If you home has never been subject to a rodent invasion then you are fortunate. Our world is full of rats and mice, and despite the best efforts of humanity to keep them at bay it is inevitable that a few will find their way through. For [Marius Taciuc] this became a problem, as his traps needed constant checking to avoid the prospect of a festering rat carcass. His solution? A humane trap equipped with an ESP8266, that notifies him when the rodent is incarcerated.

The tech behind it is about as simple as it’s possible to get, the trap’s door activates a switch, that powers on an ESP8266 module. The ESP’s code simply wakes it up, connects to a wireless network, and sends a query to IFTTT with a call to a service that sends him an email alert. There’s no need to monitor any GPIO lines or have any code running to keep an eye on the trap, it’s all purely a function of the power switch.

The trap itself is interesting, in that it’s a home-made one constructed from soldered copper wire. Sadly there are few details of its construction, but you can see more of it including a live rat inside it, in the video below the break. And if making a trap catches your interest, we can help you there.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/08/01/youve-got-rat/

As the retro craze has gone mainstream, we’ve grown used to seeing “mini” versions of classic hardware, preloaded with a selection of games and ready for a wallow in nostalgia. Unfortunately for fans of the less well-know platforms, the only devices to get the mini treatment so far are popular ones such as the Nintendo consoles, or the Commodore 64. This is something [Svofski] is aiming to change for one classig micro, by producing a mini version of the Soviet Vector-06c. And unlike the Commodore with its fake keyboard, this one will work in its entirety and have a fully-functional keyboard.

It’s a build that’s not finished yet. But in this case that’s no bad thing, because such is the extreme attention to detail that you’ll want to stick around and watch it unfold. The electronics will come courtesy of an FPGA recreation of the hardware, while the Vector’s unique keyboard is being recreated in miniature, with keycaps designed to fit a particular Alps switch. These are 3D-printed, painted, and then marked with their decals using stencils carefully etched from copper sheet. Even if you have no interest in the Vector-06c, these techniques could find a place in so many other projects.

The wonderfully ingenious and diverse world of Soviet technology has found its way onto these pages many times over the years, including at least one other microcomputer, and even a supercomputer. If your interests extend behind the Iron Curtain though, you might wish to read our colleague [Voja Antonic]’s account of hacking in Communist Yugoslavia.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/08/01/this-mini-soviet-micro-will-have-astounding-attention-to-detail/

You’d think that the 8086 microprocessor, a 40-year-old chip with a mere 29,000 transistors on board that kicked off the 16-bit PC revolution, would have no more tales left to tell. But as [Ken Shirriff] discovered, reverse engineering the chip from die photos reveals some hidden depths.

The focus of [Ken]’s exploration of the venerable chip is the charge pump, a circuit that he explains was used to provide a bias voltage across the substrate of the chip. Early chips generally took this -5 volt bias voltage from a pin, which meant designers had to provide a bipolar power supply. To reduce the engineering effort needed to incorporate the 8086 into designs, Intel opted for an on-board charge pump to generate the bias voltage. The circuit consists of a ring oscillator made from a trio of inverters, a pair of transistors, and some diodes to act as check valves. By alternately charging a capacitor and switching its polarity relative to the substrate, the needed -5 volt bias is created.

Given the circuit required, it was pretty easy for [Ken] to locate it on the die. The charge pump takes up a relatively huge amount of die space, which speaks to the engineering decisions Intel made when deciding to include it. [Ken] drills down to a very low level on the circuit, with fascinating details on how the MOSFETs were constructed, and why eight transistors were used instead of two diodes. As usual, his die photos are top quality, as are his explanations of what’s going on down inside the silicon.

If you’re somehow just stumbling upon [Ken]’s body of work, you’re in for a real treat. To get you started, you’ll want to check out how he found pi baked into the silicon of the 8087 coprocessor, or perhaps his die-level exploration of different Game Boy audio chips.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/31/reverse-engineering-the-charge-pump-of-an-8086-microprocessor/

Hand sanitizer is the hot product of 2020, and it seems nobody can get enough. In the same way that touching a dirty tap takes the shine off washing your hands in a public bathroom, one wishes to avoid touching the hand sanitizer bottle entirely. To get around this, [makendo] whipped up a quick solution.

