Make mSATA operating with mini PCI Express (Hackaday.com)

[Trucki] wanted to upgrade its JooJoo internal storage. MSATA inside the connector but peripheral that use this Protocol are hard to find and when you do'll it cost you and arm and leg. He knew he could get the solid state at an advantageous price drives that use the mini PCI Express standard, which is mechanically compatible with mSATA. So he set out to change a mini-PCI Express device to work with the mSATA Protocol. This involves swapping transmission lines and to reorganize the traces of tension on the connector. To manage the TX - and TX lines + it desoldered their decoupling capacitors and reorganized their business their signals. 3. 3V, lines, he had to cut food and rider soldering wires for correct pads.

This is some nice work enable to add a drive 32 GB for only 60 euros. Given that the device only comes with a SSD of 4 GB upgrade is almost mandatory if you plan to install a different operating system on the Joojoo.

If you are photographing and you know typing your hands (Hackaday.com)

If you've ever tried to take photos of yourself, you'll know that it can be a pain. It is particularly difficult to get this shot perfect your strokes piétés when you're out of breath Sprint across the room. OK, Yes, they have remote controls to do this. But what happens if you have lost your remote control or you simply want to have to wear? [LucidScience] set up a sweet, um, "handsfree" alternative.

Essentially, this hack emulates IR signals sent by a remote, Nikon is to take a picture immediately or to take pictures of time at regular intervals. We have seen a similar time remote using an arduino before and a really thorough to an AVR, but they do not take the same approach as [LucidScience] design in terms of monitoring of microphone to trigger input. The project includes several status LEDs and adjustments of ambient noise and triggering, and it can be mounted to the camera body. We wonder how Nikon features could be controlled using typing code and detail your calendar should have some sort of facts in hand (get it?) pulsetrain syntax.  You will probably need to have the world record of typing skills.

Discover the demo vid after the break.

Santa-pede challenge: conclusion (Hackaday.com)

At the end of October, we announced the purchase, pause, series generate kick off with "Santa-pede challenge."  The objective was to get your hands on one of those annoying dancing santas, it tear, and then use its parts to build something that works. We obtained our hands on some cool and same price received [Phillip Torrone] a judge of the guest. Join us after the break to see what we are up to with and may have a few laughs.

So, as you can see in the video, this competition has been a complete failure. We get a single entry. I've quickly discarded this terribly lame attempt in about 30 minutes. I am going to show some pictures of what I did, just for fun. There really are technically "walking" so far as it strangely scoots across your desk making you think about your life decisions.

Here is the beginning of the disassembly. Nothing surprising here. You can see that its half less is a piece of solid plastic (step joints or motorized).

Here are basic breakdown of what I did. I cut feet, radiation servo that his hat to flip back and forth and fade things leg room. There is a thread that went into the arms of Santa Claus. It was too thin and flexible to be useful for a large part of something that I simply thrown in the dustbin of parts.

I couldn't find the attachment to my flame propane, so I was using some tactics quite dubious. I would not recommend water heater for your flexible plastic for most projects. It do the job well.  After putting this piece, all I had to make a tweak "legs" newly created until he himself pulled forward. Its pretty pathetic, I know. It should be the entrance to joke that everyone else seems to good.

What we would like to have ideas. What ideas competition you? What you would compete in? Can what element you think of that has tons of potential hacking for a variety of skill levels?

External RAM for a ATmega128 (Hackaday.com)

Those who are familiar with the Atmel AVR 8-bit microcontroller line must already know that some of them supports external RAM. But you never really used this feature? Us do not have. Now you can learn how it is done by reading through this guide. It touches on all the equipment, but dwell on it. Instead, you will get the background you need on how to write, read, and test a plugin like sticking a in the image above. Routine test shows how to ensure that everything is working correctly with your mapping memory begin to develop firmware for this increase in capacity.

[Thanks Spman]

Read a digital caliper with a microcontroller (Hackaday.com)

[Husband] wanted a way to read a digital caliper electronically measures. He finished by using dashboard to do it, but not all the necessary equipment is seen above. The compass cost him about $7 on eBay, and they have four pins interface makes this hack quite a bit more easy. After a few test establishes their purpose. voltage, ground, clock and data. A bit of scope is proven to be data that were sent in 24-bit burst in the packages that are fairly easy to decode.

