Most foods when pureed become pretty unappetizing to look at. For that reason, patients who have trouble swallowing are often given pureed food that’s been molded into fun shapes to make it more appealing. The problem with molding food is that it’s labor-intensive, time-consuming, and the resulting edible toys require a lot of storage space.

When 3D printing came along, it was poised to solve the problem, but in the quest to make foods printable, they became even worse. Printable food paste typically starts with dehydrated and/or freeze-dried vegetables, and then hydrocolloids like xanthan gum and locust bean gum are added so the paste holds together after extrusion. Unfortunately, these additives are a big step backward; they change the texture for the worse, and make the food smell and taste bad, too.

The solution is one of those things that sounds obvious in hindsight: some researchers in Singapore tried using fresh and frozen foods instead of freeze-dried, and figured out the minimum amount of hydrocolloids they could get away with for a given food. In their research they categorized all the feasible foods this way. Some vegetables like garden peas which have higher starch and lower water percentages don’t need any hydrocolloids to be printable. As the starch level falls and water rises, more hydrocolloids are needed. So carrots can get away with using just one type of hydrocolloid, while things like bok choy need two types to print effectively. Even so, results of the study show that fresh vegetable printing calls for far less than their powdered counterparts to the extent that it no longer affects the taste of the end product.

The researchers envision a future where every hospital and elder care facility has a food printer to churn out carrot boats and spinach skylines on demand. We think this tasty development is totally awesome — it’s just too bad the carrot boats don’t look more like Benchy.

In the mood for printed food? Our own [Tom Nardi] sampled the menu of additive edibles a while back.

Thanks for the tantalizing tip, [Qes]!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/making-printed-food-more-palatable-for-those-who-need-it/

I use open source software almost exclusively; at least on the desktop — the phone is another matter, sadly. And I do a lot of stuff with and on computers. Folks outside of the free software scene are still a little surprised when small programs are free to use and modify, but they’re downright skeptical when it comes to the big works of professional software. It’s one thing to write xeyes, but how about something to rival Photoshop, or Altium?

Of course, we all know the answer — mostly. None of the “big” software packages work exactly the same as their closed-source counterparts, often missing a few features here and gaining a few there, or following a different workflow. That’s OK, different closed-source programs work differently as well. I’m not here to argue that GIMP is better than Photoshop, but rather to point out what I really love about open software: it caters to the little guys and gals, the niche users, and the specialists. Or rather, it lets them cater to themselves.

I just started learning FreeCAD for a CNC milling project, and it’s awesome. I’ve used Fusion 360, and although FreeCAD isn’t “the same” as Fusion 360, it has most of the features that I need. But it’s the quirky features that set it apart.

The central workflow is to pick a “workbench” where specific tasks are carried out, and then you take your part to each bench, operate on it, and then move to the next one you need. But the critical bit here is that a good number of the workbenches are contributed to the open project by people who have had particular niche needs. For me, for instance, I’ve done most of my 3D modelling for 3D printing using OpenSCAD, which is kinda niche, but also the language that underpins Thingiverse’s customizer functionality. Does Fusion 360 seamlessly import my OpenSCAD work? Nope. Does FreeCAD? Yup, because some other nerd was in my shoes.

And then I started thinking of the other big free projects. Inkscape has plugins that let you create Gcode to drive CNC mills or strange plotters. Why? Because nerds love eggbots. GIMP has plugins for every imaginable image transformation — things that 99% of graphic artists will never use, and so Adobe has no incentive to incorporate.

Open source lets you scratch your own itch, and share your solution with others. The features of for-pay, closed-source software are driven by the masses: “is this a feature that enough of our customers want?” The features of open-source software are driven by the freaky ideas of nerds just like me. Vive la différence!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/open-source-its-the-little-things/

I use open source software almost exclusively; at least on the desktop — the phone is another matter, sadly. And I do a lot of stuff with and on computers. Folks outside of the free software scene are still a little surprised when small programs are free to use and modify, but they’re downright skeptical when it comes to the big works of professional software. It’s one thing to write xeyes, but how about something to rival Photoshop, or Altium?

Of course, we all know the answer — mostly. None of the “big” software packages work exactly the same as their closed-source counterparts, often missing a few features here and gaining a few there, or following a different workflow. That’s OK, different closed-source programs work differently as well. I’m not here to argue that GIMP is better than Photoshop, but rather to point out what I really love about open software: it caters to the little guys and gals, the niche users, and the specialists. Or rather, it lets them cater to themselves.

I just started learning FreeCAD for a CNC milling project, and it’s awesome. I’ve used Fusion 360, and although FreeCAD isn’t “the same” as Fusion 360, it has most of the features that I need. But it’s the quirky features that set it apart.

The central workflow is to pick a “workbench” where specific tasks are carried out, and then you take your part to each bench, operate on it, and then move to the next one you need. But the critical bit here is that a good number of the workbenches are contributed to the open project by people who have had particular niche needs. For me, for instance, I’ve done most of my 3D modelling for 3D printing using OpenSCAD, which is kinda niche, but also the language that underpins Thingiverse’s customizer functionality. Does Fusion 360 seamlessly import my OpenSCAD work? Nope. Does FreeCAD? Yup, because some other nerd was in my shoes.

And then I started thinking of the other big free projects. Inkscape has plugins that let you create Gcode to drive CNC mills or strange plotters. Why? Because nerds love eggbots. GIMP has plugins for every imaginable image transformation — things that 99% of graphic artists will never use, and so Adobe has no incentive to incorporate.

Open source lets you scratch your own itch, and share your solution with others. The features of for-pay, closed-source software are driven by the masses: “is this a feature that enough of our customers want?” The features of open-source software are driven by the freaky ideas of nerds just like me. Vive la différence!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/open-source-its-the-little-things/

I use open source software almost exclusively; at least on the desktop — the phone is another matter, sadly. And I do a lot of stuff with and on computers. Folks outside of the free software scene are still a little surprised when small programs are free to use and modify, but they’re downright skeptical when it comes to the big works of professional software. It’s one thing to write xeyes, but how about something to rival Photoshop, or Altium?

