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29 Articles

LIDAR Built On Familiar Platform

April 11, 2020 by 7 Comments

Moore’s law may have reached its physical limit for transistor density, but plenty of other technologies are still on that familiar path of getting smaller and smaller as time passes. It looks like LIDAR is no exception to this trend either. This project from [Owen] shows a fully-functional LIDAR system for about $20 and built almost entirely on top of an ESP32.

The build uses a Time-Of-Flight IR laser range sensor controlled by the ESP32, and the sensor is much smaller than even the ESP32’s footprint so it takes up very little extra space. To get it to function as a LIDAR system instead of just a simple rangefinder it does need a motor in order to rotate itself to see its entire space. Besides its small form factor and low cost, it also has a handy user interface that can run anywhere an HTML5 browser can run, making the use of the system easy and straightforward as well. All of the code is available on the project’s GitHub page.

We wouldn’t expect a system like this to be driving an autonomous car anytime soon, it’s update rate is far too slow, but its intent for small robots and even as an educational demo for learning LIDAR is second to none. If you do need a little more power in a LIDAR system but still don’t want to break the bank, we featured this impressive setup a few weeks ago.

Tiny ESP32 Fits Inside USB-A Connector

September 28, 2019 by 24 Comments

The ESP32 was introduced a few years ago as an inexpensive way to outfit various microcontrollers with WiFi or Bluetooth. Since then it has been experimented with and developed on, thanks to its similarities to the ESP8266 and the ability to easily program it. Watching the development of this small chip has truly been fascinating as it continues to grow. Or, in this case, shrink.

The latest development in the ESP32 world comes from [femtoduino] who, as the name suggests, makes very small things. This one is a complete ESP32 which fits inside a USB-A connector. The brains of the projects is the ESP32-D2WD which is a dual core chip with 2 Mb of memory, making it more than capable. In fact, a big part of this project was [femtoduino]’s modifications to MicroPython in order to allow it to run on this chipset. For that alone, it’s cool.

This project is impressive for both reasons, both the size and the addition to the MicroPython libraries. If you need something really really tiny, for whatever reason, you might want to look into picking up one of these. Be careful though, and be sure to get the latest version of the SDK.

After The Con: Da Bomb Badge Post Mortem

September 2, 2019 by No comments

We’ve reported on the world of electronic badges here at Hackaday since their earliest origins in [Joe Grand]’s work for DEF CON 14 in 2006. In that time we’ve seen an astonishing variety of creations, covering everything from abstract artwork to pure functionality in a wearable device. But it’s not been quite so often that we’ve looked at the other side of the BadgeLife coin, so it’s fascinating to read [John Adams]’ account of the work that went into the production of this year’s 500-piece run of the Da Bomb DEF CON indie badge.

In it, [John] goes over scheduling worries, component sourcing issues, PCB assembly delays, and an in-depth look into the finances of such a project. In case anyone is tempted to look at Badgelife as the route to millions, it rapidly becomes apparent that simply not losing too much money is sometimes the best that can be hoped for. There were a few design problems, one of them being that the SAO I2C bus was shared with the LED controller, resulting in some SAOs compatibility issues. In particular the AND!XOR DOOM SAO had its EEPROM erased, creating something of a headache for the team.

A surprise comes in the distribution: obviously shipping is expensive, so you’d think badge pick-ups at the con would be straightforward alternative. Unfortunately, they became something of a millstone in practice, and organising them was a Herculean task. Astoundingly, some paying customers didn’t bother turn up for their badges. Which was especially infuriating since the team lost valuable conference time waiting for them.

Some of you are BadgeLife creators and will nod sagely at this. Still more of you will wish you were BadgeLife creators and find it a useful primer. For everyone else it’s a fascinating read, and maybe makes us appreciate our badges a bit more.

The images may have departed, but just to return to the origins of BadgeLife, here’s our coverage of that first [Joe Grand] badge.

Pop-Up Outlet Helps Make The Most Of A Tiny Shop

August 9, 2019 by 8 Comments

You’ve got to admire the steps some people take to squeeze a shop into a small space. Finding ways to pack in ever more tools and to work on bigger and bigger projects become ends to themselves for some, and the neat little tricks they find to do so can be really instructive.

