Reading NAND Flash Chips Without Removing Them

Here’s an interesting method of reading data off of a NAND flash chip. Often we see these chips desoldered in order to read and write data, but not this time. This method uses hacked adapters to match the pin pitch of the various chips. Above you see parts of a breakout board cut down to use as wedges. These are drag soldered to the pins of the chip, then the appropriate breakout pins were connected to a Smartmedia card reader, which can read NAND chips. There is also an example showing the flexible connector cable for a DVD rom used as the adapter to solder to a smaller chip. We still looks pretty tricky, but it might be less labor intensive than relocating the flash chip like we saw on that Sega Game Gear hack, as long as you only need to read or write the data once.

[Thanks Laurdy]

Crutch-mounted Light

[Malikaii] is exercising the hacker spirit inside by building light stands out of junk. He’s using them as an alternative to purchasing off-camera flash units. He made this one using a lot of salvaged parts; two crutches make up the frame, a discarded reflector for one of those highway-work floodlights will house the flash, and an old pillow case diffuses the light. The version above can easily be moved around by an assistant, or if you’re shooting solo [Malikaii] also found that the base from an oscillating fan was easy to adapt for use with the crutch frame.

If you’re not able to scavenge these parts perhaps a folding light tripod is what you need.

Munchausen Makes NES A Cartridge Programmer

What a beautiful image of NES cartridges showing their private parts. These are the raw materials for the Munchausen Flash Cartridge project. A combination of a modified game cartridge and special USB cable makes it possible to program NES cartridges while inside an unmodified console. The cartridge has an added flash chip that is running a bootloader. By connecting a USB-to-NES cable to the second controller port a game image (or custom code image) can be flashed to one of the three game slots on the writable cartridge. The bootloader provides a menu at power-up to select between the three stored images, or can go straight to the previously selected image by holding down A when the console is turned on. There’s even a recovery routine in case of problems. Check out the demo after the break.

One thing we find interesting from the forum thread is a mention that it is technically possible to run code on the NES directly from the PC. That would sure make it easy to perform live chiptunes on NES.

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Homebrew Firmware Upgrade For VCI-100 Turntable Controller

We love hacks that take quality products and make them better. This enhanced firmware for the VCI-100 is a great example of that. In a similar fashion as the Behringer hack, [DaveX] reverse engineer the firmware for the device and figured out a few ways to make it better. It improves the scratch controller and slider accuracy to use 9-bit accuracy from the ADC readings, which in the stock version were being shifted down to 7-bits. There’s also a few LED tricks they call Disco Mode. They’re selling a “chip” that you need to flash the firmware but from what we can see it’s simply an RS232 converter so you might be able to figure out how to work without that part. We’ve embedded a demo of firmware version 1.4 after the break.

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Controlling The Power Of A Flash With A Tv Remote

For those who do fancy photography, setting up the lighting ends up being one of the larger tasks of each session. There are flashes out there that can be controlled via a remote control to help ease the process, but they can cost a considerable amount more. [Dsvilko] shares with us a fairly simple circuit that allows you to use a tv remote to control your flash. He’s using a picaxe 08m and he states that before this project, he had never messed with microcontrollers. We say great job on your first microcontroller project. You can catch a video of it in action after the break.

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Porting Code To MSP430

I took a little time to look into porting code written for AVR in order to run it on the MSP430 architecture. It’s easier than you think, being mostly small differences like an extra step to enable pull-up resistors. But there is a lot to be learned in order to transition away from using EEPROM.

Since the TI chips don’t have EEPROM you need to use the Info Flash, a topic which I detail in the article linked at the top. This flash memory must be erased before writing because a write operation can only change high bits to low, not the other way around. And an erase operation clears an entire 64 kB segment, not just the bytes you want to write to. It’s different but manageable.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I ported the code I wrote for the garage door coded entry project.

Snapping Pics At The Right Moment With A Pressure Plate

[BiOzZ] built a pressure sensitive camera accessory to snap pictures at just the right moment. Before turning out all the lights the camera is set up with a twenty-second timer and a three-second exposure. The pressure plate doesn’t take the photo, but fires the flash to catch an image in the middle of the action.

The hack uses a piece of acrylic as the base of the pressure plate. A switch is constructed by placing aluminum tape on the base, and attaching a thin metal strip that is bent to add just a bit of spring. When an object is place on the plate the thin metal contacts the aluminum tape completing the circuit, a change in the weight breaks it. A simple circuit connects to this, using a relay to actuate the flash from a disposable camera. This is perfect for documenting the moment when you exercise that fruit-induced rage that has been consuming you lately.