Pandemic got you down about the prospects for Halloween this year? While you may not be able to do the Monster Mash with all your friends and family, there are plenty of ways to hand out candy while upholding social distancing practices. [WickedMakers] built a spooky six-foot candy slide to help keep their celebration in compliance with the CDC.

Their candy slide is almost entirely made of PVC, plus some gauze to mummify it and make it scarier. It’s essentially a six-foot long section of 3″ tubing supported by two ladders made of 1″ tubing that put the top four feet off the ground and a kid-friendly two feet off the ground at the receiving end. [WickedMakers] did a great job of hiding the PVC-ness of this build. We can’t help but wonder how much harder it would be to make the skeleton put the candy on the slide. Check out the build video after the break.

Need some Halloween headgear? You could always build N95 filter material into an EDM helm to hand out candy. Stay safe out there this year, and remember: always check your Halloween candy for malicious payloads.

 

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/candy-slide-keeps-halloween-spooky-and-socially-distant/

The uTorrent client was recently updated to fix a null pointer dereference (CVE-2020-8437), discovered by [whtaguy]. Triggering the dereference simply crashes the client — so far an actual RCE hasn’t been found. Given the nature of the null pointer dereference, it’s possible this bug is limited to denial of service. That’s extremely good, because the flaw is extremely easy to target.

BitTorrent is a clever protocol. It’s still used to distribute large files, like Linux ISOs. The concept is simple: Split a large file into small chunks. Send the chunks to a client one at a time. As each chunk is received, the client sends a copy of that chunk to the next client. As a result of this peer-to-peer (p2p) arrangement, the bandwidth available to the server is greatly multiplied. As with all other p2p arrangements, the sticking point is how to make those connections between peers, particularly when most of the world’s desktops are behind NAT routers. In practice, for two peers to share data, at least one of them has to have a port opened or forwarded to the client. This is often accomplished through Universal Plug-n-Play (UPnP) or the NAT Port Mapping Protocol (NAT-PMP). The idea of both protocols are the same; a client on an internal device can request a temporary port forward without manual intervention. Whether it’s a good idea to allow automatic port forwards is another issue for another day.

BitTorrent uses a custom data serialization scheme, bencode, to include more complex data structures in both .torrent files, as well as the handshake sent between peers when connecting. Bencode can represent multiple data types, one of which being a dictionary type. Of interest here is that a dictionary can contain a dictionary as a value, and the protocol doesn’t specify a maximum depth. In the uTorrent client, this depth is tracked internally by using an integer as a bit field, essentially bit-shifting a binary 1 into this integer for each level of dictionary parsed. The bencode decoding code overflows the integer when more than 32 dictionaries are nested. This overflow results in an attempted access of a null pointer, crashing the client.

This vulnerable code can be targeted in two different ways. The first is through a specially crafted torrent file. This is rather uninteresting, as the client simply crashes when trying to open the file. The interesting vector is through peer handshakes. The malicious bencode data can be sent as a part of the handshake, crashing the client on the other end. This ability is intriguing, because it could be used in a targeted DoS attack against a specific torrent.

It’s been pointed out that a popular older version of uTorrent doesn’t have this exact vulnerability, though the normal caution about running outdated software still applies. It’s also possible that similar vulnerabilities could be found in other BitTorrent clients.

Crowd-Sourced Fail2ban

If you run a service connected to the internet, then you probably know a bit about fail2ban. It’s a daemon that watches your system logs for repeated events, like an attempt at guessing an SSH password, and temporarily blacklists the IP address making the guesses. It’s a handy tool, but wouldn’t it be even better if that live blacklist could be used on many systems at once? Crowdsec aims to be that solution. Once installed and opted-in, each event of interest is turned into a data point consisting of the IP, event type, and timestamp, and uploaded to the central database. From there, each report is then folded in to the continually evolving blacklist. The project is young, but this might be one to keep your eyes on.

When a Cryptographer Goes to the (Virtual) Casino

Our old friends, the NCC Group, took aim at a niche industry, online gambling. Specifically, they took a look at online roulette wheel gambling, but their techniques are widely applicable.

The first principle to understand is that the house always wins. To put it another way, the gambling establishment is guaranteed to make a profit. Understanding exactly how that works can be important. In the case of roulette, both types of wagers are stacked slightly towards the house. The margin is small enough that even a minor advantage can turn the tables. So, one of the easiest avenues to examine is the random number generator. Find the list of winning numbers, and see if some numbers actually come up more often. A quick trick the authors shared: represent the numbers as a bitmapped image. The human brain is exceptionally good at recognizing patterns when the data is displayed the right way.

