There’s Already A Nixie Addon For The 2024 Supercon Badge

September 12, 2024 by Lewin Day No comments

Nixie tubes are cool, and hackers like them. Perhaps for those reasons more than any other, [Kevin Santo Cappuccio] has developed a very particular Simple Add-On for the 2024 Hackaday Supercon badge.

The build began with a Burroughs 122P224 Nixie tube, and a HV8200 power supply. The latter component is key—it’s capable of turning voltages as low as 3 V into the 180V needed to power a Nixie. Then, an 18-position selector switch was pulled out of a resistance substitution box, and [Kevin] whipped up a basic DIY slip ring using some raw copper clad board.

Smoosh it all together, and what do you get? It’s a Nixie tube you can spin to change the number it displays. Useful? Hardly, unless you want to display varying glowing numbers to people at unreadable angles. Neat? Very. Just don’t touch any of the pins carrying 180 V, that’ll sting. Still, [Kevin] told us it’s pretty tucked away. “I’m totally comfortable touching it, but also would get sued into oblivion selling these on Amazon,” he says.

As [Kevin] notes in his post, the 2024 badge is all about the add-ons— and there’s actually a contest! We suspect [Kevin] will have a strong chance of taking out the Least Manufacturable title.

If you need more information about the Simple Add-On (SAO) interface, [Brian Benchoff] posted the V1.69bis standard on these very pages back in 2019. Apparently the S used to stand for something else. Video after the break.

Continue reading “There’s Already A Nixie Addon For The 2024 Supercon Badge” →

Supercon 2024: May The Best Badge Add-Ons Win

August 27, 2024 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

One of our favorite parts of Hackaday Supercon is seeing all the incredible badge add-ons folks put together. These expansions are made all the more impressive by the fact that they had to design their hardware without any physical access to the badge, and with only a few weeks’ notice. Even under ideal conditions, that’s not a lot of time to get PCBs made, 3D print parts, or write code. If only there was some standard for badge expansions that could speed this process up…

But there is! The Simple Add-On (SAO) standard has been supported by the Supercon badges since 2019, and the 2×3 pin connector has also popped up on badges from various other hacker events such as HOPE and DEF CON. There’s only one problem — to date, the majority of SAOs have been simply decorative, consisting of little more than LEDs connected to the power pins.

This year, we’re looking to redefine what an SAO can be with the Supercon Add-On Contest. Don’t worry, we’re not changing anything about the existing standard — the pinout and connector remains the same. We simply want to challenge hackers and makers to think bigger and bolder.

Thanks to the I2C interface in the SAO header, add-ons can not only communicate with the badge, but with each other as well. We want you to put that capability to use by creating functional SAOs: sensors, displays, buttons, switches, rotary encoders, radios, we want to see it all! Just make sure you submit your six-pin masterpiece to us by the October 15th deadline.

Continue reading “Supercon 2024: May The Best Badge Add-Ons Win” →

Supercon 2024: Show Off Your Unique Display Tech

August 26, 2024 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

If there’s a constant in the world of electronics, it’s change. Advancements and breakthroughs mean that what was once state-of-the-art all too soon finds itself collecting dust. But there are exceptions. Perhaps because they’re so much more visible to us than other types of components, many styles of displays have managed to carve out their own niche and stick around. Even for the display types that we no longer see used in consumer hardware, their unique aesthetic qualities often live on in media, art, and design.

This year, to coincide with Hackaday Supercon, the folks at Supplyframe’s DesignLab want to pay tribute to display technology past and present with a special exhibit — and they need your help to make it possible. If you have a display you’d like to show off, fill out this form and tell them what you’ve got. Just be sure to do it by September 16th.

For the larger specimens, it would be ideal if you’re somewhat local to Southern California, but otherwise, they’re looking for submissions from all over the world. The exhibit will open on the first day of Supercon and run throughout November.

Don’t worry. They’re only looking to raid your parts bin temporarily. Any hardware sent in to be part of the exhibit will be considered on loan, and they’ll make sure it gets back to where it belongs by January 31st, 2025. The goal is to show the displays on and operational, so in most cases, that’s going to mean sending over a complete device. But if it’s possible to isolate the display itself and still demonstrate what it would look like in operation, sending along just the bare display is an option. Continue reading “Supercon 2024: Show Off Your Unique Display Tech” →

Tickets For Supercon 2024 Go On Sale Now!

