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TI MSP430 Launchpad for $4.30 – Update

bluehash — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:03:17 +0000

TI just launched a cheap and easy to use development tool based on the MSP430 low power microcontroller. The Launchpad includes a development board, 2 programmable MSP430 micrcontrollers and a mini USB cable.

This is a very slick deal for beginners and hobbyists who wish to learn the chip. The Launchpad wiki is a good place to start. You can order kits by following the clicking the banner on the top of the wiki. You can also order from the TI-eStore or Mouser. Shipping is free from TI!

Update 1(July 02, 2010):
The Makers WorkBench posted details of a short Q&A with TI’s product marketing manager, Adrian Fernandez. He mentions that “Arduinio type shields” for the Launchpad are in the works and the $4.30 price is here to stay!

If this deal is helpful, leave a comment below. :)

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Power Supply Connector Paper Clip Hack

bluehash — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:56:20 +0000

Ever come across a power supply where you had to needle in your power cables into tiny terminal holes – and all you had were IC and alligator clips? What if you wanted to power a number of boards from the same supply?

Here is a simple hack which will allow you to connect, wrap , group quite a few power cables in parallel… and all you need is a paper clip. Two paper clips to be precise to connect to the positive and negative terminals.

Get the jumbo size clip if you can. Its much sturdier and does not flex easily.

Now bend the clip to around 45 degrees. You may need to adjust the angle depending on your power supply.

That’s all there is to it. The hack in all its glory. Leave a comment if you like it!

And if your interested in buying a power supply:

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Microchip Explorer 16 Development Kit Hacks

bluehash — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 15:04:33 +0000

The Explorer 16 is Microchip’s controller development boards for evaluating its 16 and 32-bit microcontrollers. While searching the web for reviews about the baord and its feasability, I came across [P]hillip Burgess’ website detailing some cool hacks that can be done on the board and also save you money.

Explorer 16 Development Board

Hack1 – Use the built is ICSP connector on the board itself, instead of running around for a RJ11 – ICSP cable. Its been there since the earlier revisions of the board. One thing to remember though is that the slickscreen numbers on the connector are reversed. Pin1 is Pin6. All you need is a 6 pin header.

Hack2 – Program the chip without using an ICSP programmer. Use the “forgotten” onboard programmer. [R]afal Waniurski managed to come up with a firmware for the programming micro( a PIC18F4550 ). All you need is an external programmer to initially program the chip and your ready to program your main controller. [P]hil details the type of USB connectors required for this operation.

Hack3 – Power your development board through the USB port rather than the power jack. All you need is two Schottky diodes. Not that connecting to USB port allows for a maximum of 200ma draw. If you are connecting additional PICTail boards( like the graphics board), you may need to use the dc power jack.

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The Jerker : The Ultimate Geek Desk / Workbench

bluehash — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:10:03 +0000

I spend alot of time in this space. The setup uses two Ikea Jerker desks – combined. I just swing between them depending on what I’m working on.

The Jerker is considered as the ultimate geek desk with a lot of flexibility allowing you to customize your setup. The two columns on the side have holes in them at regular intervals allowing you to mount more shelves or accessories. The setup was gradually built up over a year and a half. I spend time editing my pics[D40/18-55/50/55-200] / playing TF2 or working on an embedded project.

IKEA should get back the Jerker desk. Both the desks were got off Craigslist. Leave a comment below if you have any questions.

If you are interested in buying any of the items, there is a list below.Most of it is from Amazon:

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Reversing a Hacker Style Brushless Motor 20-22L.

bluehash — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:54:38 +0000

The Hacker Style Brushless(20-22L) motor finds a very common use in Quadcopters. Unfortunately the only way to mount the motor on a frame is to reverse the shaft so that the mounting holes can be used for what they were meant for..mounting.

dontenorio69 has a very helpful video on how to do this. The same process is detailed below, but with pictures:

The Hacker Style comes with all mounting hardware as well as some spares including an extra circlip, in case yours goes flying when you try to pop it out.
First remove the circlip from one end of the shaft. Then loosen the grub screw from the other end. After this, the rotor and armature should separate. There is a tiny washer near the circlip end inside the motor. Keep this safe in case you need it later. Yo will not need it again for the reversal.
With a thin ended screwdriver, hammer the shaft out. It will take a few tries to get out.
Once the shaft pops out, reverse it and hammer it back in, so that there is enough shaft left for the circlip to clasp on. The following iluustrations will make this clearer.
Now it’s time to cut the shaft so that the prop adapter fits easily. The shaft will be too long for the adapter to fit. You can cut it with a Dremel using cut-off discs made specifically for cutting metal.
Before cutting the shift, remember to tape off the motor holes to prevent any metal shavings to go inside the motor. The simplest way is to make a mask from scotch tape.
Fully assembled motor with 10×4.7 APC prop.

