Maker Barn Organizer Creates Makerspace Access Control System

December 13, 2015 by Rud Merriam 15 Comments

The MakerBarn is a new makerspace between The Woodlands and Tomball, TX (north of Houston). [George Carlson], one of the founders and a retired design engineer, wanted to make sure only members certified on a machine could use it. He worked with [Kolja Windeler] to create the MACS or Makerspace Access Control System. He has one video explaining MACS and, after the break, another explaining the browser based user interface for the system.

A control box, [George] calls them stations, controls the power to a machine. Member badges have an RFID tag that is read when inserted into the station’s reader. If the member is authorized to use the machine, the power is enabled. For safety, the member’s badge must remain in the reader to maintain power. The reader uses a Photon board from Particle with a WiFi link to a Raspberry Pi server.

[Kolja] developed a Pi system to maintain a database of member numbers and the machines they can use. The list is sent to the stations periodically or when updates occur. The user interface is browser based on the MakerBarn’s LAN so it can be maintained by a computer or smartphone in the space. Presently 21 MACS modules have been built with some going to Hanover University in Germany for their auto hobby shop.

Not only did [George] lead the effort on creating MACS but has been key to getting the construction done inside a pole barn to make the MakerBarn a reality.

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OSWatch, An Open Source Watch

December 13, 2015 by Anool Mahidharia 18 Comments

If you are a soldering ninja with a flair for working with tiny parts and modules, check out the Open Source Watch a.k.a. OSWatch built by [Jonathan Cook]. His goals when starting out the project were to make it Arduino compatible, have enough memory for future applications, last a full day on one charge, use BLE as Central or Peripheral and be small in size. With some ingenuity, 3d printing and hacker skills, he was able to accomplish all of that.

OSWatch is still a work in progress and with detailed build instructions available, it is open for others to dig in and create their own versions with modifications – you just need to bring in a lot of patience to the build. The watch is built around a Microdunio Core+ board, an OLED screen, BLE112A module, Vibration motor, a couple of LEDs and Buttons, and a bunch of other parts. Take a look at the schematics here. The watch requires a 3V3, 8MHz version of the Microdunio Core+ (to ensure lower power consumption), and if that isn’t readily available, [Jonathan] shows how to modify a 5V, 16MHz version.

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Piezoelectric Transformers Are A Thing, Have You Used One?

December 12, 2015 by Brandon Dunson 41 Comments

Cheap piezo buzzers are everywhere. They’re so cheap that they can be used in novelty birthday cards. Applying an alternating voltage across a piezo crystal makes it expand and contract, and fixing this crystal to a metal disk gives the piezo speaker its characteristic tinny sound that is anything but pleasant.

The piezoelectric effect works the other way too, and piezo elements are very useful as vibration sensors. Simply put one of your voltmeter leads on each of the piezo element’s wires and touch the element with your hand or knock it against your bench. You should see a voltage spike on your voltmeter which will change in magnitude with the amount of force you use when touching the element.

This ability to change shape when a voltage is applied and to create a voltage when they’re deformed is the basis of the piezoelectric transformer (PZT). While searching for a high voltage/low current transformer, Hackaday reader [Josh] was surprised to find a piezoelectric solution. He didn’t say whether he decided to use a PZT in his project but he did link us to a decent PDF on the subject.

In a PZT, two piezo elements sit next to each other. The primary is made up of multiple thin layers that expand horizontally and press on a single secondary piezo element. The more and the thinner the primary layers, the more force is exerted on the secondary, and the more voltage it develops. There are a few equations involved which you can check out in the PDF linked above that go over this concept in painful detail if you’re into that sort of thing.

If you have never played with piezo element you should add one to your next parts order. They are cheap and easy to experiment with. We have seen piezo elements used in DIY speakers, sonar projects, and even as the sensor for an atomic force microscope, but we have yet to see a piezoelectric transformer in a hack. Surely someone has used one in a project they worked on, leave us a link in the comments if you’re the person we’re talking about.

Deployable By Design With Bunnie Huang, Nadya Peek, And Joi Ito

December 2, 2015 by Brandon Dunson 10 Comments

We follow [bunnie]’s blog as he posts interesting and usable information quite regularly. [bunnie] posted about a video of a recent talk he did at MIT Media Lab with Nadya Peek and Joi Ito. This was in lieu of his monthly “name that ware” competition, which is worth looking into as well.

The talk is focused on small volume manufacturing and the experiences that the speakers have under their collective belt is large enough that the conversation takes a turn from how to do things in practice, to the theory and technique of manufacturing on a philosophical level.