Of course, we all know the answer — mostly. None of the “big” software packages work exactly the same as their closed-source counterparts, often missing a few features here and gaining a few there, or following a different workflow. That’s OK, different closed-source programs work differently as well. I’m not here to argue that GIMP is better than Photoshop, but rather to point out what I really love about open software: it caters to the little guys and gals, the niche users, and the specialists. Or rather, it lets them cater to themselves.

I just started learning FreeCAD for a CNC milling project, and it’s awesome. I’ve used Fusion 360, and although FreeCAD isn’t “the same” as Fusion 360, it has most of the features that I need. But it’s the quirky features that set it apart.

The central workflow is to pick a “workbench” where specific tasks are carried out, and then you take your part to each bench, operate on it, and then move to the next one you need. But the critical bit here is that a good number of the workbenches are contributed to the open project by people who have had particular niche needs. For me, for instance, I’ve done most of my 3D modelling for 3D printing using OpenSCAD, which is kinda niche, but also the language that underpins Thingiverse’s customizer functionality. Does Fusion 360 seamlessly import my OpenSCAD work? Nope. Does FreeCAD? Yup, because some other nerd was in my shoes.

And then I started thinking of the other big free projects. Inkscape has plugins that let you create Gcode to drive CNC mills or strange plotters. Why? Because nerds love eggbots. GIMP has plugins for every imaginable image transformation — things that 99% of graphic artists will never use, and so Adobe has no incentive to incorporate.

Open source lets you scratch your own itch, and share your solution with others. The features of for-pay, closed-source software are driven by the masses: “is this a feature that enough of our customers want?” The features of open-source software are driven by the freaky ideas of nerds just like me. Vive la différence!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/open-source-its-the-little-things/

While most home networking hardware comes with network ports baked in from the factory, industrial grade gear is typically more versatile. Using standards like Small Form-factor Pluggable, or SFP, network switches can be used with a variety of transport mediums by simply swapping tranceivers in and out. These network devices typically handle the nitty gritty of transmitting Ethernet over fiber optics, and for those keen to experiment, this breakout may come in handy.

The board design comes complete with an SFP receptacle, allowing a variety of compatible receivers to be plugged in for experimentation. With the standard using differential signalling, the board carries hardware to allow the transceiver to be fed with single-ended signals instead, though a differential version is available too. The board can be used for transmitting different signals over fiber, outside just Ethernet, or used as a simple way to reprogram SFP modules via I2C. The latter can be useful to get around DRM in network switches that attempt to lock out generic transceiver modules.

It’s a useful piece of hardware for the fiber optic tinkerer and network admin alike. You might also find it useful if you’re building your own 10-gigabit network at home!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/experiment-with-sfp-modules-with-this-handy-breakout/

Whatever kind of clock you’re interested in building, you’re going to need to build an oscillator of some sort. Whether it be a pendulum, a balance wheel, or the atomic transitions of cesium or rubidium, something needs to go back and forth in a predictable way to form the timebase of the clock. And while it might not make the best timepiece in the world, a tuning fork certainly fits the bill and makes for a pretty interesting clock build.

One of the nice things about this build is that [Kris Slyka] got his inspiration from a tuning fork clock that we covered a while back — we love it when someone takes a cool concept and makes it their own. While both clocks use a 440 Hz tuning fork — that’s an A above middle C for the musically inclined — [Kris] changed up the excitation method for his build. He used a pair of off-the-shelf inductors, placed near the ends of each arm and bridged by a strong neodymium magnet to both sense the 440-Hz vibrations and to provide the kick needed to keep the fork vibrating.

As for the aesthetic of the build, we think [Kris] really nailed it. Using through-hole components, old-school seven-segment displays, and a home-etched PCB, he was able to capture a retro look that really works. The RS-232 port and the bell jar enclosure complete the feel, although we’re not sure about the custom character set [Kris] designed — it’s cool and all, but makes it hard for anyone else to read without a little practice. Regardless, this is a fun build, and we’d imagine the continuous tone coming from the clock is pretty pleasing.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/tuning-fork-keeps-this-throwback-digital-clock-ticking/

[Jeff] says that designing your own 6502 computer is a rite of passage, and he wanted the experience. His board can accept a real 6502 or the newer CMOS variant that is still available. There are a few modern conveniences such as USB power and provisions for using a USB serial port.

We are spoiled today with microcontrollers having everything in one package, but with this class of CPU you need your own memory, I/O devices, and other support chips. [Jeff] took a traditional approach, but picked components that are still easy to obtain. Some designs now push all the support functions to a more modern processor like an Arduino, which is very simple to do, but doesn’t feel as authentic, somehow.

For software, there are several versions of BASIC, one based on Ohio Scientific’s variant. There’s also a monitor image. With 32K of RAM, this would have been a respectable machine in its day. The BASIC interpreter dates from 1977. There are plenty of old BASIC games from those days and [Jeff] shows a famous version of poker running on the board. The 6502’s assembly language isn’t that bad, either.

We love these old retro builds. If you don’t fancy all the support chips you can, as we mentioned, use another processor. Or, try an FPGA.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/everything-old-is-new-again-another-6502-board-is-born/

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) wants to convert laser cutters into something more. By attaching a head to a commercial laser cutter and adding software, they combine the functions of a cutter, a conductive printer, and a pick and place system. The idea is to enable construction of entire devices such as robots and drones.

The concept, called LaserFactory, sounds like a Star Trek-style replicator, but it doesn’t create things like circuit elements and motors. It simply picks them up, places them, and connects them using silver conductive ink. You can get a good idea of how it works by watching the video below.

While it is true that all of this technology exists today, there’s some synergy in having them all together. For example, the video shows etching grooves into acrylic with the laser, filling the grooves with silver ink, and then using the laser to set the silver forming a sort of printed circuit board. Then the pick and place can put components down which the machine can laser solder into place.

Of course, it remains to be seen how durable this construction is. Also, it is obvious that you are going to have a limited palette of options depending on what components are available. That is, you can’t build a tank with quadcopter parts.

We’ve seen laser soldering rigs before. Homebrew pick and place machines are around, too. It doesn’t seem too far a stretch that you could fabricate your own version of this with a laser module, a paste extruder, and a few other odds and ends.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/mit-prints-robots-with-lasers/

Modern life has its conveniences. Often, those conveniences lead to easier hacks. A great example of that is the rise of satellite television and the impact it has had on amateur radio telescopes. There was a time when building a dish and a suitable low noise amplifier was a big deal. Now they are commodity parts you can get anywhere.

