hardware

1833 Articles

Reverse Engineering The Sony Ericsson Vivaz High Resolution 640 X 360 Cellphone LCD

November 12, 2013 by 35 Comments

In our opinion, reverse engineering may be one of the best ways to tease your brain. [Andy] just did that by reverse engineering the Sony Ericsson Vivaz high resolution LCD (cached copy here). In his (very) nicely written article, [Andy] explains all the steps that led him to the result shown in the picture above. He started by finding the repair manual of the Vivaz, to discover that the display could be interfaced with 8080 type parallel signals. That meant that he could use a standard microcontroller without high speed buses to interface with it, in this case the STM32F4. Next in his adventure, [Andy] ordered the appropriate connector and took a more educated guess for the onboard microcontroller. A long Google search brought up the R61523 from Renesas. So he designed his breakout board, got it produced and a few hours later a nice picture was being shown on the LCD. He even took the time to compare the original display with the clone he found on the webs, and modified his graphics library to support this display.

RFID Door Access Robot

November 10, 2013 by 6 Comments

RFID Door orbot

We love hackerspaces. Some of the most innovative solutions come from them thanks to having like-minded people all hanging out in the same place. Just take a look at this awesome RFID door system from the Lansing Makers Network that doesn’t require any modification of the door.

The majority of the mechanism was previously a model draw bridge that the space purchased from a surplus store — it just needed a bit of hacking. Almost all members of the space had some part in the project, whenever the build hit a snag, another member always had the right solution. It works by using a windshield motor that tightens a seatbelt around the push-bar latch of the door — the beauty of the system is it is completely non-damaging to the door, and the door works exactly the same as before. The whole system is controlled by RFID tags, which the members have as keys to the space.

It’s an awesome project and [Brian] has written a really great write-up on it, which also happens to segue nicely into the topic of hackerspaces. He describes hackerspaces as

the Wikipedia of real life, and everything else here [tools, equipment, resources] is just the lure that pulls us all together.

Stick around after the break to see the mechanism in action!

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Wireless Encryption Between Galileo And A MSP430

November 8, 2013 by 11 Comments

[Mark] recently finished his latest project, where he encrypts wireless communications between the new Intel Galileo and a Texas Instruments MSP430. The wireless interfaces used are the very common nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz transceivers, that had a direct line of sight 15 feet range during [Mark]’s tests. In his demonstration, the MSP430 sends an encrypted block of data representing the state of six of its pins configured as inputs. This message is then received by a sketch running on the Galileo and stored in shared memory. A python script then wakes up and is in charge of decrypting the message. The encryption is done using AES-128bits in Electronic Codebook mode (ECB) and semaphores are used to prevent simultaneous accesses to the received data. As it is the first project using an Intel Galileo we received, don’t hesitate to send us a tip if you found other ones.

A Cortex M4 Based Platform With ETH, USB, BT And Many On-board Peripherals

November 6, 2013 by 8 Comments

Here is a very time consuming project that I worked on during last summer: an ARM Cortex M4 based platform with plenty of communication interfaces and on-board peripherals. The particular project for which this board has been developed is not really HaD material (one of my father’s funny ideas) so I’ll only describe the platform itself. The microcontroller used in the project is the ATSAM4E16C from Atmel, which has 1Mbyte of flash and 128Kbytes of SRAM. It integrates an Ethernet MAC, a USB 2.0 Full-speed controller, a sophisticated Analog to Digital Converter and a Digital to Analog Converter (among others).

Here is a list of the different components present on the board so you can get a better idea of what the platform can do: a microphone with its amplifier, a capacitive touch sensor, two unipolar stepper motors controllers, two mosfets, a microSD card connector, a Bluetooth to serial bridge, a linear motor controller and finally a battery retainer for backup power. You can have a look at a simple demonstration video I made, embedded after the break. The firmware was made in C and uses the Atmel Software Framework. The project is obviously open hardware (Kicad) and open software.

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Hacking A Flip Dot Display

November 4, 2013 by 19 Comments

While casually lurking on a famous auction website, [TeddyDesTodes] found the gem shown in the above picture and reverse engineered it. This is a flip dot display, the Brose Vollmatrix compact to be precise. It consists of a grid of small metal discs that are black on one side and yellow on the other, set into a black background. With power applied, the disc flips to show the other side. The disc is attached to an axle which also carries a small permanent magnet. Positioned close to the magnet is a solenoid. By pulsing the solenoid coil with the appropriate electrical polarity, the magnet will align itself with the magnetic field, also turning the disc.

After carrying the 25kg display from his post office to home, [TeddyDesTodes] opened it and discovered that the main control board was using two RS422 transceivers. So he fired up his bus pirate, started to sniff the traffic and noticed that several commands were repeatedly sent. [TeddyDesTodes] stopped the transmission, sent these particular commands and had the good surprise to see some dots flipped. From there, displaying something was a piece of cake.

If this is familiar to you it may be because it was shared in one of the Trinket Contest Updates. But the background details were just so much fun we think this deserves a full feature of it’s own. Do you agree?

Duo Basic: An All-Logic Chip Educational Computer

November 3, 2013 by 16 Comments

DUO

Way back before the days of microcomputers, a few very lucky students first got their hands wet with microcomputer trainers. These simple devices used common logic chips, lights, and switches to perform calculations; basically, a very small and simple computer. [Jack] has just released his DUO Basic 8-bit educational computer, a computer designed entirely around logic chips just as was done in the olden days.

The entire computer except for a single EEPROM giving the computer 256 bytes of ROM, three registers, and two instructions (condition jmp and add). This allows for simple programs to be written just by flipping switches and hitting buttons – it doesn’t get much more ‘bare metal’ than that.

[Jack] has an online assembler and emulator for the DUO Basic along with a few example assembly programs. Of course, all the schematics and block diagrams are available on his site, along with a nice introductory video, shown below.

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Making A Solid-state Relay With I2C Interface

November 1, 2013 by 34 Comments

As [Mic] often got requests to make high-power switching boards, he recently finally gave in and designed the one shown above based around a solid-state relay. Some of our readers that already play with mains power know that switching should normally occur when the voltage crosses zero volts. The ‘TRIAC BLOC’ is able to do so, which also allows mains frequency measurement. [Mic] then tuned to the internal oscillator of his ATtiny microcontroller with this 50Hz by adjusting its OSCCAL register value, so the switching command can be sent at the ideal moment. Zero crossing detection is implemented by feeding the mains into an AC optocoupler. [Mic] discovered that the optocoupler diodes are not identical, so he had to adjust his firmware to account for the time differences.

All the resources are available on github, we would be interested to hear your detailed analysis of the circuit implemented with the passives R3/C1/L1/R8/C3.