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Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) Nixie Tube Clock

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From Mark Smith on the Surf ‘n Circuits blog:

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What is an ETA Nixie Tube Clock and How Do You Build One?

Adding IOT to the Nixie Tube Clock. A clock that provides the estimated time of arrival for up to ten destinations

https://surfncircuits.com/2018/04/01/what-is-an-eta-nixie-tube-clock-and-how-do-you-build-one/
https://surfncircuits.com/2018/04/01/what-is-an-eta-nixie-tube-clock-and-how-do-you-build-one/
https://surfncircuits.com/2018/04/01/what-is-an-eta-nixie-tube-clock-and-how-do-you-build-one/

The ETA Nixie clock is programmed to display the normal time and up to ten different ETA times that are easy to identify and visually stimulating. The current time is displayed for 5 seconds (i.e. 8:41:38 AM), then up to ten different ETA destinations are displayed for three seconds each before the cycle is repeated. The current time displays all six digits including seconds. The ETA locations are numbered and display hours and minutes without seconds helping to distinguish between them.  In our house, the ETA to work is ETA number 1 (i.e. 9:07 AM) and the ETA to school is ETA number 2 (i.e. 8:58 AM). Lots of other options are possible with custom programming of the Raspberry Pi to meet your ETA requirements.

surfncircuits has shared the board on OSH Park:

An Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) Nixie Tube Clock Rev 2.

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Order from OSH Park

Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) Nixie Tube Clock

Neon Display for a Vacuum Tube Calculator

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From  on Hackaday blog:

Neon Display for a Vacuum Tube Calculator

When it comes to vintage displays, everyone gravitates to Nixies. These tubes look great, but you’re dealing with a certain aesthetic with these vintage numeric tubes. There is another option. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [castvee8] is making seven-segment displays out of vintage neon lamps. It looks great, and it’s the basis of an all-vacuum tube calculator.

The core of this build are a few tiny NE-2 neon bulbs. These are the same type of bulbs you’ll find in old indicators, and require somewhere around 100 volts to fire. These bulbs are then installed in a 3D-printed frame, giving [castvee] a real seven-segment display, a plus or minus sign, and an equals sign. It’s the beginnings of a calculator, right there.

One of the recent updates to this project is controlling these displays with modern logic. That might be a bit of a misnomer, because [castvee] is using diode steering and a TTL chip to cycle through the numbers 1 to 4. The actual code to do this is running on a microcontroller, though, so that might get a pass. This is just a test, though, and the real project looks to be an all-vacuum calculator. The project is still in its early stages, but there are still months to go in the Hackaday Prize, and we can’t wait to see what comes out of this project.

Neon Display for a Vacuum Tube Calculator

Building a Giant USB Three Key Mechanical Keyboard

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From Jeremy S. Cook on the Hackster blog:

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Ginormous 3-Switch Keyboard Is Awesomely Impractical

As hackers and creators, we sometimes get asked the question “why?” While many of the gadgets we make do have a specific purpose, many of them definitely don’t, and are made because we wonder if something can actually be done. This giant three-key mechanical keyboard would certainly fall into that second category, and though I can’t think of a practical use for it, I still find the device quite entertaining.

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The heart of this device is a trio of “Big Switch” devices from Novel Keys, which are four times larger in length/width/height than what you’re used to typing on. While that might sound only sort of interesting, that translates to 64 times normal size in volume; plus they include similarly ginormous keycaps. Glen Akins, inspired by a similar project on Adafruit, decided to build his own 3-key array, with a PIC18F14K50 chip providing an interface between the keys ans USB input.

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The housing is made out of aluminum, and sits at an angle to the user for excellent ergonomics — if you happen to be a giant, and only use three keys at a time. While the electronics are fairly straightforward, these large keys are electrically quite noisy. Debounce code was added to combat this, reducing the letters per keypress from a range of one to three to only a single character.

Read more on Glen’s own Photons, Electrons, and Dirt blog:

Building a Giant USB Three Key Mechanical Keyboard

Building a Giant USB Three Key Mechanical Keyboard

Introduce Yourself To a PocketBeagle With BaconBits

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From  on the Hackaday blog:

Introduce Yourself To a PocketBeagle With BaconBits

The PocketBeagle single-board computer is now a few months old, and growing fast like its biological namesake. An affordable and available offering in the field of embedded Linux computing, many of us picked one up as an impulse buy. For some, the sheer breadth of possibilities can be paralyzing. (“What do I do first?”) Perhaps a development board can serve as a starting point for training this young puppy? Enter the BaconBits cape.