August 6, 2024 by Elliot Williams 10 Comments

Tickets for the 2024 Hackaday Supercon are on sale now! Go and get yours while they’re still hot. True-Believer Tickets are half-price at $148 (plus fees), and when that pile of 100 is gone, regular admission is $296 (plus fees).

Come join us on November 1st-3rd in sunny Pasadena, CA, for three days of talks, demos, badge hacking, workshops, and the sort of miscellaneous hardware shenanigans that make Hackaday Hackaday! If you’ve never been to a Supercon, now is the best time to check that off your bucket list. And if you’re a seven-time veteran, we’re stoked to see you again. Supercon is like a year’s worth of posts in one weekend. You don’t want to miss it.

Friday, November 1st, is our chill-out day. You can roll in as soon as the doors open in the morning, get your badge and some bagels, and get down to hacking. Or you can start socializing early. Or, as it almost always happens, both at once. We’ll have food and music and even a few workshops, but for the most part, Fridays are what you all make of them. And we love it that way.

Talks start up on Saturday on both stages, along with the soldering contest and an alley full of hackers. We’ll close out the evening with a special celebration, but more on that in a minute.

On Sunday, in addition to the usual slate of talks, we’ve set aside a big block of time for Lightning Talks. These are seven-minute quickies where you get to tell the bigger Hackaday community what you’re up to. A short talk like this forces you to condense the story down to its essence while giving tons of people their fifteen minutes of fame in half the time! If you’ve got a Lightning Talk that you’d like to present, let us know! We’ll try to fit in everyone we can.

Wrapping up Sunday evening, we’ll give you a chance to show off whatever badge hacks you’ve been working on over the weekend. We love the badge hacking demo because it allows us to see a wide (and wild) range of projects, all of which were put together in record time. Whether funny, flashy, or phenomenal, we want to see what you’ve been up to. Continue reading “Tickets For Supercon 2024 Go On Sale Now!” →

Supercon Call For Proposals Extended: July 16th

July 9, 2024 by Elliot Williams 4 Comments

Ever since the first Supercon, people have submitted talk proposals at the very last minute, and some even in the minutes after the last minute. We know how it is – we are fully licensed procrastineers ourselves. So with an eye toward tradition, we’re extending the Call for Speakers and the Call for Workshops one more week, until July 16th.

The Hackaday Superconference is really and truly our favorite event of the year. It’s small, but not too small. The ideas everyone brings with them, however, are big. It’s like the absolute best of Hackaday live and in person. If you’re looking for a place to give a technical talk, or just to regale us all with the trials and triumphs of hacking, you won’t find a more receptive audience anywhere. Plus, presenters get in free.

In other news, [Voja] has an alpha version of the badge finished, so all that’s left is 90% of the work disguised as 10%. Some people have asked for clues, and what we’ll say at this point is that “Simple Add Ons have underutilized I2C pins”.

Expect tickets to go on sale in the next weeks – early bird tickets sell out fast. Keep your eyes on Hackaday for the announcement post when it goes live. Or, you can skip straight to the front of the line by giving a talk. But you can’t give a talk if you don’t submit your proposal first. Get on it now, because we’re not going to extend the CFP twice!

Hackaday Supercon 2024 Call For Participation: We Want You!

May 15, 2024 by Elliot Williams 9 Comments

We’re tremendously excited to be able to announce that the Hackaday Supercon is on for 2024, and will be taking place November 1st through the 3rd in sunny Pasadena, California. As always, Supercon is all about you, the Hackaday community. So put on your thinking caps because we’d like to hear your proposals for talks and workshops! The Call for Speakers and Call for Workshops forms are online now, and you’ve got until July 9th to get yourself signed up.

Supercon is a fantastic event to geek out with your fellow hackers, and to share the inevitable ups and downs that accompany any serious project. Like last year, we’ll be featuring both longer and shorter talks, and hope to get a great mix of both first-time presenters and Hackaday luminaries.

Honestly, just the crowd that Supercon brings together is reason enough to attend, but then you throw in the talks, the badge-hacking, the food, and the miscellaneous shenanigans … it’s an event you really don’t want to miss. And as always, presenters get in for free, get their moment in the sun, and get warm vibes from the Hackaday audience. Get yourself signed up now!