Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
7,076 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trying And (Mostly) Failing To 3D Print A Hydrofoil
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/11/trying-and-mostly-failing-to-3d-print-a-hydrofoil/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Game Of Life Moves Pretty Fast, If You Don’t Use Stop Motion You Might Miss It
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/11/the-game-of-life-moves-pretty-fast-if-you-dont-use-stop-motion-you-might-miss-it/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Flying Blind: Taking Flight Simulation To A New Level In Accessibility
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/02/flying-blind-taking-flight-simulation-to-a-new-level-in-accessibility/
Software developers [Andy Borka] and [Jason Fayre] have a love for aviation. They are also both totally blind. They’ve developed software called Talking Flight Monitor, and it has made flight simulation possible for anyone with impaired vision or blindness, as you can experience in the blurry video below the break. What draws them to aviation and flight simulators?
Talking Flight Monitor
https://www.talkingflightmonitor.com/
This is the home of Talking Flight Monitor (TFM), an open source accessibility add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, or Lockheed Martin Prepar3d. This software is designed to allow a totally blind person to enjoy flight simulation. The software has had some very limited testing with the new Flight Simulator 2020, but bare in mind that there are still serious accessibility issues with Flight Simulator 2020.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/02/hedgehog-gesture-sensor-built-with-cheap-time-of-flight-modules/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janksy Robot Paints Murals One Dot At A Time
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/02/janksy-robot-paints-murals-one-dot-at-a-time/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/01/magnesium-where-it-comes-from-and-why-were-running-out/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/01/dc-ups-keeps-the-internet-up/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/31/building-a-kinetic-sand-art-table/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Extracting Data From Smart Scale Gives Rube Goldberg A Run For His Money
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/31/extracting-data-from-smart-scale-gives-rube-goldberg-a-run-for-his-money/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi Reads What It Sees, Delights Children
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/31/raspberry-pi-reads-what-it-sees-delights-children/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/30/a-hackable-keyboard-that-even-has-screens/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Handwriting Robots Are Sending Snail Mail
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/30/handwriting-robots-are-sending-snail-mail/
As a kid, you might remember taking a whole fistful of markers or crayons, gently lining them all up for maximum contact, mashing them into the paper, and marveling at the colorful multitude of lines. It seemed like an easy way to write many times more things with less effort. While not quite the same idea but in a similar vein, [Aaron Francis] shared an experience of creating handwriting robots to write thousands of letters.
https://mobile.twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/1438888219471491074
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/30/this-smart-watch-keeps-an-eye-on-ambient-co2-levels/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/30/dream-bigger-predict-the-future/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modified Toggle Switches Grace Hyper-Detailed Cockpit Simulator Panels
https://hackaday.com/2021/10/30/modified-toggle-switches-grace-hyper-detailed-cockpit-simulator-panels/
In the world of the cockpit simulator hobby, no detail is too small to obsess over. Getting the look and feel of each and every cockpit control just right is important, and often means shelling out for cockpit-accurate parts. But not always, as these DIY magnetically captured toggle switches show.
Magnetic Switches – for $20 each!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmDc2_VuGI
I’ve wanted to add magnetic switches for a long time but I refused to pay the THOUSAND DOLLARS per switch for real ones, so I made my own on the cheap!
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/01/retro-memory-hack-chat/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is This 12-layer PCB Coil The Next Step In Ferrofluid Displays?
