Tindie

There are many retro gaming systems on the “market” today, whether semi-mass produced portables like the Arduboy, or DIY rigs such as this Raspberry Pi Zero-based model that actually fits inside of an original NES controller. Rounding things out are DIY arcade cabinets, which, because of their relatively large size, have been able to house retro gaming systems since computers became available that could emulate older systems. Here’s a neat example, Circuitbeard’s ROMBUS-CT, a miniature cocktail-style cabinet that runs games via a Raspberry Pi.

On the other hand, if these systems aren’t “retro” enough for you, you could perhaps build your own single-board computer from scratch and have it run on a brilliant monochrome OLED green screen. No one has time for that, but of course you’d still like something that looks like it came out of your basement laboratory. Even better is a rig that uses a vintage processor like the venerable 6502 chip. You’re in luck, check out the Dodo kit.

The device grew out of an attempt to build a single-board computer from the ground up, and now features a web-based development platform, as well a collection of games to play. There is even a Dodo exclusive game called 0xDEADBEEF, which I’d have to guess is either quite violent or a Burger Time-style game, but I really have no idea.

Keep Reading ›

When working with AC electricity, you generally care about the voltage, what frequency it’s utilizing, how much current you can draw before causing problems. Especially if you work in automation, you may care about how “clean” your power is, which could mean utilizing a power conditioner to keep things in order. Although I’m sure these devices are helpful in many cases, I suspect sometimes they are proposed as a solution to unknown problems in order to let management know that the engineers are doing something. This can buy time, or perhaps improve the situation, while they hopefully get to the bottom of the issue.

In this diagnosis process, you will likely want to monitor the frequency of your incoming AC current very accurately to see if that aspect of your power is consistent. If this sounds like you (and you use 50 Hertz AC power), then the Mains AC Frequency Meter 103 (MAFM103) could be a good solution. It can take 50 measurements per second at a standard deviation of 0.1 milliHertz using an “old but very powerful algorithm” that it’s creator, Dr. Detlef Schucker, rediscovered. Importantly, the device can communicate with a computer via an RS232 serial interface, allowing you to track frequency variations over time.

So now you can be known at the power company as that crazy person that calls every week or so complaining about power frequency variations. At least you’ll have some data to fall back on!

Keep Reading ›

Space is, as Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk put it, the final frontier. Interestingly though, with high-altitude balloons, touching this frontier is relatively accessible. On the other hand, without some sort of tracking or video device on your balloon, you can only really theorize that it perhaps got pretty close to outer space. In this case, perhaps you’re really just littering in a very creative way.

If you simply want to put a balloon up yourself, but don’t know where to start electronics-wise you should check out this project. The “CatSat1,” pico-satellite has the electronics needed to launch and track a flight, including battery and control components, sensors, and a GPS unit. The design is open source, so you can modify it to fit your needs (or use the design to build one yourself), and is based on the CatSat program seen on Hackaday.com. You can see a view from one of these devices in the video below.

If are the kind of person who wants to put something into space and track your object, you’re not alone. You can find like-minded individuals on the amateur radio high altitude ballooning (arhab) website, or if you’re associated with a university, you could participate in the CanSat Competition, which uses rockets to launch a payload. This year takes place in Stephenville, Texas on June 9th through 11th.

Keep Reading ›

Depending on your experience with programming and electronics, you may have run into a situation where if you flip a switch, your device somehow thinks that you’ve switched the input multiple times.

This may seem strange, but when metal contacts hit each other, they tend to literally bounce on and off of each other for a short amount of time. This “bouncing time” can reportedly last between 10 and 300 microseconds, which as humans, we certainly don’t notice. You might consider that 300 microseconds (µs), expressed differently is 3 ten-thousandths of a second. It’s a fascinating topic and if you want to dive in you should check out the recent Spark Gap podcast episode on button types and debounce.

Though short to us, to modern computers and microcontrollers, this can be an eternity, allowing them to process many instructions. Though this speed presents a problem, it also presents solutions. As shown in this Arduino example, you can simply code things to wait until the state change has been experienced for a certain amount of time before recognizing it as such.

The disadvantage of this technique is that it requires extra code, making things less streamlined than they could be, and if you’re working with hardware-based logic, you’d need to use a different technique. There are solutions of course, including this NE555-based kit by Theosauro. It uses the button to trigger a 555 timer (that’s the NE555 chip) to output a very clean logic signal you just can’t get from a button alone.

So the next time your code is acting strange, consider adding a debounce function, either through hardware or software!

Keep Reading ›

As you get more and more into the world of making electronics, you may find that you need to solder components onto circuit boards using a reflow soldering process (short video of it below). Though this may seem like an exotic method used by large manufactures, the good news is that some of these machines are quite accessible. In fact, a quick search will likely pull up reflow ovens for well under $1000.

On the other hand, the process of heating up the solder paste in a controlled manner isn’t really that exotic of an endeavor, and, if you happen to have an old toaster oven lying around, you can convert this into a reflow device. You can see an example of how this can be done on this instructables page, though I woudn’t be too keen on using it for toast afterwards.

If you’d like a little help getting started on your toaster oven project, or if you’d like a nice color interface, you might check out the X-toaster toaster oven reflow controller kit. The device allows you to enhance your oven for general use without internally modifying the oven, and it can be programmed without using a PC. More information on how the device can be set up is found on their website.

