3D Printed Terminal Takes Computing Back In Time

May 13, 2021 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

It’s hard to look at today as anything but the golden age of computing. Even entry level machines have quad-core processors and a terabyte or more of storage space, to say nothing of the incredible amount of tech packed into the modern smartphone. But even so, there’s something to be said for the elegant simplicity of early desktop computers.

Looking to recreate the feeling of those bygone days, [Pigeonaut] created the Callisto II. Its entirely 3D printed case snaps together without glue or screws, making it easy to assemble, and the parts have been sized so they’ll be printable even on smaller machines like the Prusa Mini. Inside you’ll find a 1024×768 Pimoroni HDMI 8″ IPS LCD, 60% mechanical keyboard, four-port USB 3 hub, Raspberry Pi 4, and a 22 watt USB power supply to run it all.

The internal components can be easily accessed with the hatch on the rear of the case, and there’s plenty of room inside to add new hardware should you want to toss in a hard drive or even swap out the Pi for a different single-board computer.

To really drive home the faux-retro concept of the Callisto II, [Pigeonaut] has created a website for the fictional computer company behind the machine, replete with all the trappings you’d expect from the early web. There’s even a web-based “operating system” you can use to show off your freshly printed Callisto II.

Incidentally the II suffix isn’t just part of the meme, there really was a Callisto before this one. We covered the earlier machine back in 2019, and while we’re a bit sad to see that the functional 3.5 inch floppy drive has been deleted, we can’t deny the overall aesthetics have been greatly improved in the latest version.

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Pi Pico Project Plays Pong Perfectly

May 13, 2021 by Zach Zeman 9 Comments

Even as technology keeps progressing, we find ourselves coming back to the classics again and again. Pong is quite possibly the classic game, and the Raspberry Pi Pico is one of the latest microcontrollers. So [Nick Bild] combined them expertly in his Pico Pong project, which includes gesture controls and a custom VGA output.

Rolling your own VGA signal is no simple feat, and this project takes full advantage of the Pico’s features to pull it off. Display data is buffered in memory, while a Programmable I/O (PIO) program reads straight from the buffer via Direct Memory Access (DMA) and writes straight to the display. This allows for nanosecond-precision while leaving the CPU free to handle inputs and run the game. Even with the display work offloaded, the ARM processor had to be massively overclocked at 258 MHz, well over its 133 MHz specs, to make things run smoothly. And still [Nick] found himself limited to a 640×350 resolution and serendipitously-retro-accurate monochrome color scheme.

Gesture controls come from a pair of IR light beams hooked up to the GPIO. IR LEDs shine up toward reflectors, and the light bounces back down to detectors. Blocking one of the beams causes your paddle to move up or down, which looks pretty responsive in the video (embedded below).

We’ve seen [Nick] play Pong before, though at that time it was handheld and based on the venerable 6502. And just recently we wrote about the Raspberry Pi Pico powering another classic game: Snake.

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Shake Up Your Magic 8-Ball With GIFs

May 6, 2021 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

When you need quick answers to life’s burning yes or no questions, most reasonable people reach for a Magic 8-Ball. But since we all have most of those answers memorized at this point, has the Magic 8-Ball sunk to a cliche and become less useful in the present day? ~~Signs point to yes.~~ Yeah, maybe.

Not to worry, because [DJ Harrigan] has given the Magic 8-Ball a modern makeover by redesigning it to serve up suitable GIFs instead. Inside that beautifully-engineered snap-together shell lives a Raspberry Pi 3, and it displays the GIFs on a 240 x 240 IPS LCD screen. [DJ] wanted to use a round screen, but couldn’t find one with a good enough refresh rate. Maybe someday. We love this build either way.

Our favorite part is probably the power button, which is incorporated as the period in the ‘.gif’ logo. Although it takes a bit longer to get this 8-Ball ready to answer questions, it’s worth the wait. And besides, the splash screen is nice.

Once it’s booted up and ready to go, you still have to shake it — for this, [DJ] used a simple DIY spring-based tilt switch. Check out the demo and build video after the break. If you want to build one for yourself, the files are up on the project site.

Need decision-making support on the go? This Magic 8-Ball business card should fit in your wallet.

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Soviet Super 8 Camera Hides Raspberry Pi Zero

May 4, 2021 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

A few years ago [Xabier Zubizarreta] got it into his head that he wanted to put a modern digital image sensor into a classic Super 8 camera, but he didn’t want to ruin a gorgeous piece of vintage hardware in the process. After a bit of research, he discovered an export version of the Avrora camera made for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow that could be had for cheap. Figuring nobody would miss a camera built with the utilitarian aesthetics you’d expect of a Soviet-era piece of consumer tech, he set off to cram a Raspberry Pi into its film compartment.