The antenna in use is a 1.2-meter prime focus dish. Some TV dishes use an offset feed, but that makes it harder to aim for use in a radio telescope. In addition to off-the-shelf antenna and RF components, an AirSpy software-defined radio picks up the frequency-shifted output from the antenna. There is more about the software side of the build in a follow-up post. We liked that this was a pretty meaty example of using GNU Radio.

A little math predicts that the telescope will see about 1.45 degrees of sky in the half-power bandwidth. Since coax is very lossy at 11.2 GHz, a converter sits right at the feed point and shifts the incoming signal down to about 1.4 GHz. The signal then goes through a bandpass filter, an amplifier, and on to the AirSpy.

As radio telescopes go, 1.2 meters isn’t huge, though you can easily see the sun and the moon transit. The post says you should be able to hear the Milky Way, but that other stellar radio sources may be too faint for the modest equipment.

We see a lot more radio telescope projects these days. Even a relatively small set up can do some things.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/your-own-11-2-ghz-radio-telescope/

These days, NASA deciding to launch one of their future missions on a commercial rocket is hardly a surprise. After all, the agency is now willing to fly their astronauts on boosters and spacecraft built and operated by SpaceX. Increased competition has made getting to space cheaper and easier than ever before, so it’s only logical that NASA would reap the benefits of a market they helped create.

So the recent announcement that NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will officially fly on a commercial launch vehicle might seem like more of the same. But this isn’t just any mission. It’s a flagship interplanetary probe designed to study and map Jupiter’s moon Europa in unprecedented detail, and will serve as a pathfinder for a future mission that will actually touch down on the moon’s frigid surface. Due to the extreme distance from Earth and the intense radiation of the Jovian system, it’s considered one of the most ambitious missions NASA has ever attempted.

With no margin for error and a total cost of more than $4 billion, the fact that NASA trusts a commercially operated booster to carry this exceptionally valuable payload is significant in itself. But perhaps even more importantly, up until now, Europa Clipper was mandated by Congress to fly on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). This was at least partly due to the incredible power of the SLS, which would have put the Clipper on the fastest route towards Jupiter. But more pragmatically, it was also seen as a way to ensure that work on the Shuttle-derived super heavy-lift rocket would continue at a swift enough pace to be ready for the mission’s 2024 launch window.

But with that deadline fast approaching, and engineers feeling the pressure to put the final touches on the spacecraft before it gets mated to the launch vehicle, NASA appealed to Congress for the flexibility to fly Europa Clipper on a commercial rocket. The agency’s official line is that they can’t spare an SLS launch for the Europa mission while simultaneously supporting the Artemis Moon program, but by allowing the Clipper to fly on another rocket in the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress effectively removed one of the only justifications that still existed for the troubled Space Launch System.

To Europa, Eventually

There’s no question that the SLS, at least on paper, would have been the ideal vehicle to carry the Europa Clipper on its epic journey. The megarocket would have enough energy to send the roughly 6,065 kg (13,371 lb) probe on a direct trajectory towards Jupiter during its closest pass in 2024, which would bring the planet within 611 million kilometers (380 million miles) of Earth. On this flight path, it would take a little less than three years for the Clipper to enter orbit around Jupiter and begin its scientific mission.

Unfortunately, there’s simply no replacement for the SLS in terms of raw power. While future vehicles from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance could be compelling options, they simply won’t be ready in time for the 2024 launch window. Even if they’re operational by then, which is by no means a guarantee, they certainly won’t have enough flights logged to prove their reliability. NASA could conceivably wait until one of the later launch windows in 2025 or 2026 to give commercial operators more time to bring their next-generation heavy lift vehicles online, but at least for now, that’s not in the cards.

So how do you get to Europa without the massive boost provided by the SLS? In a word, slowly. While there was some previous speculation that the spacecraft could be fitted with a small “kick stage” to make up for the reduced initial velocity, the preliminary launch contract information provided by NASA specifies that the spacecraft will make use of gravity assist maneuvers by flying what’s known as a Mars-Earth-Gravity-Assist (MEGA) trajectory. This will allow the Europa Clipper to reach its destination without any hardware modifications, but the downside of this complex orbital dance is that the journey will take more than twice as long to complete, with the probe not reaching Europa until 2030 at the earliest.

No determination has yet been made as to which rocket will ultimately launch the Clipper, and the decision isn’t likely to come until next year after the completion of a formal selection process. That said, as it has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational rocket in the world, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy is far and away the most likely choice. Even still, it will potentially have to launch in the as of yet unused fully expendable mode.

So Long, Shelby

This first public acknowledgement that NASA is no longer planning to fly Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System comes just days after Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, one of the SLS program’s staunchest supporters, announced he would be retiring next year. Concerned that President Obama’s 2010 cancellation of the Constellation program would mean the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama would no longer be the center of America’s spaceflight industry, Senator Shelby fought hard to make sure SLS would be a flagship program to rival the Saturn V and Space Shuttle:

While few would complain about politicians taking an active interest in space exploration, and keeping hundreds of high-paying aerospace jobs in his district was a commendable achievement, Shelby’s support of NASA came at a cost. He has been vehemently opposed to NASA’s partnerships with commercial launch providers, going so far as to call the agency’s early contracts with companies like SpaceX a “faith-based initiative” and “a welfare program for the commercial space industry” as the fledgling aerospace firms had yet to demonstrate they could actually build a booster capable of reaching orbit.

It’s a safe bet that Senator Shelby’s replacement will take a similarly bullish approach to Marshall Space Flight Center, but it’s difficult to imagine they will be able to ignore the leaps and bounds made by commercial launch providers in the last few years. As private industry rapidly iterates through cutting-edge engine and booster technology, the Space Launch System’s reliance on Shuttle-derived hardware conceived in the 1970s only becomes harder to defend.

Difficult Decisions Ahead

Between the embarrassing “Green Run” failure in January, the loss of the Europa Clipper mission, and the retirement of Senator Shelby, the future of the Space Launch System has never been more uncertain. Add in a White House that’s far more concerned with fighting a deadly pandemic than leaving new boot prints on Mars or the Moon, and it’s not hard to see how the oft-delayed and incredibly expensive program might finally be running out of road.

