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.
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.
If you are dealing with solar or battery power, you might want to have one of these little energy meters built by [Open Green Energy] around. The Arduino-based instrument measures DC voltage, current, power, energy, capacity, and temperature. The range is only up to 26 volts and 3.2 amps, but you could extend that with some external circuitry.
Of course, measuring a voltage with the Arduino is old hat. But the addition of a INA219 current sensor provides voltage, current, and power measurements in a single module that talks I2C back to the host computer.
The layout is neat although he’s working on a PCB, as well. This basic circuit would work well for a data logger or current monitor with just a few software changes.
If you are into this sort of thing, the INA219 actually comes in two versions. The “A” version is not as precise as the “B” version. The difference, though, is small. According to the data sheet, the “A” version can be off as much as 1% on current measurement across the entire temperature range, while the “B” variant holds to 0.5%. Both devices are typically around 0.2% under normal operating conditions.
The device works with an external shunt resistor, so it measures the supply voltage on one side of the shunt and by observing the difference in voltage on the other side, it can calculate the amount of current.
If you want to see what an $8,000 instrument can do for current measurement, have a look at the Keithley 2460 SourceMeter. If your budget is somewhat less, there’s the Joulescope.
Ever since the high-quality camera for the Raspberry Pi was released a few months back it has been the center of attention for many hacks. In this quick build [Martin Mander] shows us how to make a servo-powered focusing mechanism entirely from LEGO.
The inspiration for this project came to him while he was working on his 1979 Merlin Pi Camera and found that setting the focus just right is vital in order to get good quality pictures. So he set himself the goal to build a mechanism that allows him to focus the camera precisely and remotely.
It is the plethora of LEGO-compatible parts that are available off-the-shelf that make such a project possible without the use of any 3D printed components. He not only found a LEGO-compatible continuous rotating servo but also a LEGO-compatible case for the Pi, and a LEGO cogwheel which almost fits exactly onto the camera lens. He also added a tripod mount to the case that allows him to set up the camera anywhere. The camera and focussing mechanism are controlled with a custom GUI based on guizero Python 3 library and the camera can be accessed remotely via VNCViewer.
It’s taken 54 years, but soon, you’ll finally be able to buy a fully-functional version of the tricorder from Star Trek. Announced on the official website for the legendary sci-fi franchise, the replica will be built by The Wand Company, who’ve previously produced a number of high-quality official Star Trek props as well as replicas for Doctor Who and the Fallout game series.
Admittedly, we’re not sure what a “fully-functional tricorder” actually is, mainly because the various on-screen functions of the device were largely driven by whatever bind Kirk and Spock managed to find themselves in that week. But the announcement mentions the ability to scan radio frequencies, pull in dynamic data from environmental sensors, and record audio. The teaser video after the break doesn’t give us any more concrete information than the announcement, but it does seem to confirm that we’ll be viewing said data on the device’s iconic flip-up display.
Now as the regular Hackaday reader knows, fans have been building extremely impressive “functional” tricorders for some time now. Unlike the sleek 24th century versions seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the original tricorder prop was rather clunky and offers plenty of internal volume for modern goodies. Cramming a Raspberry Pi, LCD, and a bunch of sensors into an inert replica is a relatively approachable project. So it will be interesting to see how the official version stacks up to what’s already been done by intrepid hackers and makers.
The official tricorder won’t be available until summer of 2021, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s your turn to beam one up. While the $250 USD sticker price might keep the more casual Trekkers at bay, it’s actually a bit cheaper than we would have assumed given the amount of time and money we’ve seen fans put into their own builds.
If you were to travel back in time to the turn of the previous century and try to convince the average person that the grains of sand on just about any beach would be the basis of an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars within 100 years, they’d probably have thought you were crazy. Aside from being coarse, rough, and irritating, sand is everywhere, and convincing anyone of its value would be a hard sell, unless your interlocutor was a real estate visionary with an appreciation of the future value of seaside property and a lot of patience.
Fast forward to our time, and we all know the value of the material that comes from common quartz sand: silicon, specifically the ultra-purified crystals of silicon that end up as the wafers we depend on to build the circuitry of life. The trip from beach to chip foundry is a long and non-obvious one which would not have been possible without the insights of an undistinguished Polish student and one-time druggist who discovered the process that made the Information Age possible: Jan Czochralski.
