Makers and open hardware for innovation

Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.

Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.

Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.

The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.

For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990ssimilar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.

By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.

Historically, the education system has produced graduates that went on to work for companies where new products were invented, then pushed to consumers. Today, consumers are driving the innovation process and demanding education, business and invention to meet their requests. Makers are at the center of this innovation transformation.

Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine

In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.

 

6,787 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Portable Classroom Upgrade: Smaller, Cheaper, Faster
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/20/portable-classroom-upgrade-smaller-cheaper-faster/

    DIY Raspberry Pi Outernet Satellite Receiver Assembly & Testing | #EduCase Project Build
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24HBmRKHULs

    Setting up the Raspberry Pi as a DIY software defined radio satellite down link.

    Setting up the Iridium L-Band system for receiving news, content, tutorials, weather and files anywhere in the world completely FREE via the Outernet satellite system routed through a Raspberry Pi and a software defined radio.

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Roll Your Own 64GB SD Card From An EMMC Chip
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/18/roll-your-own-64gb-sd-card-from-an-emmc-chip/

    It’s well-known that buying Flash storage devices from cheap online retailers is fraught with danger. Stories abound of multi-gigabyte drives that turn out to be multi-megabyte ones engineered to falsely report their capacity. So when [Jason Gin] found a source of 64GB Toshiba eMMC chips for only $6 per device he bought a few, but was prepared for disappointment.

    To test them, he decided to use an SD card interface. There are minor differences between eMMC and SD, but the interfaces are electrically the same and in most cases an SD controller will happily do business with an eMMC.

    His first attempt was something of a failure, wiring the chip to the PCB of a cheap USB-to-SD adaptor.

    His blog post is worth a read for more than just the very fine soldering involved. He takes us through some of the intricacies of SD interfacing, as well as talking at length about the decoupling and termination required to make a reliable connection. We particularly like his use of an area of unconnected BGA balls as prototyping space for decouplers.

    eMMC Adventures, Episode 1: Building my own 64GB memory card with a $6 eMMC chip
    https://ripitapart.com/2016/10/28/emmc-adventures-episode-1-building-my-own-64gb-memory-card-with-a-6-emmc-chip/

    MMC and eMMC storage is closely related to the SD card standard everyone knows today. In fact, SD hosts will often be able to use MMC devices without modification (electrically, they are the same, but software-wise SD has a slightly different feature set; for exa

    e commands. The “e” in eMMC refers to the fact that the memory is a BGA chip directly soldered (embedded) to the motherboard (this also prevents it from being easily upgraded without the proper tools and know-how.

    eMMC Pinout: Your Balls (Aren’t) Showing

    There are plenty of pinouts for eMMC on the Internet, but they all show the pinout for a top view. Since I’m not soldering the eMMC to a PCB, I need to get a bottom view.

    Conclusion

    This was quite the learning experience. I not only learned that eMMC flash memory does not necessarily have the near-SSD performance that the latest devices offer, but I learned how to “exploit” the unused pads of a BGA device as a sort of “prototype area” for soldering small components onto.

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    DIY Optical Sensor Breakout Board makes DIY Optical Mouse
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/21/diy-optical-sensor-breakout-board-makes-diy-optical-mouse/

    Wanting to experiment with using optical mouse sensors but a bit frustrated with the lack of options, [Tom Wiggins] rolled his own breakout board for the ADNS 3050 optical mouse sensor and in the process of developing it used it to make his own 3D-printed optical mouse. Optical mouse sensors are essentially self-contained cameras that track movement and make it available to a host. To work properly, the sensor needs a lens assembly and appropriate illumination, both of which mate to a specialized bracket along with the sensor. [Tom] found a replacement for the original ADNS LED but still couldn’t find the sensor bracket anywhere, so he designed his own.

    ADNS 3050 Optical Sensor & Mouse
    A board to utilize the ADNS 3050 optical sensor and a fully 3D printable mouse
    https://hackaday.io/project/18344-adns-3050-optical-sensor-mouse

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Showing Off the Badge Hacks from SuperCon
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/21/showing-off-the-badge-hacks-from-supercon/

    Since the Beginning of Time* humans have been irresistibly attracted to the blinking of an LED. At first there was one LED and it was good, but eventually there were many working in unison and the matrix was formed. Badge hacking at the Hackaday SuperConference challenged everyone to do something interesting with the display matrix and other yummy hardware on this year’s badge and we were in awe of what people managed to pull off.

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Making While Mobile
    https://hackaday.io/project/18563-making-while-mobile

    A documentary about how to participate in the Maker Movement while on a perpetual road trip.

    Producing a high-quality video series is indeed a lot of work — especially when working solo. I have been enjoying the entire very-time-consuming process. The biggest challenges have been polishing up the scripts for season one & memorization of the monologues.

    While this project initially will discuss some of the basic challenges & successes of making a video series; it will soon delve into some of the specifics about the off-the-shelf hardware I’m using. I have already built a few accessories for shoots & expect to need a few more very soon. There are many on the interwebs that are offering their knowledge to the world in an audio/visual format. These content creators have been instrumental in helping provide both inspiration & wisdom as I move forward with the project. The free exchange of knowledge is a marvelous thing.