[bunnie] prefaces the conversation with an explanation of some of the design and manufacturing processes involved when working on the circuit stickers project. He talks about the importance of testing the product and the complex test jig that is required to quality check a simple (in comparison to the test jig) product. [bunnie] shares an overview of the project timeline and where some extended design stages might be found in unexpected places.

The design and manufacturing process is discussed on many levels throughout the talk. Among the points that are insightful, we certainly found ourselves a little jelly of all the time [bunnie] gets to spend in Shenzhen.

If you’re not familiar with [bunnie]’s blog you can check it out at www.bunniestudios.com. Pro Tip: you can spend the better part of your workday browsing topics in the sidebar on the right.

We have covered the MIT Media Lab before, including a trip to Shenzhen that is discussed in the Media Lab talk by [Joi] and [bunnie]. Another interesting interview at SXSW earlier this year by [Sophi Kravitz] who spoke with [Sunanda Sharma] about mediated matter.

Amazon Dash Button Pwn3d

December 2, 2015 by Brandon Dunson 25 Comments

If you haven’t heard about the Amazon dash button yet we’re glad you quit watching cat videos and have joined us. Just to get you up to speed: the Amazon dash button is a small wireless device that lets your lazy ass order more laundry soap by pushing the “dash button” which should be affixed to something near your washing machine. The pushing of the button will set in motion the gut wrenching process that we used to know as “buying things we ran out of” but thanks to Amazon we can now just cover our entire lives with an assortment of buttons that take zero credentials to physically push. We can’t see that being a problem whatsoever.

Needless to say we as a community set out to find an actual use for these fantastic little devices. [maximus64] has done quite a nice job at enabling this hardware in a most usable way. Most of the hacks we have seen for the dash button remove the physical push button and add a sensor of some kind. Replacing the button with a sensor still uses the WiFi connection to send data from the button to the cloud. Instead of the button ordering more <<product>> from Amazon, a sensor might trigger the dash to increment a counter on your website letting you know that your dog went through the doggy door +1 more times.

[maximus64] has the dash button working in the reverse manner by porting the Broadcom IoT WICED SDK to the button. He is using the dash button as a receiver and when [maximus64] sends the “all good” signal from his laptop to the dash button his garage door opens which you can see in the video after the break. We find this extremely more useful than the dash button’s original intended use. [maximus64] has instructions in the readme.md file of the github repo so that you too can hack your dash button in this way.

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Keeping The LiPo Smoke Where It Belongs

November 28, 2015 by Rud Merriam 16 Comments

Nothing brings joy to a hacker’s heart like taking a cheap gizmo and making it useful. Over at Hackaday.io [AndyHull] popped open some cheap LiPo battery power packs to see if he could power a Canon Powershot camera. The entire shebang would be left in the wilderness for photography so keeping it inexpensive was a big goal since it might be destroyed or lost.

The power packs [Andy] looked at have a TP4221 controlling the charge cycle for up to four 18650 LiPo cells connected in parallel. The controller also boosts the voltage to 5 volts for one or two USB ports while providing automatic shutdown if the LiPo cell voltage drops below 3.2v. Below that voltage the cells can be damaged and might possibly cause a fire.

The packs [Andy] used also had a torch output to drive an LED almost directly from the cells. That output is a nominally 3.8 V at 100 mA which is just what he needed to power the Canon Powershot. It could be used to power small micros or other low power devices.

The LED was removed and replaced by a connection to outside the pack. The torch output is triggered by two quick presses on a switch that was also replaced with a connector to allow remote control.

If you’re looking for powerful battery options, give LiPo a try and have a look at [Andy]’s LiPo battery safety issues post, also on Hackaday.io. For a broader LiPo overview, see this obsessive rundown of various batteries.

Winning The Console Wars – An In-Depth Architectural Study

November 6, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 100 Comments

From time to time, we at Hackaday like to publish a few engineering war stories – the tales of bravery and intrigue in getting a product to market, getting a product cancelled, and why one technology won out over another. Today’s war story is from the most brutal and savage conflicts of our time, the console wars.

The thing most people don’t realize about the console wars is that it was never really about the consoles at all. While the war was divided along the Genesis / Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo fronts, the battles were between games. Mortal Kombat was a bloody battle, but in the end, Sega won that one. The 3D graphics campaign was hard, and the Starfox offensive would be compared to the Desert Fox’s success at the Kasserine Pass. In either case, only Sega’s 32X and the British 7th Armoured Division entering Tunis would bring hostilities to an end.

In any event, these pitched battles are consigned to be interpreted and reinterpreted by historians evermore. I can only offer my war story of the console wars, and that means a deconstruction of the hardware.

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