Those Who Can’t Teach
Born in 1885 in what is now Kcynia, Poland but was then part of the Prussian Empire, Jan Czochralski showed an early aptitude for chemistry. As always seems the case with chemistry prodigies, an early experiment in his home laboratory resulted in an explosion. His father, a carpenter, had aspirations that Jan would one day become a teacher, but despite his love of chemistry, or perhaps because of it, Jan’s grades were poor enough to preclude him from that career path. As an alternative, he left home and took a job in a drug shop, vowing only to return to his hometown once he had become rich and famous.
Jan Czochralski, circa 1910
Jan continued his studies on his own and progressed through a series of jobs in Germany’s burgeoning chemistry industry. He was largely self-trained when he applied to and was accepted by the Technische Hochschule in Berlin Charlottenburg, where he would specialize in metallurgy. Soon thereafter, as a newly minted chemical engineer at the Germany electrical giant AEG, he began studies into the applications in electronics of what was then an exotic and expensive material: aluminum.
Czochralski’s career was advancing rapidly on the value of his metallurgical research and the degree to which he published his findings. His work was cited frequently, so much so that he would one day become one of the most referenced Polish scientists, no mean feat when the list includes names like Marie Skłodowska Curie and Stanisław Ulam. His fame was eventually such that Henry Ford would court him aggressively and offer to put him in charge of his entire factory in 1923. Czochralski politely declined.
Absent-Minded Professor?
For someone who was so driven and devoted to the field of chemical metallurgy, and for as methodical as Czochralski reportedly was, it’s ironic that what he is perhaps best known for, and the discovery that would certainly become his most important legacy, was the result of an accident. In 1916, as the story goes, Czochralski was making some notes on a metallurgical experiment at his bench. Intent on his notebook pages, he didn’t notice that instead of dipping his pen into the inkwell, he had dipped it into a crucible of molten tin. The story may be apocryphal, given that the melting point of tin is 232 °C and it would be unlikely that a careful experimenter like Czochralski would be so cavalier with a pot of molten metal, but however the pen got into the tin, the result was interesting.
When he withdrew the pen, a fine whisker of tin was drawn up with it from the pool of molten metal. Curious as to the nature of the thread, Czochralski analyzed it and was surprised to find that it was a single crystal. He continued to experiment with the technique, replacing the pen nib with various capillary tubes, and adding seed crystals to provide nucleation sites for crystal formation. He was soon able to produce single crystals of various metals up to 1 mm in diameter and as long as a meter and a half. In addition to tin, he used his method to produce crystal filaments of lead and zinc.
Czochralski duly reported his findings in 1917, and though there was an initial burst of experimentation by others into the “Czochralski method”, the distractions of back-to-back world wars left the work largely in obscurity. He continued working in the chemical industry for the rest of his life, and would live long enough to see researchers at Bell Labs — it’s always Bell Labs — rediscover his process in the late 1940s and apply it to materials he never imagined working with, like silicon and germanium, as they began to invent the semiconductor industry.
The details of the Czochralski process for producing the single enormous silicon crystals, or boules, that are the raw material of almost every semiconductor product made today varies from the original method only in minor details, and of course in the scale of production. Silicon boule production is carried out in an induction furnace that has precise temperature control and can be provided with an inert atmosphere such as argon. The process starts when a quartz crucible is charged with ultrapure (99.9999%, or one non-silicon molecule in a million) polycrystalline silicon. The furnace is heated to about 1,500 °C while the crucible slowly rotates.
When the polysilicon has melted, a puller rod is lowered into the molten silicon pool. The end of the puller rod carries a seed crystal of silicon in a precise orientation, to serve as a nucleation site for crystallization. The puller rod, which is rotating in the opposite direction from the crucible, remains in the molten silicon for a short time before slowly being withdrawn. The molten silicon has by this point started to crystallize, and the puller rod begins accumulating a cone of crystalline silicon in the same orientation as the seed crystal.
Eventually the growing crystal reaches its maximum diameter, and the boule becomes more cylindrical. The diameter of the boule can reach up to 300 mm routinely, although 450 mm diameter processes are currently being prototyped; a theoretical maximum of 675 mm is possible but has not been attained. The boule continues to grow as it is withdrawn, a single crystal of silicon dangling from the puller rod and eventually weighing several hundred kilograms. The video above gives a good overview of the entire process, from production of polycrystalline silicon from quartzite sand through boule formation, and on to the fascinating details of processing the boule into wafers.
The Czochralski process is not only used for silicon crystals. Synthetic gemstones, including ruby, sapphire, garnet, and spinel can be grown using the method. On the other hand, the method is far from the only way of making ingots of monocrystalline silicon.