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/12/is-this-12-layer-pcb-coil-the-next-step-in-ferrofluid-displays/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-Cost Computer Gesture Control With An I2C Sensor
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/12/low-cost-computer-gesture-control-with-an-i2c-sensor/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Guide To Designing A Custom RC Controller
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/12/a-guide-to-designing-a-custom-rc-controller/
SS4H-RC Transmitter – DIY Project based on STM32
https://smartsolutions4home.com/ss4h-rc-transmitter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/12/exploring-the-healing-power-of-cold-plasma/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/12/the-spiced-cider-must-flow/
https://biotinker.dev/posts/cider.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peek Behind The Curtains: Conference Badge Design
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/13/peek-behind-the-curtains-conference-badge-design/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A One-Servo Mechanical Seven-Segment Display
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/13/a-one-servo-mechanical-seven-segment-display/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/13/improving-a-mini-lathe-with-a-few-clever-hacks/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/13/bluetooth-rc-car-packs-in-a-few-sensors/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/14/arcade-machine-pack-and-play/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/14/tiny-talisman-warns-wearer-about-uv-exposure/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/14/propel-paper-planes-bisect-sausages-with-electromagnets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/16/making-your-own-touchpad-with-pwm-and-rust/
The modern touchpads are incredible feats of engineering, with everything from complex signal processing for noise and tremendous economies of scale driving prices low. So [Kevin] decided to see if he could make his own touchpad. Partially out of curiosity of what makes one touchpad better than another, but also because he was curious if he could. Using an STM32 and a custom PCB, he was off to the races in an incredibly cost-effective way.
After writing some quick firmware in Rust, he was reporting the values read by the PWM channels. Using python, he could get a good idea of the raw values that were being written over USB and visualized.
https://kevinlynagh.com/touchpad/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Extending An E-Bike Range From Good To Wheelie Good
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/15/extending-an-e-bike-range-from-good-to-wheelie-good/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Circuit Sculpture Lamp Is A Colorful Cube Companion
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/15/circuit-sculpture-lamp-is-a-colorful-cube-companion/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/15/mining-and-refining-pure-silicon-and-the-incredible-effort-it-takes-to-get-there/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Treasure Hunting With A Handful Of Common Components
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/15/treasure-hunting-with-a-handful-of-common-components/
[mircemk] had the right idea when he built his simple induction-balance metal detector. It uses a couple of 555 timers, transistors, and passives to sense the presence of metallic objects via a coil of wire. He was able to detect a coin up to 15 cm away, and larger objects at 60cm — not bad for a pile of components you probably have in your bench’s spare parts drawer right now! The detector selectivity can be tuned by a couple of potentiometers, and in true metal detector fashion, it has a buzzer to loudly blare at you once it’s found something (along with a LED, in case the buzzer gets too annoying).
Simple Sensitive IB Metal Detector with 2xNE555
https://hackaday.io/project/182607-simple-sensitive-ib-metal-detector-with-2xne555
Metal Detector which is very easy to make, and contains only a few standard electronic components.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quick And (Not Very) Dirty Negative Voltage Supply
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/16/quick-and-not-very-dirty-negative-voltage-supply/
There comes a time in every hardware hacker’s career during which they first realize they need a negative voltage rail in their project. There also comes a time, usually ~10ms after realizing this, when they reach for the Art of Electronics to try and figure out how the heck to actually introduce subzero voltages into their design. As it turns out, there are a ton of ways to get the job done, from expensive power supplies to fancy regulators you can design, but if you’re lazy (like I am) you might just want a simple, nearly drop-in solution.
[Filip Piorski] has got you covered there. In a recent video, he demonstrates how to turn a “China Special” $1 buck converter from Ebay into a boost-buck converter, capable of acting as a negative voltage supply. He realized that by swapping around the inputs and outputs of the regulator you can essentially invert the potential produced. There are a few caveats, of course, including high start-up current and limited max. voltages, but he manages to circumvent some of them with a little clever rewiring and a bit of bodge work.
The cheapest and simplest way of getting a negative voltage rail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r49BwY0eFPA
This video shows how to get negative voltage from those cheap LM2596-based buck converter boards. I know I would’ve liked to known this was possible a year or two ago so hopefully someone can make use of this.
Comments:
Very clever! But I wouldn’t call it the cheapest or easiest.
You can wire a 555 timer (or any gate) as an oscillator, and use a few diodes and capacitors wired up as an inverting voltage doubler or tripler. Gates can deliver 5-10ma; a 555 more like 50-100ma.
You can use a 7660 to turn +5v into -5v.
You can use the internal charge pump in a MAX232 simply as a negative voltage supply.