Another possible weakness is how the close of betting is implemented. If a user could modify the site’s JS in the browser, he could send bets later than intended. If the server-side doesn’t carefully check for such an attack, late bets could give a player an edge. The entire write-up is full of interesting strategies, both for general web security research, as well as gambling and roulette specific strategies.

Bits and Bytes

Remember the botched AES implementation in Microsoft’s Active Directory? The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has deemed it a severe enough risk that any government systems that haven’t been patched (as of the 22nd), are to be permanently disconnected from government networks.

Drupal just released an update that addresses a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. An XSS attack is one where one user can inject some JavaScript into a website, and it runs when other users view the impacted page. (The Samy worm on Myspace being the prime example.) There isn’t much additional detail available at this time, but this problem is in Drupal core, rather than a 3rd party plugin, so the impact is potentially quite wide. Go dust off those Drupal installs, and get them updated!

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/this-week-in-security-utorrent-vulnerable-crowd-sourcing-your-fail2ban-and-cryptographers-at-casinos/

Repurposing commodity electronics is one of the true forms of hacking, and it’s always the simple little hacks that lead to big ones. [Everett] wanted to use a $20 GoPro clone as a dash cam, so he wired a microcontroller into it to automate some actions and make it practical.

The camera turns on automatically when connected to external power like a car charger, but starting and stopping a recording and power down all had to be done manually. [Everett] wanted to automate these functions, so he opened up the camera and started probing with an oscilloscope. He found the power button, record button, 3.3 V and external 5 V traces conveniently next to each other in the top of the camera.

To automate the required functions, he wired in a PIC10 on a small breakout board, powered by the 3.3 V line. It detects if 5 V is connected to the charging port on start-up via an N-channel FET, then automatically starts a recording. When the 5 V power is switched off with the car, it waits 10 seconds before stopping the recording and switching off the camera. If no external 5 V is not detected on start-up the microcontroller does nothing, which allows the camera to be used as a normal handheld. [Everett] mounted the camera to his rearview mirror with a magnetic bracket made using a combination of a 3D printer and 3D pen.

This is a simple and practical little hack, and the firmware is available on Github. Cheap dashcams are available for similar prices, but you won’t get any hacking satisfaction that way.

The very nature of actions cameras inspire hacking. You can simply add an external battery with the help of a 3D printer, or go all out and build a gimballed helmet cam from scratch

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/hacking-a-cheap-action-cam-into-a-dashcam-with-a-microcontroller/

In the continuing quest by countless hobbyists to allow every 1980s 8-bit home computer to experience the joys of an online experience that doesn’t involve a 9600 baud modem, [Roland Leurs] has created a cartridge-based module for the Acorn Electron that adds WiFi, which he showed off at the virtual ABug conference in September 2020.

The Acorn Electron is a Synertek 6502-based computer that was released in the UK in August of 1983. It’s a budget version of the well-known BBC Micro educational/home computer, with 32 kB of RAM and featuring BBC BASIC v2 in its ROM. [Roland]’s ElkWiFi card slots into an available cartridge slot, after which the onboard ESP8266 (ESP-1 module) can be enabled and used as a WiFi modem.

The board features the Exar ST16C2552CJ dual UART chip, one channel of which connects to the ESP-1 module, with the other channel used as an uncommitted UART header. The control logic is implemented in VHDL and flashed to the onboard Xilinx CPLD, and a 128 kB RAM module is used as WiFi data buffer.

Although a definite niche product, reading through the forum thread makes one really appreciate the technical complexity and joy once things are beginning to work reliably. It also shows one of the few cases where an ESP-1 module is used for its original purpose: as an easy way to add WiFi functionality with full WiFi and TCP stack, without burdening the main CPU.

(Thanks, BaldPower)

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/adding-wifi-to-the-acorn-electron/

In the continuing quest by countless hobbyists to allow every 1980s 8-bit home computer to experience the joys of an online experience that doesn’t involve a 9600 baud modem, [Roland Leurs] has created a cartridge-based module for the Acorn Electron that adds WiFi, which he showed off at the virtual ABug conference in September 2020.

The Acorn Electron is a Synertek 6502-based computer that was released in the UK in August of 1983. It’s a budget version of the well-known BBC Micro educational/home computer, with 32 kB of RAM and featuring BBC BASIC v2 in its ROM. [Roland]’s ElkWiFi card slots into an available cartridge slot, after which the onboard ESP8266 (ESP-1 module) can be enabled and used as a WiFi modem.

The board features the Exar ST16C2552CJ dual UART chip, one channel of which connects to the ESP-1 module, with the other channel used as an uncommitted UART header. The control logic is implemented in VHDL and flashed to the onboard Xilinx CPLD, and a 128 kB RAM module is used as WiFi data buffer.