To be sure, the SLS will fly at least once. NASA and Boeing are getting ready to repeat the failed engine test in the next few weeks, and too much time and money has been invested to not go ahead with the Artemis I mission. Even if NASA ultimately decides to wind down the SLS program in favor of further commercial cooperation, the shakedown flight is just as much a test of the Orion crew vehicle. With several more Orion capsules already under construction for future Artemis missions, development of the Apollo-like capsule is almost certainly going to continue with or without the SLS.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/europa-decision-delivers-crushing-blow-to-nasas-space-launch-system-sls/

These days, NASA deciding to launch one of their future missions on a commercial rocket is hardly a surprise. After all, the agency is now willing to fly their astronauts on boosters and spacecraft built and operated by SpaceX. Increased competition has made getting to space cheaper and easier than ever before, so it’s only logical that NASA would reap the benefits of a market they helped create.

So the recent announcement that NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will officially fly on a commercial launch vehicle might seem like more of the same. But this isn’t just any mission. It’s a flagship interplanetary probe designed to study and map Jupiter’s moon Europa in unprecedented detail, and will serve as a pathfinder for a future mission that will actually touch down on the moon’s frigid surface. Due to the extreme distance from Earth and the intense radiation of the Jovian system, it’s considered one of the most ambitious missions NASA has ever attempted.

With no margin for error and a total cost of more than $4 billion, the fact that NASA trusts a commercially operated booster to carry this exceptionally valuable payload is significant in itself. But perhaps even more importantly, up until now, Europa Clipper was mandated by Congress to fly on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). This was at least partly due to the incredible power of the SLS, which would have put the Clipper on the fastest route towards Jupiter. But more pragmatically, it was also seen as a way to ensure that work on the Shuttle-derived super heavy-lift rocket would continue at a swift enough pace to be ready for the mission’s 2024 launch window.

But with that deadline fast approaching, and engineers feeling the pressure to put the final touches on the spacecraft before it gets mated to the launch vehicle, NASA appealed to Congress for the flexibility to fly Europa Clipper on a commercial rocket. The agency’s official line is that they can’t spare an SLS launch for the Europa mission while simultaneously supporting the Artemis Moon program, but by allowing the Clipper to fly on another rocket in the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Congress effectively removed one of the only justifications that still existed for the troubled Space Launch System.

To Europa, Eventually

There’s no question that the SLS, at least on paper, would have been the ideal vehicle to carry the Europa Clipper on its epic journey. The megarocket would have enough energy to send the roughly 6,065 kg (13,371 lb) probe on a direct trajectory towards Jupiter during its closest pass in 2024, which would bring the planet within 611 million kilometers (380 million miles) of Earth. On this flight path, it would take a little less than three years for the Clipper to enter orbit around Jupiter and begin its scientific mission.

Unfortunately, there’s simply no replacement for the SLS in terms of raw power. While future vehicles from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance could be compelling options, they simply won’t be ready in time for the 2024 launch window. Even if they’re operational by then, which is by no means a guarantee, they certainly won’t have enough flights logged to prove their reliability. NASA could conceivably wait until one of the later launch windows in 2025 or 2026 to give commercial operators more time to bring their next-generation heavy lift vehicles online, but at least for now, that’s not in the cards.

So how do you get to Europa without the massive boost provided by the SLS? In a word, slowly. While there was some previous speculation that the spacecraft could be fitted with a small “kick stage” to make up for the reduced initial velocity, the preliminary launch contract information provided by NASA specifies that the spacecraft will make use of gravity assist maneuvers by flying what’s known as a Mars-Earth-Gravity-Assist (MEGA) trajectory. This will allow the Europa Clipper to reach its destination without any hardware modifications, but the downside of this complex orbital dance is that the journey will take more than twice as long to complete, with the probe not reaching Europa until 2030 at the earliest.

No determination has yet been made as to which rocket will ultimately launch the Clipper, and the decision isn’t likely to come until next year after the completion of a formal selection process. That said, as it has the highest payload capacity of any currently operational rocket in the world, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy is far and away the most likely choice. Even still, it will potentially have to launch in the as of yet unused fully expendable mode.

So Long, Shelby

This first public acknowledgement that NASA is no longer planning to fly Europa Clipper on the Space Launch System comes just days after Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, one of the SLS program’s staunchest supporters, announced he would be retiring next year. Concerned that President Obama’s 2010 cancellation of the Constellation program would mean the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama would no longer be the center of America’s spaceflight industry, Senator Shelby fought hard to make sure SLS would be a flagship program to rival the Saturn V and Space Shuttle:

While few would complain about politicians taking an active interest in space exploration, and keeping hundreds of high-paying aerospace jobs in his district was a commendable achievement, Shelby’s support of NASA came at a cost. He has been vehemently opposed to NASA’s partnerships with commercial launch providers, going so far as to call the agency’s early contracts with companies like SpaceX a “faith-based initiative” and “a welfare program for the commercial space industry” as the fledgling aerospace firms had yet to demonstrate they could actually build a booster capable of reaching orbit.

It’s a safe bet that Senator Shelby’s replacement will take a similarly bullish approach to Marshall Space Flight Center, but it’s difficult to imagine they will be able to ignore the leaps and bounds made by commercial launch providers in the last few years. As private industry rapidly iterates through cutting-edge engine and booster technology, the Space Launch System’s reliance on Shuttle-derived hardware conceived in the 1970s only becomes harder to defend.

Difficult Decisions Ahead

Between the embarrassing “Green Run” failure in January, the loss of the Europa Clipper mission, and the retirement of Senator Shelby, the future of the Space Launch System has never been more uncertain. Add in a White House that’s far more concerned with fighting a deadly pandemic than leaving new boot prints on Mars or the Moon, and it’s not hard to see how the oft-delayed and incredibly expensive program might finally be running out of road.

