Nintendo Zapper Reborn As Home Automation Remote

August 7, 2021 by Brian McEvoy 3 Comments

Generally, using a gun to turn your lights off is dangerous and expensive, but for the [DuctTape Mechanic], it’s just how he does things. Video also after the break. To be fair, he uses a salvaged Nintendo Zapper, not a firearm, and replaces the guts with an RF transmitter. We are shocked that he chose a radio model instead of infrared seeing as how he is repurposing a light gun, but our scores in Duck Hunt suggest he made the right choice.

The transmitter comes from a keychain remote, so it all fits neatly inside the Zapper chassis. A couple of wires hijack the stock button and run to the stock trigger, so you keep that authentic feel. The receiver side is a bit trickier. When it senses a button press, it sends a pulse, as you would find in a garage door opener, but to keep a lamp on, there needs to be some latching and so there is an Arduino. The microcontroller keeps a tally and operates a 10 amp relay module, so it is mostly acting as the glue between hardware. All of the mains electrical components sit in a blue plastic box with a receptacle on the front.

We don’t see the Zappers used for their intended purposes much anymore because they rely on old technology, but that doesn’t keep people from repurposing the iconic peripheral.

Continue reading “Nintendo Zapper Reborn As Home Automation Remote” →

Fixing Joy-Con Drift With Recycle Bin Parts

July 16, 2021 by Kristina Panos 16 Comments

Have you seen this yet? YouTuber [VK’s Channel] claims to have a permanent fix for Joy-Con drift — the tendency for Nintendo Switch controllers to behave as though they’re being moved around when they’re not even being touched. Like everyone else, [VK’s Channel] tried all the usual suspects: compressed air, isopropyl alcohol, contact cleaner, and even WD-40. But these are only temporary fixes, and the drift always comes back. None of the other fixes so far are permanent, either, like shimming the flat cable that connects the stick to the mobo, adding graphite to the worn pads inside, or trying to fix a possible bad antenna connection.

While calibrating a drifting Joy-Con, [VK’s Channel] noticed that applying pressure near the Y and B buttons corrected the issue immediately, so they got the idea to add a 1mm thick piece of card stock inside. [VK’s Channel] believes the issue is that there is no fastener connecting the plastic part of the joystick to the metal part on the bottom. Over time, using the joystick causes the bottom to sag, which makes the metal contacts inside lose their grip on the graphite pads. It’s been two months now and there is absolutely no drift in either of the Joy-Cons that [VK’s Channel] has shored up this way.

Nintendo is now fixing Joy-Cons for free. The problem is that they are replacing irreparable ones outright, so you have to agree that you will settle for a plain old gray, red, or blue instead of your special edition Zelda controllers or whatever you send them. Hopefully, this really is a permanent fix, and that Nintendo gives [VK’s Channel] a job.

You could forego the joysticks altogether and swap them out for touchpads. Suffering from XBOX drift instead? We have just the thing.

Continue reading “Fixing Joy-Con Drift With Recycle Bin Parts” →

Reverse Engineering Self-Powered Wireless Switches

May 2, 2021 by Danie Conradie 30 Comments

The plethora of wireless communications technologies have cut the comms wire for many applications, but these devices still require power. For home automation, this might mean a battery or mains power, but there is also an alternative that we don’t see often: Kinetic power. [Bigclivecom] bought some kinetic switches from eBay and gave it his usual reverse engineering treatment.

True to the marketing, these switches do not require external power or a battery to send a wireless signal. Instead, it harvests energy from the magnetic latching action of the switch itself. When the switch is actuated, a small current is induced in a coil as the polarity of the magnetic field through its core changes rapidly. Through a series of diodes and resisters, the energy is stored in a capacitor, which is then used to power a small transmitter chip. The antenna coil is wrapped around the switch housing.

The receiver side is powered by mains and includes a relay output for lights. It would be really nice to have a hacker-friendly module for projects. We would be curious to see the range that these devices are capable of.

The same technology is used inside the Philips Hue Tap switch, of which Adafruit did a teardown a few years ago. If you want to learn more about RF modulation, check out the crash course article we put out a while back. Of course, the RTL SDR is an indispensable and affordable tool if you want to do some experimentation.

Continue reading “Reverse Engineering Self-Powered Wireless Switches” →

Python Will Soon Support Switch Statements

April 2, 2021 by Adam Zeloof 113 Comments

Rejoice! Gone are the long chains of if…else statements, because switch statements will soon be here — sort of. What the Python gods are actually giving us are match statements. match statements are awfully similar to switch statements, but have a few really cool and unique features, which I’ll attempt to illustrate below.