Although a definite niche product, reading through the forum thread makes one really appreciate the technical complexity and joy once things are beginning to work reliably. It also shows one of the few cases where an ESP-1 module is used for its original purpose: as an easy way to add WiFi functionality with full WiFi and TCP stack, without burdening the main CPU.

(Thanks, BaldPower)

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/adding-wifi-to-the-acorn-electron/

In the continuing quest by countless hobbyists to allow every 1980s 8-bit home computer to experience the joys of an online experience that doesn’t involve a 9600 baud modem, [Roland Leurs] has created a cartridge-based module for the Acorn Electron that adds WiFi, which he showed off at the virtual ABug conference in September 2020.

The Acorn Electron is a Synertek 6502-based computer that was released in the UK in August of 1983. It’s a budget version of the well-known BBC Micro educational/home computer, with 32 kB of RAM and featuring BBC BASIC v2 in its ROM. [Roland]’s ElkWiFi card slots into an available cartridge slot, after which the onboard ESP8266 (ESP-1 module) can be enabled and used as a WiFi modem.

The board features the Exar ST16C2552CJ dual UART chip, one channel of which connects to the ESP-1 module, with the other channel used as an uncommitted UART header. The control logic is implemented in VHDL and flashed to the onboard Xilinx CPLD, and a 128 kB RAM module is used as WiFi data buffer.

Although a definite niche product, reading through the forum thread makes one really appreciate the technical complexity and joy once things are beginning to work reliably. It also shows one of the few cases where an ESP-1 module is used for its original purpose: as an easy way to add WiFi functionality with full WiFi and TCP stack, without burdening the main CPU.

(Thanks, BaldPower)

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/25/adding-wifi-to-the-acorn-electron/

Cleaning tiled floors can be a drag. Getting the tiles themselves clean is bad enough, but often dealing with the grouted joints in between requires more elbow grease and attention to detail. It’s a tedious chore, and thus one ripe for improvement. [Elite Worm]’s cleaning machine is an excellent solution to the problem.

The machine is built entirely from scratch, using primarily 3D printed components. A fluid tank is fitted to the chassis, along with a custom 3D-printed pump run by a DC motor, to deliver cleaning product where its needed. A large DC motor is then used to spin a nylon brush which gets deep in the tile grooves to clean out the grime. The chassis is then fitted with rollers to allow it to glide along the floor. Finally, a handle is fitted which allows the user to push the tool along, with switches to turn on the spinning brush and dispense cleaning fluid.

It’s a great tool, and one which eliminates hours of scrubbing on hands and knees. We’re sure the time investment in the build will pay off before long. We’ve seen other tricky cleaning hacks before, too. Video after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/diy-grout-cleaning-machine-does-a-good-job/

If you think about building a moving machine, you probably will consider wheels or tracks or maybe even a prop to take you airborne. When [nwlauer] found an earthworm in the garden, it inspired a 3D-printed robot that employs peristaltic motion. You can see a video of it moving, below.

The robot uses pneumatics and soft plastic, and is apparently waterproof. Your printer’s feed path has to be pretty rigid to support flexible filament without jamming. There’s also some PVA filament and silicone tubing involved.

For the control side, an Arduino controls a diaphragm pump and six small solenoid valves. We were amused to read that the solenoid valves are often used in eye massagers. The code is on GitHub.

The segments have Ninjaflex along with PVA support inserts. You glue the centers of each segment together, but not the edges, and then dissolve the PVA to form the air chambers inside.

The motion isn’t very efficient looking, but it probably handles a lot of terrain options. We aren’t sure if there is a real practical use for this technique in its current form, but we bet it could be adapted plus it is just a cool example of something to do with flexible filament besides printing phone cases.

We’ve seen Ninjaflex used for more practical purposes such as custom belts. Keypads are another practical project.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/robotic-worm-uses-ninjaflex-filament/

[Stefan] is always trying to make stronger 3D prints. Annealing can strengthen prints, but often at the expense of the part’s exact dimensions. His latest approach is to embed the prints in plaster and then anneal in an attempt to fuse the plastic together without changing its shape or size. Did it work? See for yourself in the video below.

He’s done a lot of work we’ve taken note of before where he measures the strength of parts after different post-processing steps. His test plastic parts used both PLA and PETG.

In general, the parts were made with 100% infill to prevent the plastic from collapsing on itself during the heating process. Getting the plaster bubble-free took a few attempts. This isn’t a fast technique. The plaster had to be dry before annealing and even with a dehydrator, it was well over 36 hours before the parts were ready for the oven.

Getting the parts out of the plaster turned out to be harder than you’d think. Mechanically removing most of it and then washing away a little residue turned out to be the best way. The tests showed the PLA reference parts — those not treated — were stronger than the annealed parts. But the PETG parts were transformed and nearly three times as strong as they had been.