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Mintomat: An Overcomplicated Gumball Machine
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/25/mintomat-an-overcomplicated-gumball-machine/

    How do you get teenagers interested in science, technology, and engineering? [Erich]’s team at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences makes them operate three robots to get a gumball. The entire demonstration was whipped together in a few days, and has been field-repaired at least once

    MINTomat: World’s Most Complicated Bubble Gum Automata?
    https://mcuoneclipse.com/2016/11/19/mintomat-worlds-most-complicated-bubble-gum-automata/

    Yes, pretty over engineered compared to a normal bubble gum automata, but that’s part of the fun

    MINT is the German language equivalent for STEM. The basic idea is a fun system which puts out bubble gums or mints with human interaction. The user has to use three robotics system to carry a bubble gum out of the system.

    The base of the mobile robot is our version of the Zumo robot running with FreeRTOS on an NXP ARM Cortex-M4F. It uses the Nordic Semiconductor nRF24L01+ 2.4 GHz transceiver to communicate with the controller board

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A Smart Wand for all us Muggles
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/26/a-smart-wand-for-all-us-muggles/

    Arthur C. Clarke said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Even though we know that something isn’t “magic”, it’s nice to see how close we can get. [Dofl] and his friends, big fans of the magic in Harry Potter, thought the same thing, and decided to create a magic wand that they could use themselves.

    The wand itself is 3D printed and has a microcontroller and WiFi board, a voice recognition board, a microphone, and a vibrating motor stuffed inside.

    The wand converts the voice into commands and since the wand is connected to WiFi, the commands can be used to communicate with your WiFi connected lights (or your WiFi connected anything, really.) Five voice commands are recognized to turn on and off music, the lights, and a “summon” command which is used in the video to request a hamburger from delivery.com. For feedback, the motor is vibrated when a command is recognized.

    We Made A Smart Wand Which Lets Muggles Cast 5 Spells That Actually Work
    http://www.boredpanda.com/we-made-a-smart-wand-for-muggles/

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Most Flexible Synthesizer is DIY, Raspberry Pi
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/26/the-most-flexible-synthesizer-is-diy-raspberry-pi/

    [Ivan Franco] sent us this great synthesizer project that he’s working on. Or maybe it’s more like a synthesizer meta-project: a synthesizer construction set. You see, what Pryth has is a Raspberry Pi inside that’s running a custom distribution that includes SuperCollider to generate the sound, OSC for the communication layer, and a Teensy with up to 80 (!) multiplexed analog inputs that you’ll connect up to whatever hardware you desire.

    With the computer inside the box — the Raspberry Pi in question — you can easily make this system into a standalone musical instrument, without tethering it to your laptop.

    Everything is open source, and aside from the Pi and the price of potentiometers, this is a dirt-cheap device. You’re not going to be limited by SuperCollider

    The system is brand new, but check out the Mitt synth device that [Ivan] already made

    The Mitt
    https://prynth.github.io/instruments/mitt/

    “The Mitt” is a digital synthesizer that explores the fine motor skills of the human hand and the performative aspects of micro gestures. Its tangible interface is constituted by an array of five channels, each composed of an extremely accurate thumb joystick, potentiometers and buttons.

    We chose to explore the ambient and drone style through a 5-channel granular synthesis. Sounds can be freely assigned to each channel and joysticks are mapped to amplitude and sample read position, requiring continuous energy input from the player to reach morphing sustaining sounds.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Parametric 3D Printable Wheels And Treads
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/parametric-3d-printable-wheels-and-treads/

    When it comes to robotic platforms, there is one constant problem: wheels. Wheels have infinite variety for every purpose imaginable, but if you buy a wheeled robotic chassis you have exactly one choice. Even if you go down to the local Horror Freight, there’s only about five or six different wheels available, all of which will quickly disintegrate.

    To solve this problem, [Audrey] created OpenWheel, a system of parametric, 3D-printable wheels, tweels, tires, and tracks for robotics and more.

    Like all good parametric 3D-printable designs, OpenWheel is written in OpenSCAD. These aren’t 3D designs; they’re code that compiles into printable objects, with variables to set the radius, thickness, diameter of the axle, bolt pattern, and everything else that goes into the shape of a wheel.

    OpenWheel : parametric OSH wheels/tyres/tracks
    https://hackaday.io/project/16024-openwheel-parametric-osh-wheelstyrestracks

    Openwheel provides parametric open source wheels, tyres and tank tracks completely 3D printable, with lots of options, for robots and more

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Building Beautiful Cell Phones Out Of FR4
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/building-beautiful-cell-phones-out-of-fr4/

    Over on Hackaday.io, [bobricius] took this technology and designed something great. It’s a GSM cell phone with a case made out of FR4. It’s beautiful, and if you’re ever in need of a beautifully crafted burner phone, this is the one to build.

    The components, libraries, and toolchains to build a cellphone from scratch have been around for a very long time. Several years ago, the MIT Media Lab prototyped a very simple cellphone on a single piece of FR4. It made calls, but not much else. It was ugly, but it worked. [Bobricius] took the idea and ran with it.