The float-zone process, also developed at Bell Labs, uses RF energy to heat a zone within a rod of polycrystalline silicon. It can produce silicon of much higher purity since the melt isn’t exposed to oxygen by the quartz crucible of the Czochralski method. There’s also the Bridgman–Stockbarger method, which is basically an upside-down version of the Czochralski method.
At the end of the day, though, Jan Czochralski’s accidental discovery of a crystal-growing technique has stood the test of time, as something like 90% of silicon wafers are cut from boules grown using his method.
If you were to travel back in time to the turn of the previous century and try to convince the average person that the grains of sand on just about any beach would be the basis of an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars within 100 years, they’d probably have thought you were crazy. Aside from being coarse, rough, and irritating, sand is everywhere, and convincing anyone of its value would be a hard sell, unless your interlocutor was a real estate visionary with an appreciation of the future value of seaside property and a lot of patience.
Fast forward to our time, and we all know the value of the material that comes from common quartz sand: silicon, specifically the ultra-purified crystals of silicon that end up as the wafers we depend on to build the circuitry of life. The trip from beach to chip foundry is a long and non-obvious one which would not have been possible without the insights of an undistinguished Polish student and one-time druggist who discovered the process that made the Information Age possible: Jan Czochralski.
Those Who Can’t Teach
Born in 1885 in what is now Kcynia, Poland but was then part of the Prussian Empire, Jan Czochralski showed an early aptitude for chemistry. As always seems the case with chemistry prodigies, an early experiment in his home laboratory resulted in an explosion. His father, a carpenter, had aspirations that Jan would one day become a teacher, but despite his love of chemistry, or perhaps because of it, Jan’s grades were poor enough to preclude him from that career path. As an alternative, he left home and took a job in a drug shop, vowing only to return to his hometown once he had become rich and famous.
Jan Czochralski, circa 1910
Jan continued his studies on his own and progressed through a series of jobs in Germany’s burgeoning chemistry industry. He was largely self-trained when he applied to and was accepted by the Technische Hochschule in Berlin Charlottenburg, where he would specialize in metallurgy. Soon thereafter, as a newly minted chemical engineer at the Germany electrical giant AEG, he began studies into the applications in electronics of what was then an exotic and expensive material: aluminum.
Czochralski’s career was advancing rapidly on the value of his metallurgical research and the degree to which he published his findings. His work was cited frequently, so much so that he would one day become one of the most referenced Polish scientists, no mean feat when the list includes names like Marie Skłodowska Curie and Stanisław Ulam. His fame was eventually such that Henry Ford would court him aggressively and offer to put him in charge of his entire factory in 1923. Czochralski politely declined.
Absent-Minded Professor?
For someone who was so driven and devoted to the field of chemical metallurgy, and for as methodical as Czochralski reportedly was, it’s ironic that what he is perhaps best known for, and the discovery that would certainly become his most important legacy, was the result of an accident. In 1916, as the story goes, Czochralski was making some notes on a metallurgical experiment at his bench. Intent on his notebook pages, he didn’t notice that instead of dipping his pen into the inkwell, he had dipped it into a crucible of molten tin. The story may be apocryphal, given that the melting point of tin is 232 °C and it would be unlikely that a careful experimenter like Czochralski would be so cavalier with a pot of molten metal, but however the pen got into the tin, the result was interesting.
When he withdrew the pen, a fine whisker of tin was drawn up with it from the pool of molten metal. Curious as to the nature of the thread, Czochralski analyzed it and was surprised to find that it was a single crystal. He continued to experiment with the technique, replacing the pen nib with various capillary tubes, and adding seed crystals to provide nucleation sites for crystal formation. He was soon able to produce single crystals of various metals up to 1 mm in diameter and as long as a meter and a half. In addition to tin, he used his method to produce crystal filaments of lead and zinc.
Czochralski duly reported his findings in 1917, and though there was an initial burst of experimentation by others into the “Czochralski method”, the distractions of back-to-back world wars left the work largely in obscurity. He continued working in the chemical industry for the rest of his life, and would live long enough to see researchers at Bell Labs — it’s always Bell Labs — rediscover his process in the late 1940s and apply it to materials he never imagined working with, like silicon and germanium, as they began to invent the semiconductor industry.