Take this workbench pop-up outlet strip for example. The shop that [Woodshop Junkies] occupies appears to be a single-car garage, on the smallish size in the first place, that is almost entirely filled with a multipurpose workbench. It provides tons of storage underneath and a massive work surface on top, but working with small power tools means stretching extension cords across the already limited floor space and creating a tripping hazard. So he claimed a little space on the benchtop for a clever trap door concealing a small tray holding an outlet strip.

The tray rides on short drawer glides and, thanks to a small pneumatic spring, pops up when the door is unlatched. There was a little trouble with some slop in the glides causing the tray to jam, but that was taken care of with a simple roller bearing. The video below shows its construction and how it stays entirely out of the way until needed.

As cool as this build is, it’s just icing on the small shop cake when compared to the workbench. [Woodshop Junkies] has a complete playlist covering the build which is worth watching. And you might want to refer to our tiny shop roundup for more tips on getting a lot done in a little space.

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Many Uses For A Single Button

December 5, 2018 by 18 Comments

When building projects with a simple goal in mind, it’s not unheard of for us to add more and more switches, buttons, and complexity as the project goes through its initial prototyping stages. Feature creep like this tends to result in a tangled mess rather than a usable project. With enough focus, though, it’s possible to recognize when it’s happening and keep to the original plans. On the other hand, this single-button project with more than one use seems to be the opposite of feature creep. (YouTube, embedded below.)

[Danko]’s project has one goal: be as useful as possible while only using a single button and a tiny screen. Right now the small handheld device can be used as a stopwatch, a counter, and can even play a rudimentary version of flappy bird. It uses an Arduino Pro Mini, a 64×48 OLED screen running on I2C, and has a miniscule 100 mAh 3.7V battery to power everything. The video is worth watching if you’ve never worked with this small of a screen before, too.

Getting three functions out of a device with only one button is a pretty impressive feat, and if you can think of any other ways of getting more usefulness out of something like this be sure to leave it in the comments below. [Danko] is no stranger to simple projects with tiny screens, either. We recently featured his homebrew Arduino calculator that uses an even smaller screen.

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Tiny, Wearable 8-Bit VT100 Terminal

October 24, 2017 by 13 Comments

In the modern era of computing, the end-user is often quite far removed from the machine they’re using. At least in terms of abstraction levels, the user experience of most computers, smart phones, and the like are very far away from the zeros and ones. If you need to get down to that level though, you’ll have to make your way to a terminal somehow, and reminisce fondly about the days when everything was accessed through a serial line.

Nowadays, some harmless nostalgia is often accompanied by a challenge as well, as [Nick] demonstrated with his tiny serial terminal. It mimics the parsing and rendering of a VT100 console using an Arduino Uno and a 1″x1″ TFT screen. His goal was to make it wearable like a wristwatch would be, using two buttons as an HID device. With the size and simple interface, [Nick] also explores the possibility of mounting such a terminal to a pair of glasses.

While not everyone may want to interact with a serial terminal with only two buttons, it’s certainly a great demonstration of what is possible when it comes to implementing retro software in unique ways. There have been serial terminals implemented in many other unique places as well, such as old oscilloscopes and replicas from popular video games.

Ask Hackaday: How Small Is Your Shop?

September 6, 2017 by 36 Comments

Electronics, metalwork, carpentry, sewing — however you express your inner hacker, you’ve got to have a place to work. Most of us start out small, assembling projects on the kitchen table, or sharing space on a computer desk. But eventually, if we’re lucky, we all move on to some kind of dedicated space. My first “shop” was a corner of the basement my Dad used for his carpentry projects. He built me what seemed at the time like a huge bench but was probably only about five feet long. Small was fine with me, though, and on that bench I plotted and planned and drew schematics and had my first real lesson in why you don’t reach for a soldering iron without looking first. My thumb still bears that scar as a reminder.

Many of us outgrow that first tiny space eventually, as projects (and accumulated junk) outpace the available space. Some of us go on to build workspaces to die for; personally, I feel wholly inadequate whenever I see Frank Howarth’s immense wood shop, with its high ceilings, huge windows for natural light, and what amounts to a loading dock. Whenever I see it I think The work I could do in there!

Or could I? Is bigger necessarily better when it comes to workspaces? Would more space make me a better craftsman?

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