Continue reading “Python Will Soon Support Switch Statements” →

This Joy-Con Grip Steers Its Way To Sweaty Victory

February 8, 2021 by Kerry Scharfglass No comments

Here at Hackaday we’re always exited to see hacks that recycle our favorite childhood consoles into something new and interesting. In that context, it’s not so uncommon to see mods which combine new and unusual control methods with old devices in ways that their manufacturers never intended. What [Mike Choi] has built with the Labo Fit Adventure Kit is the rare hack that combines radically new control schemes with a modern console: without actually modifying any hardware.

In short, the Labo Fit Adventure Kit lets the player play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch by riding a stationary exercise bike, steering with a wheel, and squeezing that wheel to use items. The Fit Kit combines the theme of Labo, Nintendo’s excellent cardboard building kit for the Nintendo Switch with the existing Ring-Con accessory for the unrelated Nintendo game Ring Fit Adventure plus a collection of custom hardware to tie it all together. That hardware senses cadence on the stationary bike, watches for the user to squeeze the handheld wheel controller, and translates those inputs to button presses on the controller to play the game.

The most fascinating element of this project is the TAPBO module which adapts the Joy-Con controller to remote input. The module includes electronics, actuators, and a clever mechanical design to allow it to be mounted to the Ring-Con in place of an unmodified Joy-Con. Electrically the components will be familiar to regular Hackaday readers; there is a breakout board for a Teensy which also holds an XBee module to receive inputs remotely and drive a pair of servos. The entire module is described in detail starting at 4:42 in the video.

Mechanically the TAPBO relies on a pair of cam-actuated arms which translate rotational servo motion into linear action to press shoulder or face buttons. The module directly measures flex of the Ring-Con with an added flexible resistor and receives cadence information from another module embedded in the stationary bike via Zigbee. When these inputs exceed set thresholds they drive the servos to press the appropriate controller buttons to accelerate or use an item.

We’ve focused pretty heavily on the technical aspects of this project, but this significantly undersells the level of polish and easy to understand documentation [Mike] has produced. It includes a TAPBO Amiibo in customized packaging, and more. Check out the full video to get the complete scope of this project.

Continue reading “This Joy-Con Grip Steers Its Way To Sweaty Victory” →

Buzzer Does Input And Output

January 25, 2021 by Al Williams 2 Comments

Piezo elements have the useful property of being bidirectional; that is they can move when you apply electricity to them, but they can also generate electricity when you move them. [Carl] takes advantage of this fact to make buttons that can provide haptic feedback. You can see a video of his efforts below the break.

He made two versions of the buttons. One uses a 3D printed housing and the other used a 3D printed spacer in a sandwich configuration. It took a few tries to get it right, as you’ll see. The elements take and produce relatively high voltages, so the bulk of the work was adapting the voltages back and forth. In fact, he even managed to fry his CPU chip with some of the higher voltages involved.

We’d probably look for an easier way to sense the button push, since it seems like a good bit of circuitry just to do that. But the whole circuit provides an input button, haptic feedback, and the option of using the buzzer as a buzzer, so at least it is relatively economical if you need all of those features.

Continue reading “Buzzer Does Input And Output” →

Tiny Ethernet Routers Now Available In Gigabit Speeds

November 26, 2020 by Lewin Day 63 Comments

If you need to move a lot of data, and fast, Gigabit Ethernet is a great way to do it. However, most network hardware outside of datacenters is fairly space inefficient, a headache if you’re building a robot or drone. Enter the Gigablox, a super-compact Gigabit router for just these applications.

The Gigablox takes its mission seriously, with its compact size the ultimate design goal. The entire switch fits on a tiny 45 mm x 45 mm PCB. To this end, it eschews the common RJ45 connector, which is bulkier than necessary. Instead, thin Molex PicoBlade connectors are used for the five ports on board. Cables are included to convert between the two connectors, and obviously crimping ones own is easy to do, too. For those who need to connect more devices, several Gigablox can be hooked up in the same way as any other Ethernet switch. The Gigablox is a non-blocking switch, too – meaning all five ports can run at full speed simultaneously.

The design is the sequel to the SwitchBlox, and the later SwitchBlox Nano, both designed by [Josh Elijah] earlier this year. The pace of development is impressive, and it’s great to see [Josh] bring Gigabit speeds to the compact form factor. We can imagine a few good uses for these boards; share your best ideas in the comments below! Video after the break.

Continue reading “Tiny Ethernet Routers Now Available In Gigabit Speeds” →