The details of the Czochralski process for producing the single enormous silicon crystals, or boules, that are the raw material of almost every semiconductor product made today varies from the original method only in minor details, and of course in the scale of production. Silicon boule production is carried out in an induction furnace that has precise temperature control and can be provided with an inert atmosphere such as argon. The process starts when a quartz crucible is charged with ultrapure (99.9999%, or one non-silicon molecule in a million) polycrystalline silicon. The furnace is heated to about 1,500 °C while the crucible slowly rotates.
When the polysilicon has melted, a puller rod is lowered into the molten silicon pool. The end of the puller rod carries a seed crystal of silicon in a precise orientation, to serve as a nucleation site for crystallization. The puller rod, which is rotating in the opposite direction from the crucible, remains in the molten silicon for a short time before slowly being withdrawn. The molten silicon has by this point started to crystallize, and the puller rod begins accumulating a cone of crystalline silicon in the same orientation as the seed crystal.
Eventually the growing crystal reaches its maximum diameter, and the boule becomes more cylindrical. The diameter of the boule can reach up to 300 mm routinely, although 450 mm diameter processes are currently being prototyped; a theoretical maximum of 675 mm is possible but has not been attained. The boule continues to grow as it is withdrawn, a single crystal of silicon dangling from the puller rod and eventually weighing several hundred kilograms. The video above gives a good overview of the entire process, from production of polycrystalline silicon from quartzite sand through boule formation, and on to the fascinating details of processing the boule into wafers.
The Czochralski process is not only used for silicon crystals. Synthetic gemstones, including ruby, sapphire, garnet, and spinel can be grown using the method. On the other hand, the method is far from the only way of making ingots of monocrystalline silicon.
The float-zone process, also developed at Bell Labs, uses RF energy to heat a zone within a rod of polycrystalline silicon. It can produce silicon of much higher purity since the melt isn’t exposed to oxygen by the quartz crucible of the Czochralski method. There’s also the Bridgman–Stockbarger method, which is basically an upside-down version of the Czochralski method.
At the end of the day, though, Jan Czochralski’s accidental discovery of a crystal-growing technique has stood the test of time, as something like 90% of silicon wafers are cut from boules grown using his method.
If you were to travel back in time to the turn of the previous century and try to convince the average person that the grains of sand on just about any beach would be the basis of an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars within 100 years, they’d probably have thought you were crazy. Aside from being coarse, rough, and irritating, sand is everywhere, and convincing anyone of its value would be a hard sell, unless your interlocutor was a real estate visionary with an appreciation of the future value of seaside property and a lot of patience.
Fast forward to our time, and we all know the value of the material that comes from common quartz sand: silicon, specifically the ultra-purified crystals of silicon that end up as the wafers we depend on to build the circuitry of life. The trip from beach to chip foundry is a long and non-obvious one which would not have been possible without the insights of an undistinguished Polish student and one-time druggist who discovered the process that made the Information Age possible: Jan Czochralski.
Those Who Can’t Teach
Born in 1885 in what is now Kcynia, Poland but was then part of the Prussian Empire, Jan Czochralski showed an early aptitude for chemistry. As always seems the case with chemistry prodigies, an early experiment in his home laboratory resulted in an explosion. His father, a carpenter, had aspirations that Jan would one day become a teacher, but despite his love of chemistry, or perhaps because of it, Jan’s grades were poor enough to preclude him from that career path. As an alternative, he left home and took a job in a drug shop, vowing only to return to his hometown once he had become rich and famous.
Jan Czochralski, circa 1910
Jan continued his studies on his own and progressed through a series of jobs in Germany’s burgeoning chemistry industry. He was largely self-trained when he applied to and was accepted by the Technische Hochschule in Berlin Charlottenburg, where he would specialize in metallurgy. Soon thereafter, as a newly minted chemical engineer at the Germany electrical giant AEG, he began studies into the applications in electronics of what was then an exotic and expensive material: aluminum.
Czochralski’s career was advancing rapidly on the value of his metallurgical research and the degree to which he published his findings. His work was cited frequently, so much so that he would one day become one of the most referenced Polish scientists, no mean feat when the list includes names like Marie Skłodowska Curie and Stanisław Ulam. His fame was eventually such that Henry Ford would court him aggressively and offer to put him in charge of his entire factory in 1923. Czochralski politely declined.
Absent-Minded Professor?
For someone who was so driven and devoted to the field of chemical metallurgy, and for as methodical as Czochralski reportedly was, it’s ironic that what he is perhaps best known for, and the discovery that would certainly become his most important legacy, was the result of an accident. In 1916, as the story goes, Czochralski was making some notes on a metallurgical experiment at his bench. Intent on his notebook pages, he didn’t notice that instead of dipping his pen into the inkwell, he had dipped it into a crucible of molten tin. The story may be apocryphal, given that the melting point of tin is 232 °C and it would be unlikely that a careful experimenter like Czochralski would be so cavalier with a pot of molten metal, but however the pen got into the tin, the result was interesting.
