Slider

5072 Articles

Whales Help Scientists Investigate The Mystery Of Menopause

April 6, 2022 by 7 Comments

Menopause is the time of life when menstrual periods come to a halt, and a woman is no longer able to bear children. The most obvious cause of menopause is when the ovaries run out of eggs, though it can also be caused by a variety of other medical processes. While menopause is in many ways well-understood, the biological reason for menopause, or the way in which it evolved in humanity remains a mystery. The process was once thought to be virtually non-existent in the animal kingdom, raising further questions.

Surprisingly recently, however, scientists began to learn that humans are not alone in this trait. Indeed, a small handful of sea-going mammals also go through this unique and puzzling process.

Continue reading “Whales Help Scientists Investigate The Mystery Of Menopause” →

Bath County Pumped Storage Station (Credit: CHA)

Grid-Level Energy Storage And The Challenge Of Storing Energy Efficiently

April 6, 2022 by 118 Comments

Although every electrical grid begins with the production of electricity, there are times when storing this power in some form instead of using it immediately is highly convenient. Today’s battery-powered gadgets are an obvious example of such time-shifting, but energy storage plays a major role on the grid itself, too, whether in electrochemical, mechanical or in some other form.

Utility-level energy storage is essential for not only stabilizing the grid, but also to time-shift excess energy and provide a way to deal with sudden spikes in demand (peak-shaving) plus demand drops by absorbing the excess energy. The health of the grid can essentially be regarded as a function of its alternating current (AC) frequency, with strong deviations potentially leading to a collapse of the grid.

Naturally, such energy storage is not free, and the benefits of adding it to the grid have to be considered against the expense, as well as potential alternatives. With the rapid increase of highly volatile electrical generators on the grid in the form of non-dispatchable variable renewable energy, e.g. wind turbines and PV solar, there has been a push to store more excess power rather than curtailing it, in addition to using energy storage for general grid health.

Continue reading “Grid-Level Energy Storage And The Challenge Of Storing Energy Efficiently” →

Magpies Help Each Other Escape Tracking Devices With This One Weird Trick

April 5, 2022 by 19 Comments

Scientists who work with animals love to track their movements. This can provide interesting insights on everything from mating behaviour, food sources, and even the way animals behave socially – or anti-socially, as the case may be.

This is normally achieved with the use of tracking devices, affixed to an animal so that it can be observed remotely while going about its normal business. However, Australian scientists have recently run into some issues in this area, as the very animals they try to track have been removing these very devices, revealing some thought-provoking behaviour in the process.

Continue reading “Magpies Help Each Other Escape Tracking Devices With This One Weird Trick” →

Hacker Dictionary: RS-485 Will Go The Distance

April 5, 2022 by 59 Comments

RS485 is a communication standard that should be part of the advanced hardware hacker’s arsenal; it’s not commonly encountered, but powerful exactly when you need it. It’s a physical layer interface for wired communications that uses a single differential pair for noise immunity, has good long-distance properties, and allows many connections to a single bus. Because of that, you will encounter it in security systems and even cameras, wired sensor networks, DMX512 lighting and all sorts of industrial electronics. For our hobbyist goals, you can absolutely use RS485 to build your home (or room) automation system, or a relatively large robot – without all those worries that wireless brings.

The name might remind you of RS232, and that’s because both RS232 and RS485 are standards that come from EIA (Electronics Industries Alliance). It also might remind you of RS422, if you’ve ever seen this name mentioned online – RS422 and RS485 are closely intertwined, sharing most of the physical layer, and I’ll show how exactly they relate. Continue reading “Hacker Dictionary: RS-485 Will Go The Distance” →

Confessions Of A Crimpoholic

April 4, 2022 by 80 Comments

Hi, my name is Dan and I’m a crimpoholic.

Honestly, I didn’t know I was a serial abuser of crimping tools until this weekend. I’ve been working on a small solar power system, and on Saturday I found myself struggling to get the BMS installed on the battery. I bought a Bluetooth dongle to connect the BMS to a smartphone app for checking the individual cells of the battery. I assumed it would just plug right into the UART port on the BMS, but alas — different connectors. So off I went to my bench, looking for a sensible way to make the connection.

My first thought was to simply log the connector off the dongle and solder the leads to the traces on the PCB right below the UART port. But then I saw that the pins in the port looked like 0.1″ pitch, so I rummaged through my stash to see what I could find. To my surprise, I had not only a kit of 0.1″ female crimps and housings, but I also had the crimping tool for them! I had no memory of making the purchase, but I thanked my lucky stars that I did, and got on with the job.

Continue reading “Confessions Of A Crimpoholic” →

A Power Button For Raspberry Pi, Courtesy Of Device Tree Overlays

April 4, 2022 by 11 Comments

As a standard feature of the Linux kernel, device tree overlays (DTOs) allow for easy enabling and configuration of features and drivers, such as those contained within the standard firmware of a Raspberry Pi system. Using these DTOs it’s trivial to set up features like as a soft power-off button, triggering an external power supply and enable drivers for everything from an external real-time clock (RTC) to various displays, sensors and audio devices, all without modifying the operating system or using custom scripts.

It’s also possible to add your own DTOs to create a custom overlay that combines multiple DTO commands into a single one, or create a custom device tree binary (DTB) for the target hardware. Essentially this DTB is loaded by the Linux kernel on boot to let it know which devices are connected and their configuration settings, very similar to what the BIOS component with x86-based architectures handles automatically.

Ultimately, the DTB concept and the use of overlays allow for easy configuration of such optional devices and GPIO pin settings, especially when made configurable through a simple text file as on the Raspberry Pi SBC platform.

Continue reading “A Power Button For Raspberry Pi, Courtesy Of Device Tree Overlays” →

Hackaday Links Column Banner

Hackaday Links: April 3, 2022

April 3, 2022 by 7 Comments

It’s that time of year again — the 2022 Hackaday Prize has officially launched, and we’re excited to see what it turns out. This year’s theme is “Sustainability, Resilience, and Circularity,” and just in time, too; if the last couple of years has taught us anything, it’s that we’ve got a lot of failure points built into the systems that run our world. As broken as things are, it’s tempting to just curl up in a ball and pretend everything’s fine, but that’s not how hackers respond to adversity. We need to control what we can control, and there’s plenty of work to be done. From sustainable energy ideas to ways to reduce the amount of stuff we throw away, from breathing new life into old equipment to building communities that can take care of themselves, there’s plenty of work to be done. So get over to the Hackaday Prize page, check out the launch summit video if you need some inspiration, and get hacking. And hurry up — things are only going to get better if people like us make it happen.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: April 3, 2022” →