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Surfing the Web with a 1964 300baud Acoustic Coupled Livermore modem.

bluehash — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:41:24 +0000

This hack is so impressive that I had to put it up here. I am really surprised that a dated piece of hardware[circa 1964] can still work with today’s technology.
[p]hreakMonkey got his hands on a Livermore acoustic modem and managed to get it online and download a Wikipedia page.

What’s really amazing is that the modem works by placing an old school telephone over the modem’s “receiver” and communicates using acoustic tones. The only challenging part for [p]hreakMonkey was to search for an appropriate DB9-DB25 connector. He used minicom, which is a Linux terminal (equivalent to Hyperterminal in Windows) to talk to the modem.

Check the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dpXHnJXaE

Info via[Hackaday]

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Controlling the Nikon D40 with gphoto2

bluehash — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:10:22 +0000

gphoto2 is a neat little command line interface to talk to digital cameras. The Nikon D40 DSLR is also supported. I was not able to find a good guide on interfacing the D40 to gphoto, so I wrote this down for reference.

Installing gphoto2
1. I have Fedora10 installed on my laptop. Running the following simple command “yum install gphoto2″ as root installs gphoto2.

2. Doing the above however does not install libghoto2 which is the core library designed to allow access to digital cameras by external programs.

Goto ghoto2.org and download the latest version of libgphoto2. The latest at my time of downloading was 2.4.5.
Extract all the contents on the Desktop in a libgphoto folder.
Open a terminal. As root, type “make”. If you encounter any errors, it maybe because libgphoto cannot find the packages it needs. I had to install libusb. Doing “yum install libusb” did it. If you are unable to successfully compile it, post in the comments, I’ll try to help.
Once compilation is done, type “make install” as root.
Close the terminal. Done!

Running gphoto2
1. Gphoto2 is now installed and ready to use. Make sure the camera is in PTP mode. Goto SETUP MENU -> USB and select MTP/PTP mode. Restart your camera.

2. You will see the following pop up. It is very important to click “Unmount.” If you do not, further instructions will not work.

3. To make sure your D40 was correctly detected by your PC, type ” dmesg | tail ” as root. You should see your camera detected in the last two – three lines.

4. Open another terminal and as user type the following:
gphoto2 --list-ports
You should see the mode the camera is connected which is in PTP.

5. To see some more information about your camera, type the following in the same terminal:
gphoto2 --summary

6. Now for capturing, type the following:
gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download
This first saves the file “capt0000.jpg” on you camera in the “store_00010001″ folder. It then copies it to the current folder on your PC and deletes the one on the camera.

For taking shots at intervals, say 10 seconds in a custom folder, say “/home/D40/” try the following command.
gphoto2 --capture-image-and-download --folder="/home/D40" --interval 10

If this guide was helpful or if you need any help, let me know in the comments below and remember to Subscribe

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Digital Picture Frame Hacking Roundup

bluehash — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 07:29:57 +0000

With all the nice hacks on digital picture frames scattered around the web, I decided to put them all in one place for reference. Due thanks to all the hackers out there who put their work out for everyone to see. It’s the joy in reverse engineering. For some of the hacks I’ve included a compressed file with the code and webpage archived in case the original site goes down. If you are the author an would not like it, please let me know.
Please read : If you would like to be notified of new frames being hacked, leave a comment below and check the “subscribe to comments” box.

PHILIPS Picture Frames
[v]incent was able to display his images directly to the frame by writing a little script which prepends a binary header to the JPEG file. There is a detailed writeup on how he reverse engineered the picture frame format.

Detailed info:

Models: 7FF1AW, 7FFICMI
Webpage [Archive]
jpg2frame Script

SAMSUNG SPF-83v Frames
The frame parses feeds and regular html pages for images and displays them. You can use the frame’s i-net-functions to serve it data.
[t]obe from Infolexikon uses PHP to gather data and writes it all to an image using gd. These images are then pushed to the frame at regular intervals.

Detailed info:

Webpage
Script-[Original][Archive] Thanks for the update [d]p
Buy – Amazon – Samsung SPF-87H 8-Inch Touch of Color Digital Photo Frame

CEIVA Picture Frames
The CEIVA runs on a Cirrus Logic Maverick(EP7212) controller. It’s based on a ARM720T core with 2Mb Flash and 4Mb DRAM.
Initial hack done by [c]olin. The frame runs on Linux. Necessary patches and images are provided. [b]rad keeps a worklog here
New code can be loaded via a serial port on the PCB through a simple level converter.