Hence, it is just a matter of interfacing with a microcontroller. The chip it uses is a MSP430G2231 runs at 3. 3V, but the logic of the caliper high is only 1. 5v. By constructing a map with a pair of transistors, the data and clock of the compass successful firing pins on the MSP430 low. This is gathered and analyzed by firmware [Mari] and can be read on a PC using a terminal program.

[Thanks Chris]

Sand falling game on and FPGA (Hackaday.com)

This sand falling game runs on a field-programmable gate array. The Altera Cyclone II lies at the heart of the Development Committee, run the game written in Verilog. [Skyler Schneider] modeled his project after a version of Java game called Pyro Sand Game. It treats each pixel VGA 640 × 480 screen as its own cell, through a set of rules to edit cells around him. This is very similar to Conway s Game of Life, except that there are different categories of cells behave uniquely (oil, water, plants, fire, etc.) and gravity is a key factor. Particular interest for us were the rules for each cell, and the [Skyler] method used to feed and to synchronize the VGA output. After the break you can see videos of demonstration, which through all features including the troll button.

Barely more than a card (Hackaday.com) MP3 player

If your manufacturing and Board soldering skills are up to it, you can make your own tiny MP3 player. This refund is only about half times larger that a standard SD card whose location is on the bottom of the Board seen above. The bulk of the work is supported by VS1011 MP3, decoder which has also its own stereo earpiece driver chip. There is no display and it seems that more k 4 PIC 18LF88 program memory is used. Too bad, we would love move to the next step, he attaching to the head unit in a car and impersonation of the communication, as if it were a CD changer.

[via hacked gadgets]

Make your own cookie cutters this year (Hackaday.com)

In case you need another reason to build, borrow, or buy a 3D printer, it's a way to design and print your own cookie cutters. [Nikolaus Gradwohl] established a processing application which aims to make the process a little easier design. If you've ever designed a front print object, but can get your hands on a MakerBot or similar device by a friend or your local hackerspace, it is for you. Discover the video after the break to see the process for the manufacture of a Cutter in the form of a mushroom, or simply download the application and give it a go.

 

Game Boy VGA to an FPGA (Hackaday.com)

[ViDAR] was looking for a project to be occupied and settled on the creation of a converter VGA for his game boy. He had some difficulties to find pin screen LCD and CPU but working with what is called and an oscilloscope, he found the necessary signal. Draw a few lines of these thin; blue wires Vertical, horizontal sync, clock and two data pin. From there, a Council of development with an array of field-programmable gate Altera Cyclone II takes care of lifting heavy loads. It is just a question of treating incoming signals in standard VGA Board already has a VGA connection equipment. Its demonstration video is embedded after the page break.

You want a dedicated solution? Check out this video Game Boy to a VHS cassette adapter.

 

Color corner rooted: Hands on (Hackaday.com)

Nookdevs have released information on the way to the root of your color corner. So naturally, I was exhausted and obtain one.  Which does not mean an Android for $250 multitouch Tablet?  Instructions for rooting are extremely simple. You really only need microSD card and connect to a Linux/Windows/Mac computer.  After rooting your corner work exactly as it did before, but now you can install applications on Android.  Many applications are designed for a phone which has more physical buttons, so I've hit on some issues, but on the whole, applications that work tend to properly.

Join me after the break for more thoughts, some photos and a video of it in action.

The specifications are decent, with a screen of 1024 × 600, 8 GB internal storage with wifi and a microSD expansion slot processor ARM A8 800. As you can see in the last picture, the angle of viewing on the screen is fantastic. Battery is probably hard hours 8 announced, play games, but I did not have to charge it again and there playing music, navigation on the web and entertaining children for approximately 24 hours now.

Installing the software is a pain. You cannot install things directly from Android stores online through the device again. Instead, you must search the web for the .apk file download and then install via command-line command on your computer. This can be a pain because the .apk files are rarely labeled with release of who they are, so I got some old versions of software that would work just even though I have seen their work in the other youtube videos.  So far I had decent use of the browser Dolphin, Google Maps, Pandora and Angry birds.  I would be surprised to see POP torrents with cluster applications tested for corners. indicator. indicator.

Deletion of applications can be a pain too. The theory is easy, you open the console and see what files are installed, and then issue a simple command to remove those that you want. However, they are necessarily install with a manifest file name. For example, I installed google voice search. Knowing that I do not have a microphone, I went to remove. However, there are several marked files google and none has the voice of Word. How can I know who it is? A quick search of google me would probably find the answer, but I can't wait until I can simply drag the icon to the trash.