[Stefan] thinks that further drying of the plaster casts might result in even stronger PETG parts. Although the PLA parts were somewhat weaker, the annealed parts became much more temperature resistant, surviving 170 degree temperatures.

The only downside we see is that it isn’t a quick or simple process. But if you need stronger or more temperature resistant materials, this is very achievable with common equipment.

If you follow our coverage of this topic, the hooks might look familiar. We always enjoy [Stefan’s] videos as he does a lot of interesting experiments.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/plaster-annealing-3d-prints-for-strength/

If you like building or upgrading guitars, you may have already learned the valuable lesson that the devil absolutely is in the detail when it comes to to replacement parts. Maybe you became aware that there are two types of Telecaster bridges right after you drilled the holes through the body and noticed things just didn’t quite fit. Or maybe you liked the looks of those vintage locking tuners and the vibe you associate with them, only to realize later that the “vintage” part also refers to the headstock, and the holes in your modern one are too big.

The latter case recently happened to [Michael Könings], so he did what everyone with a 3D printer would: make an adapter. Sure, you can also buy them, but where’s the fun in that? Plus, the solution is as simple as it sounds. [Michael] modelled an adaptor to bridge the gap between the headstock holes and the tuner shaft, but unlike the commercial counterpart that are mounted only on one side, his fills up the entire hole and fits the entire construct tightly together. For even more overall stability, he added an interlocking mechanism on the back side that keeps all the adaptors in line, and also allows for some possible distance differences.

[Michael] initially considered using wood filament for cosmetic reasons, but due to lack of the material went with simple white PLA instead. In the end, it doesn’t matter too much, as most of it hides under the new tuners’ metal covers anyway — and the small parts that are visible will serve as a great reminder of this lesson in guitar variety. Speaking of 3D printing and guitar variety, now that we reached the headstock, and have seen bodies for a while already (including bass), only 3D-printed guitar necks are missing. Well, we’ve had them on violins though, even with 6 strings, but they also don’t have to deal with frets and have a bit less tension going on.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/3d-printed-adapter-keeps-your-guitar-in-tune-and-in-style/

One time-proven method to make a lesson memorable is to make it a story, but that is not easy if your core material is the repair log of a rotted out analog ammeter. Most folks don’t need a 300A meter on their drill press, so [Build Comics] converted it to a text display and describes the procedure like they are writing a comic book. He is using HDLO-3416 LED cluster arrays for that dated-but-legible industrial feel, and everything looks right at home in a box made from oak and steel. Even the USB cord even gets a facelift by running it inside a fabric shoelace. In our own lives, covering charging cables is a hack on its own because we don’t want to fumble with the wrong charger when it is time to sleep or drive. Glow-in-the-dark cord upgrades, anyone?

We don’t have a pre-operation picture of the subject, but the innards suggest that it comes from the bottom of an industrial scrap pile. There is a cross-hatch pattern on the front plate, which hinted at 3D printing, but if you look closely at the early images, you can see that it is original. There is a nodeMCU board to fetch the date information and control the four alphanumeric displays. Except for the red lights, all the new hardware hides behind wood or steel, so this old workhorse’s aesthetic lives on and has a story to share that is a delight to read.

If you enjoy reading [Build Comics] and their adventurous recollections, we forecast you’ll enjoy this weather display, or maybe it is time to check out their clock, but we want to plant the seed of literary build logs.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/textmeter-tells-its-tale/

Nintendo wasn’t always in the videogames business. Long before Mario, the company was one of the foremost producers of Hanafuda playing cards in Japan. From 1930 until 1959, Nintendo ran its printing business from a four-story art deco style building that featured distinctive plaques at the front entrance. We now have a chance to print those former Nintendo HQ plaques at home thanks to [Mr. Talida] who shared some 3D models on Twitter. Talida, a self-described “retro video game archivist”, recreated the plaques via photogrammetry from a number of reference photos he took from a visit to the Kyoto site late last year.

These 3D models come at a crucial time as the old Nintendo HQ building, which sat dormant for years, is set to be turned into a boutique hotel next year. According to JPC, the hotel will feature twenty rooms, a restaurant, and a gym and is expected to be completed by summer 2021 (although that estimate was from the “before” times). The renovation is expected to retain as much of the original exterior’s appearance as possible, but the Nintendo plaques almost assuredly will not be included. For a first-person tour of the former Nintendo headquarters building, there is a video from the world2529 YouTube channel provided below.

It is encouraging to see examples of this DIY-style of historical preservation. Many companies have proven themselves to be less-than-stellar stewards of their own history. Though if his Twitter timeline is any indication, [Mr. Talida] is up to something further with this photogrammetry project. A video export exhibiting a fully textured 3D model of the old Nintendo headquarters’ entrance was published recently along with the words, “What have I done.”