Detailed info:

Models : Not Specified
Webpage
Webpage and Code [Archive]

KeyChain Displays
[j]eroen from Spritesmods maintains a wiki of compatible keychain displays with his firmware hack. He and a couple of guys regularly update it with new displays. Most of the displays use the SITRONIX ST2205U controller in them. I tried my hand in doing the same with the Hannah Montana Vu-Me photo frame. I got close, but bricked it in the end.
Their code is maintained at Google code

Detailed info:

Models:

TomTec
Coby DP-151SX/DPKEY
HK unbranded
Keypix
Dealxtreme SKU5218
Innovage
Dig-291
Innovalley

Webpage
Wiki
Google code

DIGITAL SPECTRUM MemoryFrame
The MemoryFrames run on WindowsCE5. [r]etoor from mozy.org managed to crash the frame using a keyboard, mouse and following a sequence. The frame runs on an ARM920T – a 32bit Arm9 processor. The following is an excerpt from his “YouTube’s more info…” link:
…”Basically you need both the mouse and keyboard plugged in, scroll down past the “Settings” option, scroll back up, and click the word “Settings” with your mouse. There is no enter key on the keyboard so you have to click the mouse….”

Detailed info:

YouTube
Buy – Amazon

JUICEBOX Digital Frames
[j]oevennix managed to rip out the LCD from a Juicebox and enclose it in his own custom frame. He didn’t have the mp3 kit at that time( although you can get it online), so he soldered a SD card slot into the cartridge connector. His webpage is down. The following is an archive of his work.

Detailed info:

Archive
Pdf

If you find this interesting or have some new ideas or links on frames, please post in the comments. Don’t forget to Subscribe [email]for more followups and hacks. To get updates on this page, subscribe to the comments below.

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Taking Apart the ATV-360 EyePiece [Head Mounted Display]

bluehash — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:10:59 +0000

As promised, after taking apart the ATV-360 Spy Video here, this is a follow-up on taking apart the Head Mounted Display[HUD]. The HUD has some very interesting DIY parts and ideas which you can try out. Maybe a cool wearable. The details on all the parts used are at the end of the post and comments are open for discussion.

The HUD consists of a frame which sits in the same way as you would wear a pair of spectacles. On the right side, a case is attached which holds all the necessary electronics and optics. The HUD receives video signals from the remote which houses the camera receiver. If you are interested, you can buy the full vehicle kit at Amazon.

1. First for a few views. Click on the views for a larger image.

2. So that you know how it looks, I setup two scenes. One with a PostIt note saying “HI” and the other a Rubik’s cube. The LCD is monocohrome however, so the image you will see is not color.

The one with the PostIt note
The one with the Rubiks cube

3. Opening is not that easy as there are no screws to take apart the top cover which says “Spy Gear”. The cover is glued to the case using glue. Taking a clue from Jake to avoid inserting the screwdriver on the side the “cable does not come out”, I managed to take it apart. Pry the side where the black cable comes out. The other side has the LCD connector, you might damage it if ou pry that side. It’s tough at first, but once you get one side, it gets easier.

4. Once the cover is removed, the PCB becomes visible. The main controller chip is a Kopin KCD-A300-QB. All the other parts are support components for the chip. There is a small potentiometer in one corner which allows you to change camera gain. You can see the display change in brightness when you change it. Try adjusting it, there is no harm in doing so as it can easily be bough back to it’s previous value by looking at the screen.

5. Remove the two screws keeping the PCB in place. Also it’s time to remove the LCD connector. To remove it, pull the black tab out a bit as in the pic.
The connector will slip out easily with a slight tug. The connector is pretty rugged. I have already plugged it in/out a few times.

6.The LCD connector is glued on to the casing. Remember to break it free before going ahead.

6: Four more screws need to be taken out to remove the eyepiece. Use a pair of pliers to do this.

7.Before I forget, the PCB has a high output smd LED behind it as below:

8. Prying out gives you the lens casing. It’s pretty well made, with the LCD nicely sitting in it’s place. It was designed so that the lens was at a fixed distance from the LCD.

9.Going further, pry the top half with a flat head screwdriver. There are four tiny rods which keep it inline. This part should come out easily.

9.Now for the LCD. The LCD is in a tiny casing which sits in a grooved box. There is a slight amount of glue on one end as in the image. With a flat head screwdriver, as shown, just give a tiny nudge and it should come free.

10. The LCD in all it’s glory!

11. The following views show the three pieces of the lens casing. Note that the part at the extreme right of each image has a diffused screen to spread light from the SMD LED.

12. This was as far as I could go. The eyepiece is glued together. Trying to take it apart would mean risk in breaking the lens.

Parts and Notes:
Main controller chip :: Kopin KCD-A300-QB
Documents :: kopin_kcd-a300-qb_dsiplay_driver
Notes :: This is the driver chip for the 300M LV monochrome display. It is designed to accept a standard monochrome video signal (525 or 625 lines), and convert it for the display. Unfortunately its a monochrome driver and not a color one.

