From Jo Hinchliffe on the Tindie blog:

Many DSLR camera’s have the ability to have their shutters triggered remotely, this is often useful for keeping the camera perfectly still, but if you can automate the triggering it’s perfect for time lapse photography. This interface sits between a Raspberry Pi and a range of DSLR cameras creating lots of time lapse possibilities.

It’s compatible with Octoprint Octolapse plugin which means that you can use a high end DSLR to create beautiful time lapses of 3D prints magically growing out of your printer bed. Also on the product page there are example python scripts that enable quick setup for high quality time lapse. We note that although it’s sold as a Raspberry Pi interface, this device is happy with a 3.3V or 5V input and that it could be triggered by most micro controllers. If you have a Sony, Canon or Nikon DSLR then this should work out of the box, for other DSLR you might need an audio adaptor to get up and running.

Looking around the marketplace there are other options for remote triggering cameras, this search for camera trigger reveals a plethora of interesting solutions. Sound triggers, lightning sensor triggers, stand alone intervalometer boards and more. We’ve also blogged on similar products previously, for example check out this camera interface kit that sets your camera up to be triggered by a laser pointer.

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Joey Castillo is well-known for the awesome OpenBook e-reader project and has recently announced a new open source hardware project: the PyCorder!

Folks: meet the PyCorder! My take on a touchpad-based Sharp Memory Display gadget, in gorgeous @oshpark After Dark. More in the coming days, but feeling super stoked tonight because I finally got it up and running (and made a simple input task for circuitpyui; video in 2nd tweet) pic.twitter.com/5A9gXN4yPm

— @[email protected] (@josecastillo) January 15, 2021

It uses the microcontroller to sense capactive touch keyboard:

https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1349910810970251264

And has add-on sensors like moisture to monitor soil:

Now I wish I'd left it running longer, because about 20 minutes after this, it showed the moisture diffusing back up through the layers of soil. Alas, there are no more bone-dry plants in my house, so you'll have to take my word for it. Code here: https://t.co/vUJfJACle3 pic.twitter.com/LbG2LpKnPr

— @[email protected] (@josecastillo) January 16, 2021

And pulse oximetry:

The Pycorder isn’t remotely a medical gadget, but there’s tons of fun biosensing you can do with it. Here I’m using an infrared LED and phototransistor to visualize my pulse. The raw value dances around a bit, prolly in relation to blood oxygen lvl; still, a fun proof of concept! pic.twitter.com/qQ3itAKN49

— @[email protected] (@josecastillo) January 17, 2021

In the last Circuit VR we looked at some basic op amp circuits in a simulator, including the non-inverting amplifier. Sometimes you want an amplifier that inverts the signal. That is a 5V input results in a -5V output (or -10V if the amplifier has a gain of 2). This corresponds to a 180 degree phase shift which can be useful in amplifiers, filters, and other circuits. Let’s take a look at an example circuit simulated with falstad.

Last time I mentioned two made up rules that are good shortcuts for analyzing op amp circuits…

Read more: Circuit VR: Even More Op Amps — Hackaday

From the Journal of Open HW:

Open Hardware Needs Policy Attention Now

Increasing government attention to “open” agendas, complemented by growing community capacity, have laid the groundwork for driving policy attention towards open hardware. The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the ability of open hardware communities to mobilize for disaster response, including through the design and production of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies when traditional supply chains failed. A new Administration offers an opportunity to build on lessons learned from this unforeseen and extensive experiment in scaling open collaboration on hardware and also to revisit what has worked in the past for related fields such as community science and open source software. A whole-of-government approach to elevating open hardware, including for scientific research and disaster response, feels both timely and necessary in order to amplify effective activities and provide scaffolding for an even more impactful future.

To better understand potential opportunities, researchers and practitioners from the Wilson Center, Open Environmental Data Project, and University of Cambridge convened a workshop on October 28, 2020 to bring together members of the open hardware community, such as those involved in GOSH and OSHWA. Beginning with the question What are you most excited about in open science hardware right now, the workshop focused on establishing a value proposition for open hardware as a matter of public policy as well as elucidating open challenges that might be addressed by policy interventions. One goal of the workshop was to develop high-level consensus around “key messages,” for policy makers and a list of eleven suggestions was subsequently ranked by participants. This exercise made it clear that to refine these further, more work was needed to understand specific accelerators and barriers to the adoption and use of open hardware, and to align perspectives between the policy community and diverse developers and users of open hardware from academia, industry and community organisations operating across a broad range of disciplines.

Read more…

[Nixie] was tired of using whatever happens to be around to hold things in place while soldering and testing. It was high time to obtain a helping hands of some kind, but [Nixie] was dismayed by commercial offerings — the plain old alligator clips and cast metal type leave a lot to be desired, and the cooling tube cephalopod type usually have the alligator clips just jammed into the standard tube ends with no thought given to fine control or the possibility of reducing cable count.

[Nixie] happened to have some unneeded cooling tube lying around and started designing a new type of helping hands from the ground plane up. Taking advantage of the fact that cooling tubes are hollow,  [Nixie] routed silicone-jacketed wires through them for power and low speed signals. These are soldered to five banana jacks that are evenly spaced around an alligator clip.

Read more…

From Zack Freedman of Fat Cat Labs:

Why Are Circuits on Boards?

Chips are tiny and phones are glass, so why are circuits still flat and green? The printed circuit board played a pivotal role in World War 2, and it’s barely changed since then. Nearly every modern device has at least one circuit board; they’re so ubiquitous, we just assume that electronics are flat rectangles. It wasn’t always that way – once upon a time, terrifying globs of exposed connections and miles-long webs of wrapped wires lurked behind the wood veneer.

See how the literal foundation of technology is made, learn about the modern features that enable powerful electronics, catch a glimpse of the advanced future, and most importantly, discover why, after 80 years of progress, we still put all our circuits on boards.