open source hardware

41 Articles

Mini Ultrasonic Levitation Kit Is An Exercise In Sound Minimalist Design

November 6, 2022 by 20 Comments

For those that haven’t heard, ultrasonic levitation is a process by which two or more ultrasonic transducers are set opposite to each other and excited in such a way as to create a standing wave between them. The sound is, as the name implies, ultrasonic — so outside the range of human hearing — but strong enough so that the small, light objects can be positioned and held fixed in mid-air where there’s a pressure minimum in the standing wave. [Olimex] has created a small ultrasonic levitation kit that exemplifies this phenomena.

The kit itself is made using through-hole components, with an ATTiny85 as the core microcontroller to drive two TCT40-16T ultrasonic speakers, and a MAX232 to provide a USB interface drives the transducers (thanks to the folks in the comments for the correction). Two slotted rectangular PCB pieces that solder connect to the main board, provide a base so that the device stands upright when assembled. The whole device is powered through the USB connection, and the ultrasonic speakers output in the 40KHz range providing enough power to levitate small Styrofoam balls.

The project is, by design, an exercise in minimalism, providing a kit that can be easily assembled, and providing code that can be easily flashed onto the device, examined and modified. All the design files, including the bill of materials, KiCAD schematics, and source code are provided under an open source hardware license to allow for anyone wanting to know how such a project works, or to extend it themselves, ample opportunity. [Olimex] also has the kit for sale for those not wanting to source boards and parts themselves.

We’ve featured ultrasonic levitation devices before, from bare bones system driven by a NE555 to massive phased arrays.

HunterCatNFC tool

Hunt Down NFC Signals With This NFC Multi Tool

October 17, 2022 by 6 Comments

NFC hacking can be a daunting task with many specialized tools, a proliferation of protocols, and a multitude of different devices. [ElectronicCats] has done a lot of work to try to make this investigation accessible by creating an open-source, hardware-certified NFC tool called the HunterCatNFC that can read and emulate a multitude of NFC devices.

The HunterCatNFC device is meant to be portable and self contained, with LED indicator lights that can give information about the various modes, and feedback about what data is being received. At its core, the HunterCatNFC has an NXP PN7150 NFC controller chip to handle the NFC communication. The main processing controller is a Microchip SAMD21 which also provides USB functionality, and the whole device is powered by a 3.7V 150mAh Li-ion battery.

The HunterCatNFC has three main modes, ’emulation’, ‘read/write’ and ‘peer-to-peer’. Emulation mode allows the HunterCatNFC to mimic the functionality of a passive NFC device, only responding when an NFC reader issues a request. The read/write mode allows it to emulate an NFC reader or writer, with the ability to communicate with nearby passive NFC devices. The peer-to-peer mode gives the device the ability to have two way communication, for instance, between two HunterCatNFC devices.

We’ve covered NFC hacking before, including the Flipper Zero. The HunterCatNFC is a fine addition to the NFC hackers arsenal of tools with some very nice documentation to learn from. For those not wanting to send out their own boards to be printed and assembled, [ElectronicCats] has them for sale.

Video after the break!

Continue reading “Hunt Down NFC Signals With This NFC Multi Tool” →

A 3d printed ghost next to the base of an LED tea light that has 4 LEDs poking out and the IR receiver port and micro-USB connector showing.

A Cold Light To Warm Your Heart

October 9, 2022 by 1 Comment

Halloween is coming fast and what better way to add to your Halloween ornamentation than [Wagiminator]’s cute NeoCandle tea light simulator.

[Wagiminator] has modified a 3D printed ghost along with extending [Mark Sherman]’s light simulation code to create a cute light that’s perfect for the holiday season. The NeoCandle uses an ATtiny85 chip to power four WS2812 NeoPixel jelly bean LEDs. The device has an infrared (IR) receiver to be able to control it from a remote that speaks the NEC protocol. There is a light sensor that allows the unit to dim when it detects ambient light and the whole unit is powered off of a micro-USB connection.

The ATtiny85 have limited program flash and [Wagiminator] packs in a lot of functionality in such a small package, squeezing in a bit-banging NeoPixel driver in only 18 bytes of flash that can push out a transfer rate 762 kpbs to update the LEDs. The pseudo-random number uses a Galois linear feedback shift register and comes in at 86 bytes of flash, with the IR receiver implementation code being the largest using 234 bytes of flash. The ATtiny85 itself has 8 KB of flash memory so maybe it’s possible to push [Waginminator]’s code to even more restrictive Atmel devices in the ATtiny family.

With microcontrollers and LEDs becoming so cheap and ubiquitous, making realistic flames with them is becoming accessible, as we’ve seen with previous projects on electronic candles.

Continue reading “A Cold Light To Warm Your Heart” →

render of the MNT Pocket Reform on a desk

MNT Reform Goodness, Now Even Smaller With Pocket Reform

July 1, 2022 by 12 Comments

You might have already seen the pretty pictures in pastel colors online — a small netbook-like computer with a full-size keyboard. This, while a render, is what the MNT Pocket Reform is going to look like. Reminiscent of the netbook aesthetic in all the right ways, it’s a small device with a mechanical keyboard taking as much space as possible, trackball for navigation, and we assume, exactly the kind of screen that’d be comfortable to use.

We’ve reviewed the MNT Reform a year ago, and this device inherits a lot of its good parts. The motherboard’s connectivity is likely subject to change, but on the motherboard renders, we can spot three USB-C ports, a Micro HDMI port, a microSD card slot, ix Industrial Ethernet, and M.2 B-key and M-key slots for WWAN and SSD cards respectively.