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/3d-print-a-piece-of-nintendo-history-before-the-real-one-is-gone/

There is a scene from the movie RED (Retired, Extremely Dangerous) where Bruce Willis encounters a highly-secure door with a constantly changing lock code deep inside the CIA. Knowing the lock would be impossible to break, he simply destroyed the wall next to the door, reached through, and opened the door from the other side. We thought about that when we saw [raelize’s] hack to bypass the ESP32’s security measures.

Before you throw out all your ESP32 spy gadgets, though, be aware that the V3 silicon can be made to prevent the attack. V1 and V2, however, have a flaw that — if you know how to exploit it — renders secure boot and flash encryption almost meaningless.

The hack centers around the UART bootloader. You can cause the chip to enter that mode and do basic operations such as read and write RAM and registers. You can also execute code from RAM. That’s not a particular security risk, though, since the flash memory may be encrypted. Decryption is transparent in the hardware and the chip doesn’t do the decryption during the boot loader mode. Sure, you can read the encrypted flash, but you could do that with some fancy desoldering or probing techniques, too.

During a normal boot, a bootloader in flash is placed in RAM. If you can glitch the CPU at just the right time — in theory — you could force the processor to run your RAM-based code in normal mode where the flash is already decrypted. The only problem is, they tried about 1,000,000 cycles and had no success. But they did notice something odd.

The illegal instruction exception that occurred during the glitch was due to an instruction in the original RAM code winding up in the PC register. This allows an attacker to load an arbitrary address in RAM into the PC if the glitch is timed just perfectly. It turns out, it is just that easy.

We wondered why a data item would wind up in the program counter and apparently [raelize] wondered the same thing. There are a few theories, but no one seems to know for sure. At least, no one who isn’t under a non-disclosure agreement.

Once you can set the PC address arbitrarily, it is easy enough to jump back into the UART bootloader. It took a little experimenting, but eventually, the unencrypted flash came pouring out of the serial port.

This is good work and we are glad the latest silicon doesn’t show the problem. The work is captured in an official advisory, so the community will know what is possible.

There have been quite a few security-related exploits lately. Usually, we think of ESP tools as part of the hacker’s toolset, not a target, but — of course — anything is fair game.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/24/esp32-vulnerability-affects-older-chips/

It’s hard to say what exactly it is about the Apollo DSKY that captures so many hackers’ imaginations. Whatever it is, the “Display and Keyboard” unit from the Apollo Guidance Computer has inspired dozens of teardowns, simulations, and reproductions over the years, to varying degrees of success. But this mechanically faithful DSKY replica really knocks it out of the park in terms of attention to detail.

The product of [M. daSilva], this DSKY replica takes a somewhat different path than many of the others we’ve seen. By working from as many original documents as possible, he was able to reproduce the physical size and shape of the DSKY very accurately — no mean feat when working from copies of copies of the original paper prints. Still, the details that are captured, like the gussets and reinforcements that were added to strengthen the original die-cast parts, really make this DSKY look the part. It’s functional, too, thanks to a Raspberry Pi running VirtualAGC, with a Nextion 4.3″ LCD display standing in for the original electroluminescent display. We were surprised to learn the DSKY had a port for nitrogen purging the case; check out the video tour below for that and other tidbits.

Of course, just because [M. daSilva] chose to concentrate on dimensional accuracy for this go-around doesn’t preclude more faithful electronics in the future. Perhaps he can team up with [Ben Krasnow] or [Fran Blanche] and really make this a showpiece.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/apollo-dsky-replica-looks-the-part/

One of the most appealing aspects of USB-C is that it promises to be a unified power delivery system. You’ll no longer need to have a separate power cords for for your phone, camera, and laptop; physically they’ll all use USB-C connectors, and the circuitry in the charger will know how much juice to send down the line for each gadget. But in reality, we’ve all got at least a few pieces of older equipment that we’re not about to toss in the trash just because it doesn’t support the latest USB spec.

Case in point, the old Canon camera that [Purkkaviritys] modified to take infrared pictures. Instead of abandoning it, he decided to make a custom USB-C charger for its NB-4L batteries. Since they’re just single cell 3.7 V lithium-ions, all he had to do was wire them up to the ubiquitous TP4056 charger module and design a 3D printed case to hold everything together.

He did go the extra mile and replace the SMD charging indicator LEDs on the PCB with 5 mm LEDs embedded into the 3D printed enclosure, though you could certainly skip this step if you were in a hurry. We imagine if you print the enclosure in a light enough color, you should be able to see the original LEDs glowing through the plastic.