You can use just about any switching regulator chip to supply a negative voltage. Some of these are mighty cheap.
You can use an old “wall wart” out of your junk box as your negative supply. It’s probably free.
if your incoming supply can handle the inrush/peak current, its great, but for high-gain sensitive circuitry, i prefer a complete “balanced” supply, to keep the + and – voltages as close to each other as possible (for ground-referenced DC-coupled signals)
of course this trick(hack) can be used with a post-tracking regulator to tweak the neg. to mirror the pos.
for balanced low-current power for ground-referenced OP-AMPs, i prefer to roll my own:
1) 34063 wired as flyback, traditional passive rectification, slightly less efficiency then sync.-rect. but less EMI/RFI
2) custom transformer wound on core from power inductor, three outputs, 100uH
3) three outputs should be mechanically parallel for ideal regulation and tracking(tri-fillar?) but not same length/voltage
4) one output wired as ground-referenced feedback winding, with minimum load such as 3.3v or 5v logic
5) two other outputs wired as floating bi-polar for +/- with red LEDs (in series) wired as zeners, red is least noise (at 20ma)
6) zener-LEDs should be doubled-up for higher current during supply andor logic/computer bootup.
6) slowly increase fed-back regulation voltage until LED-zeners pass about 15mA
7) floating ground links to system ground at amplifier star-ground or system star-ground.
8) when computer (powered by feedback winding) goes into sleep, zener-LEDs go dim and stop wasting so much power.
its a design needing fine tuning but serves as a drop-in replacement for a normally wall-outlet powered design that originally used a converter with multiple transformer outputs (+12v +3.3v +6v +6.5v -6.5v), a battery supplies the +12v and the converter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/16/tech-in-plain-sight-eyeglasses/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/16/hacking-multiplication-with-karatsubas-algorithm/
Tomi Engdahl says:
TOSLINK DAC
Instead of a $10 box from Amazon, go above and beyond
https://hackaday.io/project/181024-toslink-dac
You can get the equivalent of this for $10 from Amazon – it’s an optical digital audio to analog audio conversion box. But the typical cheap units don’t really tell you anything about how good they are. Instead of settling for that, this project aims to bring quality parts and modern design to bear.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stack-chan – JavaScript driven super-kawaii robot
An easy-to-build and companion robot for everyone
https://hackaday.io/project/181344-stack-chan-javascript-driven-super-kawaii-robot
Stack-chan is a palm-sized super-kawaii companion robot with M5Stack embedded.
It can shake its head, watch people’s faces, talk, and possess you with various face expressions.
The exterior, board data, and software are fully open source. Detailed assembly instructions are available, so anyone can make one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PuppyPi Quadruped Robot
A quadrupted robot with first person vision powered by RasperryPi 4B
https://hackaday.io/project/181861-puppypi-quadruped-robot
Tomi Engdahl says:
NTP, Rust, And Arduino Make A Phenomenal Frequency Counter
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/17/ntp-rust-and-arduino-make-a-phenomenal-frequency-counter/
Making a microcontroller perform as a frequency counter is a relatively straightforward task involving the measurement of the time period during which a number of pulses are counted. The maximum frequency is however limited to a fraction of the microcontroller’s clock speed and the accuracy of the resulting instrument depends on that of the clock crystal so it will hardly result in the best of frequency counters. It’s something [FrankBuss] has approached with an Arduino-based counter that offloads the timing question to a host PC, and thus claims atomic accuracy due to its clock being tied to a master source via NTP. The Rust code PC-side provides continuous readings whose accuracy increases the longer it is left counting the source. The example shown reaches 20 parts per billion after several hours reading a 1 MHz source.
Arduino Nano frequency counter with atomic clock accuracy
https://github.com/FrankBuss/frequencycounter
With this project you can measure a frequency from less than 1 Hz to about 6.4 MHz, with atomic clock accuracy (fclk_I_O / 2.5 according to the datasheet, which is 16 MHz / 2.5 = 6.4 MHz, but 7.5 MHz still works, but might miss some counts then sometimes). All you need for it is your computer, and an Arduino Nano, which you can get for less than five dollars at eBay.