    DIY GSM arduino FR4 cell phone
    https://hackaday.io/project/15606-diy-gsm-arduino-fr4-cell-phone

    Simple gsm phone with Avago HCMS 8 digit display, 16 keys, atmega328, and sim800l module

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Glues You Can Use: Adhesives for the Home Shop
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/glues-you-can-use-adhesives-for-the-home-shop/

    A while back I looked at lubricants for the home shop, with an eye to the physics and chemistry behind lubrication. Talking about how to keep parts moving got me thinking about the other side of the equation – what’s the science behind sticking stuff together? Home shops have a lot of applications for adhesives, so it probably pays to know how they work so you can choose the right glue for the job. We’ll also take a look at a couple of broad classes of adhesives that are handy to have around the home shop.

    Reply
  12. Tomi Engdahl says:

    The Hunt For Red October In A Bathtub
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/30/the-hunt-for-red-october-in-a-bathtub/

    Anything can be a remote controlled airplane, and ‘copters – quad or not – simply beat the air into submission. Remote controlled cars are easy, and RC tanks can even shoot their guns. One type of vehicle has eluded remote control hobbyists to a large extent; building a remote control submarine is hard. Not only do you have buoyancy to worry about, but you also need a way to keep the dry parts dry, all while operating in an environment where radio doesn’t really work well.

    [Ivan] has already built RC planes, but wanted to tackle a new challenge. He built an RC submarine, and he did it using the simplest household materials.

    RC submarine
    http://www.rcfair.com/en/blogs/view_entry/14639/

    Reply
  13. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Controlling Your Instruments From A Computer: Doing Something Useful
    http://hackaday.com/2016/11/29/controlling-your-instruments-from-a-computer-doing-something-useful/

    Do you know how to harvest data from your bench tools, like plotting bandwidth from your oscilloscope with a computer? It’s actually pretty easy. Many bench tools make this easy using a standard protocol with USB to make the connection.

    Reply
  14. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Make Your Own Nuclear Battery
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/01/make-your-own-nuclear-battery/

    A Betavoltaic cell is a device that uses a radioactive source of beta particles and a semiconductor p-n junction to generate electricity. Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, is often used as the radioactive element. You may think that tritium is hard to obtain or even forbidden, however, recently you can find tritium in self-lightning key chains, and it is also used in watches and firearm night sights.

    Nuclear batteries in the microwatt range are used in clock circuits of critical computer systems and in some medical implants. They cost approximately $2,200, so you can figure out the price per watt. [NurdRage] version can be built for $220.

    Reply
  15. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Quickly Prototyping X-ray Backscatter Machines
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/01/quickly-prototyping-x-ray-backscatter-machines/

    The focus of Ben’s talk at this year’s Hackaday SuperConference is building low-cost scientific apparatus quickly. From Applied Science, Ben has cemented his position as a wizard who can find anything either on eBay or at a surplus store. The real trick, Ben tells us, is getting his boss and accounting to understand this rapid prototyping mindset.

    The first build Ben walked the SuperCon through was a device to test a hypothesis. Were X-ray backscatter machines, the devices found at airport security lines from about 2009 to 2013, actually effective at stopping terrorists? Although there are obvious safety and civil liberties questions raised by assessing X-ray backscatter devices, this is simply a question on the effectiveness of the TSA’s fanciest new gear. Do X-ray backscatter devices stop terrorists more effectively than a metal detector?

    The answer to this question came in a one-month build. Even at the beginning of the build, Ben says he didn’t know much about X-rays.

    Reply
  16. Tomi Engdahl says:

    RISC-V Expands its Audience
    Workshop attracts chip architects, execs
    http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330915

    The RISC-V movement is grabbing the attention of a growing set of chip architects and semiconductor executives. Several came to the group’s fifth workshop here to gauge whether the seeds planted by a handful of academics could grow into a disruptive, commercial reality.

    The group aims to spread support for its free instruction set architecture across a broad range of products. Talks at the event made clear it will take several years for the ambitious efforts to bear fruit.

    Many attendees said they felt exhilarated by the prospects of free, flexible cores unencumbered by patents with an ecosystem of innovations around them. Some feared the efforts could undermine existing markets in an industry already tightening its belt in a cold winter of consolidation.

    “RISC-V is the Linux of processor architectures,”

    “This event has the same feel to me as the early Linux gatherings in the 1990’s,” Minnich told EE Times. “You could tell something was happening, but you didn’t know where it was going to go, just that things were going to change,” he said.

    Reply
  17. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Laser Cut LEGO in MDF
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/07/laser-cut-lego-in-mdf/

    It’s hard not to be a fan of LEGO. The humble plastic bricks from Denmark enabled many a young engineer to bring their architectural and mechanical fantasies to life. But one limitation was that you were stuck using the bricks LEGO designed. Thankfully, [John Sokol] has come up with a way to laser cut his own LEGO-compatible bricks, and provided the tools so you can do the same.

    Wednesday, December 07, 2016
    Lasercut LEGO bricks, attempt 1 successful.
    http://johnsokol.blogspot.fi/2016/12/lasercut-lego-bricks-attempt-1.html

    Reply
  18. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Hospital + Makerspace Initiative
    https://hackaday.io/project/12687-hospital-makerspace-initiative

    Combining the rapid prototyping & small-batch production capabilities of makerspaces with the unique challenges faced by hospitals.

