We’ve often said that one of the best applications for desktop 3D printing is the production of custom enclosures, but you certainly aren’t limited to an extruded version of the classic Radio Shack project box. As [Marcello Milone] shows with this very clever retro TV enclosure for the Wemos D1 Mini, 3D printing means your imagination is the only limit when it comes to how you want to package up your latest creation.

As nice as the printed parts are, it’s the little details that really sell the look. [Marcello] has bent a piece of copper wire into a circle to make a faux antenna with vintage flair, and while the ESP is connecting to the WiFi network, it even shows an old school TV test pattern on its 1.8″ TFT display.

In the video after the break you can see the device go through its startup routine, and while displaying the Hackaday Wrencher at boot might not be strictly on theme…we’ll allow it.

While you could certainly use this little enclosure for whatever ESP project you had in mind, [Marcello] says he’s building a distributed environmental monitoring network using HTU21D temperature and humidity sensors. It sounds like he’s still working on the software side of things though, so hopefully he posts an update when the functionality is fully realized.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/3d-printed-esp8266-tv-is-a-blast-from-the-past/

Neon lights have inspired much prose over the years, with their attractive light output receiving glowing adulation. [Pierre Muth] is a big fan, and decided to spend lockdown creating something suitably pretty for his desk.

The project consists of an 8×48 matrix display constructed out of INS-1 (ИНC-1) tubes. These tiny neon tubes are 6.5 mm in diameter, showing a bright orange dot of light when powered up. Requiring just 100 V and 0.5 mA to light, they’re a touch easier to drive than the famous Nixie.

[Pierre] decided to go all out, wishing to replicate the capabilities of smart LEDs like the WS2812. These contain a microcontroller built in to each LED, so [Pierre] would have to do the same. Each of the 384 neon tubes got its own bespoke PCB, containing a PIC16F15313 microcontroller, step up voltage circuitry, and a 6-pin connector. (Whoah!) When each bulb was soldered to its PCB, they were then plugged into a backplane. An ESP32 was then employed to drive the display as a whole.

Creating a display in this fashion takes a huge amount of work, with most of it being soldering the 384 individual bulb PCBs containing 11 components each. We have a lot of respect for [Pierre]’s work ethic to get this done during lockdown, and the final result is a gloriously retro neon matrix display. We’ve featured other neon matrixes recently, too. Video after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/384-neon-bulbs-become-attractive-display/

With a gorgeous view of the Italian seaside, we’re not surprised [Danilo Larizza] had a couple IP cameras set up to pull in real-time views. But using a Raspberry Pi, an environmental sensor, and some software trickery to overlay the current (and naturally, perfect) weather conditions over the images? Now he’s just teasing us.

Whatever his motives are, we have to admit that the end result is very nice. Especially when you find out that there’s no complex hardware or software at work here. An original Raspberry Pi is doing all the heavy lifting by pulling a frame from the external IP camera using ffmpeg, polling the I2C-connected BME280 temperature and humidity sensor with a Python script, and then producing a final snapshot with the environmental data laid over top using ImageMagick.

[Danilo] gives the exact commands he’s using for each step of the process, making it easy to follow along and see how everything comes together in the end. That also makes it much easier to adapt for your own purposes should you feel so inclined. Once you see how all the pieces fit together, where the data and images come from is up to you.

We’ve previously shown how some simple Python code can be used to turn your raw data into attractive images, and combining that with real-world photographs is an excellent way of turning a text file full of values into a display worth showing off.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/custom-weather-camera-feed-with-software-tricks/

Once upon a time, computers were very expensive and you were lucky to have shared access to one computer. While that might seem to be a problem, it did have one big advantage: all of your files were on that computer.

Today, we all probably have at least a desktop and one laptop. Your phone is probably a pretty good computer by most standards. You might have multiple computers and a smattering of tablets. So what do you do to keep your files accessible everywhere? Why not run your own peer-to-peer synchronization service? Your files are always under your control and encrypted in motion. There’s no central point of failure. You can do it with one very slick piece of Open Source software called synching. It runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, and Solaris. There are also Android clients. We haven’t tested it, but one caveat is that the unofficial iOS support sounds a little spotty.

The joke about the cloud — that it’s just other people’s servers — is on point here. Some people don’t like their files sitting on a third-party server. Even if your files are encrypted or you don’t care, you still have the problem of what happens if you can’t reach the server — may be on an airplane with no WiFi — or the server goes down. Sure, Google and Microsoft don’t go dark very often, but they can and do. Even if you build your own cloud, it runs on your servers. Syncthing is serverless: it simply makes sure that all files are up-to-date on all your end devices.