This project is yet another example of how incredibly useful the TP4056 module really is. If there’s even a chance you might want to build a rechargeable gadget in the near future, you should have a few of these cheap boards ready to go in the parts bin.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/building-a-usb-c-charger-for-canon-nb-4l-batteries/

One of the most appealing aspects of USB-C is that it promises to be a unified power delivery system. You’ll no longer need to have a separate power cords for for your phone, camera, and laptop; physically they’ll all use USB-C connectors, and the circuitry in the charger will know how much juice to send down the line for each gadget. But in reality, we’ve all got at least a few pieces of older equipment that we’re not about to toss in the trash just because it doesn’t support the latest USB spec.

Case in point, the old Canon camera that [Purkkaviritys] modified to take infrared pictures. Instead of abandoning it, he decided to make a custom USB-C charger for its NB-4L batteries. Since they’re just single cell 3.7 V lithium-ions, all he had to do was wire them up to the ubiquitous TP4056 charger module and design a 3D printed case to hold everything together.

He did go the extra mile and replace the SMD charging indicator LEDs on the PCB with 5 mm LEDs embedded into the 3D printed enclosure, though you could certainly skip this step if you were in a hurry. We imagine if you print the enclosure in a light enough color, you should be able to see the original LEDs glowing through the plastic.

This project is yet another example of how incredibly useful the TP4056 module really is. If there’s even a chance you might want to build a rechargeable gadget in the near future, you should have a few of these cheap boards ready to go in the parts bin.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/building-a-usb-c-charger-for-canon-nb-4l-batteries/

One of the most appealing aspects of USB-C is that it promises to be a unified power delivery system. You’ll no longer need to have a separate power cords for for your phone, camera, and laptop; physically they’ll all use USB-C connectors, and the circuitry in the charger will know how much juice to send down the line for each gadget. But in reality, we’ve all got at least a few pieces of older equipment that we’re not about to toss in the trash just because it doesn’t support the latest USB spec.

Case in point, the old Canon camera that [Purkkaviritys] modified to take infrared pictures. Instead of abandoning it, he decided to make a custom USB-C charger for its NB-4L batteries. Since they’re just single cell 3.7 V lithium-ions, all he had to do was wire them up to the ubiquitous TP4056 charger module and design a 3D printed case to hold everything together.

He did go the extra mile and replace the SMD charging indicator LEDs on the PCB with 5 mm LEDs embedded into the 3D printed enclosure, though you could certainly skip this step if you were in a hurry. We imagine if you print the enclosure in a light enough color, you should be able to see the original LEDs glowing through the plastic.

This project is yet another example of how incredibly useful the TP4056 module really is. If there’s even a chance you might want to build a rechargeable gadget in the near future, you should have a few of these cheap boards ready to go in the parts bin.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/building-a-usb-c-charger-for-canon-nb-4l-batteries/

Does it seem like everyone you game against can do everything faster than you? Chances are good that they have some kind of dedicated game pad or macro pad with a bunch of custom shortcuts. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, but why buy one when you can build your own? [lordofthedum] did the smart thing when they built their own version of the Azeron game pad, which is an outrageously expensive but ergonomic and cool-looking macro pad that reminds us of the DataHand ergonomic keyboard.

Each finger hovers over a C-shaped group of three switches — one actuates by moving the finger forward, another by moving backward, and the third by pushing down like a regular button. The thumb gets a 4-way joystick. All of these inputs are wired up to an Arduino Pro Micro, which has sort of become the standard for DIY macro pads and keyboards. We think this looks fantastic, and really raises the bar for DIY macro pads.

Need a few more keys, but still want a thumb joystick? Check out the smooth and sweet Sherbet game pad.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/diy-ergonomic-game-pad-lends-a-hand/

The biggest problem with fused deposition 3D prints is that while the layers should stick together, they aren’t the same as a solid piece of plastic you would get from, say, injection molding. You can anneal plastic using moderate heat, but it is likely to cause the part to deform or change size. [Free Spirit 1] has a solution for this. Using a powdered salt, the part is packed on the inside and out and put in an oven. The results in the video below look really impressive.

In addition to making the part look solid and — we assume — adding strength, the resulting prints are also water- and gas-tight which was the purpose of the effort. That alone would make the technique worthwhile.

The only thing we noticed is that the part has to have access to hold the salt. Anything not supported would be subject to deformation. However, the ground-up salt is so fine that it should be relatively easy to fill in most parts and, of course, print with 100% infill to avoid hollow internal areas.

[Free spirit 1] used a coffee grinder to get the salt powder, but apparently you can buy “flour salt.” We wondered if other powders might work well, too. Apparently, sand didn’t work out, perhaps because the salt dissolves out in water, so whatever you use, it should probably dissolve in something that won’t attack your plastic.

