Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The TRON Keyboard

November 25, 2024 by Kristina Panos 14 Comments

[Folaefolc] was craving a new keyboard build a few weeks ago and got inspired by the humble 3.5″ floppy disk. So much so that he decided to make a split keyboard with each half having the exact footprint of a floppy — 90 mm x 94 mm. And you know the PCBs have floppy details silkscreened on the back. Just check out the gallery.

A split keyboard with a 3.5" floppy disk footprint for each half. An actual floppy sits between the two halves. — Image via [Folaefolc] via reddit

This bad boy uses a pair of Liatris microcontrollers, which are made by splitkb and are designed to be drop-in replacements for Pro Micros and an alternative to the RP2040.

The other fun part of this build is that [Folaefolc] used RJ9 connectors to join the halves instead of something like TRRS.

Beneath those candy keycaps are 34 Kailh choc v1 switches shoved into hot swap sockets in case [Folaefolc] changes his mind. Gerbers are available if you want to build one of these cuties!

Via reddit

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Apollo-era PCB Reverse Engineering To KiCad

November 25, 2024 by Chris Lott 24 Comments

Earlier this year [Skyhawkson] got ahold of an Apollo-era printed circuit board which he believes was used in a NASA test stand. He took high quality photos of both sides of the board and superimposed them atop each other. After digging into a few obsolete parts from the 1960s, he was able to trace out the connections. I ran across the project just after making schematics for the Supercon badge and petal matrix. Being on a roll, I decided to take [Skyhawkson]’s work as a starting point and create KiCad schematics. Hopefully we can figure out what this circuit board does along the way.

The board is pretty simple:

approximately 6.5 x 4.5 inches
22 circuit edge connector 0.156 in pitch
31 ea two-terminal parts ( resistors, diodes )
3 ea trimmer potentiometers
7 ea transistors
parts arranged in 4 columns

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USB-C For Hackers: Reusing Cables

November 21, 2024 by Arya Voronova 82 Comments

Your project needs a cable, and since USB-C cables are omnipresent now, it’s only natural to want to reuse them for your evil schemes. Ever seen USB 3.0 cables used for PCIe link carrying duty? It’s because USB 3.0 cables are built to a reasonably high standard, both sockets and cables are easy to find, and they’re cheap. Well, USB-C cables beat USB 3.0 cables by all possible metrics.

Let’s go through USB-C cable reuse in great detail, and see just what exactly you get when you buy either a gas station C-C USB 2.0 cable, or, the fanciest all-features-supported 240 W Thunderbolt cable that money can buy. Looking for a cable to cut, or something to pass a seriously high-speed link? You’re reading the right article.

The Omnipresent Cables

USB-A to USB-C cables are the least interesting. They’re equivalent to a microUSB to USB-A cable, except there’s a resistor on the USB-C plug, connected from VBUS to one of the CC pins. That’s it. The cable contains four conductors, there’s really not much new. Save these cables for all the devices still built without the 5.1 kΩ resistors.

Now, a USB-C to USB-C cable – let’s say, 60 W max, the default USB-C cable capability. If your cable says anything less than 60 W, say, “2 A” or “15 W”, that’s a lie – it can handle 60 W no problem, all USB-C to C cables can do 60 W. This cable is also cool – for one, it has five conductors; GND, VBUS, D+, D-, and CC. Two of them (GND and VBUS) are guaranteed to be thick enough to carry 3 A without much voltage drop if any, too!

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Rendering of a JetZero blended wing body aircraft with US Air Force markings. (Credit: US Air Force)

Blended Wing Body Passenger Airplanes And The End Of Winged Tubes

November 21, 2024 by Maya Posch 69 Comments

The SR-71 with its blended wing body design. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Michael Haggerty, US Air Force, 1988)

Ask someone to picture an airplane and they’re likely to think of what is essentially a tube with wings and a stabilizing tail tacked onto one end of said tube. Yet it is also no secret that the lift produced by such a tube is rather poor, even if they’re straightforward for loading cargo (static and self-loading) into them and for deciding where to put in windows. Over the decades a number of alternative airplane designs have been developed, with some of them also ending up being produced. Here most people are probably quite familiar with the US Air Force’s B-2 Spirit bomber and its characteristic flying wing design, while blended wing body (BWB) maintains a somewhat distinctive fuselage, as with for example the B-1 Lancer.