    Reply
  19. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Designing Ourselves: A Future of Cybernetics for Everyone
    Neil Harbisson envisions a cybernetic future of artificial sensory organs for the masses.
    http://www.designnews.com/content/designing-ourselves-future-cybernetics-everyone/192245216746168?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161203.tst004c

    Reply
  20. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Nascent Project: Open Source Scanning Electron Microscope
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/02/nascent-project-open-source-scanning-electron-microscope/

    I used to have access to some pretty nice Scanning Electron Microscopes (a SEM) at my day job. While they are a bit more complex than a 3D printer, they are awfully handy when you need them. [Adam Guilmet] acquired a scrapped unit and started trying to figure out how to breathe life into it. His realization was that a SEM isn’t all that complicated by today’s standards. So he has set out to take what he has learned and build one from scrap.

    In all fairness, he has a long way to go and is looking for help. He currently says, “[T]his is being powered by fairy dust, unicorn farts, and a budget that would make the poorest of students look like Donald Trump.” Still, he’s collected a lot of interesting data and we hope he can build a team that can succeed.

    Open Source Freakin’ Scanning Electron Microscope
    https://hackaday.io/project/18643-open-source-freakin-scanning-electron-microscope

    Description
    With all the relatively cheap thermal, high speed cameras and other misc. scientific equipment out there, the age of the citizen scientist has never looked better. Even equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars just 10 years ago has dropped to the point where many people can actually afford them without selling a kidney. You’d think that after 79 years the same could be said for electron microscopes. You really can’t find even a used one with their being so uncommon. With a few compromises and the right design, it’ll be possible to build one with commonly available and inexpensive parts.

    Reply
  21. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Perceptoscope
    A public viewing device for mixed reality experiences in the form factor of coin-operated binoculars.
    https://hackaday.io/project/10637-perceptoscope

    Reply
  22. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Speed Run [James Bruton’s] Star Wars Builds
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/10/speed-run-james-brutons-star-wars-builds/

    We’ve been following [James Bruton]’s builds here on Hackaday for quite a while and he has built some impressive stuff. We love how he often doesn’t cover everything up, leaving enough room to admire the working bits under the hood. Just in time for the release of the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One, [James] put together an overview of his Star Wars robot builds.

    The build summary includes his R6 droid, his GNK walking droid and the third revision of his BB-8 droid.

    Reply
  23. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Laser Cutting a Wooden Dymaxion Globe
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/09/laser-cutting-a-wooden-dymaxion-globe/

    Everyone knows that globes are cool — what else would you use as the centerpiece of your library/study? But, sadly, making your own isn’t a simple process.

    Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just laser cut flat sections, and assemble them to form a faceted “globe?”

    Well, it is, and you can! Because, [Gavin] over at tinkerings.org (a Hackaday favorite) has created the files to do just that! This map projection, originally designed by the very interesting Buckminster Fuller, is designed to be either laid flat or three-dimensionally on an icosahedron (a 20-sided polyhedron).

    https://tinkerings.org/2016/11/05/buckminster-fullers-map-a-lasercut-dymaxion-globe/

    Reply
  24. Tomi Engdahl says:

    3D-Printable Raman Spectrometer
    Professional Grade Raman performing Spectrometer designed for Lab or field use.
    https://hackaday.io/project/18126-3d-printable-raman-spectrometer

    The DAV5 V3 Spectrometer will be the only project build here on Hackaday in its category, with ongoing, full performance and specifications documentation, this project will also be at least 95% 3D printed!

    Reply
  25. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Modify Locks to Baffle Burglars
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/12/modify-locks-to-baffle-burglars/

    While it’s often thought of as a criminal activity, there’s actually a vibrant hobby community surrounding the art of lock picking. In the same way that white hat hackers try to break into information systems to learn the ways that they can be made stronger, so do those in the locksport arena try to assess the weaknesses of various locks. For the amateur, it can be exciting (and a little unnerving) to experience the ease at which a deadbolt can be picked, and if your concern is great enough, you can go a little farther and modify your locks to make them harder to defeat.

    (972) Rallock67′s Tension Trickery
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqe0lsbJPBg

    Reply
  26. Tomi Engdahl says:

    DIY Mini Printer is 95% Wood, Prints Tiny Cute Images
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/12/diy-mini-printer-is-95-wood-prints-tiny-cute-images/

    This little DIY 64×64 graphical printer by [Egor] is part pen plotter in design, somewhat dot matrix-ish in operation, and cleverly designed to use unmodified 9G servos.

    Small DIY CNC machines driven over a serial line commonly use Arduinos and CD-ROM drive guts (like this Foam Cutter or this Laser Paper Cutter) but this build uses its own custom rack-and-pinion system, and has some great little added details like the spring-loaded clip to hold paper onto the print pad.

    Reply
  27. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Digitabulum: The last motion-capture glove
    https://hackaday.io/project/1972-digitabulum-the-last-motion-capture-glove

    Digitabulum is an open motion-capture glove that was intended to be a full-featured, hacker-friendly user-input and sensor platform.