Enter Syncthing

Syncthing is written in Go — not that you care — and efficiently syncs directories across many devices with a number of options. The simplest setup syncs all files in a folder, on all machines, with no versioning. But there are several flavors of version control to select and you can also make folders that only publish changes or where changes will not propagate to other devices. By default data is encrypted, and optionally compressed, when synchronizing. What’s more, the block exchange protocol gains efficiency as you add devices — think of it as a private BitTorrent between your devices.

Setup

Setting up Syncthing is easy. For Debian-type Linux you can follow their instructions to add a repository and install it using apt. There are other options for other operating systems. The only negative to the install is that it doesn’t set up Syncthing as a service, which is probably something you want.

They do provide examples of how to do this on GitHub. In my case, I had to use the linux-systemd files and put them in my /etc/system.d/system directory. The file syncthing@.service indicates that the service will run on behalf of a user. You can enable the service like this:

systemctl --user enable syncthing.service

The program does a good job of traversing NAT and firewalls, so I didn’t have to set any of that up. Speaking of setup, the default method of running setup is to open a web browser on the localhost. By default, you must be on the local machine to access the web page, but you can change that if you want to remotely configure the system. You can also use an ssh tunnel to pop out on the local machine. There are some third-party GUIs and programs that can control syncthing through its API.

Coupling Devices

Devices have to know about one another. The program generates a long ID or a QR code you can use to set up one machine on the other. You really need to do this on both sides — that is, you have to give computer A the code for computer B and give computer A’s code to computer B. When you accept another computer into your device list, you can mark it as an “introducer”. This will add all the computers they know and trust to your list as well.

This scheme means you need some sort of access to both computers, which is a good thing for security. If you are setting up on a headless server, though, you might need to use an ssh tunnel. I did this:

ssh -L 9876:localhost:8384 my-remote-host

Now a browser pointing to my localhost on port 9876 will appear on the syncthing administration port (8384) on the remote server. I didn’t use 8384 on the local side because, of course, I was running syncthing there already.

Sharing Folders

When you create a folder you can give it a display name and a location. Those can be different on every machine or they could be the same. What ties them together is the folder ID. Any folder with the same ID that is shared between two machines will synchronize. So, for example, you could have your local ~/Documents directory sync with a server directory called Desktop-Backups.

When you set up a folder you can turn on versioning. This keeps versions of files when a remote computer makes changes to it. It does not make versions for local changes. There are several options for versioning. The trashcan model just keeps a single copy of the old file. Simple versioning keeps a configurable number of old copies with a time stamp. There are several other choices, but those are the easiest ones.

Another feature allows you to set up folders that only send changes to remote computers or only receive them. Of course, the default is that folders both send and receive changes. You might, for example, have a master set of configuration files that you only want to change locally, but you want other computers to incorporate those changes: set the folder to only send. You’ll notice the folder icons change based on your selections to include an arrow that points up or down depending on your choice.

What to Sync

Once you have things set up, it is pretty addictive to start syncing directories. Sure, pictures and other documents are a no brainer. But what about 3D printer configurations? Or even your system startup scripts. It is true that the system isn’t necessarily the best solution for backups, but you can use it that way, too.

When we’ve mentioned Syncthing to people, they often reply they would use OwnCloud or NextCloud. Each has its advantages, of course. While setting up your private cloud gives you the ability to install applications, you now have a dependency on a central server, even if it is your own.

Speaking of startup scripts, I wrote something to do that and it used Git to synchronize and version control your bash startup. That system would work well with syncthing instead of Git. If you are interested in such things, you might also want to check out chezmoi.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/linux-fu-keep-in-sync/

Once upon a time, computers were very expensive and you were lucky to have shared access to one computer. While that might seem to be a problem, it did have one big advantage: all of your files were on that computer.

Today, we all probably have at least a desktop and one laptop. Your phone is probably a pretty good computer by most standards. You might have multiple computers and a smattering of tablets. So what do you do to keep your files accessible everywhere? Why not run your own peer-to-peer synchronization service? Your files are always under your control and encrypted in motion. There’s no central point of failure. You can do it with one very slick piece of Open Source software called synching. It runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD, and Solaris. There are also Android clients. We haven’t tested it, but one caveat is that the unofficial iOS support sounds a little spotty.