To be sure, the SLS will fly at least once. NASA and Boeing are getting ready to repeat the failed engine test in the next few weeks, and too much time and money has been invested to not go ahead with the Artemis I mission. Even if NASA ultimately decides to wind down the SLS program in favor of further commercial cooperation, the shakedown flight is just as much a test of the Orion crew vehicle. With several more Orion capsules already under construction for future Artemis missions, development of the Apollo-like capsule is almost certainly going to continue with or without the SLS.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/europa-decision-delivers-crushing-blow-to-nasas-space-launch-system-sls/

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams unpack great hacks of the past week. We loves seeing the TIL311 — a retro display in a DIP package — exquisitely recreated with SMD electronics and resin casting. You might never need to continuously measure the diameter of your 3D printer filament, but just in case there’s a clever hall-effect sensor mechanism for that. Both of us admire the work being done in the FPGA realm and this week we saw a RISC-V core plumbed into quite the FPGA stack to run a version of Doom originally played on 486 computers. And we’re getting excited for the three ring circus of engineering acrobatics that will land NASA’s Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars next week.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~60 MB)

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

• Google Podcasts
• iTunes
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• RSS

Episode 105 Show Notes:

New This Week:

• Cyberattack On Florida City’s Water Supply
• Feeling The KiCad 6 Electricity

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• A Modern Homage To The TIL311 Display
• Ice40 Runs DOOM
  • Actually, it was 32 kB on a 16 kB CoCo now that I think about it.  Sorry.
• Motor Controller Reverse Engineering Releases Smoke
• Simple Sensor Makes Filament Measurements A Snap
  • And Hall Effect is the voltage perpendicular to the main current. I said current. Oops.
• Raspberry Pi Takes Over Volvo’s Integrated LCD
• 3D Printer? Laser Cutter? CNC? Yes, Please
  • Hands On With The Voltera V-One PCB Printer

Quick Hacks:

• Mike’s Picks:
  • Building A Continuously Variable Transmission With Lego
  • Building A Cheap Kubernetes Cluster From Old Laptops
  • An ESP Will Read Your Meter For You
• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Reverse Engineering USB Protocols On A Function Generator
  • When Is Apple Beige Not Apple Beige?
  • Stay Focused With This Distraction Free Cyberdeck

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Getting Ready For Mars: The Seven Minutes Of Terror
• Hands-On: The RISC-V ESP32-C3 Will Be Your New ESP8266

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/hackaday-podcast-105-486-doom-on-fpga-how-thick-is-your-filament-raspberry-pi-speaks-android-auto-and-were-headed-to-mars/

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams unpack great hacks of the past week. We loves seeing the TIL311 — a retro display in a DIP package — exquisitely recreated with SMD electronics and resin casting. You might never need to continuously measure the diameter of your 3D printer filament, but just in case there’s a clever hall-effect sensor mechanism for that. Both of us admire the work being done in the FPGA realm and this week we saw a RISC-V core plumbed into quite the FPGA stack to run a version of Doom originally played on 486 computers. And we’re getting excited for the three ring circus of engineering acrobatics that will land NASA’s Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars next week.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~60 MB)

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

• Google Podcasts
• iTunes
• Spotify
• Stitcher
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Episode 105 Show Notes:

New This Week:

• Cyberattack On Florida City’s Water Supply
• Feeling The KiCad 6 Electricity

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• A Modern Homage To The TIL311 Display
• Ice40 Runs DOOM
  • Actually, it was 32 kB on a 16 kB CoCo now that I think about it.  Sorry.
• Motor Controller Reverse Engineering Releases Smoke
• Simple Sensor Makes Filament Measurements A Snap
  • And Hall Effect is the voltage perpendicular to the main current. I said current. Oops.
• Raspberry Pi Takes Over Volvo’s Integrated LCD
• 3D Printer? Laser Cutter? CNC? Yes, Please
  • Hands On With The Voltera V-One PCB Printer

Quick Hacks:

• Mike’s Picks:
  • Building A Continuously Variable Transmission With Lego
  • Building A Cheap Kubernetes Cluster From Old Laptops
  • An ESP Will Read Your Meter For You
• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Reverse Engineering USB Protocols On A Function Generator
  • When Is Apple Beige Not Apple Beige?
  • Stay Focused With This Distraction Free Cyberdeck

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Getting Ready For Mars: The Seven Minutes Of Terror
• Hands-On: The RISC-V ESP32-C3 Will Be Your New ESP8266

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/hackaday-podcast-105-486-doom-on-fpga-how-thick-is-your-filament-raspberry-pi-speaks-android-auto-and-were-headed-to-mars/

For some, the idea of several hours of painting and designing intricate models with minute details and features sounds like a delightful afternoon spent. Some of us would much rather just have it come already painted with motors so that it can move. [Cory Collins] sought to combine these two hobbies by building a highly detailed motorized tank dubbed Tankbot 2.3. (Video, embedded below.)

It’s based on a simple hexapod kit ordered online that includes a built-in Arduino compatible board (it’s based on the Arduino 2560 Mega). The legs were redesigned to match the aesthetic that [Cory] was going for. The redesign allows for an extra pivot in the leg mechanism. The turret section was designed and built on top of the base with support for a servo to turn it (though the firmware isn’t quite there yet). After all the parts were 3d printed, the laborious process of painting began. With some delicate airbrushing and some quick stencils cut for the decals, it was complete.

We are amazed by the types of kits and parts that you can find online and the fact that they’re usually inexpensive to boot. We’ve come a long way since 2013 when we covered a much simpler Arduino based tank.

Thanks [Cory] for sending this one in!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/building-a-half-toy-half-model-tank-robot/

Code obfuscation has been around for a long time. The obfuscated C contest first ran way back in 1984, but there are examples of natural language obfuscation from way earlier in history. Namely Cockney rhyming slang, like saying “Lady from Bristol” instead of “pistol” or “lump of lead” instead of “head”. It’s speculated that Cockney was originally used to allow the criminal class to have conversations without tipping off police.

Code obfuscation in malware serves a similar purpose — hiding from security devices and applications. There are known code snippets and blacklisted IP addresses that anti-malware software scans for. If that known bad code can be successfully obfuscated, it can avoid detection. This is a bit of a constant game of cat-and-mouse, as the deobfuscation code itself eventually makes the blacklist. This leads to new obfuscation techniques, sometimes quite off the wall. Well this week, I found a humdinger of an oddball approach. Morse Code.

