Author Archives: Donald Papp

SPINES Design Makes for Modular Energy Harvesting

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The SPINES (Self-Powered IoT Node for Environmental Sensing) Mote is a wireless IoT environmental sensor, but don’t let the neatly packed single PCB fool you into thinking it’s not hackable. [Macro Yau] specifically designed SPINES to be highly modular in order to make designing an energy harvesting sensor node an easier task. The way [Macro] sees it, there are two big hurdles to development: one is the energy harvesting itself, and the other is the software required to manage the use of every precious joule of that harvested energy.

[Macro] designed the single board SPINES Mote in a way that …read more

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3D Printer Guardian Watches for Worst-case Failures

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Some devices have one job to do, but that job can have many facets. To [jmcservv], an example of this is the job of protecting against worst-case failures in a 3D printer, and it led him to develop the 3D Printer Watchdog Guardian. When it comes to fire, secondary protection is the name of the game because it’s one thing to detect thermal runaway and turn off a heater, but what if that isn’t enough? The MOSFET controlling the heater could have failed closed and can no longer be turned off in a normal sense. In such cases, some kind …read more

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Robotic Muscles from Fishing Line and Nichrome

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Did you know that under the right conditions, nylon can be used as a type of artificial muscle? We certainly didn’t until we came across [Brandon T. Wood]’s Material Linear-Actuator for Robotics entry for the 2018 Hackaday Prize.

When [Brandon] first learned about Nylon Linear Material Actuators (NLMAs), he became determined to find a repeatable and practical method of making and experimenting with them. This is how it works: hyper-wound coils of nylon, when heated, will contract along their length while expanding in width. Upon cooling, they return to their original shape.

[Brandon] has been busy mainly with the kind …read more

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N64 Emulated in VR Makes Hyrule go 3D

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The Nintendo 64 had some groundbreaking and popular 3D games, and [Avaer Kazmer] felt it was only right to tamper with things just enough to trick an emulator into playing Ocarina of Time in VR, complete with stereoscopic 3D. The result is more than just running an emulator on a simulated screen in virtual reality; the software correctly renders a slightly different perspective of the world of Hyrule to each eye in order to really make the 3D pop in a way the original never could, and make it playable with VR controllers in the process. The VR emulator solution …read more

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Ultra-Low Power, Energy Harvesting Battery Charger

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This half-inch square ultra-low power energy harvesting LiPo cell charger by [Kris Winer] uses a low voltage solar panel to top up a small lithium-polymer cell, which together can be used as the sole power source for projects. It’s handy enough that [Kris] uses them for his own projects and offers them for sale to fellow hackers. It’s also his entry into the Power Harvesting Challenge of the Hackaday Prize.

The board is essentially a breakout board for the Texas Instrument BQ25504, configured to charge and maintain a single lithium-polymer cell. The BQ25504 is an integrated part that takes care …read more

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Worn Train Rails Get Judged by Laser

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[Calango] is a railway technician, and for a school final project created the Rail Wear Surveillance Trolley (RWST) which is a delightfully designed device made mainly from PVC conduit with one job: travel down a segment of train track while shining a green laser onto the rail, and capture camera images. The trolley holds both the laser and the camera at just the right angles for the camera to capture a profile of the rail’s curved surface. The images are sent via Bluetooth to a smartphone for later analysis. Rail wear can be judged by checking how well the profile …read more

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RGB Sensor’s New Job: Cryptocurrency Trade Advisor

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[XenonJohn] dabbles in cryptocurrency trading, and when he saw an opportunity to buy an RGB color sensor, his immediate thought — which he admitted to us would probably not be the immediate thought of most normal people — was that he could point it to his laptop screen and have it analyze the ratio of green (buy) orders to red (sell) orders being made for crypto trading. In theory, if at a given moment there are more people looking to buy than there are people looking to sell, the value of a commodity could be expected to go up slightly …read more

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A Peek Into a Weed-Eating Robot’s Test Fixtures

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When it comes to production, fast is good! But right the first time is better. Anything that helps prevent rework down the line is worth investing in. Some of the best tools to catch problems are good test fixtures. The folks at Tertill (a solar-powered robot for killing weeds that kickstarted last year) took the time to share two brief videos of DIY test fixtures they use to test components before assembly.

The videos are short, but they demonstrate all the things that make a good test: on the motor tester there are no connectors or wires to fiddle with, …read more

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DIY Socket for Prosthetics Contains Power Supply, Charger

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Innovation in prosthetics is open to anyone looking to enhance the quality of life, but there’s an aspect of it that is sometimes under-served. The DIY Prosthetic Socket entry to the Hackaday Prize is all about the foundation of a useful prosthesis: a custom, form-fitting, and effective socket with a useful interface for attaching other hardware. While [atharvshringaregt] is also involved with a project for a high-tech robotic hand with meaningful feedback, socket fitting and design is important enough to be its own project.

The goal is not just to explore creating these essential parts in a way that’s accessible …read more

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Raspberry Pi Zero Stepper Driver, First of Many Modules

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The Raspberry Pi in general (and the Zero W model in particular) are wonderful pieces of hardware, but they’re not entirely plug-and-play when it comes to embedded applications. The user is on the hook for things like providing a regulated power source, an OS, and being mindful of proper shutdown and ESD precautions. Still, the capabilities make it worth considering and [Alpha le ciel] has a project to make implementation easier with the Raspberry Pi Zero W Stepper Motor Module, which is itself part of a larger project plan to make the Pi Zero W into a robust building block …read more

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