The joke about the cloud — that it’s just other people’s servers — is on point here. Some people don’t like their files sitting on a third-party server. Even if your files are encrypted or you don’t care, you still have the problem of what happens if you can’t reach the server — may be on an airplane with no WiFi — or the server goes down. Sure, Google and Microsoft don’t go dark very often, but they can and do. Even if you build your own cloud, it runs on your servers. Syncthing is serverless: it simply makes sure that all files are up-to-date on all your end devices.

Enter Syncthing

Syncthing is written in Go — not that you care — and efficiently syncs directories across many devices with a number of options. The simplest setup syncs all files in a folder, on all machines, with no versioning. But there are several flavors of version control to select and you can also make folders that only publish changes or where changes will not propagate to other devices. By default data is encrypted, and optionally compressed, when synchronizing. What’s more, the block exchange protocol gains efficiency as you add devices — think of it as a private BitTorrent between your devices.

Setup

Setting up Syncthing is easy. For Debian-type Linux you can follow their instructions to add a repository and install it using apt. There are other options for other operating systems. The only negative to the install is that it doesn’t set up Syncthing as a service, which is probably something you want.

They do provide examples of how to do this on GitHub. In my case, I had to use the linux-systemd files and put them in my /etc/system.d/system directory. The file syncthing@.service indicates that the service will run on behalf of a user. You can enable the service like this:

systemctl --user enable syncthing.service

The program does a good job of traversing NAT and firewalls, so I didn’t have to set any of that up. Speaking of setup, the default method of running setup is to open a web browser on the localhost. By default, you must be on the local machine to access the web page, but you can change that if you want to remotely configure the system. You can also use an ssh tunnel to pop out on the local machine. There are some third-party GUIs and programs that can control syncthing through its API.

Coupling Devices

Devices have to know about one another. The program generates a long ID or a QR code you can use to set up one machine on the other. You really need to do this on both sides — that is, you have to give computer A the code for computer B and give computer A’s code to computer B. When you accept another computer into your device list, you can mark it as an “introducer”. This will add all the computers they know and trust to your list as well.

This scheme means you need some sort of access to both computers, which is a good thing for security. If you are setting up on a headless server, though, you might need to use an ssh tunnel. I did this:

ssh -L 9876:localhost:8384 my-remote-host

Now a browser pointing to my localhost on port 9876 will appear on the syncthing administration port (8384) on the remote server. I didn’t use 8384 on the local side because, of course, I was running syncthing there already.

Sharing Folders

When you create a folder you can give it a display name and a location. Those can be different on every machine or they could be the same. What ties them together is the folder ID. Any folder with the same ID that is shared between two machines will synchronize. So, for example, you could have your local ~/Documents directory sync with a server directory called Desktop-Backups.

When you set up a folder you can turn on versioning. This keeps versions of files when a remote computer makes changes to it. It does not make versions for local changes. There are several options for versioning. The trashcan model just keeps a single copy of the old file. Simple versioning keeps a configurable number of old copies with a time stamp. There are several other choices, but those are the easiest ones.

Another feature allows you to set up folders that only send changes to remote computers or only receive them. Of course, the default is that folders both send and receive changes. You might, for example, have a master set of configuration files that you only want to change locally, but you want other computers to incorporate those changes: set the folder to only send. You’ll notice the folder icons change based on your selections to include an arrow that points up or down depending on your choice.

What to Sync

Once you have things set up, it is pretty addictive to start syncing directories. Sure, pictures and other documents are a no brainer. But what about 3D printer configurations? Or even your system startup scripts. It is true that the system isn’t necessarily the best solution for backups, but you can use it that way, too.

When we’ve mentioned Syncthing to people, they often reply they would use OwnCloud or NextCloud. Each has its advantages, of course. While setting up your private cloud gives you the ability to install applications, you now have a dependency on a central server, even if it is your own.

Speaking of startup scripts, I wrote something to do that and it used Git to synchronize and version control your bash startup. That system would work well with syncthing instead of Git. If you are interested in such things, you might also want to check out chezmoi.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/linux-fu-keep-in-sync/

As a project gets more complicated, some kind of internal communication network is often used to that all of the various modules and sensors can talk with each other. For hardware hackers like us, that usually means SPI, I2C, or maybe even good old fashioned UART. But if you’re pushing a lot of data around, like live video feeds from multiple cameras, you’ll need something a bit faster than that.

Which is why [Josh Elijah] has created the SwitchBlox Nano, a three port 10/100 Ethernet switch that fits on a one inch square PCB. All you need to do is provide it with power, with a generous input range of 5 to 50 volts, connect your devices to the Molex Picoblade connectors on the board, and away you go. There’s even a 5 V 1 A regulated output you can use to run your downstream devices.