Yep, dots and dashes. The whole attack goes like this. You receive an email, claiming to be an invoice. It’s a .xlsx.hTML file. If you don’t notice the odd file extension, and actually let it open, you’re treated to a web page. The source of that page is a very minimal JS script that consists of a morse code decoder, and a payload encoded in Morse. In this case, the payload is simply a pair of external scripts that ask for an Office 365 login. The novel aspect of this is definitely the Morse Code. Yes, our own [Danie] covered this earlier this week, but it was too good not to mention here.

Literal Watering Hole Attack

You may have seen the breathless news articles, that a cyber bioterrorism attack almost poisoned a city. Let’s talk about what actually happened. The city in question has a population of under 15,000, and a dedicated water system. The primary control computer in the treatment plant legitimately had a remote access program installed on it. An unauthorized user used that remote access program from the outside early in the day, but only connected for a moment. This first access was assumed to be a legitimate use of the remote access system, but later in the day, it became obvious that something was afoot. When the system was accessed the second time, the remote user turned the sodium hydroxide level up, presumably to maximum, and logged back out.

Well it turns out that the Windows 7 machine in question was running TeamViewer, with a single password shared among all the city’s computers. Christopher Krebs suggests that a ticked-off employee is likely to blame, which is a decent guess.

Metaphorical Watering Hole Attack

These headlines write themselves, but this watering hole attack has quite a twist. We’ve covered problems like typosquatting and malicious project takeovers on platforms like pip and npm. [Alex Birsan] came up with a related attack he calls “Dependency Confusion“. The inspiration was finding PayPal code that wasn’t intended for public release on Github. What intrigued him about this code was the list of dependencies, some of which were open source packages on npm, while some were clearly proprietary packages. This mix brings a question to mind. If a package was uploaded to npm with a name collision with a local package, which version would be used?

As an enterprising researcher, [Alex] decided to find out. He does make the important caveat that he has authorization to do live penetration testing on all his targets, either through the terms of public bounty programs, or through private agreements. Without that authorization, trying to pull off an attack like this could land you in serious hot water.

So what happens when a build system requests a package that exists both locally and on a public repository? It depends, but in many cases, the package with the higher version number is used. [Alex] pulled information on proprietary package names from every source he could find, and carefully crafted proof-of-concept packages. To collect the list of successes, the spoofed packages exfiltrated a few bytes of data encoded over a DNS request. The roster of companies that were vulnerable to the attack is impressive, as is the amount of payout. Apple, Paypal, and Shopify all confirmed the efficacy of the technique, and paid out a cool $30,000 bounty each. Sometimes it’s very good to be a security researcher.

All Your Barcode Are Belong to Us

It’s no great surprise that barcode scanners are popular cell phone apps. You have a handheld computer with a camera and an internet connection. Pointing at a barcode and getting instant information about the product is potentially invaluable. One of the very popular barcode scanner apps on Android, with over ten million installs, has recently started a very aggressive adware campaign. The publisher of that app was LavaBird LTD.

Once the bad behavior was noticed, the app was pulled from the play store. This doesn’t remove it from devices, so you might check your devices for any LavaBird software. The Malwarebytes blog points out that sometimes malicious activity like this is a result of a third-party advertising library, and not the fault of the app developer. In this case, the bad code was directly in the app itself, signed by the developer’s key, and obfuscated to be hard to detect. All in all, the situation is reminiscent of the Great Suspender debacle we covered last week. It makes me suspect that something similar happened. Likely, the original app author sold to a shady third party, who filled the app with malware.

Noteworthy Notes

Firefox released 85.0.1 about a week ago, and there is an interesting note in the changelog: “Prevent access to NTFS special paths that could lead to filesystem corruption.” This rather cryptic note is a reference to bug 1689598, which is still restricted as of time of writing. We can get a look at the changelog that fixes the issue. Apparently there was a way to invoke a special file handler like $MFT or $Volume when opening a file. A malicious invocation can result in filesystem corruption, hence a potentially serious denial of service attack.

Remember the sudoedit bug from a couple weeks ago? A few vendors, namely Apple, considered themselves immune to the bug, since they didn’t have the sudoedit symlink. It didn’t take long for the internet to figure out that it is simple enough to create the symlink yourself, and then trigger the bug.

Google seems to be already making good on their “Know, Prevent, Fix” initiative, publishing the Open Source Vulnerabilities database. Currently, the OSS-Fuzz project is the sole data source, but more are planned. The purpose seems to be a automatable data source for tracking down vulnerabilities. Time will tell what further tools will result from the KPF push.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/this-week-in-security-morse-code-malware-literal-and-figurative-watering-holes-and-more/

When we first saw the Raspberry Pi Pico and its RP2040 microcontroller last month it was obvious that to be more than just yet another ARM chip it needed something special, and that appeared to be present in the form of its onboard PIO peripherals. We were eagerly awaiting how the community might use them to push the RP2040 capabilities beyond their advertised limits. Now [Luke Wren] provides us with an example, as he pushes an RP2040 to produce a DVI signal suitable to drive an HDMI monitor.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the chip can be overclocked, however it’s impressive to find that it can reach the 252 MHz necessary to generate the DVI timing. With appropriate terminations it proved possible for the GPIO lines to mimic the differential signalling required by the spec. A PCB with the RP2040 and an HDMI socket was created, also providing a couple of PMOD connectors for expansion. All code and software can be found in a GitHub repository.

The result is a usable DVI output which though it is a relatively low resolution 640×480 pixels at 60 Hz is still a major advance over the usual composite video provided by microcontroller projects. With composite support on monitors becoming a legacy item it’s a welcome sight to see an accessible path to an HDMI or DVI output without using an FPGA.

Thanks [BaldPower] for the tip.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/bitbanged-dvi-on-a-raspberry-pi-rp2040-microcontroller/

If you’ve ever pushed the needle a bit on your Raspberry Pi, there’s a good chance you’ve been visited by the dreaded lightning bolt icon. When it pops up on the corner of the screen, it’s a warning that the input voltage is dipping into the danger zone. If you see this symbol often, the usual recommendation is to get a higher capacity power supply. But experienced Pi wranglers will know that the board can still be skittish.

