Digital PlayStation 3 Purchases May Only Live As Long As Your PRAM Battery Without Sony Servers

March 23, 2021 by Drew Littrell 105 Comments

Word of Sony shutting down PlayStation storefront servers for PS3 this summer spread like wildfire on the internet Monday. The discourse in comment sections were filled with anti-DRM rhetoric and renewed pledges of physical-only game collections, because without content servers to connect to, your digital PS3 purchases will eventually become unplayable. Even if legitimate purchases are installed to the console’s hard drive before Sony “flips the switch”, they may only live on as long as the internal clock stays in sync. Which is why this guide to replace a PS3 PRAM battery written by [Andrew] has renewed importance. After a battery replacement the internal clock needs to be reset and this requires validation from the PlayStation network (you know, the one that’s soon to be shut down).

Game preservationist group [Does it play?] drove home the impact of such a business decision by Sony on Twitter. The thread is quick to point out that even if users are quick to re-download all of their purchases to a PS3 system before the purported July 2nd deadline, those games will eventually become unplayable if the system clock becomes desynchronized. Replacing the PRAM battery and reconnecting to the PlayStation Network prior to Sony shuttering their servers should buy the user some more playtime. However, without any further changes to Sony’s licensing policy little else can be done physically to ensure those digital PS3 games will work in perpetuity.

Sony isn’t the only one to have drawn the ire of digital rights advocates in regards to terminating their online services. Nintendo shuttered the DSI-Shop in 2017 and Microsoft turned off access to the original Xbox LIVE servers in 2010. The big three console makers have all let their consumers down by removing the ability to reacquire purchases in some way, but the fact that so many PS3 exclusives were only ever available digitally just further exacerbates issues with digital rights. Dropping in a fresh coin-cell may not be the permanent solution everyone is looking for at the moment, but it couldn’t hurt to re-familiarize yourself with the Cell processor.

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Build-It-Yourself LC Meter

March 22, 2021 by Stephen Ogier 31 Comments

A basic digital multimeter (DMM) is usually the first measurement tool the aspiring electronics tinkerer buys. Even a bargain-bin DMM will happily measure voltage, current, and resistance; check continuity; and may even have a mode to measure transistor gain. Every toolbox needs at least one DMM, but most have an crucial limitation— they can’t measure two of the fundamental electrical quantities: inductance and capacitance. On Hackaday.io, [core weaver] has developed an open-source LC meter to allow you to build your own tool to measure inductance and capacitance.

[core weaver]’s design is all through-hole, so even just assembling one would be a great exercise for someone getting started in electronics. However, he didn’t just release a design, in a series of videos he goes through the theory of the device’s operation; explains the design of the circuit, firmware, and case; and shows you how to put it all together. For times when you need to measure a lot of parts (e.g. if you have to sort a bag of cheap capacitors looking for specific value), he’s even developed a desktop program to save you some trouble!

The finished meter looks incredible! If you want to build one for yourself, he’s put all of the files up on GitHub, and we highly recommend you check out his first video after the break. If you’d like to build yourself a 6.5-digit DMM to go with our LC Meter, consider this one which even has a home-built ADC.

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Lost A Lightweight Quadcopter? Here Are The Best Ways To Find It

March 6, 2021 by Donald Papp 24 Comments

Lost aircraft are harder to find when they are physically small to begin with. Not only are they harder to see, but the smaller units lack features like GPS tracking; it’s not normally possible to add it to a tiny aircraft that can’t handle much more than its own weight in the first place. As a result, little lost quads tend to be trickier to recover in general.

Fluorescent tape adds negligible weight, and will glow brightly at night under a UV light.

The good news is that [Eric Brasseur] has shared some concise tips on how to more easily locate and recover lost aircraft, especially lightweight ones. Recovering aircraft is something every aircraft hobbyist has had to deal with in one way or another, but [Eric] really has gathered an impressive list of tricks and techniques, and some of them go into some really useful additional detail. It occurs to us that a lot of these tips could apply equally well to outdoor robots, or rovers.

Even simple techniques can be refined. For example, using bright colors on an aircraft is an obvious way to increase visibility, but some colors are better choices than others. Bright orange, white, and red are good choices because they are easily detected by the human eye while still being uncommon in nature. Violet, blue, and even cyan on the other hand may seem to be good choices when viewed indoors on a workbench, but if the quad is stuck in dark bushes, those colors will no longer stand out. Another good tip is to consider also adding a few patches of fluorescent tape to the aircraft. If all else fails, return at night with a UV lamp; those patches will glow brightly, and be easily seen from tens of meters.

Some of the tips are used while the device still has power, while others don’t depend on batteries holding out. [Eric] does a great job of summing up those and many more, so take a look. They might come in handy when test flying quadcopters that are little more than an 18650 cell, motors, and a 3D-printable frame.

Elegant And Portable DIY Nightlight Becomes A Fixture For Hacker’s Kids

March 5, 2021 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

When [itzikdiy]’s kids asked for a night light for their room, he got the bright idea to build something that straddles the line between portable and permanent. This fixture-less fixture plugs directly into a wall socket and is turned on and off with a handsome rocker switch on the bottom.

