage problems again so the NOR flash gets replaced with an SD card and now the logs go there too. Suddenly you’re dealing with multiple files and want access on a computer so a real filesystem is in order. FAT is easy, so the card grows a FAT filesystem. Everything is great, but you start to notice patches missing from the logs. Then the SD card gets totally corrupted. What’s going on? Let’s take a look at the problem, and how to reach embedded file nirvana.

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The 1859 Carrington Event

January 22, 2019 by 59 Comments

Like many Victorian gentlemen of means, Richard Carrington did not need to sully himself with labor; instead, he turned his energies to the study of natural philosophy. It was the field of astronomy to which Carrington would apply himself, but unlike other gentlemen of similar inclination, he began his studies not as the sun set, but as it rose. Our star held great interest for Carrington, and what he saw on its face the morning of September 1, 1859, would astonish him. On that morning, as he sketched an unusual cluster of sunspots, the area erupted in a bright flash as an unfathomable amount of energy stored in the twisted ropes of the Sun’s magnetic field was released, propelling billions of tons of star-stuff on a collision course with Earth.

Carrington had witnessed a solar flare, and the consequent coronal mass ejection that would hit Earth just 17 hours later would result in a geomagnetic storm of such strength that it would be worldwide news the next day, and would bear his name into the future. The Carrington Event of 1859 was a glimpse of what our star is capable of under the right circumstances, the implications of which are sobering indeed given the web of delicate connections we’ve woven around and above the planet.

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New Part Day: Small, Cheap, And Good LIDAR Modules

January 22, 2019 by 40 Comments

Fully autonomous cars might never pan out, but in the meantime we’re getting some really cool hardware designed for robotic taxicab prototypes. This is the Livox Mid-40 Lidar, a LIDAR module you can put on your car or drone. The best part? It only costs $600 USD.

The Livox Mid-40 and Mid-100 are two modules released by Livox, and the specs are impressive: the Mid-40 is able to scan 100,000 points per second at a detection range of 90 m with objects of 10% reflectivity. The Mid-40 sensor weighs 710 grams and comes in a package that is only 88 mm x 69 mm x 76 mm. The Mid-100 is basically the guts of three Mid-40 sensors stuffed into a larger enclosure, capable of 300,000 points per second, with a FOV of 98.4° by 38.4°.

The use case for these sensors is autonomous cars, (large) drones, search and rescue, and high-precision mapping. These units are a bit too large for a skateboard-sized DIY Robot Car, but a single Livox Mid-40 sensor, pointed downward on a reasonably sized drone could perform aerial mapping

There is one downside to the Livox Mid sensors — while you can buy them direct from the DJI web site, they’re not in production. These sensors are only, ‘Mass-Production ready’. This might be just Livox testing the market before ramping up production, a thinly-veiled press release, or something else entirely. That said, you can now buy a relatively cheap LIDAR module that’s actually really good.

Hackaday Superconference: 3D Printing For Electronics

January 21, 2019 by 12 Comments

For her day job, Amie D Dansby works as a software simulation developer, creating simulations for video games. In her free time, she’s implanting the key to her Tesla in her arm, building cordwood jewelry and cosplay swords, and seeking out other adventures in electronics and 3D printing. Amie has made a name for herself in the 3D printing community, and she is surrounded by fans when she attends the RepRap meetups and Maker Faires.

She was also popular at this year’s Hackaday Superconference, where she gave a talk on the integration of 3D printing and electronics. Amie’s work concentrates on props and cosplay, which is a skill unto itself, and you only need to look at some of the old Mythbusters, the documentary footage from ILM, or even model makers to realize this is an arcane art that takes a lot of skill. Lucky for us, Amie was there to show us the tricks she’s picked up over the years to make building a one-off piece easier than you could imagine.

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Anatomy Of A Cloned Piece Of Hardware

January 21, 2019 by 58 Comments

What would you think if you saw a bootleg of a product you design, manufacture, and sell pop up on eBay? For those of us who don’t make our livelihood this way, we might secretly hope our blinkenlight project ends up being so awesome that clones on AliExpress or TaoBao end up selling in the thousands . But of course anyone selling electronics as their business is going to be upset and wonder how this happened? It’s easy to fall into the trap of automatically assigning blame; if the legit boards were made in China would you assume that’s where the design was snagged to produce the bootlegs? There’s a saying about assumptions that applies to this tale.

Dave Curran from Tynemouth Software had one of his products cloned, and since he has been good enough to share all the details with us we’ve been able to take a look at the evidence. Dave’s detective work is top notch. What he found was surprising, his overseas manufacturer was blameless, and the bootleg board came from an entirely different source. Continue reading “Anatomy Of A Cloned Piece Of Hardware” →