Sick of seeing this icon during his MAME sessions, [Majenko] decided to attack the problem directly by taking a close look at the power supply circuitry of the Pi 4. While the official schematics for everyone’s favorite single-board computer are unfortunately incomplete, he was still able to identify a few components that struck him as a bit odd. While we wouldn’t necessarily recommend you rush out and make these same modifications to your own board, the early results are certainly promising.

The first potential culprit [Majenko] found was a 10 ohm resistor on the 5 V line. He figured this part alone would have a greater impact on the system voltage than a dodgy USB cable would. The components aren’t labeled on the Pi’s PCB, but with a little poking of the multimeter he was able to track down the 0402 component and replace it with a tiny piece of wire. He powered up the Pi and ran a few games to test the fix, and while he definitely got fewer low-voltage warnings, there was still the occasional brownout.

Going back to the schematic, he noticed there was a 10 uF capacitor on the same line as the resistor. What if he bumped that up a bit? The USB specifications say that’s the maximum capacitive load for a downstream device, but he reasoned that’s really only a problem for people trying to power the Pi from their computer’s USB port.

Tacking a 470 uF electrolytic capacitor to the existing SMD part might look a little funny, but after the installation, [Majenko] reports there hasn’t been a single low-voltage warning. He wonders if the addition of the larger capacitor might make removing the resistor unnecessary, but since he doesn’t want to mess with a good thing, that determination will be left as an exercise for the reader.

It’s no secret that the Raspberry Pi 4 has been plagued with power issues since release, but a newer board revision released last year helped smooth things out a bit. While most people wouldn’t go this far just to address the occasional edge case, it’s good to know folks are out there experimenting with potential fixes and improvements.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/pcb-mods-silence-voltage-warnings-on-the-pi-4/

If you’ve ever pushed the needle a bit on your Raspberry Pi, there’s a good chance you’ve been visited by the dreaded lightning bolt icon. When it pops up on the corner of the screen, it’s a warning that the input voltage is dipping into the danger zone. If you see this symbol often, the usual recommendation is to get a higher capacity power supply. But experienced Pi wranglers will know that the board can still be skittish.

Sick of seeing this icon during his MAME sessions, [Majenko] decided to attack the problem directly by taking a close look at the power supply circuitry of the Pi 4. While the official schematics for everyone’s favorite single-board computer are unfortunately incomplete, he was still able to identify a few components that struck him as a bit odd. While we wouldn’t necessarily recommend you rush out and make these same modifications to your own board, the early results are certainly promising.

The first potential culprit [Majenko] found was a 10 ohm resistor on the 5 V line. He figured this part alone would have a greater impact on the system voltage than a dodgy USB cable would. The components aren’t labeled on the Pi’s PCB, but with a little poking of the multimeter he was able to track down the 0402 component and replace it with a tiny piece of wire. He powered up the Pi and ran a few games to test the fix, and while he definitely got fewer low-voltage warnings, there was still the occasional brownout.

Going back to the schematic, he noticed there was a 10 uF capacitor on the same line as the resistor. What if he bumped that up a bit? The USB specifications say that’s the maximum capacitive load for a downstream device, but he reasoned that’s really only a problem for people trying to power the Pi from their computer’s USB port.

Tacking a 470 uF electrolytic capacitor to the existing SMD part might look a little funny, but after the installation, [Majenko] reports there hasn’t been a single low-voltage warning. He wonders if the addition of the larger capacitor might make removing the resistor unnecessary, but since he doesn’t want to mess with a good thing, that determination will be left as an exercise for the reader.

It’s no secret that the Raspberry Pi 4 has been plagued with power issues since release, but a newer board revision released last year helped smooth things out a bit. While most people wouldn’t go this far just to address the occasional edge case, it’s good to know folks are out there experimenting with potential fixes and improvements.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/pcb-mods-silence-voltage-warnings-on-the-pi-4/

If you’ve ever pushed the needle a bit on your Raspberry Pi, there’s a good chance you’ve been visited by the dreaded lightning bolt icon. When it pops up on the corner of the screen, it’s a warning that the input voltage is dipping into the danger zone. If you see this symbol often, the usual recommendation is to get a higher capacity power supply. But experienced Pi wranglers will know that the board can still be skittish.

Sick of seeing this icon during his MAME sessions, [Majenko] decided to attack the problem directly by taking a close look at the power supply circuitry of the Pi 4. While the official schematics for everyone’s favorite single-board computer are unfortunately incomplete, he was still able to identify a few components that struck him as a bit odd. While we wouldn’t necessarily recommend you rush out and make these same modifications to your own board, the early results are certainly promising.

The first potential culprit [Majenko] found was a 10 ohm resistor on the 5 V line. He figured this part alone would have a greater impact on the system voltage than a dodgy USB cable would. The components aren’t labeled on the Pi’s PCB, but with a little poking of the multimeter he was able to track down the 0402 component and replace it with a tiny piece of wire. He powered up the Pi and ran a few games to test the fix, and while he definitely got fewer low-voltage warnings, there was still the occasional brownout.

Going back to the schematic, he noticed there was a 10 uF capacitor on the same line as the resistor. What if he bumped that up a bit? The USB specifications say that’s the maximum capacitive load for a downstream device, but he reasoned that’s really only a problem for people trying to power the Pi from their computer’s USB port.

Tacking a 470 uF electrolytic capacitor to the existing SMD part might look a little funny, but after the installation, [Majenko] reports there hasn’t been a single low-voltage warning. He wonders if the addition of the larger capacitor might make removing the resistor unnecessary, but since he doesn’t want to mess with a good thing, that determination will be left as an exercise for the reader.

It’s no secret that the Raspberry Pi 4 has been plagued with power issues since release, but a newer board revision released last year helped smooth things out a bit. While most people wouldn’t go this far just to address the occasional edge case, it’s good to know folks are out there experimenting with potential fixes and improvements.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/12/pcb-mods-silence-voltage-warnings-on-the-pi-4/

If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve been bombarded by stories about retail traders attempting to beat Wall Street at their own game by trying to force a short squeeze on GameStop stock. It’s inspired memes, songs, and all manner of political discourse, along with this cute stock-tracking device built by [dickdemodickmarcinko].