The idea is that the Arduino counts pulses, and then a program on your computer calculates the frequency. If your computer is synchronized to a NTP time server (this is standard nowadays for most operating systems), it has a very accurate time. The USB connection and operating system introduces some inaccuracies and latencies, but the longer the program runs, the more accurate the measurement gets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Make A Classy, Brassy Cardboard Pulp Mold
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/17/how-to-make-a-classy-brassy-cardboard-pulp-mold/
When we last checked in with prolific prototypist [Eric Strebel], he was perfecting the design of an eco-friendly wireless charger and turning his initial paper prototype into a chipboard version 2.0 that takes manufacturing concerns into consideration. At the end of this second video in a series, [Eric] was printing out the early versions of the form by which he would eventually make a brass screen mold for working with cardboard pulp. You know, the stuff that some egg cartons are made from.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SCPI: On Teaching Your Devices The Lingua Franca Of Laboratories
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/17/scpi-on-teaching-your-devices-the-lingua-franca-of-laboratories/
One could be excused for thinking sometimes that the concept of connecting devices with other devices for automation purposes is a fairly recent invention. Yet for all the (relatively) recent hype of the Internet of Things and the ‘smart home’, laboratories have been wiring up their gear to run complicated measurement and test sequences for many decades now, along with factories doing much the same for automating production processes.
Much like the chaotic universe of IoT devices, lab equipment from different manufacturers feature a wide number of incompatible protocol and interface standards. Ultimately these would coalesce into IEEE-488.1 (GPIB) as the physical layer and by 1990 the first Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments (SCPI) standard was released that built on top of IEEE-488.
SCPI defines (as the name suggests) standard commands to interact with instruments. It has over the past decades gone on to provide remote interaction capabilities to everything from oscilloscopes and power supplies to exotic scientific equipment. Many off the shelf devices a hobbyist can buy today feature an SCPI interface via its Ethernet, USB or RS-232C port(s) that combined with software can be used to automate one’s home lab.
Reinventing the Wheel Is No Fun
As much fun as it is to come up with one’s own communication standard for a custom widget, there is a lot to be said for sticking to existing standards, instead of adding another ‘standard’ to the pile.
Another reason is that of compatibility with existing software, which also touches on why end users likely to be enthused about this awesome new protocol. When using SCPI, it can be fairly painlessly integrated into existing (lab) automation software, as the whole concept behind SCPI is that each instrument will implement its own range of custom commands in addition to a number of required ones.
For users of software like LabVIEW or Sigrok, the ideal scenario is that the device speaks SCPI, and that in the worst-case a custom handler has to be written for the custom SCPI commands when one isn’t available yet.
Enter LibSCPI
Not everyone wants to write their own SCPI parser from scratch, which is why the SCPI parser library v2, or simply ‘libscpi‘ is a good start. It implements the current SCPI 1999 standard. Since we’d be interested in using SCPI on an embedded device, we’ll take a look at the provided FreeRTOS with LwIP (netconn) example. This shows the implementation of an SCPI server which runs in a FreeRTOS thread.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/19/cheap-big-servo-for-robot-arm/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/18/isolated-oscilloscope-design-process-shows-how-its-done/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/18/minty-tunes-is-wireless-audio-in-an-altoids-tin/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2021/11/18/you-are-a-projection-of-your-influences/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making an old Air Purifier smart
adding the Phillips AC4014 to a Home Assistant network
https://hackaday.io/project/182589-making-an-old-air-purifier-smart
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedding a mesh into 3D print
Easy method of embedding a mesh into a 3D print.
https://hackaday.io/project/182664-embedding-a-mesh-into-3d-print
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.instructables.com/microwave-smelter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/sergey-kiselev-s-open-hardware-8-bit-isa-nic-gets-your-ibm-pc-xt-or-other-vintage-system-online-fbed11ce5de8