If you expected computational specs, there isn’t really a specific CPU+RAM configuration announced – for a good reason. The Pocket Reform takes advantage of the CPU card concept designed into the MNT Reform – able to take a card with an NXP i.MX8M CPU, Raspberry Pi CM4, Pine SOQuartz, a Kintex-7 FPGA, or any of the cards yet to be developed. The design files are open-source, the prototype motherboards have been ordered, mechanical usability aspects have been worked through. This is a very compelling project, and we can’t wait to see it bear fruit!

Novena Open Source Laptop Reborn As Desktop Machine

February 23, 2022 by 35 Comments

When your 5-year-old laptop dies it’s usually time for a replacement. But [Andrew Menadue]’s Novena laptop is fully open-source. He has full access to all the documentation, so he decided to try his hand at repairing it instead. The power supply circuit board went up in smoke one day — he attributes this to poor battery health due to him not using it frequently enough. Given his usage pattern, he decided to switch the Novena into a desktop machine.

He made the conversion with a new pass-through power supply board, and the computer booted up but with no display. It seems that the power supply failure took out additional circuits as well. [Andrew] goes down a deep rabbit hole of board and chip swapping, all to no avail. Eventually the display suddenly springs to life, and he concludes the problem was with the EEPROM configuration settings and not LCD display hardware.

Experimenting with LCD Outputs on the Mainboard

It’s comforting to know that you can easily spin a replacement PCB for your computer when needed. But this situation is far from mainstream. Furthermore, all projects, open-sourced or not, face the issue of part obsolescence, even Novena. Back in 2019 founders [Bunnie] and [Xobs] issued an end-of-life announcement on the project’s five year anniversary for this very reason. The fact that Novena availability even lasted five years was due to up-front purchases of critical parts.

We wrote about the Novena way back in 2014, and more recently the MNT Reform project. What are your thoughts on these open source laptop projects? Do you have any laptops that you’ve rehabilitated after five or more years? Let us know in the comments below.

Two shots of the dispenser in question next to each other, showing it from different sides. One is showing the front panel, and the other shot gives us a better look at the top part, with a rotating disk that has openings for treats to be placed in.

Open-Hardware Dog Treat Dispenser Is A Stepping Stone For Behavioral Research

February 6, 2022 by 12 Comments

The principles of open-source hardware are starting to make great strides in scientific research fields. [Walker Arce] tells us about his paper co-authored with [Jeffrey R. Stevens], about a dog treat dispenser designed with scientific researchers in mind – indispensable for behavior research purposes, and easily reproducible so that our science can be, too. Use of Raspberry Pi, NEMA steppers and a whole lot of 3D printed parts make this build cheap (< $200 USD) and easy to repeat for any experiments involving dogs or other treat-loving animals.

Even if you’re not a scientist, you could always build one for your own pet training purposes – this design is that simple and easy to reproduce! The majority of the parts are hobbyist-grade, and chances are, you can find most of the parts for this around your workshop. Wondering how this dispenser works, and most importantly, if the dogs are satisfied with it? Check out a short demonstration video after the break.

Despite such dispensers being commercially available, having a new kind of dispenser designed and verified is more valuable than you’d expect – authors report that, in their experience, off-the-shelf dispensers have 20-30% error rate while theirs can boast just 4%, and they have test results to back that up. We can’t help but be happy that the better-performing one is available for any of us to build. The GitHub repository has everything you could want – from STLs and PCB files, to a Raspberry Pi SD card image and a 14-page assembly and setup guide PDF.

Open hardware and science are a match made in heaven, even if the relationship is still developing. The Hackaday community has come together to discuss open hardware in science before, and every now and then, open-source scientific equipment graces our pages, just like this recent assortment of biosensing hacks using repurposed consumer-grade equipment.

Continue reading “Open-Hardware Dog Treat Dispenser Is A Stepping Stone For Behavioral Research” →

The powerbank PCB, with all the components on one side, 18650 holder on the other, a MicroUSB cable plugged into the PCB's MicroUSB socket

Open Hardware 5V UPS Improves On Cheap Powerbank Design

January 31, 2022 by 35 Comments

Often, we need to power a 5V-craving project of ours on the go. So did [Burgduino], and, unhappy with solutions available, designed their own 5V UPS! It takes a cheap powerbank design and augments it with a few parts vital for its UPS purposes.

You might be tempted to reach for a powerbank when facing such a problem, but most of them have a fatal flaw, and you can’t easily tell a flawed one apart from a functioning one before you buy it. This flaw is lack of load sharing – ability to continue powering the output when a charger is inserted. Most store-bought powerbanks just shut the output off, which precludes a project running 24/7 without powering it down, and can cause adverse consequences when something like a Raspberry Pi is involved.

Understandably, [Burgduino] wasn’t okay with that. Their UPS is based on the TP5400, a combined LiIon charging and boost chip, used a lot in simple powerbanks, but not capable of load sharing. For that, an extra LM66100 chip – an “ideal diode” controller is used. You might scoff at it being a Texas Instruments part, but it does seem to be widely available and only a tad more expensive than the TP5400 itself! The design is open hardware, with PCB files available on EasyEDA and the BOM clearly laid out for easy LCSC ordering.

We the hackers might struggle to keep our portable Pi projects powered, employing supercapacitors and modifying badly designed Chinese boards. However, once we find a proper toolkit for our purposes, battery-powered projects tend to open new frontiers – you might even go beyond your Pi and upgrade your router with an UPS addon! Of course, it’s not always smooth sailing, and sometimes seemingly portability-friendly devices can surprise you with their design quirks.