Annealing isn’t a new idea, and we’d love to see some objective tests on this new method.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/reforming-3d-prints-with-salt-and-heat/

Most of us reach for an over-the-counter medicine if we have occasional pain, but menopause doesn’t act like that. Hot flashes don’t build like a headache, dizzy spells don’t wait for a good time, and panic attacks don’t announce themselves. Predicting and addressing sudden hormone shifts is the intent behind Menesto, a vest with sensors, cooling apparatus, and a companion app.

A thermometer and humidity detector monitor the skin for spikes in temperature and moisture to recognize when the wearer is having a hot flash. When an event is registered, a fan blows over a Peltier panel’s cool side and hopefully provides enough chilled air inside the vest. A Peltier panel is a thermoelectric heat engine that moves energy away from one ceramic plate to another, so one half gets cool while the other heats up. Power comes from rechargeable 18650 batteries and all the hardware talks to an ESP8266 on a NodeMCU running Arduino.

The next coolest thing is a built-in panic button (panic attacks and anxiety are less common but experienced by some during menopause) that talks to a companion app to send emails. Anyone on the recipient list receives a message that the wearer is in distress, along with their phone’s location. All the hardware is connected and talking, so a wearable test rig is on the horizon to work out the bugs like circulation and heat shedding. There are other nifty features, like a hydration reminder and manual cooling mode built in.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/investing-in-menopause/

Hang up your car phone and toss that fax machine in the garbage. Even back in the late 80s it was possible to do away with these primitive technologies in favor of video conferencing, even though this technology didn’t catch on en masse until recently. In fact, Mitsubishi released a piece of video conferencing equipment called the VisiTel that can be put to use today, provided you can do a bit of work to get it to play along nicely with modern technology.

[Alex] was lucky enough to have one of these on hand, as soon as it was powered up he was able to get to work deciphering the messaging protocol of the device. To do this he showed the camera certain pictures with known properties and measured the output waveforms coming from the device, which were AM modulated over an RJ9 connection which he had changed to a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

It communicates in a series of pictures instead of sending an actual video signal, so [Alex] had a lot of work to do to properly encode and decode the stream. He goes into incredible detail on his project page about this process and is worth a read for anyone interested in signal processing. Ultimately, [Alex] was able to patch this classic piece of technology into a Zoom call and the picture quality is excellent when viewed through the lens of $399 80s technology.

We have been seeing a lot of other hacks around video conferencing in the past six months as well, such as physical mute buttons and a mirror that improves eye contact through the webcam.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/teleconferencing-like-its-1988-connecting-vintage-hardware-to-zoom/

In the server world, it’s a foregone conclusion that ports shouldn’t be exposed to the greater Internet if they don’t need to be. There are malicious bots everywhere that will try and randomly access anything connected to a network, and it’s best just to shut them off completely. If you have to have a port open, like 22 for SSH, it’ll need to be secured properly and monitored so that the administrator can keep track of it. Usually this is done in a system log and put to the side, but [Nick] wanted a more up-front reminder of just how many attempts were being made to log into his systems.

This build actively monitors attempts to log into his server on port 22 and notifies him via a numerical display and series of LEDs. It’s based on a Raspberry Pi Zero W housed in a 3D-printed case, and works by interfacing with a program called fail2ban running on the server. fail2ban‘s primary job is to block IP addresses that fail a certain number of login attempts on a server, but being FOSS it can be modified for situations like this. With some Python code running on the Pi, it is able to gather data fed to it from fail2ban and display it.

[Nick] was able to see immediate results too. Within 24 hours he saw 1633 login attempts on a server with normal login enabled, which was promptly shown on the display. A video of the counter in action is linked below. You don’t always need a secondary display if you need real-time information on your server, though. This Pi server has its own display built right in to its case.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/23/displaying-incoming-server-attacks/

Plenty of projects we see here could easily be purchased in some form or other. Robot arms, home automation, drones, and even some software can all be had with a quick internet search, to be sure. But there’s no fun in simply buying something when it can be built instead. The same goes for tools as well, and this homemade drill press from [ericinventor] shows that it’s not only possible to build your own tools rather than buy them, but often it’s cheaper as well.

This mini drill press has every feature we could think of needing in a tool like this. It uses off-the-shelf components including the motor and linear bearing carriage (which was actually salvaged from the Z-axis of a CNC machine). The chassis was built from stock aluminum and bolted together, making sure to keep everything square so that the drill press is as precise as possible. The movement is controlled from a set of 3D printed gears which are turned by hand.