The solution consists of a 3D printed caddy which holds a typical bottle of hand sanitizer. This is affixed to a wall with either screws or double sided tape. A long string is then attached to the dispenser nozzle, and passes down to a foot pedal. By depressing the pedal, it pulls on the string, pulling down the dispenser nozzle and delivering the required sanitizer to the hands.

It’s by no means an advanced hack, but one that can be whipped up in a short time to make sanitizing one’s hands just that little bit more pain-free. If you’re still short on sanitizer, you might want to make your own. If you do, let us know how it goes. Otherwise, consider alternate methods of automating the delivery!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/31/sanitizer-dispenser-does-it-hands-free/

Hand sanitizer is the hot product of 2020, and it seems nobody can get enough. In the same way that touching a dirty tap takes the shine off washing your hands in a public bathroom, one wishes to avoid touching the hand sanitizer bottle entirely. To get around this, [makendo] whipped up a quick solution.

The solution consists of a 3D printed caddy which holds a typical bottle of hand sanitizer. This is affixed to a wall with either screws or double sided tape. A long string is then attached to the dispenser nozzle, and passes down to a foot pedal. By depressing the pedal, it pulls on the string, pulling down the dispenser nozzle and delivering the required sanitizer to the hands.

It’s by no means an advanced hack, but one that can be whipped up in a short time to make sanitizing one’s hands just that little bit more pain-free. If you’re still short on sanitizer, you might want to make your own. If you do, let us know how it goes. Otherwise, consider alternate methods of automating the delivery!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/31/sanitizer-dispenser-does-it-hands-free/

Hand sanitizer is the hot product of 2020, and it seems nobody can get enough. In the same way that touching a dirty tap takes the shine off washing your hands in a public bathroom, one wishes to avoid touching the hand sanitizer bottle entirely. To get around this, [makendo] whipped up a quick solution.

The solution consists of a 3D printed caddy which holds a typical bottle of hand sanitizer. This is affixed to a wall with either screws or double sided tape. A long string is then attached to the dispenser nozzle, and passes down to a foot pedal. By depressing the pedal, it pulls on the string, pulling down the dispenser nozzle and delivering the required sanitizer to the hands.

It’s by no means an advanced hack, but one that can be whipped up in a short time to make sanitizing one’s hands just that little bit more pain-free. If you’re still short on sanitizer, you might want to make your own. If you do, let us know how it goes. Otherwise, consider alternate methods of automating the delivery!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/31/sanitizer-dispenser-does-it-hands-free/

One of the basic truths of ground vehicles is that they are always cooler with tank tracks. Maybe not better, but definitely cooler. [Ivan Miranda] takes this to heart, and is arguably the king of 3D printed tank projects on YouTube. He has built a giant 3D printed electric skateboard with tank tracks with the latest version of his giant 3D printer. Videos after the break.

The skateboard consists of a large steel frame, with tracked bogies on either end. Most of the bogie components are 3D printed, including the wheels and tracks, and each bogie is driven by a brushless motor via a belt. Some bends were added to the steel frame with just 3D printed inserts for his bench vice. The bogies are mounted to the frame with a standard skateboard truck, which allows it to steer like a normal skateboard, by tilting the deck. It looks as though this works well on a smooth concrete floor, but we suspect that turning will be harder on rough surface where the tracks can’t slide. We’ll have to wait for the next video for a full field test.

The large components for this skateboard were printed on [Ivan]’s MK3 version of his giant 3D printer. Although it’s very similar to the previous version, improvements were made in key areas. The sliding bed frame’s weight was reduced by almost 50%, and the wheels were rotated, so they ride on top of the extrusion below it, instead of on it’s side, which helps the longevity of the wheels. This also allows bed levelling to be done by turning the eccentric spacers on each of the wheels. The rigidity of base frame and x-axis beam were increased by adding more aluminium extrusions. Although he doesn’t explicitly mention the print volume, it looks to be the same as the previous version, which was 800x500x500. For materials other than PLA, we suspect a heated build chamber will be required have any chance of making big prints without excessive warping.

[Ivan] really likes big prints, with a number of 3D printed tanks, a giant nerf gun, and a sand drawing bot.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/31/electric-skateboard-with-tank-tracks-from-a-big-3d-printer/