If you’ve got a feeling that you’ve seen something very similar on these pages earlier in the year, you’re not imagining things. Back in April we covered the original five port SwitchBlox in a post that garnered quite a bit of attention. In fact, [Josh] tells us that the design of this new switch was driven largely by the feedback he got from Hackaday readers. The Nano is not only smaller and cheaper than the original, but now maintains full electrical isolation between each port.

The average Hackaday reader is as knowledgeable as they are opinionated, and we’re glad [Josh] was able to put the feedback he received to practical use. We’re proud that our community has had a hand in refining successful commercial products like the Arduboy handheld game system and the Mooltipass hardware password keeper. Now it looks like we can add a tiny Ethernet switch to the list of gadgets we’ve helped push up the hill. Maybe we should get a stamp or something…

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/tiny-ethernet-switch-gets-even-smaller/

Like most of us, [Hunter] and his partner [Katyrose] have been in quarantine for the past few months. Unlike most of us, they spun a 3D printed chicken playground design hackathon out of their self-isolation. The idea is simple: to build a playground full of toys custom-tailored to appease each chicken’s distinctive taste. The execution, however, can be proven a little tricky given that chickens are very unpredictable.

For each of the four select chickens in their coop, the couple designed separate toys based on their perceived interests. One, showing a fondness for worms, inspired the construction of a tree adorned with rice noodles in place of the living article, and moss to top it off. For late-night entertainment, the tree is printed in glow-in-the-dark filament. The others were presented with a print-in-place rotating mirror disguised as a flower, and a pecking post covered in peanut butter and corn. As a finishing piece, the fourth toy is designed as a jungle gym post with a reward of bread at the top for the chicken who dares climb it. Since none of the chickens seemed interested in it, they were eventually hand-fed the bread.

With no other entries to their hackathon, [Hunter] declared themselves as the winners. The 3D files for their designs are available for their patrons to print, should they have their own chicken coops they want to adorn. While the hackathon might’ve been a success for them, their chickens in particular seemed unimpressed with their new toys, only going to show that the only difference between science and messing around is writing it down, or in this case, filming the process. If you’re looking for other ways to integrate your chickens into the maker world, check out this Twitch-enabled chicken feeder, or this home automation IoT chicken coop door. Meanwhile, check out the video about their findings after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/23/appeasing-chicken-tastes-with-3d-printing/

It’s not a balloon, however shiny its exterior may seem. This miniature indoor robotic airship created by the University of Auckland mechanical engineering research group [New Dexterity] is an asymmetric system experimenting with the possibilities of an open-source helium-based airship.

Why a helium airship, as opposed to a fixed wing aircraft? The group wanted to experiment with the advantages of lighter-than-air (LTA) travel, namely the higher mobility and looser path planning constraints. Furthermore, LTA airships have a less obstructed field of vision and fewer locomotion issues. While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) may be capable of hovering in one place, their lift is generated by rotor thrust, which drains their batteries quickly in the order of minutes. LTA airships can hover for longer periods of time.

The design was created for educational and research purposes, focusing on the financial feasibility of manufacturing the platform, the environmental impact of the materials, and the helium loss through the balloon-like envelope. By measuring these parameters, the researchers are able to study the effects of circumstances such as the cost of indoor commercial balloons and the mechanical properties of balloon materials.

The airship gondola was designed and 3D printed in a modular fashion, then attached to the envelope with Velcro. The placement with respect to the horizontal symmetry of the gondola was done for flight stability, with several configurations tested for the side rotor angle.

The group open-sourced their CAD files and ROS interface for controlling the airship. They primarily use off-the-shelf components such as Raspberry Pi boards, propellers, a DC single brushed motor driver carrier, and LiPo batteries for a total cost of $90 for the platform, with an addition $20 for the balloon and initial helium filling. The price is comparable to the cost of indoor blimps like the Blimpduino 2.0.

You can check out the completed airship below, where the team demonstrates its path following capabilities based on a carrot chasing path finding algorithm.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/22/lets-take-a-closer-look-at-this-robotic-airship/

It’s not a balloon, however shiny its exterior may seem. This miniature indoor robotic airship created by the University of Auckland mechanical engineering research group [New Dexterity] is an asymmetric system experimenting with the possibilities of an open-source helium-based airship.