    This is Digitabulum (latin: glove). It is an open-source motion capture glove that was intended to be a full-featured, hacker-friendly user-input and sensor platform with a target price of under $400 per hand in its most complete configuration.

    It is the goal of this project to provide an affordable, general open platform on which all other gloves can be emulated, and that does not require a host computer to be used as a high-level tool for sensing things in the environment that we ordinarily cannot.

    Core-values

    If it isn’t open-source, it isn’t worth investing the brain-space to learn. All the firmware is on our github page along with instructions for building it. If the release goes well, we will also post hardware details.

    We don’t care to pick a “target-market”. We would prefer to give creative people good tools to define the markets that everyone else is hung-up on chasing.

    Your hands are your own, and no one can possibly code for every conceivable use you have for them. We’ve watched many companies die trying.

    Digitabulum firmware for hardware r1 using FreeRTOS and GCC.
    https://github.com/Manuvr/Digitabulum-Firmware

    Reply
  28. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Crazy Clock
    A replacement controller for Lavet stepper clock movements
    https://hackaday.io/project/5880-crazy-clock

    Simple, run-of-the-mill wall clocks with second hands that step from one second to the next are driven by a Lavet stepper motor clock movement. Once you know how they work, it’s relatively simple to design a microcontroller based replacement for the electronic part of the movement. If you do that, you can make the clock tick any way you want.

    There are presently thirteen different firmware loads for the Crazy Clock. Five of them are “alternate timebase” clocks.

    At the end of the gear train of a Lavet stepper motor based clock movement is a gear with a permanent magnet attached to it. The gear sits in a stator with a coil wound around it. The coil is (ordinarily) pulsed at 1 Hz with alternating polarity. That causes the magnet to rotate 180°, which in turn causes the second hand to move 6° (one second’s worth).

    If you cut the traces on the board that lead to the chip from the battery and to the coil, and then tack on wires to those traces, you can wire in an alternative controller that can make the clock tick any way you want.

    Although a single AA battery starts out providing 1.5 volts, as it discharges, the voltage will drop even though it is still capable of putting out enough current to drive the movement acceptably. But a cheap microcontroller, like an ATTiny45, won’t operate properly even on 1.5 volts, much less anything lower.

    The boost converter need only be capable of a burst current of about 5 mA, and most of the time the controller will draw less than 100 nA. This is because we strategically turn most of the internal peripherals off and put the controller to sleep most of the time.

    Reply
  29. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Converting Film Camera to Digital the Hard Way
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/14/converting-film-camera-to-digital-the-hard-way/

    [Robin] is a hobby photographer with some very nice old film camera gear. But who has the money or patience for developing film these days? (Well, lots of people, especially artists, but that’s a different Hackaday article.) So to update his old gear without breaking the bank, he glommed a Sony Nex digital camera onto the back of a nice old Nikon, and documented the process for us.

    A friend of mine once said, “never underestimate what a good engineer can do with a file and patience.”

    Film Cameras to Digital
    Customising classic old cameras to shoot with film and digital
    https://digitalfilmcams.wordpress.com/

    Sensor at Film Plane

    Fit Sony Nex digital Exmor Sensor to 35mm Film Camera

    This is the start of a series of pages to assist owners of collectable film cameras with the knowledge to be able to to fit a Sony Nex 14 or 16 mp CMOS Sensor into the film rectangle area, at near to exact, the crucial Film Plane depth. The inserted sensor should still be clear of the shutter enabling your film camera to take perfectly in-focus digital photos by fitting a Sony Nex to the rear of the film camera as the “Electric Film”.

    I have tested the clearance on the following cameras so am fairly confident that it will apply to all 35mm Film Cameras. Tested – Leica M3, Leicaflex SL2, Canon A1, Nikon FE, Nikon FE2.

    With a digital sensor it is hard to ascertain just where the Film Plane location is.

    Reply
  30. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A How-To in Homebrew Design, Fab, and Assembly with Structural Framing Systems
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/14/a-how-to-in-homebrew-design-fab-and-assembly-with-extruded-profiles/

    At this point, the internet is crawling with butt-kicking homebrew 3D printers made with extruded profiles, but it’s easy to underestimate the difficulty in getting there. Sure, most vendors sell a suite of interlocking connectors, but how well do these structural framing systems actually fare when put to the task of handling a build with sub-millimeter tolerances?

    I’ve been playing around with these parts for about two years. What I’ve found is that, yes, precise and accurate results are possible. Nevertheless, those results came to me after I failed and–dry, rinse, repeat–failed again! Only after I understood the limits of both the materials and assembly processes was I able to deliver square, dimensionally accurate gantries that could carry a laser beam around a half-square-meter workbed.

    Should we be surprised that no sole human can call “structural framing systems” their personal claim to fame? Nah. Competitors riff off of each other time and time again

    Extruded profiles used to be pricey, but these days a few Kickstarter campaigns have knocked down the price with a few cheaper lines, namely OpenBeam, MakerBeam and VSlot. Each of these extrusions is more than capable of handling the day-to-day extrusion needs of the hobbyist.