All, I can't wait to see how many more better this gets. If I could install Android stores I find online, have flash and remove applications more easily, I would be very pleased.

Child of type with their eyes, the robot arm prints their words (Hackaday.com)

F.A.T. took it to the next step, combining a couple of their projects for the festival to subsidize. This device allows children write their name from their eyes for printing by a robot arm. The first part is a version free of glasses of the EyeWriter, developed originally as an assistive technology. The system uses an IR LED to generate reflection on your eyes that PS3 camera can pick up and use to accurately track your eyes. Watch every key on a virtual keyboard to spell out your message. Then a previously used in the project Robotagger robot arm prints the name onto a large sheet of paper, that children can learn. This is cool, but more importantly, it is a great way to inspire the next generation of hackers and engineers. Discover the video after the break.

 

RC plane built in pieces (Hackaday.com) RC car

This hack is old as dirt course, but news and a great success. The plan above, which is supposed to fly without an operator has been given CR control through this car parts soon. The pair transmitter and receiver is obvious transplantation, but how add you $ 7 aircraft which is not manufactured to have this feature management? The tail is cut and Japanese with mylar hinges to transform it into a rudder. A rare earth magnet and a coil are also thrown in the mix to provide the movement. It is essentially a single solenoid where coil shoot against the magnet when energized, actuating the rudder. This in combination with an engine update allows both speed and yaw control. It look like you can control the roll and pitch, but what you can really expect?

It would be a nice step in this direction in the establishment of a platform of borehole camera epic flight.

[Thanks Rob]

Light terminal press (Hackaday.com) secret key Activatable

[Luigi Rizzo] has worked on some pirates for its 3rd generation Kindle. There are already as a Python based terminal emulator called AjaxTerm, but he wanted a lightweight standalone so he reimplemented in c program. 100 Binary k monitors keyboard, launch terminal emulator when it detects a shift-T sequence. It also uses the alternative key mapping to fill some of the keys to the Kindle, the keyboard is missing.

We have not seen many Kindle piracy since he was hacked to run Ubuntu. Seems that this terminal emulator is a useful and unobtrusive to try on the beloved drive hack.

Lego machine predicts future eclipses (Hackaday.com)

Hidden behind this machine white face plates are rack gears that make up a replica of one of the oldest known mechanical computers. It is a model of work of the Antikythera mechanism made from pieces of Lego. In the video, you can not absolutely Miss after the break, the machine is disassembled into its various components. Each mechanical unit takes advantage of gear combinations to perform many levels of mathematical functions to display the date and time occur in the future of celestial events.

Database on the original device information reads as the script for a sequel to the Goonies. Back to 100-150 BC, believes that bronze Pierre mechanism was recovered from a wreck at the turn of the 20th century. The use of x-ray analysis helped to confirm its operation theories and unlock functions.

What makes this interesting is the historical connection. But the quality of the video production (to be fair, seems an advertisement) really brings home how this process is complicated. Now it is time for us to watch the video a few times more sketch of the gear to see that it works like they say it takes.

You want more of the Antikythera mechanism? Discover the model built by [Tatyana van Vark].

Home Brew Machine coffee (Hackaday.com)

There are already many different ways to brew up a decent coffee at home, the humble pot to the elegant empty vial. In an Office environment, the choice of technique for making coffee can have a major impact on the harmony in the workplace - how people expect to work very happily when the kitchen is filthy with grounds and coffee is always obsolete? "Someone have pity," [Christian Finger] deplored "and boil a fresh pot."

Ultimately, he takes extreme measures, build a machine that grinds whole grain measurements on a dose, Fathom a cup and self-cleans. It has used all kinds of odds and ends together the thing, detailed in his long and hilarious diary (English translation - and discover the MEC sweet ride). Refer to its animation shockwave for a summary of the proposed operation.

The end result is a very impressive Goldbergian gear - download the video in the build log. It is quite noisy and probably energy and water-hungry but which prevent we use every day, if possible. Hell, here might constitute an important part of your next breakfast machine.

We are certain that there are more potential in this regard, because to get really already possible Cup of coffee you want roasting coffee beans just before their correction. Then you would be entirely on your way towards something else: a delicious breakfast machine.