When he withdrew the pen, a fine whisker of tin was drawn up with it from the pool of molten metal. Curious as to the nature of the thread, Czochralski analyzed it and was surprised to find that it was a single crystal. He continued to experiment with the technique, replacing the pen nib with various capillary tubes, and adding seed crystals to provide nucleation sites for crystal formation. He was soon able to produce single crystals of various metals up to 1 mm in diameter and as long as a meter and a half. In addition to tin, he used his method to produce crystal filaments of lead and zinc.
Czochralski duly reported his findings in 1917, and though there was an initial burst of experimentation by others into the “Czochralski method”, the distractions of back-to-back world wars left the work largely in obscurity. He continued working in the chemical industry for the rest of his life, and would live long enough to see researchers at Bell Labs — it’s always Bell Labs — rediscover his process in the late 1940s and apply it to materials he never imagined working with, like silicon and germanium, as they began to invent the semiconductor industry.
The details of the Czochralski process for producing the single enormous silicon crystals, or boules, that are the raw material of almost every semiconductor product made today varies from the original method only in minor details, and of course in the scale of production. Silicon boule production is carried out in an induction furnace that has precise temperature control and can be provided with an inert atmosphere such as argon. The process starts when a quartz crucible is charged with ultrapure (99.9999%, or one non-silicon molecule in a million) polycrystalline silicon. The furnace is heated to about 1,500 °C while the crucible slowly rotates.
When the polysilicon has melted, a puller rod is lowered into the molten silicon pool. The end of the puller rod carries a seed crystal of silicon in a precise orientation, to serve as a nucleation site for crystallization. The puller rod, which is rotating in the opposite direction from the crucible, remains in the molten silicon for a short time before slowly being withdrawn. The molten silicon has by this point started to crystallize, and the puller rod begins accumulating a cone of crystalline silicon in the same orientation as the seed crystal.
Eventually the growing crystal reaches its maximum diameter, and the boule becomes more cylindrical. The diameter of the boule can reach up to 300 mm routinely, although 450 mm diameter processes are currently being prototyped; a theoretical maximum of 675 mm is possible but has not been attained. The boule continues to grow as it is withdrawn, a single crystal of silicon dangling from the puller rod and eventually weighing several hundred kilograms. The video above gives a good overview of the entire process, from production of polycrystalline silicon from quartzite sand through boule formation, and on to the fascinating details of processing the boule into wafers.
The Czochralski process is not only used for silicon crystals. Synthetic gemstones, including ruby, sapphire, garnet, and spinel can be grown using the method. On the other hand, the method is far from the only way of making ingots of monocrystalline silicon.
The float-zone process, also developed at Bell Labs, uses RF energy to heat a zone within a rod of polycrystalline silicon. It can produce silicon of much higher purity since the melt isn’t exposed to oxygen by the quartz crucible of the Czochralski method. There’s also the Bridgman–Stockbarger method, which is basically an upside-down version of the Czochralski method.
At the end of the day, though, Jan Czochralski’s accidental discovery of a crystal-growing technique has stood the test of time, as something like 90% of silicon wafers are cut from boules grown using his method.
[Ty Palowski] doesn’t like folding his many shirts. He saw one of those boards on TV that supposedly simplifies folding, but it does require you to manually move the board. That just won’t do, so [Ty] motorized it to create a shirt folding robot.
The board idea is nothing new, and probably many people wouldn’t mind the simple operation required, but what else are you going to do with your 3D printer but make motor mounts for a shirt folding machine. The folding board is, of course, too big for 3D printing so he made that part out of cardboard at first and then what looks like foam board.
The side “wings” were easy to manipulate, but the top fold required a little more effort. The machine still requires a manual fold at the end and, of course, you have to put the shirt on the right way for things to work out.
Honestly, we aren’t sure this is a very practical project, but we still enjoyed the idea and we can’t deny it seems to work. We don’t think there’s much torque required so we wondered if some beefy RC servos would have been just as effective and probably a lot easier to work with. Still, just about anything that could move would work. You could probably even use a spring and a solenoid to get the same effect. There’s not much build detail, but we think you could figure it out using whatever motors you happen to have on hand.