    Truth be told, these maker-breeds are fundamentally different, so it’s best to understand what we’re paying for when we pick a budget alternative.

    So what sets those shiny, industry-standard profiles apart from these budget alternatives? First off, most of our friendly commercial leaders have been in the business for well over a decade, so it’s pretty safe to assume they’ve been chewing on their nails long enough to get a few things right.

    Second, these companies have had both the time and resources to characterize their material library. What this means is that we can quickly find material characteristics of these profile, such as their section moduli and moments of inertia, to help us better estimate the limits of our materials before committing to them.

    Finally, most heavy-duty industry players make their extrusions from 6061-T6, aka: good-ol’ aircraft grade Aluminum. Each of hacker-friendly maker alternatives is formed with 6063-grade aluminum. As for the differences, 6061 has about twice the yield strength and hardness over 6063. Should these structural differences matter to you? For small gantry builds, probably not. On the other hand, 6063 is noticeably softer than its 6061 cousin, so keep those corners safe!

    Structural Framing Systems Aren’t LEGOs®

    Structrual framing systems arrive with a host of classy brackets and interconnects to help us build up large structures quickly. However, while parts might seem to snap into place, the reality is that they’re a bit sloppier, so nailing down the dimensions that matter takes a bit more effort.

    In a perfect world, these extruded profiles and brackets would behave like the LEGO bricks of our hey-day.

    Well snap, we don’t actually live in that world, so each one of our brackets and fittings has some form of slop. In each of these cases, we need to understand where this slop comes from and how to handle it.

    Corner brackets are one of the easiest ways to join two profiles at 90-degrees, but they’re notorious for their slop.

    Plates are another option for joining both corners and other right-angle extensions.

    Most common profiles have holes on the end that can be tapped to accommodate a corner cube.

    By far, our best option to fixing “the wiggles” is in the design.

    Reply
  31. Tomi Engdahl says:

    [Fran Blanche] Goes In-Depth with the Maillardet Automaton
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/15/fran-blanche-goes-in-depth-with-the-maillardet-automaton/

    We’re not specialists, but the Maillardet Automaton is one of the more amazing mechanical machines that we’ve seen in a while, and [Fran Blanche] got to spend some time with it in an attempt to figure out how it’s mysterious missing pen apparatus would have worked.

    Reply
  32. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Animatronic Cosplay Wings
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/17/animatronic-cosplay-wings/

    In recent years, Cosplay as a hobby has seen improvement in the props department by leaps and bounds. Thanks in part due to the rise of the Maker culture and the easy availability of design and manufacturing tools and processes. Case in point is this awesome set of Animatronic Wings that programmer [Nelson Stoldt] built for his daughter who wanted to be Nightmare Moon.

    [Nelson] had no idea what he’d gotten himself in to when he answered “Sure, I can do that”. Making motorized cosplay wings that open up to 8 feet wide and close again at the flick of a switch without weighing a ton is not a trivial project. The final rig did end up tipping the scales at just over 9 kgs, but we guess that’s a load that Cosplayers are used to hauling around.

    Using a nifty program called Linkage, he played around with a few different design approaches until he found a mechanism that worked well.

    A cordless drill was then hacked to help power the wings

    The electronics are pretty simple, an Arduino Uno with two input switches and a DPDT relay for controlling the motor direction.

    Winging It 101
    Making Animatronic Cosplay Wings
    http://thedragonsnest3studios.weebly.com/wingingit101.html

    Linkage is a computer aided design program used for quick prototyping of linkage mechanisms.
    http://blog.rectorsquid.com/linkage-mechanism-designer-and-simulator/

    Reply
  33. Tomi Engdahl says:

    F-CPU
    The Freedom CPU project has a log here too now :-)
    https://hackaday.io/project/8774-f-cpu

    Today, the Freedom CPU Project’s goal is to create and distribute the source code of a microprocessor core under a copyleft license: all the VHDL sources, resources and most tools are Free as in Free Speech. When it was created in 1999, the F-CPU Core #0 (FC0) was the first purely SIMD superpipelined RISC CPU core that could handle 64-bit data and wider.

    Reply
  34. Tomi Engdahl says:

    SiFive Is Setting Silicon Free with Open-Source Chips
    https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/sifive-setting-silicon-free-open-source-chips/10136142447173?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161219.tst004c

    Moore’s Law is dead, just not in the way everyone thinks. SiFive believes open source hardware is the way forward for the semiconductor industry.

    Moore’s Law is dead…just not in the way everyone thinks. Technological advances keep allowing chips to scale, but the economics are another story – particularly for smaller companies that can’t afford chips in the volumes that the big chipmakers would like from their customers.

    The solution, according to San Francisco-based startup, SiFive, is open-source hardware, specifically an architecture developed by the company’s founders called RISC-V (pronounced “risk-five”). Done right SiFive, which was awarded Startup of the Year at the 2016 Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards, believes that RISC-V will do for the hardware industry what Linux has done for software.

    Reply
  35. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Books You Should Read: The Hardware Hacker
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/16/books-you-should-read-the-hardware-hacker/

    Bunnie’s The Hardware Hacker ($29.95, No Starch Press) is the dead tree expression of years of living and working in Shenzhen, taking multiple products to market, and exploring the philosophy that turned a fishing village into a city that produces the world’s electronic baubles.

