raspberry pi

1660 Articles

Bringing The Pi Camera Into Focus With LEGO

July 22, 2020 by 6 Comments

Ever since the high-quality camera for the Raspberry Pi was released a few months back it has been the center of attention for many hacks. In this quick build [Martin Mander] shows us how to make a servo-powered focusing mechanism entirely from LEGO.

The inspiration for this project came to him while he was working on his 1979 Merlin Pi Camera and found that setting the focus just right is vital in order to get good quality pictures. So he set himself the goal to build a mechanism that allows him to focus the camera precisely and remotely.

It is the plethora of LEGO-compatible parts that are available off-the-shelf that make such a project possible without the use of any 3D printed components. He not only found a LEGO-compatible continuous rotating servo but also a LEGO-compatible case for the Pi, and a LEGO cogwheel which almost fits exactly onto the camera lens. He also added a tripod mount to the case that allows him to set up the camera anywhere. The camera and focussing mechanism are controlled with a custom GUI based on guizero Python 3 library and the camera can be accessed remotely via VNCViewer.

If you prefer 3D printing over LEGO there are also other stylish Raspi HQ camera builds.

Video after the break.

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A Stylish Raspberry Pi Camera

July 21, 2020 by 4 Comments

The Raspberry Pi HQ camera module is an exciting product that for the first time puts something close to a decent quality interchangeable lens camera into the hands of hardware hackers. It’s already attracted the attention of those who have a wish to explore the boundaries of camera form factors. Our latest entrant in this field comes courtesy of [BBまどーし], who has opted for a very good 3D-printed analog of a conventional compact camera.

On the front as you might expect is the module, concealed behind a smart plastic ring. Behind that is a battery compartment, concealing not the brace of 18650s or the bare LiPo pouch that you might expect, but a 10,400 mAH USB power bank. Behind that is something approaching a conventional Raspberry Pi case, designed to take a Hyperpixel screen. The battery might seem an unadventurous choice, but it serves to highlight just how much bang for your buck can now be found in compact power banks. It may not have a hacker aesthetic, but you can’t argue with its cost and simplicity.

The details are the interesting part of this design, for instance it has a standard accessory shoe printed into its top. There is also a shutter button, but they admit to not being a software wizard enough to get it working. Perhaps a quick look at this Pi Camera in a 1970s Merlin game would be in order.

Raspberry Pi Shuffler Is Computerized Card Shark

July 20, 2020 by 11 Comments

If you’re playing Texas Hold’em or other card games with a small group, you may get tired of shuffling over and over again. [3dprintedLife] was in just such a position, and realized there were no good automatic card shufflers in his budget. Instead, he elected to build one, and put in some extra functionality to corrupt the game to his whims.

The mechanicals of the machine took much development, as accurately handling and dispensing cards is a challenge, particularly with the loose tolerances of 3D printed parts. After developing a reliable transport mechanism, it was more than capable of shuffling a deck well with some basic commands.

However, the real magic comes from installing a camera and Raspberry Pi running OpenCV. This is capable of reading the value and suit of each card, and then stacking the deck in a particular order to suit the dealer’s wishes. It’s all controlled through a web interface and is capable of creating guaranteed wins in Blackjack and Texas Hold’em. Files are on Github for those eager to delve deeper into how the machine works.

The mechanism does such a beautiful job of shuffling, that your friends may not even notice the ruse. It goes to show that you should always have your wits about you when gambling with the aid of machines. Of course, if you wish only to create havoc, this Lego card machine gun may be more your speed. Video after the break.

[via Reddit]

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Ljusmaskinen Takes The Rave To The Streets (Eventually)

July 16, 2020 by 6 Comments

When humanity comes out the other side of this pandemic there will be a mountain of awesome projects to show off in person. For instance, this backpack mounted DMX lighting was built to be worn as a mobile rave rig by Swedish hacker [Tim Gremalm]. In-person raves aren’t happening right now but that just means there’s time to add waaaaay to many features to this thing until lockdowns become a thing of the past.

The frame holding the lighting integrates into this backpack and we assume that’s where the battery is stored. The Y-shaped masts hold four PAR lights. Incidentally, that mean parabolic aluminized reflectors, which are commonly used for stage lighting, but in this case the halogen bulbs have been torn out for a trio of 4 W RGBW LEDs. The yellow rectangles are 10 W Chip-on-Board LED panels that serve as strobe lights.

