Author Archives: Brian Benchoff

Rasberry Pi PoE Hat Released

Posted on by

It was announced at the beginning of March, but now the Raspberry Pi Power over Ethernet (PoE) hat is out. Thanks to the addition of a new 4-pin header on the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, the Pis can get power from an Ethernet cable, provided you’ve got the setup to deliver PoE.

This is a remarkable bit of engineering, even though it’s just adding Power over Ethernet to a small single board computer. Mechanically, the PoE hat doesn’t increase the 3D bounding box volume of the Raspberry Pi at all. It adds cooling with a fan controlled over I2C. …read more

Continue reading Rasberry Pi PoE Hat Released→

Better Motion Through Electrostatic Actuators

Posted on by

If you want something to move with electricity, odds are you’ll be using magnets. Deep inside every servo, every motor, and every linear actuator is a magnet and some coils of wire. There is another way of making things move, though: electrostatics. These are usually seen in tiny MEMS devices, and now we have tiny little electrostatic speakers making their way into phones and other miniature devices.

For [Nathann]’s Hackaday Prize entry, he’s building electrostatic actuators on the cheap, and not just tiny ones, either. He’s building ‘human’ scale electrostatic devices.

The reason electrostatic devices are usually very small is …read more

Continue reading Better Motion Through Electrostatic Actuators→

This Hackable Phone Makes WiFi Calls.

Posted on by

Over the years, we’ve seen dozens of projects that sell themselves as an ‘Open Source’ cellphone, a hackable cellphone, or some other confabulation of a microcontroller, screen, and a cellular module. The WiPhone is not one of these projects. That’s not to say it’s not an Open Source phone that’s intended to be hackable. No, this is a DIY phone that doesn’t make cellular calls, because this is a phone that only works with SIP and VoIP apps. It’s a WiPhone, and something a lot of us have been waiting for.

The hardware for this WiFi enabled phone is extremely …read more

Continue reading This Hackable Phone Makes WiFi Calls.→

This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest Human Computer Interface

Posted on by

This is your last chance to get your project together for the Human Computer Interface Challenge in this year’s Hackaday Prize. We’re looking for innovative interfaces for humans to talk to machines or machines to talk to humans. These are projects that make technology more intuitive, more fun, and a more natural activity. This is your time to shine, and we’re accepting entries in the Human Computer Interface Challenge in this year’s Hackaday Prize until August 27th. This is your last weekend to work on your project, folks.

This is one of the best years of the Hackaday Prize yet, …read more

Continue reading This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest Human Computer Interface→

MIDI Association Releases Spec For TRS Jacks

Posted on by

The MIDI spec was released in 1983, and for more than thirty years every synthesizer, drum machine, and piece of computer hardware with MIDI has sported an enormous DIN-5 jack on the back. Why did they choose such a large connector? Well, MiniDIN connectors hadn’t even been invented yet, and today even MiniDIN connectors are rarely-seen, obsolete connectors.

In the last decade, MIDI has found its way into some very small machines. Those Pocket Operators have MIDI sync, you can control a Game Boy with MIDI using the right hardware, and the cute little Korg synths also have MIDI tucked …read more

Continue reading MIDI Association Releases Spec For TRS Jacks→

Retro-uC, Your Favorite Instruction Sets On Custom Silicon

Posted on by

A few months ago, we caught wind of an interesting project in Big-O Open silicon. It’s a chip, loaded up with the great CPU cores of yore. Now, it’s finally a project on Crowdsupply. The Retro-uC project is an Open Source microcontroller for the retro geek, with a Zilog Z80, MOS 6502, and Motorola 68000 buried in the epoxy of a single QFP package. Oh yes, custom silicon and retro goodness, what more could you want?

The Retro-uC project is part of the Chips4Makers project to develop an Open Source chip for the community. Of course, this has been done …read more

Continue reading Retro-uC, Your Favorite Instruction Sets On Custom Silicon→

Listening To Mains Power

Posted on by

There’s a lot you can tell by looking at the waveform of your mains power. There are harmonics, transient changes, and periodic fluctuations that are correlated to the demand on the grid itself. Frequency shifts will tell you how fast or slow your clocks are running, and someone probably has a poorly isolated power line communication thing somewhere in your neighborhood. There’s a lot you can learn by looking at the waveform coming out of your outlets, but how do you tap into that? [David] is doing it with a PC sound card and some really interesting hardware.

The Grid …read more

Continue reading Listening To Mains Power→

Better Ways To Drive Nixie Tubes

Posted on by

Ah, Nixie tubes. You’re not cool unless you have a few Nixie tubes sitting around, and you’re not awesome unless you’ve built your own Nixie tube clock. That’s what [Thomas] is doing for his entry into the Hackaday Prize, and he’s come up with a very low-cost way of doing it.

For the high voltage supply of this build, [Thomas] is turning to one of the standard circuits based on the MC34063 that’s simple enough and good enough to make everything work. There are really no surprises with the power supply here. This is all a project about turning on …read more

Continue reading Better Ways To Drive Nixie Tubes→

Friday Hack Chat: Hacking For Mental Health

Posted on by

Quite often we see applications of hacking and DIY in the medical field. From 3D printed prosthetics to hacked insulin pumps, there’s a wide variety of stuff you can do, but what about psychology? That’s what our Hack Chat this Friday is all about.

Our guest for this week’s Hack Chat is Curt White. He’s been building medical devices for years, and when he’s not doing that he’s creating interactive installation art and costumes. At work he’s a device and sensor developer at the Child mind Institute MATTER Lab where he designs and researches wearable medical devices for children with …read more

Continue reading Friday Hack Chat: Hacking For Mental Health→

Plasma Etching In A Microwave

Posted on by

Deep inside your smartphone are a handful of interesting miniature electromechanical devices. The accelerometer is a MEMS device, and was produced with some of the most impressive industrial processes on the planet. Sometimes, these nanoscale devices are produced with plasma etching, which sounds about as cool as it actually is. Once the domain of impossibly expensive industrial processes, you can now plasma etch materials in a microwave.

Of course, making plasma in this way is nothing new. If you cut a grape in half and plop it in a microwave, some really cool stuff happens. This is just the 6th …read more

Continue reading Plasma Etching In A Microwave→