The device is based on the typical exhortation that a given stock or cryptocurrency is going “to the moon”, i.e. skyrocketing upwards to great heights. IT consists of an ESP8266 in a 3D printed housing, with a HD44780 alphanumeric LCD displaying the GME stock price and percentage change over time. The microcontroller also controls a stepper motor, which rotates a 3D-printed rocketship up or down relative to the stock’s price changes. If it’s pointing straight up, prospects are good for those holding the stock!

Whether or not the GME squeeze happens, the build is a fun way to learn about electronics and the stock market at the same time, and could be readily repurposed to track other markets in future. We’ve featured other price trackers before, like this traffic light keeping an eye on Bitcoin. Video after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/gme-tracking-rocketship-for-the-diamond-handed-traders/

If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve been bombarded by stories about retail traders attempting to beat Wall Street at their own game by trying to force a short squeeze on GameStop stock. It’s inspired memes, songs, and all manner of political discourse, along with this cute stock-tracking device built by [dickdemodickmarcinko].

The device is based on the typical exhortation that a given stock or cryptocurrency is going “to the moon”, i.e. skyrocketing upwards to great heights. IT consists of an ESP8266 in a 3D printed housing, with a HD44780 alphanumeric LCD displaying the GME stock price and percentage change over time. The microcontroller also controls a stepper motor, which rotates a 3D-printed rocketship up or down relative to the stock’s price changes. If it’s pointing straight up, prospects are good for those holding the stock!

Whether or not the GME squeeze happens, the build is a fun way to learn about electronics and the stock market at the same time, and could be readily repurposed to track other markets in future. We’ve featured other price trackers before, like this traffic light keeping an eye on Bitcoin. Video after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/gme-tracking-rocketship-for-the-diamond-handed-traders/

If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve been bombarded by stories about retail traders attempting to beat Wall Street at their own game by trying to force a short squeeze on GameStop stock. It’s inspired memes, songs, and all manner of political discourse, along with this cute stock-tracking device built by [dickdemodickmarcinko].

The device is based on the typical exhortation that a given stock or cryptocurrency is going “to the moon”, i.e. skyrocketing upwards to great heights. IT consists of an ESP8266 in a 3D printed housing, with a HD44780 alphanumeric LCD displaying the GME stock price and percentage change over time. The microcontroller also controls a stepper motor, which rotates a 3D-printed rocketship up or down relative to the stock’s price changes. If it’s pointing straight up, prospects are good for those holding the stock!

Whether or not the GME squeeze happens, the build is a fun way to learn about electronics and the stock market at the same time, and could be readily repurposed to track other markets in future. We’ve featured other price trackers before, like this traffic light keeping an eye on Bitcoin. Video after the break.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/gme-tracking-rocketship-for-the-diamond-handed-traders/

What’s just a bit thicker than a human hair and has ten times the capability of a human muscle? Polymer-coated carbon nanotube yarn. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas created this yarn using carbon nanotubes coated with a polymer and coiled with a diameter of about 140 microns.

Passing a voltage through the fiber causes the muscle yarn to expand or contract. Previous similar fibers have to do both actions. That is, they expand and then contract in a bipolar movement. The polymer coating allows for unipolar fibers, critical to using the fibers as artificial muscles.

Another improvement is the development of a solid electrolyte so the fibers don’t have to float in a liquid bath. The researchers say this is important for the creating of smart fabrics and, of course, the material has obvious applications in any sort of robotic design. In addition to smart clothing, medical implants and prosthetics could benefit from this material, too.

The only problem, of course, is production at scale. It is one thing to make a few centimeters of yarn in a lab, and another to smart shirts in every big box store in the world.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this university toying with artificial muscles and carbon nanotubes. Some artificial muscle fibers need a laser, but that’s not very handy.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/nanotube-yarn-makes-strong-bionic-muscles/

We never insist that a hack be practical. [Tech Ingredients] is living proof as they modded a computer case to use a window air conditioner for overclocking a computer. They think they haven’t hit the ceiling yet, and got their AMD Ryzen 8-core processor up to 4.58 GHz.

An advantage of forcing air from an air conditioner is that the air forced into the system is quite dry and clean. The trick is to create a simple duct to attach to a 5,000 BTU air conditioner. It doesn’t actually interface with the CPU cooling block, instead it just forces cool air into the case and this tends to cool everything inside. Admittedly, it isn’t any worse than plunging your computer in liquid nitrogen, and we’ll admit that air conditioning units are made to keep large areas cold and work at high duty cycles. With the air conditioning running, they disconnected at least some of the stock fans. The temperatures stayed cool even at high speeds.

We really liked the thermal interface test rig, which they used to test interface media. We wondered though, if you could tap into the cooling loop and actually push refrigerant through a water cooling block. An alternative would be to use a double loop as a nuclear reactor does, with a water loop on the CPU and the refrigerant loop in the air conditioner. Still, the way they did it has the advantage of being simple and reversible.

This is making us think about just 3D printing a faceplate for our air conditioner to hold a few Raspberry PI boards. Cheaper than a Dewar flask.

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/pc-overclocking-with-an-air-conditioner/

Retrocomputing is as much about physical preservation as it is about electronics and computer science. Plastic is an awful material when it comes to decade-long timescales, and the forces of sun, air and water are unrelenting on these materials. [Drygol] has long experimented with techniques to preserve and refresh keycaps, and decided to try some fun vacuum forming techniques for something new. It sadly didn’t go to plan, however.

The basic idea was to use a vacuum-forming machine to coat keycaps in a thin layer of translucent plastic, for both aesthetic benefit and to preserve them from falling apart. Initial small-scale tests were promising, creating a key with a tight, form-fitting blue plastic wrap through which the original labels were still visible.

However, scaling up the process proved fraught. Uneven heating of the plastic film and a lack of rigidity in the carriage used to stretch it over the keycaps led to poor results. The final product showed many wrinkles and was distinctly unappealing.

[Drygol] isn’t giving up however, and plans to build a new vacuum table with greater performance. We can imagine this technique being an accessible way to colorize keycaps for a vintage cyberdeck or chiptune rig, without permanently modifying the keys. If you’ve got the inside knowledge on how to make this work, sound off in the comments.

We’ve seen [Drygol]’s work in this space before, too, like this extreme modded Amiga. If you’re executing your own retro repairs, be sure to drop us a line!

source https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/vacuum-forming-key-cap-covers-doesnt-quite-work-out/