The drill press is capable of drilling holes in most materials, including metal, and although small it would be great for precision work. [ericinventor] notes that it’s not necessary to use a separate motor, and that it’s possible to use this build with a Dremel tool if one is already available to you. Either way, it’s a handy tool to have around the shop, and with only a few modifications it might be usable as a mill as well.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/22/this-diy-drill-press-is-very-well-executed/

Several months after NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed the project was in the works, sources are now reporting that Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman will officially be making the trip to the International Space Station in October of 2021 to film scenes for an as of yet untitled movie. Cruise and Liman previously worked together on the science fiction spectacle Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, which may give us a hint at what the duo are planning for their trip to the final frontier.

Industry insiders claim that the two film makers and potentially a female co-star will fly aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule under the command of Michael López-Alegría, a veteran astronaut who currently holds the American record for number and duration of extra-vehicular activities (EVAs). The mission is being organized by Axiom Space, which previously announced they would perform a series of privately funded flights to the ISS as a precursor to constructing their own commercial expansion to the orbiting laboratory.

Of course, with more than a year before liftoff, anything could happen. SpaceX has been linked, officially or otherwise, to several private trips to space that literally and figuratively never got off the ground.

Mars-One was touting concept art that showed a fleet of modified SpaceX Dragons on the Red Planet as far back as 2012, and Elon Musk himself once announced that the Falcon Heavy would send private passengers on a trip around the Moon by the end of 2018. But to date, a pair of NASA astronauts have been the only humans to actually fly on SpaceX hardware.

Undoubtedly, some will see this flight of fancy as a waste of valuable resources. After all, there’s no shortage of scientists and researchers who would be more deserving of trip to a space than Jerry Maguire. But according to Bridenstine, the hope is that a big budget Hollywood film featuring scenes shot on the ISS could do for NASA what Top Gun once did for the Navy:

There was a day when I was in elementary school and I saw Top Gun. From that day, I knew I was going to be a Navy pilot. If we can get Tom Cruise to inspire an elementary kid to join the Navy and be a pilot, why can’t we get Tom Cruise to inspire the next Elon Musk? That’s what we need.

While we might not all agree on who the next generation of engineers should look to for inspiration, the impact that Top Gun had on Navy recruitment in the 80s and 90s is well established. If sending Tom Cruise to space for a few weeks might help inspire more kids to look into a STEM education, it’s probably worth a shot. Though it seems like Tom Hanks and his fellow Apollo 13 crew mates did a respectable enough job celebrating the incredible engineering behind NASA’s greatest triumph without actually going into orbit themselves.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/22/spacex-sending-tom-cruise-to-the-space-station-in-2021/

Several months after NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed the project was in the works, sources are now reporting that Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman will officially be making the trip to the International Space Station in October of 2021 to film scenes for an as of yet untitled movie. Cruise and Liman previously worked together on the science fiction spectacle Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, which may give us a hint at what the duo are planning for their trip to the final frontier.

Industry insiders claim that the two film makers and potentially a female co-star will fly aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule under the command of Michael López-Alegría, a veteran astronaut who currently holds the American record for number and duration of extra-vehicular activities (EVAs). The mission is being organized by Axiom Space, which previously announced they would perform a series of privately funded flights to the ISS as a precursor to constructing their own commercial expansion to the orbiting laboratory.

Of course, with more than a year before liftoff, anything could happen. SpaceX has been linked, officially or otherwise, to several private trips to space that literally and figuratively never got off the ground.

Mars-One was touting concept art that showed a fleet of modified SpaceX Dragons on the Red Planet as far back as 2012, and Elon Musk himself once announced that the Falcon Heavy would send private passengers on a trip around the Moon by the end of 2018. But to date, a pair of NASA astronauts have been the only humans to actually fly on SpaceX hardware.

Undoubtedly, some will see this flight of fancy as a waste of valuable resources. After all, there’s no shortage of scientists and researchers who would be more deserving of trip to a space than Jerry Maguire. But according to Bridenstine, the hope is that a big budget Hollywood film featuring scenes shot on the ISS could do for NASA what Top Gun once did for the Navy:

There was a day when I was in elementary school and I saw Top Gun. From that day, I knew I was going to be a Navy pilot. If we can get Tom Cruise to inspire an elementary kid to join the Navy and be a pilot, why can’t we get Tom Cruise to inspire the next Elon Musk? That’s what we need.

While we might not all agree on who the next generation of engineers should look to for inspiration, the impact that Top Gun had on Navy recruitment in the 80s and 90s is well established. If sending Tom Cruise to space for a few weeks might help inspire more kids to look into a STEM education, it’s probably worth a shot. Though it seems like Tom Hanks and his fellow Apollo 13 crew mates did a respectable enough job celebrating the incredible engineering behind NASA’s greatest triumph without actually going into orbit themselves.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/09/22/spacex-sending-tom-cruise-to-the-space-station-in-2021/