SteamDeck connected to a laptop with a USB cable, showing the 'printed-out' document on its screen inside a PDF reader

SteamDeck: Become Printer

January 31, 2023 by Arya Voronova 9 Comments

Wonderful things happen when we read the documentation. For instance, we’ve all seen a Raspberry Pi work as an Ethernet adapter over USB, or a ESP32-S2 presenting as a storage device. Well, [parkerlreed] has made his Steam Deck work as a USB printer after reading the Linux kernel docs on the USB gadget configuration, and all it took was some C code and a BIOS setting change.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if our USB tablets exposed a fake printer interface and saved the received documents as PDF?” With a SteamDeck, you can do just that – thanks to the g_printer kernel module. The C code is fairly straightforward, and even lets you configure some aspects of the printer device.

Of course, there’s gotta be a cherry on the cake, and [parkerlreed]’s shell script hides an addition that makes your PDF printing experience all that more realistic! Not to spoil it too much – you should watch the video of the script in action, showcasing both the ease of use and the added realism.

Jokes aside, the usefulness of this script is undeniable, and owners of USB-device-capable portable Linux devices will find this script a must-have. It’s seriously cool when someone dives into documentation and pulls out a clever solution to a “wouldn’t it be cool” idea – fundamentally, it is the same mindset that gave us the venerable RTL-SDR. What’s your favourite ‘dig into docs and figure out a clever feature’ hack?

We thank [Myself] for sharing this with us on the Hackaday Discord!

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Casting Custom Resin Buttons For The Steam Deck

January 26, 2023 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

If you play games on multiple consoles, you’re probably familiar with the occasional bout of uncertainty that comes with each system’s unique button arrangement. They’re all more or less in the same physical location, but each system calls them something different. Depending on who’s controller you’re holding, the same button could be X, A, or B. We won’t even get started on colors.

Overhearing her partner wish the buttons on his Steam Deck matched the color scheme of the Xbox, [Gina Häußge] (of OctoPrint fame) decided to secretly create a set of bespoke buttons for the portable system. There was only one problem…she had no experience with the silicone molding process or epoxy resins which would be required for such an operation.

Toothpicks were used to make channels in the mold.

Luckily we have the Internet, and after researching similar projects that focused on other consoles, [Gina] felt confident enough to take apart Steam’s handheld and extract the original plastic buttons. These went into a clever 3D printed mold box, which was small enough to put into a food vacuum container for degassing purposes. The shape of the buttons necessitated a two-piece mold, into which [Gina] embedded two channels: one to inject the resin, and another that would let air escape.

The red, green, blue, and yellow resins were then loaded into four separate syringes and forced into the mold. It’s critically important to get the orientation right here, as each button has a slightly different shape. It sounds like [Gina] might have mixed up which color each button was supposed to be during an earlier attempt, so for the final run she made a little diagram to keep track. After 24 hours she was able to peel the mold apart and get a look at the perfectly-formed buttons, but it took 72 hours before they were really cured enough to move on to the next step.

[Gina] applied the legends with a sheet of rub-on lettering, which we imagine must have been quite tricky to get lined up perfectly. Since the letters would get worn off after a few intense gaming sessions without protection, she finally sealed the surface of each button by brushing on a thin layer of UV resin and curing it with a flashlight of the appropriate wavelength.

There are a fair number of steps involved, and a fair bit of up-front cost to get all the materials together, but there’s no denying the final result looks phenomenal. Especially for a first attempt. We wouldn’t be surprised if the next time somebody wants to head down this particular path, it’s [Gina]’s post that guides them on their way.

Direction-Finding With Help From The Steam Deck

October 21, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 6 Comments

Direction-finding, or fox hunting, is a popular activity in ham radio circles where a group of people armed with radios attempt to locate a broadcasting source. Besides being a hobby for amateurs, it’s also a necessary tool in the belt of regulators who are attempting to track down violators of the air space. There are a lot of ways to figure out the precise location of a radio transmission, but this one manages to pull it off using both a boat and a Steam Deck, each armed with a software-defined radio.

This project comes to us from [Aaron] who is well known in the amateur radio circles for his SDR-focused Linux distribution called DragonOS; which has all the tools needed for a quality SDR experience, in this case KrakenSDR and DF Aggregator. He’s loaded everything up on a Steam Deck and left that in a secure location on the shore of a lake, while he carries second device with the same software with him on a boat. With the two devices listening for a specific signal, he’s able to quickly zero in on his friend on the shore who is broadcasting on the 70 cm band thanks to the help of all of these software packages.

While ham radio isn’t always known for being a youthful and exciting activity, the advent of software-defined radio and other digital modes seem to be shaking things up in that world. Certainly speeding around a lake on a boat is fun on its own as well, and a fox hunt like this can be done with something as small and simple as a Raspberry Pi too.

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Valve Reluctantly Shows How To Mod The Steam Deck

October 14, 2021 by Tom Nardi 35 Comments

As the narrator in this official instructional video from Valve reminds the viewer several times, the gaming company would really rather you not open up your brand new Steam Deck and start poking around. They can’t guarantee that their software will function should you start changing the hardware, and since there’s no source for replacement parts yet anyway, there’s not much you can do in the way of repairs.

That said, Valve does believe you have the right to take apart your own device, and has produced the video below as an aid to those who are willing risk damaging their new system by opening it up. Specifically, the video goes over how to replace the most likely wear items on the handheld, namely the thumb sticks and the SSD. It seems inevitable that the stock thumb sticks will wear down after a couple years of hard use, so we’re glad to see they are easily removable modules. As for the SSD, it stands to reason that users would want to swap it out for faster and higher capacity models as they become available in the coming years.

Sooner or later, these are going to need to be replaced.

Now to be clear, we appreciate Valve making this video, and would love to see other manufacturers be so forthcoming. But we have to admit that some of its messaging does seem a bit heavy handed. The narrators admonition that users who open their Steam Deck are literally taking their lives into their own hands due to the danger of potentially rupturing the system’s lithium-ion battery is a bit hyperbolic for our tastes. The constant reminders of how badly you could bungle the job just comes off as overly preachy, though to be fair, we probably aren’t the intended audience.

Outside of its obvious gaming functions, we’re excited too see what the community can do with the Steam Deck. With official reference material like this, perhaps we’ll even start seeing some hardware modifications before too long. Though we wouldn’t blame you for hitting the Mute button halfway through.

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Valve Sells Software, So What’s With All The Hardware?

August 16, 2021 by Drew Littrell 47 Comments

Steam branding is strong. Valve Corporation has turned their third-party marketplace into the first place millions choose to buy their PC games. The service has seen record-breaking numbers earlier this year with over 25 million concurrent users, so whatever they are doing is clearly working. Yet with all those software sales, last month Valve announced a new piece of hardware they call the Steam Deck.

Use the colloquialism you’d like, “not resting on your laurels” or “Mamba Mentality”, it’s not as if competitors in the handheld PC space are boasting ludicrous sales numbers. At their core, Valve is in the business of selling computer games. So why venture into making hardware? Continue reading “Valve Sells Software, So What’s With All The Hardware?” →