On the Hackaday.io page for this project, [Xabier] explains a bit about the optical properties that make this project challenging. Specifically, the miniature sensor used by the official Raspberry Pi camera module is far smaller than the 8 mm film the camera was designed for. So when the sensor placed at the appropriate focal length for the original film, the image will be cropped considerably. As you can see in the video below, this gives the impression of everything being filmed with a fairly tight zoom.

To perform this modification, [Xabier] first had to liberate the sensor of the Pi Camera from the original optics, and then carefully install it in proper position on the Avrora. To make sure he had it aligned, he watched a live feed from the camera while the epoxy holding the sensor down was curing. This allowed him to make slight adjustments before everything was solidified. With the sensor in place, he only had to stuff the Pi Zero and battery pack into the film compartment, and wire the original camera trigger to the GPIO pins so he could read it in software.

Considering the incredible amount of effort some photographers have put in to adapt their vintage cameras to digital, it’s refreshing to see such a straightforward approach. The resulting video might not be up to modern standards, but with projects like this, that’s sort of the point.

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3D Printer Control Board Packs A Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

May 1, 2021 by Tom Nardi 51 Comments

Traditionally, 3D printer control boards have used simplistic 8-bit microcontrollers to command the stepper drivers and ultimately move the machine where it needs to go. Newer boards have switched over to 32-bit microcontrollers, but they’re still relatively limited computationally. Because of this, a Raspberry Pi running OctoPrint is usually used to provide more complex features such as remote management and live video.

Looking to combine these different devices into a single all-in-one board, [pkElectronics] developed the Sigmoid S7P. With an STM32 microcontroller, TMC2209 stepper drivers, a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, and plenty of room for expansion, it promises to be a drop-in upgrade for essentially any 3D printer running on an open source firmware that could be ported over.

According to [pkElectronics], the idea for the Sigmoid had been floating around for several years, but never got off the ground due to the difficulties in dealing with the SO-DIMM interface used by previous iterations of the Compute Module. But with the switch to smaller and denser connector for the CM4, the board finally started to take shape.

Whether you just used it as a convenient way to integrate OctoPrint into your printer, or want to get into something more advanced like Klipper, the Sigmoid S7P looks like a very exciting project. [pkElectronics] says they are considering producing the board commercially if there’s interest, so if you want one of these for your own custom 3D printer build, let them know.

This DIY Split-Flap Display Does Both Time And Weather

April 29, 2021 by Donald Papp 5 Comments

With little more than four economical stepper motors, a Raspberry Pi Zero, and a 3D printer, [Thomas Barlow] made himself an awfully slick Smart Flip Clock that can display not only the time, but also weather data as well. This is done by adding a few extra graphics to some of the split-flaps, so numbers can also be used to indicate temperature and weather conditions succinctly. Displaying the time has to do without a colon (so 5:18 displays as 518), but being able to show temperature and weather conditions more than makes up for it.

According to the project’s GitHub repository, it looks as though each split-flap has thirteen unique positions. The first ten are for numerals 0 through 9, and the rest are either blank, or used to make up a few different weather icons with different combinations. A Python script runs on the Raspberry Pi and retrieves weather data from OpenWeather, and the GPIO header drives the display via four geared stepper motors and driver boards. The rest of the hardware is 3D printed, and [Thomas] helpfully provides CAD models in STEP format alongside the STL files.

The basic design of a split-flap display is really quite versatile, and enterprising hackers have been putting delightful new twists on them for years. There has been a split-flap display used as a kind of flip-book animation, and we’ve also had the pleasure of seeing an entire Tarot deck used for esoteric, automated readings.

Run Out Of GPIO On Your Pi? Don’t Despair!

April 28, 2021 by Jenny List 25 Comments

When the first Raspberry Pi rolled off the production line back in 2012 it sported a 26-pin expansion header that seemed to conceal endless possibilities. A later upgrade to the 40-pin header we have today unleashed a few more precious interfaces, but even then it’s still possible to run out. This was the problem faced by [woj], who needed a PWM line to drive a cooling fan but whose other work had used everything on the header. The solution? Dive into the other connectors on board looking for an unused GPIO.

Every full-sized Pi has a connector for the camera and the LCD screen, and to operate some of the functions of those peripherals they contain a few extra GPIOs that aren’t normally used by end users. If the camera or LCD is not being used then these lines are potentially up for grabs. In particular there’s a GPIO that turns the camera on or off that’s relatively easy to solder a wire to, and it was this one that fed the PWM line.

There are of course a few other ways to find some more lines on a Pi and indeed almost any microcontroller, with one of the many types of GPIO expansion chips. This trick is a particularly simple one though. and perhaps unsurprisingly it has surfaced here before.