Keep Reading ›

Ken.Do’s hexapod robotics platform

Building walking robots is difficult. In fact, my first robot, a 3-servo hexapod that I named “PegLeg,” only really worked well after I remade it using machine tools, such as a milling machine and lathe.

Since then, I’ve made several other walking ‘bots, and/or remote vehicles depending on how you want to classify them, and it generally seems that getting the mechanics to work well together is the most difficult part. Then again, I’m a mechanical engineer by training, so perhaps it’s simply what I put my effort into, finally being satisfied with the control system working “well enough.”

If, on the other hand, your “thing” is programming and you would rather not fool with getting the mechanical bits, there are other options available. One such robot that caught my eye was this 20″ hexapod robot that can operate as either an 18 degree-of-freedom (DOF) walker, or in 12 DOF mode.

Though the robot comes with “no guarantee of functionality,” it does look quite fetching in red, and I can only imagine how long it would take to design and/or print a frame like this from scratch. If you just want to get your robot working, then something like this could be a good option.

Keep Reading ›

Although makers/hackers/DIY enthusiasts have been around since man invented the wheel — or perhaps even before — it seems that a big part of what’s fueled the current crop of home invention has been inexpensive development boards like those developed by Arduino. In fact, if you’re going to make a simple robot or automatic device, Arduino products, specifically the Arduino Uno acts as a sort of de facto standard.

The great thing is that this means that there is an incredible pool of resources to pull from, including learning materials and expansion shields. This works really well for simple applications, but there are other options available that have more power and/or communications capabilities than what the Uno offers. One exciting possibility involves development boards based around the ESP8266 and ESP32 WiFi modules. Not only do these modules have WiFi capabilities, they can be very small, and feature a powerful ARM processor.

X-32 module by itself

If you’d like to get your feet wet with this system, this X-Project Starter kit features boards with an ESP32, as well as one with the ESP8266-based WROOM-02. Along with these boards, the kit includes a series of “X-size” shields, so you’ll have components to play with right off the bat.

Keep Reading ›

If the golden age of arcade video games took place in the early 1980s, then perhaps today we are living in the golden age of DIY gaming systems. Many older computers can be used to run these games, and small single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi have enough power to emulate arcade games of old for a price under $50.

One challenge though, unless you want to use a keyboard or a standard USB controller, is getting the physical inputs from arcade button to control your emulation software. You could (as I have) attempt to take apart a keyboard and wire the buttons into individual keys. From experience, this does work, but is quite difficult soldering-wise, and multiple button presses can get hairy.

There are also USB-based solutions that allow you to plug wires in which translate data to a computer as an interface device. This works much better, and I wish I’d done some research before destroying a wireless keyboard!

On the other hand, if your platform is a Raspberry Pi, here’s a solution that attaches to it as a HAT, the aptly named “RetroHAT”. The device helps GPIO inputs into keyboard presses, which should be quite useful for getting a cab’ up and running!

Keep Reading ›

Today, using the Internet means keeping track of passwords. This can take many forms, from simply using the same password for all sites you visit (very bad), making up “random” passwords for each site you need to log into (better), or perhaps using some sort of strong password generator and storage system (perhaps best, but with a big asterisk of “what if the system gets hacked?”).

Another intriguing method would involve some sort of routine based on, say, books on a certain shelf, or even a mechanical generator like the one featured here. One of the huge advantages of a system like that is it’s offline, so it couldn’t (practically speaking) be hacked. On the other hand, this type of system can be inconvenient, or perhaps not portable.

Attempting to fill this void is the Mooltipass Mini. This device, which has been a project since 2013 (my blurb on the original), stores passwords on a smartcard, which can either generate passwords for you or import your passwords as needed. To a computer or smartphone, it then acts as an external keyboard, entering your data as needed. You can see more about it in the Tindie link above, or on its recently concluded and wildly successful Kickstarter campaign.

Available in several colors

As you might suspect, this device has also been quite successful on Tindie, selling 100 units in the three days following its debut. In fact, according to Mathieu Stephan, who has driven this project from the beginning, they’ve sold thousands of these devices in total, while sticking to their planned Kickstarter schedule for fulfillment.

So with so many of these having been sold, if you see someone else using one in the wild, you’ll know it’s not just an exotic (and beautifully-metallic) MP3 player. Perhaps say “hello,” rather than gawking too much, as the person using it is obviously at least somewhat concerned about security!

Keep Reading ›

Consumer-level 3D printing has certainly revolutionized what can be made at home. Although the materials generally used wouldn’t be suitable for, say, structural automotive parts, the shapes that one can easily create with one of these printers would be very difficult to make using traditional machining methods. Sure, if you happen to have a 5-axis machining center in your garage, you could duplicate many of these results, but the fact that many of these machines cost in the hundreds of dollars rather than many tens or even hundreds of thousands for a CNC machining “equivalent” is really an accomplishment.

On the other hand, these machines, especially the least-expensive of them, require some fiddling to get them working. You’ll also need an external computer to prepare your models for printing, and if you’d like to duplicate a physical object via 3D scanning, that’s an entirely different machine/process.

For a different take on things, the Zeus Printer/Editor/3D scanner works as a 3D printer, but also has a 3D scanner built-in as well as a 7-inch touchscreen and editing capabilities. So in theory, you don’t even need a computer to work with this device. The first video below shows an overview of the device, while the second shows a demonstration of it working as a “simple” 3D copy machine.

Keep Reading ›