When paired with a PocketBeagle, everything necessary to start learning embedded computing is on hand. It covers the simple basics of buttons for digital input, potentiometer for analog input, LEDs for visible output. Then grow beyond the basics with an accelerometer for I²C communication and 7-segment displays accessible via SPI. Those digging into system internals will appreciate the USB-to-serial bridge that connects to PocketBeagle’s serial console. This low-level communication will be required if any experimentation manages to (accidentally or deliberately) stop PocketBeagle’s standard USB network communication channels.

BaconBits were introduced in conjunction with the E-ALE (embedded apprentice Linux engineer) training program for use in hands-on modules. The inaugural E-ALE session at SCaLE 16X this past weekend had to deal with some last-minute hiccups, but the course material is informative and we’re confident it’ll be refined into a smooth operation in the near future. While paying for the class will receive built hardware and in-person tutorials to use it, all information – from instructor slides to the BaconBits design – is available on Github. Some of us will choose to learn by reading the slides, others will want their own BaconBits for independent experimentation. And of course E-ALE is not the only way to learn more about PocketBeagle. Whichever way people choose to go, the embedded Linux ecosystem will grow, and we like the sound of that!

Introduce Yourself To a PocketBeagle With BaconBits

Ada Lovelace Fellowship

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Apply to the Ada Lovelace Fellowship for 2018 Open Hardware Summit:

Ada Lovelace Fellowship

The Ada Lovelace Fellowship was founded in 2013 prior to the annual Open Hardware Summit at MIT by Summit Chair Addie Wagenknecht and OSHWA Director Alicia Gibb as a way to encourage women, LGBTA+ and/or other minorities in open technology and culture to actively participate and foster a more diverse community within open source.

For the sixth year, we are excited to offer up to ten Open Hardware Fellowships to members of the community which includes a $500 travel stipend and entrance to the Open Hardware Summit.

By offering the annual travel and summit conference assistance to community members, the Open Source Hardware Association hopes we as a community can encourage more women, LGBTA+ and/or people of color to participate in open source. We have many strong leaders and speakers in our field and we personally want to continue the trend upward.

This is a crucial time in open source where we have the opportunity to shape the future of the whole field together. We invite you to contact us about sponsoring. We are just on the edge of what is possible, Let’s be the change!

 

Ada Lovelace Fellowship

DIY 5V-3V Switching Converter in the Space of a TO-220 Package

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From  on the Hackaday blog:

DIY 5V-3V Switching Converter in the Space of a TO-220 Package

We’re suckers for miniaturization projects. Stuff anything into a small enough package and you’ve probably got our attention. Make that something both tiny and useful, like this 5-volt to 3.3-volt converter in a TO-220 sized package, and that’s something to get excited about. It’s a switch mode power supply that takes the same space as a traditional linear regulator.

Granted, the heavy lifting in [Kevin Hubbard]’s diminutive buck converter is done by a PAM2305 DC-DC step-down converter chip which needs only a few supporting components. But the engineering [Kevin] put into this to squeeze everything onto a scrap of PCB 9-mm on a side is impressive. The largest passive on the board is the inductor in 0805. Everything else is in 0603, so you’ll be putting your SMD soldering skills to the test if you decide to make this. Check the video after the break for a speedrun through the hand soldering process

The total BOM including the open-source PCB only runs a buck or two, and the end result is a supply with steady 750-mA output that can handle a 1-A surge for five seconds. We wonder if a small heatsink tab might not help that; along with some black epoxy potting, it would at least complete the TO-220 look.

[Kevin]’s Black Mesa Labs has a history of turning out interesting projects, from a legit video card for Arduino to a 100-watt hotplate for reflow work that’s the size of a silver dollar. We’re looking forward to whatever’s next — assuming we can see it.

DIY 5V-3V Switching Converter in the Space of a TO-220 Package

Expanding the NeoPixel Project — Rebooting Electronics

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Playing with some animations of the single LEDs strip of my NeoPixel board was nice but the thoughts soon come to mind: “It would look better if there were more strips”, “…if there were more strips, how could they be coordinated”, to “Could I still use the ATiny1614?”.

via Expanding the NeoPixel Project — Rebooting Electronics

Expanding the NeoPixel Project — Rebooting Electronics

Water Level Sensors, Alexa in a Fish, and Modular Synths During World Create Day

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On Saturday we saw a flood of interesting hacks come to life as more than 100 community organized meetups were held for World Create Day. Thank you to all of the organizers who made these events possible, and for everyone who decided to get together and hack. Students Learning Hardware Design in Islamabad, Pakistan The…

via Water Level Sensors, Alexa in a Fish, and Modular Synths During World Create Day — Hackaday

Water Level Sensors, Alexa in a Fish, and Modular Synths During World Create Day