Outside of military airplanes BWBs are a pretty rare sight. Within the world of passenger airplanes the tube-with-wings pattern that the first ever passenger airplanes adopted has persisted with the newest designs, making it often tricky to distinguish one airplane from another. This could soon change, however, with a strong interest within the industry for passenger-oriented BWBs. The reason for this are the significant boosts in efficiency, quieter performance and more internal (useful) volume, which makes airline operators very happy, but which may also benefit passengers.

With that said, how close are we truly to the first BWB passenger airplane delivery to an airline?

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With Core ONE, Prusa’s Open Source Hardware Dream Quietly Dies

November 20, 2024 by Tom Nardi 151 Comments

Yesterday, Prusa Research officially unveiled their next printer, the Core ONE. Going over the features and capabilities of this new machine, it’s clear that Prusa has kept a close eye on the rapidly changing desktop 3D printer market and designed a machine to better position themselves within a field of increasingly capable machines from other manufacturers.

While some saw the incremental upgrades of the i3 MK4 as being too conservative, the Core ONE ticks all the boxes of what today’s consumer is looking for — namely high-speed CoreXY movement with a fully enclosed chamber — while still offering the build quality, upgradability, and support that the company has built its reputation on. Put simply it’s one of the most exciting products they’ve introduced in a long time, and exactly the kind of machine that many Prusa fans have been waiting for.

Unfortunately, there’s one feature that’s ominously absent from the Core ONE announcement post. It’s easy to overlook, and indeed, most consumers probably won’t even know it’s missing. But for those of us who are concerned with such matters, it’s an unspoken confirmation that an era has finally come to an end.

With the Core ONE, Prusa Research is no longer in the business of making open source 3D printer hardware, but that doesn’t mean that the printer isn’t hackable. It’s complicated, so read on.

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Boss Byproducts: Calthemites Are Man-Made Cave Dwellers

November 20, 2024 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

Some lovely orange calthemite flowstone colored so by iron oxide from rusting steel reinforcing. Image via Wikipedia

At this point, we’ve learned about man-made byproducts and nature-made byproducts. But how about one that’s a little of both? I’m talking about calthemites, which are secondary deposits that form in those man-made caves such as parking garages, mines, and tunnels.

Calthemites grow both on and under these structures in forms that mimic natural cave speleothems like stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, and so on. They are often the result of an hyperalkalinic solution of pH 9-14 seeping through a concrete structure to the point of coming into contact with the air on the underside. Here, carbon dioxide in the air facilitates the necessary reactions to secondarily deposit calcium carbonate.

These calcium carbonate deposits are usually white, but can be colored red, orange, or yellow thanks to iron oxide. If copper pipes are around, copper oxide can cause calthemites to be blue or green. As pretty as all that sounds, I didn’t find any evidence of these parking garage growths having been turned into jewelry. So there’s your million-dollar idea.

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Supercon 2024 SAO Petal KiCad Redrawing Project

November 19, 2024 by Chris Lott 5 Comments

Last week I completed the SAO flower badge redrawing task, making a complete KiCad project. Most of the SAO petals are already released as KiCad projects, except for the Petal Matrix. The design features 56 LEDs arranged in eight spiral arms radiating from the center. What it does not feature are straight lines, right angles, nor parts placed on a regular grid.

Importing into KiCad

Circuit Notes for LEDs, Thanks to [spereinabox]

I followed the same procedures as the main flower badge with no major hiccups. This design didn’t have any released schematics, but backing out the circuits was straightforward. It also helped that user [sphereinabox] over on the Hackaday Discord server had rung out the LED matrix connections and gave me his notes.

Grep Those Positons

I first wanted to only read the data from the LEDs for analysis, and I didn’t need the full Kicad + Python scripting for that. Using grep on the PCB file, you get a text file that can be easily parsed to get the numbers. I confirmed that the LED placements were truly as irregular as they looked.

My biggest worry was how obtain and re-apply the positions and angles of the LEDs, given the irregular layout of the spiral arms. Just like the random angles of six SAO connector on the badge board, [Voja] doesn’t disappoint on this board, either. I fired up Python and used Matplotlib to get a visual perspective of the randomness of the placements, as one does. Due to the overall shape of the arms, there is a general trend to the numbers. But no obvious equation is discernable.

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