This lovely little lamp is mostly made from scrap — the oak on the front appears to have come from an old cabinet door, and the other two ring-shaped pieces are made from pine. [itzikdiy] even took the acrylic from broken panel lamps. Everything was cut with a Dremel and a circle-cutter attachment except the oak, which required a jigsaw. We think it looks great, especially with the different grain directions — call it art deco woodworking.

When it was all said and done, [itzikdiy] found it was too heavy to hang by the plug alone, so he added an L-shaped support beneath the power supply that holds it more evenly against the wall. [itzikdiy] also made a pair of hooks that snap into a pair of slots on the sides of the outlet itself. The solution is simple, sturdy, and effective without disrupting the lines of the lamp at all. Carve out a little bit of time to watch the build video after the break.

We know that someone of your hulking intelligence has no fear of the dark. But if you think you could use a nightlight in the bathroom for those 2 AM trips, look no further.

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The 70s Are Calling To Shed Some Light

March 2, 2021 by Kristina Panos 24 Comments

Remember when phones didn’t all look the same? We had a good thing going in the early cell phone days, which seemed like a brief holdover from the Western Electric (et. al) era where you could get a phone that suited your inner minimalist or princess, and choose the color to boot.

[Dubchinsky] found a beautiful phone from this bygone era and saved it from one of two likely fates — the landfill, or else a life languishing as a piece of vintage technology that’s just sitting around for looks. Instead, this phone found a second calling as a lovely desk lamp with secret goose neck flexibility. The lamp itself is an inexpensive LED module from ebay that’s wired up to mains power through a push button switch in the phone’s base.

We absolutely love that [Dubchinsky] wrapped the curly cord around the goose neck, but were a bit disappointed that he didn’t use the hook switch to turn the lamp on and off. In the comments, he says that the plastic felt like it was too brittle to stand up to repeated actuation of such a heavy switch. That’s understandable. [Dubchinsky] also thought about using the rotary dial as a dimmer, and we think that’s a bright idea.

Between the guide, the pictures, and the build process video after the break, this is pretty much a complete how-to. We think that is commendable given that [Dubchinsky] is selling these lamps on etsy.

Do ya miss spinning the rotary dial and long for somewhat simpler days? Hook your finger into this rotary cell phone.

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Wireless, Low Power E-Ink Weather Gadget

March 2, 2021 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

Not that long ago, making a low-power and wireless weather display complete with an e-ink screen would have required a lot of work and almost certainly would have been larger than the device [Dmitry] created.

(1) Weather alert indicator, (2) Current temperature, (3) Humidity and wind, (4) 24-hour temperature graph, (5) 24-hour precipitation probably graph

His low power e-ink weather gadget takes advantage of one of the niftier developer boards out there to create a useful and slim device that does exactly what he needs and not a lick more. It’s fast to look up weather online, but not as fast as glancing at a display in a convenient location.

The board [Dmitry] selected is a LilyGO TTGO T5s, an ESP32-based board that integrates an e-ink display, which requires no power unless being updated. It has been loaded with just enough smarts to fetch weather information using the OpenWeather API, and update the display accordingly.

Powering up the WiFi to fetch an easily-parsed JSON file and update the display only once per hour means that a battery can provide months of runtime. As a bonus, the LilyGO board even includes the ability to charge the battery, making things awfully convenient.

The bill of materials is here and code for the device, including setup directions, is on the project’s GitHub repository. And if your tastes happen to run more towards the artistic than utilitarian, we have just the weather display for you.

Micro:bit Makes Cardboard Pinball More Legit

February 24, 2021 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

What have you been doing to ward off the winter blues? [TechnoChic] decided to lean in to winter and make a really fun-looking game out of it by combining the awesome PinBox 3000 cardboard pinball sandbox with a couple of Micro:bits to handle and display the player’s score. Check it out the build and gameplay in the video after the break.

The story of Planet Winter is a bittersweet tale: basically, a bunch of penguins got tired of climate change and left Earth en masse for a penguin paradise where it’s a winter wonderland all year round. There’s a party igloo with disco lights and everything.

[TechnoChic] used a Micro:bit plugged into a Brown Dog Gadgets board to keep track of scoring, control the servo that kicks the ball back out of the igloo, and run the blinkenlights. It sends score updates over Bluetooth to a second Micro:bit and a Pimoroni Scrollbit display that sit opposite the pinball launcher. She went through a few switch iterations before settling on conductive maker tape and isolating the ball so it only contacts the tape tracks.

There are two ways to score on Planet Winter — the blizzard at the end of the ball launcher path nets you ten points, and getting the ball in the party igloo is good for thirty. Be careful on the icy lake in the middle of the playfield, because if the ball falls through the ice, it’s gone for good, along with your points. It’s okay, though, because both the party igloo and the ice hole trigger an avalanche which releases another ball.

Seriously, these PinBox 3000 kits are probably the most fun you can have with cardboard, even fresh out of the box. They are super fun even if you only build the kit and make a bunch of temporary targets to test gameplay, but never settle on a theme (ask us how we know). Not convinced? Hackaday Editor-in-Chief [Mike Szczys] explored them in depth at Maker Faire in 2018.

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