LCD Display :: Kopin 300MLV CyberDisplay
Documents :: kopin_cyberdisplay_300m_lv_feature_sheet
Notes :: This is the LCD Display with the connector. The feature sheet shows a frameless one, but I’m unable to find the document with the framed one.

If you find this interesting or have some new ideas or links, please post it in the comments. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to Subscribe [email] for more followups and hacks.

if you are interested in purchasing one, Amazon sells a full vehicle kit:

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Hacking the Hannah Montana Photocube – Almost!

bluehash — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:11:52 +0000

Things with LCDs are very interesting. I found a Hannah Montana Digital Photocube on sale and decided to look what’s inside it. Good for a day of hacking :)

First a description:

Storage capacity: 8 M bit (Up to 70 photos) Resolution: 128×128 dpi
Display: 1.5-inch color LCD
Supported File Format: JPG (JPEG),BMP, GIF, PNG, & TIF
Power: 2 xAAA batteries (not included)
USB Ports: Mini-USB 1.1 interface

Searching around the net produced a lot of work done by Sprite. He and a couple of guys maintain a wiki containg information about hacked lcd keychains. Most of the keychains that have been hacked contain a ST2205U Microcontroller. With this information I proceeded ripping apart my photocube. This was what was inside:

A 1Mb A29L800( datasheet ) flash chip and a micrcontroller hidden behind a big black blob along with the LCD, buttons, USB port and an on-off switch. With some reading on Sprite’s blog and modifyng his script a little, I was able to verify that the microcontroller was indeed a ST2205U. If you browse through main.c, a function is_photoframe checks if the controller is a ST2205U. So I inserted a printf(“Response : %s\n”,buff) to verify if the chip gave back the correct string, which it did.

/* Checks if the device is a photo frame by reading the first 512 bytes and comparing against the known string that's there */ int is_photoframe(int f) { int y,res; char id[]="SITRONIX CORP."; char *buff; buff=malloc_aligned(0x200); lseek(f,0x0,SEEK_SET); y=read(f,buff,0x200); buff[15]=0; printf("Response : %s\n",buff); // fprintf(stderr,"ID=%s\n",buff); res=strcmp(buff,id)==0?1:0; free_aligned(buff,0x200); return res; }

I’ll try documenting my steps going further. It’s in Linux( RedHat ) since I work on it, and you could do the same using a linux live cd.

1. Unpack Sprite’s hack from here. You will need to install libgd if you don’t have it. As root install gd-devel. Please read the README file in the unpacked directory. It’s written for a reason.

yum install gd-devel

2. Then as a user type “make” in the unpacked directory. This will compile the hack to give you the “phack” binary.

3. Now connect the photocube and turn it on. You will see “USB Connect” displayed on the screen. Open a terminal on your linux machine and type

dmesg | tail

This will give you any hardware information that occurred last. You will see the following:

If you see something like:

4096 512-byte hdwr sectors (2 MB)

then your close. Also note where your cube is mounted so you can access it. If you look at the pic above it says “Attached scsi removable disk sdg”, which means that the cube is mounted at /dev/sdg

4. Now to hack the firmware.
WARNING : Anything you do after this is at your own risk.

Type the following as root in your terminal, using the mount point which you got from step 3.

./hackfw.sh /dev/sdg

You will see the following as checks are made and eventually an error:

Sprite’s script makes a backup of the firmware and an image of the memory. It however says that “The hack won’t work for my Firmware.” When I looked into the script, it looks if my cube’s firmware is same as Sprite’s when he hacked his keychain, which is an entirely different product.

dd if=fwimage.bin bs=256 skip=58 count=2 of=fwbit 2>/dev/null #check for all FFs Md5sum may not be _the_ tool for that, but it works OK. if ! md5sum fwbit | grep -q de03fe65a6765caa8c91343acc62cffc; then echo "No room at the location we want to place the hack!" echo "This specific hack won't work for this particular firmware, I'm sorry." exit 1; fi

I did not have anything to loose, so I commented it out to bypass the check. Just put a “#” to comment out code.

5. I ran the script again (run as root), this time it went through the whole flashing process, till I rebooted

6. The script ends with “No Photoframe found here”. Turn off, Disconnect, Turn On and the Connect the photoframe. Get the mount point as in step 3. Type the following as root.

You should see the following on the LCD

The script allows a maximum of 10 characters. Another example

I was however unsuccessful in getting PNGs or JPEGs uploaded to the device. That’s when I bricked my cube trying different memory addresses. It doesn’t even turn on now. I’ll update when I get my hands on another one. If you have any questions or comments, you could enter them below. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to Subscribe for more followups and hacks.

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