If you find laundry too time-consuming, there’s always Eleven. If you want a better folding robot, you’ll have to put in some serious work.
The TS100 smart soldering iron may have some new competition. Pine — the people best known for Linux-based phones and laptops — though the world needed another smart soldering iron so they announced the Pinecil — Sort of a knock off of the TS100. It looks like a TS100 and uses the same tips. But it does have some important differences.
It used to be a soldering iron was a pretty simple affair. Plug in one end; don’t touch the other end. But, eventually, things got more complicated and you wanted some way to make it hotter or cooler. Then you wanted the exact temperature with a PID controller. However, until recently, you didn’t care how much processing power your soldering iron had. The TS100 changed that. The smart and portable iron was a game-changer and people not only used it for soldering, but also wrote software to make it do other things. One difference is that the device has a RISC-V CPU. Reportedly, it also has better ergonomics and a USB C connector that allows for UART, I2C, SPI, and USB connections. It also has a very friendly price tag of $24.99.
We like that you can use a USB C port or a barrel jack to power the iron. That opens up a number of possibilities. Software-wise, the original author of the TS100 firmware, [Ben Brown] stepped up and set the device up to support the OLED and PWM tip drive. There are a few things left to iron out — no pun intended — but it sounds like it is mostly functional.
Of course, you can also use the device as a starter for a completely different thing that fits nicely in a hand-held form factor. The release talks about a drill or a multimeter, but we are sure there will be other ideas, including the inevitable soldering iron games. If you somehow have escaped learning about the old TS-100, read our review. It will give you something to do while waiting to order your Pinecil — they should be available in the next three months.
A few days ago, Chinese researchers from technology giant Tencent released a paper outlining a firmware vulnerability in several types of fast charger power bricks (translated). The attack is known as BadPower, and it works by altering the default parameters in the firmware of fast chargers to deliver more power to devices than they can handle, which can cause them to overheat, melt, or catch fire.
The ancient and basic USB charging spec provides 0.5 A at 5 V, which is equal to 2.5 W. In theory, that’s all you’ll ever get from those types of chargers. But the newer generation of chargers are different. When you plug your phone into a fast charger, it negotiates a voltage and charging speed with your phone before passing it any power.
Fast chargers can push power at 20 V or more to speed up the charging process, depending on the charger and connected device. If the phone doesn’t do fast charging, it will default to the 5 V standard. Researchers claim the BadPower attack is capable of harming devices whether or not they include a fast charging feature. When a capable device is connected, the charger will still negotiate for 5V, but instead give 20V and wreak havoc.
In the demo after the break, one of the team uses a malicious device disguised as a phone to push the BadPower firmware change to a fast charger that’s hooked up to a voltmeter. Before the attack, the charger gives 5V. After the attack, it gives 5V for a few seconds before jumping up near 20V. Then they connect the now-dirty charger to two identical illuminated magnifying glasses. In one the chip lets the smoke monster out rather violently, and the chips of the other emit sparks.
The researchers tested 35 of the 200+ fast charging bricks currently on the market and found that 18 of them were vulnerable to BadPower, including 11 that can be exploited through the charging port itself. They believe the issue is fixable with a firmware update.
What is not available is enough information to verify this research, or a list of brands/models that are vulnerable. Researchers say the findings were submitted to the China National Vulnerability Database (CNVD) on March 27th, so the absence of this information may be a product of manufacturers needing more time to patch the vulnerability.
What do you think? We say halfway decent chargers shouldn’t be open to firmware attacks from the devices they are charging. And any halfway decent phone should have built-in electrical protection, right?
[Rickysisodia] had a few dead ATmega128 chips laying around that he didn’t want to just throw away, so he decided to turn them into his own light-up fidget toy. The toy is in the form of a six-sided die so small that you can hang it on a keychain. He soldered an ATmega128 on each side of the cube and added a few dot circles to give his toy the look of a functional dice. We were pretty amazed by his impressive level of dexterity. Soldering those 0.8 mm-pitch leads together seems pretty tedious if you ask us.
Then he wired a simple, battery-powered tilt switch LED circuit on perfboard that he was able to sneakily place inside the cube. He used a mercury switch, which, as you may figure, uses a small amount of mercury to short two metal contacts inside the switch, completing the circuit and lighting the LED. We would suggest going with the non-mercury variety of tilt switches just to avoid any possible contamination. You know us, anything to mitigate unnecessary disasters is kind of a good route. But anyway, the die lights up a different color LED based on the orientation of the cube and it even blinks.
