Blog: Hardware

This is a fantastic way to upcycle an old iMac that would otherwise be e-waste. I was able to get a 24" 1920x1200 sleek-looking monitor out of this for about $50 in parts. This blog post feels a bit long but it's just a lot of images and reference material. To skip around, here are some links to the sections: Teardown Pinouts and references Project schematics LCD controller boards Building it back up Final result Most of the images are bigger than they appear in this blog post. Right click and open in a new tab to see the full size. Figuring out which iMac you have I'm working with an Apple iMac from 2008, the year before Apple started adding target display mode to iMac's which allows standalone monitor

This guide is just meant as a light reference for others who may be trying to fix their own robot vacuum and wanting to replace the main rolling brush motor. It isn't meant to be a comprehensive guide and will probably only make sense to someone who is already familiar with electronics and debugging. Note: I'm working with a Eufy RoboVac 25C but the Eufy 11S (slim) seems to be pretty much the same vaccuum so this should apply to that as well. Symptoms: "Rolling brush is stuck" This just started out as my vacuum often stopping and giving 10 beep code. Since, I didn't have the app on my phone (no one wants that vendor spyware), I just thought the cliff sensors

I wanted more lighting around the apartment and was inspired by the lines that my blinds made on the wall on a sunny day which kinda match the Gitter logo (I work at Gitter/GitLab). Boiled down, this project is some internet of things(IoT) connected LEDs. Lines on the wall created by the blinds that inspired the sign, Parts (bill of materials) Electronics Beaglebone Black (rev. B), https://www.adafruit.com/product/1996 USB battery bank, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L88VP3Y It's important to make sure that it can be charged and power another device at the same time because it will act as a universal power supply(UPS) for the Beaglebone Black so that it won't get corrupted if the power is cut. 400w, 1u power supply, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014G2OUG2 Any reliable slim power supply, <1.5" tall. I chose a 1u

I was really intrigued by the BeagleBone Black's (BBB) low cost, great performance, and IO all on the familiar Ubuntu OS. I am still quite new to the BeagleBone Black and hope to create some great projects with it in the future. This is a quick guide to get you up and running with Ubuntu on your BeagleBone Black. I created this guide because many of the guides and instructions are scattered across many places and I wanted a concise place to reference. Flashing/Installing Ubuntu on your BeagleBone Black Download the latest Ubuntu image. Pick the latest .img.xz file (on the bottom) from the rcn-ee site ex. http://rcn-ee.net/deb/flasher/saucy/BBB-eMMC-flasher-ubuntu-13.10-2014-03-27-2gb.img.xz Extract the .img.xz download to get the .img file. You can use 7zip to extract it. If you

This guide will go over compiling the firmware, flashing it to your device, and emulating your first USB device. I was successful using Windows 8(not 8.1) but it still came with challenges. Hopefully this guide can steer you clear of any head-banging issues. If you need help making/assembling your own Facedancer board, follow this guide I made previously. Getting started Inspect your board for any solder bridges, cold joints, etc. Use a multimeter in continuity mode to test. This is important as you are connecting this to your precious pc. Plug in the host side to your pc via USB 2.0. I ran into Blue Screen issues on Windows 8 using USB 3.0. If you want to be cautious, plug it in on an old

The Facedancer is a board to fuzz and emulate/prototype USB devices with host side python, PyUSB. Here is the official Facedancer21 page. It was masterminded by Travis Goodspeed and Sergey Bratus. The Facedancer21 is the 24th revision of the pcb. The Facedancer is not really available pre-assembled for cheap so you will have to build your own. You can buy a fully assembled version from this site but you don't get any SMD soldering practice and it costs about double. If you already have a board and need some help flashing it and emulating your first device, follow this guide. Tools: Soldering Iron Spool of Solder Flux (I used a flux pen) Tweezers Spool of desoldering Wick or Braid Multimeter for testing Helping hands Magnifying glass or something of the sorts Parts: You

Here is a simple guide/tutorial on how to get your linear servo moving. The video below demos what I made. You can see how everything is set up below that: Play video Parts: Teensy 3.0 or 3.1: Substitute your own Arduino/microcontroller Mini Linear Servo 1x 10 uF Capacitor 1x Diode (Optional) Potentiometer for jog code. I was able to run the mini servo off of the Teensy's 3.3V pin which has a 100mA max rating. Code: There are two different demo projects. The first one just jogs the servo back

Here is a simple guide to get your stepper motors spinning. The video below demos what I made. You can see how everything is set up below that: Play video Parts: Teensy 3.0 or 3.1: Substitute your own Arduino/microcontroller Stepper Motors: 1.7A NEMA 17 4-wire Motor Controllers: I used a 3.5A controller with the TB6560 chips Power Supply: 24V 10A (I used a Sopudar SPD-240-24) Wiring Diagram / Schematic: Code (.ino, arduino code): const int stepperX_pul = 0; const int stepperX_dir = 1; const int stepperY_pul = 2; const int stepperY_dir =

Just finished the classic tennis game Pong for my Basys 2 FPGA (built from scratch). The project is written in VHDL and is played on a VGA monitor. You can see a video of it in action at the bottom of this article. Features: Multiplayer: Battle against your friend Play against the AI. Or AI vs AI battles Score Keeping Hidden Mode / Easter Egg (see below) Source: Just visit the GitHub Repo. Controls: ActionControlPlayer Left/1 Paddle movementbtn2 and btn3Player Right/2 Paddle movementbtn0 and btn1Resetswitch0Player Left/1 AI Enableswitch7Player Right/2 AI Enableswitch6 Technology: A small list of things implemented in this design: Collision Detection and Resolution VGA Output, game video Text display on VGA which includes a ram arbiter (uses my other project FP-V-GA Text) Basic AI for the paddles Button and Switch Input Seven-segment driver (BCD converter) Other: I

Go straight to the VGA Simulator About The VGA Simulator is a web based tool to easily view a raw VGA signal without having to hook it up to an actual CRT monitor. Easily review and save any frames generated. It uses horizontal sync, vertical sync, and red, green, blue to recreate pixel perfect frames. The purpose of this tool was to create a faster way to debug FPGA/VHDL projects that utilize VGA. The problem is that synthesizing and generating a bit-file takes too long with Xilinx mainly because it only utilizes a single core. Although we have Simulators such as Isim to debug almost every aspect of a design, it is hard visualize a bunch a 1 or 0 flying past the

If you are running into the following error (Adept, or other programmer), here is how to fix it in Xilinx. I came across this issue when using my Basys 2 and trying to load a bit file with Digilent's Adept programmer. It is only a compatibility issue with the bit file and FPGA board. Startup clock for this file is'CCLK' instead of 'JTAG CLK'. Problems will likely occur. Associate config file with device anyway? In the Processes pane, select Generate Programming File Then go to Process -> Process Properties -> Startup Options -> FPGA Start-Up Clock and change it to JTAG CLK. Click, OK. Then re-generate the programming file and program your board.