Why a helium airship, as opposed to a fixed wing aircraft? The group wanted to experiment with the advantages of lighter-than-air (LTA) travel, namely the higher mobility and looser path planning constraints. Furthermore, LTA airships have a less obstructed field of vision and fewer locomotion issues. While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) may be capable of hovering in one place, their lift is generated by rotor thrust, which drains their batteries quickly in the order of minutes. LTA airships can hover for longer periods of time.

The design was created for educational and research purposes, focusing on the financial feasibility of manufacturing the platform, the environmental impact of the materials, and the helium loss through the balloon-like envelope. By measuring these parameters, the researchers are able to study the effects of circumstances such as the cost of indoor commercial balloons and the mechanical properties of balloon materials.

The airship gondola was designed and 3D printed in a modular fashion, then attached to the envelope with Velcro. The placement with respect to the horizontal symmetry of the gondola was done for flight stability, with several configurations tested for the side rotor angle.

The group open-sourced their CAD files and ROS interface for controlling the airship. They primarily use off-the-shelf components such as Raspberry Pi boards, propellers, a DC single brushed motor driver carrier, and LiPo batteries for a total cost of $90 for the platform, with an addition $20 for the balloon and initial helium filling. The price is comparable to the cost of indoor blimps like the Blimpduino 2.0.

You can check out the completed airship below, where the team demonstrates its path following capabilities based on a carrot chasing path finding algorithm.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/22/lets-take-a-closer-look-at-this-robotic-airship/

It’s not a balloon, however shiny its exterior may seem. This miniature indoor robotic airship created by the University of Auckland mechanical engineering research group [New Dexterity] is an asymmetric system experimenting with the possibilities of an open-source helium-based airship.

Why a helium airship, as opposed to a fixed wing aircraft? The group wanted to experiment with the advantages of lighter-than-air (LTA) travel, namely the higher mobility and looser path planning constraints. Furthermore, LTA airships have a less obstructed field of vision and fewer locomotion issues. While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) may be capable of hovering in one place, their lift is generated by rotor thrust, which drains their batteries quickly in the order of minutes. LTA airships can hover for longer periods of time.

The design was created for educational and research purposes, focusing on the financial feasibility of manufacturing the platform, the environmental impact of the materials, and the helium loss through the balloon-like envelope. By measuring these parameters, the researchers are able to study the effects of circumstances such as the cost of indoor commercial balloons and the mechanical properties of balloon materials.

The airship gondola was designed and 3D printed in a modular fashion, then attached to the envelope with Velcro. The placement with respect to the horizontal symmetry of the gondola was done for flight stability, with several configurations tested for the side rotor angle.

The group open-sourced their CAD files and ROS interface for controlling the airship. They primarily use off-the-shelf components such as Raspberry Pi boards, propellers, a DC single brushed motor driver carrier, and LiPo batteries for a total cost of $90 for the platform, with an addition $20 for the balloon and initial helium filling. The price is comparable to the cost of indoor blimps like the Blimpduino 2.0.

You can check out the completed airship below, where the team demonstrates its path following capabilities based on a carrot chasing path finding algorithm.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/22/lets-take-a-closer-look-at-this-robotic-airship/

Stress monitoring has always been a tricky business. As it turns out, there is a somewhat reliable way of monitoring stress by measuring how much cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone,” the human body produces. With that in mind, bioengineering researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas decided to make CortiWatch, a wearable device for continuously monitoring cortisol excreted in sweat, as a sort of DIY stress meter.

They made their own potentiostat, a device for measure small amounts of current produced by electrochemical reactions, similar to the glucometer. We’ve talked about these types of measurements before. Simply put, the potentiostat contains a voltage reference generator which biases the sensing electrodes at a preset potential. The voltage bias causes local electrochemical reactions at the sensing electrodes (WE in the image above), stimulating electron flow which is then measured by a transimpedance amplifier or “current-to-voltage” converter. The signal is then analyzed by an onboard analog-to-digital converter. Simply put, the more cortisol in the system, the higher the transimpedance amplifier voltage.

To validate their system a bit more thoroughly than simple benchtop studies, the researchers did some “real-life” testing. A volunteer wore the CortiWatch for 9 hours. The researchers found a consistent decrease in cortisol levels throughout the day and were able to verify these measurements with another independent test. Seems reasonable, however, it’s not quite clear to us what cortisol levels they were expecting to measure during the testing period. We do admit that it takes quite a bit of calibration to get these systems working in real-life settings, so maybe this is a start. We’ll see where they go from here.

Maybe the CortiWatch can finally give us a proper lie detector. We’ll let you be the judge.

source https://hackaday.com/2020/07/22/diy-stress-meter/