Festmaskinen audio rig in 2015

But merely having the lights does not make it a Rave — this party needs both music and a way to synchronize the lighting effects with it. The music part was already built and used at the West Pride Gothenburg festival (the second largest in Sweden after Stockholm) five years ago. That project, called Festmaskinen, works in conjunction with Ljusmaskinen (the Light Machine). So two people carry the rave on their backs, one with music, the other with the lighting, now that’s a party!

The light controller board uses a set of four Arduino Nano boards along with four voltage regulators to provide control to each of the PAR lights. All of it is stitched together by control from a DMX input board which also controls the COBs. (In this image the DMX board is hidden below the light control board.) Of course you need something that can process the audio and turn it into DMX512 to bring those lighting animations to life and for that he reached for a Raspberry Pi.

[Tim] has a quick demo of the rig at work which we’ve embedded below. What we’re missing is seeing how the top-heavy structure handles when worn as a backpack. Hopefully he’ll be able to get out of his low-ceilinged home and let the stage lights fly before too long!

Making Smalltalk On A Raspberry Pi

July 12, 2020 by 43 Comments

Today, you probably don’t think much about object-oriented programming, it’s just part of the landscape. But decades ago, it was strange and obscure technology. While there were several languages that led up to the current object-oriented tools we use today, one of the most influential was Xerox PARC’s Smalltalk language. [Michael Engel] took a C++ implementation of the Smalltalk VM, some byte code for a complete Smalltalk system, a Raspberry Pi “bare metal” library, and produced a Smalltalk workstation running on a bare Raspberry Pi — even a Pi Zero. The code is on GitHub and is admittedly a work in progress.

Smalltalk was interesting — and sometimes annoying — because everything was an object. Literally everything. The system took over the entire machine. It provided the GUI, the compiler, and the run time libraries. That’s probably why it was easy for [Michael] to forego the usual Linux OS for his project.

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A ZX80 With A Proper Case

July 11, 2020 by 14 Comments

A popular project among Hackaday readers is to recreate a piece of home computing or gaming hardware from the past, and in that endeavour we’ve seen some truly amazing projects. Usually they take the form of bare PCBs or custom cases that look nothing like the original, but not [Cees Meijer]’s Sinclair ZX80 clone. It sports a 3D printed replica of the original computer’s vacuum-formed case, which from a distance you could be mistake for the real thing.

Internally it’s not a ZX80 at all, but a Raspberry Pi Zero running an emulator. But  with a case like this one that’s not the point. It doesn’t have the full-length PCB of the original but a modern ZX80 membrane keyboard, and the Pi appears to be hiding somewhere in the “hump” used by the Astec UHF modulator on the original. There is more information in a blog post, and the model can be downloaded via Thingiverse. Handily, the files also include the original CAD file from RS DesignSpark, should you wish to modify it to your own tastes. If somebody could mate it with Tynemouth Software’s ZX80 kit then our cup would run over.

Of course, this isn’t the only retrocomputer for which a replacement case can be found.

DJing Without The Truckload Of Equipment; Secret Ingredient Is Raspberry Pi

July 3, 2020 by 7 Comments

There is a romance to notions of a byegone age of DJing — driving a pair of Technics 1200s dwarfed on either side by the stacks, pumping techno bass through the laser-tinged darkness into a hungry crowd. Even if the reality of early evening Saturday wedding parties playing inoffensive crooners for the 50-somethings didn’t really live up to it.

The trouble with DJing old-style was that it required extensive logistics to shift all that equipment not to mention a record collection, so the modern DJ for whom everything has gone digital is truly lucky in the scale of their operation. For some people even that is too much to carry, and [Dennisdebel] has minimised a DJ rig to the next level, by running the popular Mixxx DJing software on a Raspberry Pi hooked up to his DJ controller. You can see the result in the video below the break.

This is more of a HOWTO for installing a set of software packages on the Pi to achieve an aim rather than a special hardware hack, but as he points out the interest lies in regaining control of the process. The DJ space is dominated by commercial offerings increasingly laden with DRM and proprietary cloud offerings, so this represents a means of taking back control of the process. If it’s not hacky enough, you can always add a home-made DJ mixing station.

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