    This is not Bunnie’s first book on Shenzhen. Earlier this year, The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen was released through CrowdSupply, and it’s the perfect book to keep on your carry on for your flight to Hong Kong.

    Earlier this year, we took a look at another book on Chinese manufacturing culture, Poorly Made In China, and the impression the author gives could not be more different from Bunnie’s description of Shenzhen.

    What does The Hardware Hacker bring to the table? The first third of the book is an excellent introduction to building more than one thing. Design for manufacture, testing, cost of goods sold, and everything else you’re required to know before building selling the product you’re working on are covered well in this book. Of course, no book on the business of making things could ever be considered complete. The Hardware Hacker is, however, a great introduction.

    Reply
  36. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Closing the Loop on an Artificial Pancreas
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/19/closing-the-loop-on-an-artificial-pancreas/

    Pumps generally cost about $5000 or so, and need to be replaced every three years. While I’m not looking forward to paying the bill when her current pump gives up the ghost, I am certainly keen to do a teardown on the old one. I suspect it’s dead simple in there — a tiny gear motor, some kind of limit switches, and a main board. It’ll be painful to see how little my money buys, but it’ll be cool to play around with it.

    Also a tremendous boon has been her continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which has a small electrochemical glucose sensor that gets inserted into her skin and sends data back to a display unit. We get a real-time graph of her approximate blood glucose level, updated every five minutes.

    The painful part of this is that closed-loop CGM-integrated pumps are available elsewhere in the world. So the blocker isn’t a technical hurdle at all, but a regulatory one. The US FDA refuses to allow manufacturers to offer closed-loop pumps here

    So the FDA is being careful and making the manufacturers prove the pumps are safe, and I appreciate that. But we’ve been told for years that the artificial pancreas is just around the corner, but it never seems to get here. Some people are sick of waiting, though, and have taken matters into their own hands with an artificial pancreas Android app. The project looks impressively well designed and executed, and the code is open and available for inspection. There’s no way the device would ever come close to passing regulatory muster, of course, but the fact that hackers have built a working artificial pancreas only serves to demonstrate that all the technology is here and ready to go.

    At this point, I can only hope that a closed-loop system is available by the time she needs a new pump

    AndroidAPS wiki
    https://github.com/MilosKozak/AndroidAPS/wiki

    Reply
  37. Tomi Engdahl says:

    A Menorah For The 21st Century
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/21/a-menorah-for-the-21st-century/

    For those new and experienced, this time of year is a great chance for enterprising makers to apply their skills to create unique gifts and decorations for family and friends. [Mike Diamond] of What I Made Today built a phone controlled, light-up menorah. It’s a charming way to display some home automation know-how during the holidays.

    Expanding on his previous project — a pocket-sized menorah — a Raspberry Pi Zero with a WiFi dongle, some LEDs, wire, and tea lights suffice for the materials, while setting-up Blynk on the Raspberry Pi and a phone to control the lights ties it together after mounting it in an old monitor housing.

    Light Your Menorah (Hanukiyya) or Christmas Tree Remotely from your Phone
    http://www.whatimade.today/light-your-menorah-hanukiyya-christmas-tree-remotely-from-your-phone/

    12 December 2016 on blynk, raspberry pi, Raspberry-pi, LED, Hanukkah Menorah, home automation, remote control, WiFi, screen bash, hanukka, Hanukkah, Hanukkia, E-hanukkia

    Reply
  38. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Open Source Freakin’ Scanning Electron Microscope
    You read that right.
    https://hackaday.io/project/18643-open-source-freakin-scanning-electron-microscope

    With all the relatively cheap thermal, high speed cameras and other misc. scientific equipment out there, the age of the citizen scientist has never looked better. Even equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars just 10 years ago has dropped to the point where many people can actually afford them without selling a kidney. You’d think that after 79 years the same could be said for electron microscopes. You really can’t find even a used one with their being so uncommon. With a few compromises and the right design, it’ll be possible to build one with commonly available and inexpensive parts.

    Reply
  39. Tomi Engdahl says:

    D.I.M.E.R PROJECT 6 DOF Robot Arm
    This is my robot arm, with recycled materials, can pick 2 Kg and costs around 100$
    https://hackaday.io/project/8709-dimer-project-6-dof-robot-arm

    Reply
  40. Tomi Engdahl says:

    AI and Manufacturing Concepts Can Be Explored with a Desktop Robotic Arm
    Robotic arm has expandable operating controls features and can easily be modified using external sensors or other electronic interfacing circuits.

    https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/ai-and-manufacturing-concepts-can-be-explored-desktop-robotic-arm/201055956547184?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161221.tst004c

    Robotics is a hot topic of discussion on blogs, online technical journals, and industry trade magazines.

    Global Specialties, a manufacturer of test equipment and electronics prototyping and training tools, has developed a desktop robotic arm that can be programmed in C or operated by a computer-based teach pendant, a keypad, Android mobile phone, or tablet. The robotic arm has expandable operating controls features and can easily be modified using external sensors or other electronic interfacing circuits.

    Reply
  41. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Light Pipes and LEDs Team Up for a Modern Take on the Nixie Tube
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/22/light-pipes-and-leds-team-up-for-a-modern-take-on-the-nixie-tube/

    There’s no doubting the popularity of Nixie tubes these days. They lend a retro flair to modern builds and pop up in everything from clocks to weather stations. But they’re not without their problems — the high voltage, the limited tube life, and the fact that you can have them in any color you want as long as it’s orange. Seems like it might be time for a modern spin on the Nixie that uses LEDs and light pipes. Meet Nixie Pipes.

    [John] is selling a limited run of the Nixie Pipes online, but he’s also open-sourced the project so you can build your own modules.

    Nixie Pipe – Modern Day LED Nixie Tube
    http://engineer.john-whittington.co.uk/2016/12/nixie-pipe-modern-day-led-nixie-tube/

    Hardware design files and firmware for my Nixie Pipe modules
    https://github.com/tuna-f1sh/nixiepipe-hardware

    Reply
  42. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Tools of the Trade – Thermoforming
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/22/tools-of-the-trade-thermoforming/

    Chances are good that you’ve already lost some blood to thermoforming, the plastics manufacturing process that turns a flat sheet of material into an unopenable clamshell package, tray inside a box, plastic cup, or leftover food container. Besides being a source of unboxing danger, it’s actually a useful technique to have in your fabrication toolchest. In this issue of Tools of the Trade, we look at how thermoforming is used in products, and how you can hack it yourself.

    Plastics used in thermoforming are thermoplastics: plastics that get soft above a certain temperature and then get hard when they cool. If you look at your food containers you’ll see the PE family. ABS and PLA, the favorites for 3D printing for precisely their thermoplastic properties, are also commonly used in thermoforming.

    In most thermoforming machines, there’s a large oven that hovers over the sheet. The oven’s heating elements will be above the material

    Temperature is critical in thermoplastics, because there is a narrow range between which the plastic is either solid or burning. It’s easy to ruin the material, especially if it is clear or white and subject to discoloration due to overheating.

    The heat can be done with a heat gun or blow dryer, though make sure not to dwell on any point for too long, and try to get everything evenly heated.

    Once the plastic is ready, it’s time for the mold. There are a few options here. One kind is called vacuum forming, and the idea is to have a lot of little holes in your mold, and when you put the sheet on top of the mold, you turn on a vacuum so that all the air is sucked out between the sheet and the mold, so the plastic conforms directly to the shape of the mold. Another option is to have two sides of a mold and press the two halves together with the sheet in between.

    The sheet then sits in the mold for a few seconds until it has cooled enough (sometimes aided by cool air or water), and it is ejected from the mold.

    There’s often a finishing step involved as well to clean up the sharp edges of the part, like rolling the lip of the plastic cup. The leftover plastic is then re-ground and recycled.

    Thermoforming is a sloppy process, so you can’t expect to start with a piece of plastic that’s laser cut with holes and then expect it to soften and fit over your mold perfectly with the holes in the right spot. Operations are usually done to the part after it has been molded.

    Reply
  43. Tomi Engdahl says:

    3D-Printable Raman Spectrometer
    Professional Grade Raman performing Spectrometer designed for Lab or field use.
    https://hackaday.io/project/18126-3d-printable-raman-spectrometer

    Reply
  44. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Hackspace U
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/26/hackspace-u/

    It’s funny, how obsessed we are with qualifications these days. Kids go to school and are immediately thrust into a relentless machine of tests, league tables, and exams. They are ruthlessly judged on grades, yet both the knowledge and qualifications those grades represent so often boil down to relatively useless pieces of paper.

    A gold standard of education is revealed as an expensive piece of paper with a networking opportunity if you are lucky. You need it to get the job, but in most cases the job overestimates the requirement for it. When a prospective employer ignores twenty years of industry experience to ask you what class of degree you got twenty years ago you begin to see the farcical nature of the situation.

    In our hackspaces, we see plenty of people engaged in this educational treadmill. From high schoolers desperately seeking to learn something other than simply how to regurgitate the textbook, through university students seeking an environment closer to an industrial lab or workshop, to perhaps most interestingly those young people who have eschewed university and gone straight from school into their own startups.

    The Hackspace As A Learning Environment

    All these people and many others come to our spaces to learn things. It’s not a replacement for an engineering degree, after all you won’t learn the concepts in [Stroud] alongside the 3D printer, but in a lot of cases what can be learned is equally as useful as anything you will learn in a lecture theatre.

    Reply
  45. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Open Source Art Encourages Society to Think Inclusively
    http://hackaday.com/2016/12/28/open-source-art-encourages-society-to-think-inclusively/

    Kate Reed has a vision for elevating the less talked about parts of ourselves, and of society. Through her art, she wants people to think about a part of themselves that makes them feel invisible, and to anonymously share that with the community around them. The mechanism for this is Invisible, a campaign to place translucent sculptures in public places around the world. The approach that she has taken to the project is very interesting — she’s giving the art away to empower the campaign.

    http://invisible.world/

    Reply

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