Python-on-a-Chip (p14p) is a project to develop a reduced Python virtual machine (codenamed PyMite) that runs a significant subset of the Python language on microcontrollers without an OS. The other parts of p14p are the device drivers, high-level libraries and other tools. They’ve released ports for the Microchip PIC/24dcPIC, Teensy 2.0, Arduino Mega and others. […]
Category Archives: hacks
Arduino used for ThinkPad password recovery
The Seeeduino is being resold as a ThinkPad password recovery tool: the only Affordable Fully Assembled, Programmed and Tested unlimited use USB based ThinkPad Supervisor Password Recovery or Clear Tools in the world. Joe’s KeyMaker KMX1 can Recover or Clear Supervisor Password from all current ThinkPad models with the exception of the SL400 and SL500 […]
CAN sniffing for steering wheel button presses
Newer protocols are always fun to explore, such as the automotive CAN bus. Here’s a project by wire2wire which sniffs the CAN signals from steering wheel controls and converts them to a serial output. The main components are a PIC16F876, MCP2515 and MCP2551. The code and all docs are available in a zip file. Current […]
Convert the Chumby serial port into two PWM outputs
Osman Eralp of Ozbots writes: When I was building my latest Chumby-based robot, I didn’t need the serial port, but I did want PWM signals to control the robot’s wheel motors. Fortunately, the processor pins that are used for the serial (UART) TX and RX pins are multiplexed with PWM outputs. With the proper commands, […]
Parallax Propeller/WiiMote white board
In this project, Gareth from Let’s Make Robots demonstrates how to interface a Parallax Propeller with the WiiMote and LCD display to form a white board. Inspired by the work of Johnnie Chung Lee with the WiiMote, Gareth uses the Propeller chip programmed in the Spin language to process data and interface with the display. […]
FM bug transmitter mint box
Chris documented his FM bug transmitter mint box build. This project creates a very tiny FM transmitter with only 17 electrical parts and then shows you how to stick it into a slightly modified mint box to create the ultimate FM Bug. The transmission range is up to 100 feet indoors and even more outdoors. […]
GSM SIM emulator using PIC Microcontroller
Here’s a project from EHobbyProjects which demonstrates their hack for emulating a GSM SIM card using a microcontroller, EEPROM and SIM card adapter. Their instructions include reading the IMSI and KI data from the original SIM, and then using their Configurator program and hex programming files in conjunction with a PIC16F877 and 24C64 EEPROM to […]
Emergency excuse generator for the office
Need a great excuse for a skipped meeting or late report? The developer of the Mars Clock has an advanced excuse generator that will get you out of a jam. A PIC 16F690 uses a library of business speak to produce random business-sounding excuses: “I had to bring the ROI estimates in sync with our […]
Retro typewriter as USB keyboard
Here’s a unique project which repurposes old manual typewriters as keyboards for computers or Ipads, using an Arduino as the intermediary. It’s the brainchild of Jack Zylkin, a Philadelphia-based electrical engineer who has designed a kit that makes the conversion reasonably easy for anyone who enjoys hands-on projects. For those considering privacy and flexibility, an […]
FareBot: Read data from public transit cards with your NFC-equipped Android phone
When he heard that the Nexus S would include a built-in NFC radio, Eric Butler immediately started thinking about the potential of using cell phones with RFID to hack public transit fare systems. When the Gingerbread source code was released, he picked up a Nexus S and began working on a proof-of-concept application that could […]
Hacked Sprint/Nextel is a secure walkie talkie
Looking for a unique way of communicating at your hackerspace? Why not hack used Sprint/Nextel phones into free “off the grid”, relatively secure walkie talkies? Here’s a cool keyboard trick which reportedly works on Sprint/Nextel Motorola i315, i325 models and some other Motorola phones, which puts the phone into “Direct Talk” (a/k/a MOTOTalk) mode. This […]
OLED display plasma routine
A plasma routine on an OLED display inspired by the CC65 plasma demo. Thanks Markus! Via the comments.
Reflow oven controller
robots shares his design for a reflow oven controller: I have bought [an] oven. The main reason for this was to bake some PCBs. As with every reflow oven, this one needs temperature control as well. I have baked several pcb without problem with unmodified oven. But that might be luck, as the temperature profile […]
PIC18F14K50 phantom of the floppera
Now here’s something to do with outdated floppy disk drives. Connect them to a MIDI controller and grind out some tunes from your own floppy disk opera. Via the forum.
OLED display sine-scroller
Markus demonstrates his OLED display sine-scroller: The OLED board sold by SeeedStudio used I2C to communicate with the MCU. I found that updating the screen this way takes too long to get a descent refresh rate, so I modified the board to be able to access the driver chip using its SPI interface. Updating the […]
Infosec: using fuzzers to find vulnerabilities
Infosec Resources has a free online tutorial, An Introduction to Fuzzing: Using fuzzers (SPIKE) to find vulnerabilities. While not directly related to microcontrollers, this resource provides a hands-on guide to using open source Linux tools to find vulnerabilities in code on a networked Windows machine. To fully participate in this demo, you’ll need two machines […]
Musical alarm clock in a SparkFun box
Frank documented his music playing alarm clock build. This Instructable has 18 steps (with demo examples for each building block) and 5 appendices, with about 90 files and pictures, including logic analyzer files/screencaps, expected terminal output, USB device dumps. I sincerely hope you explore all my efforts. I covered everything from SD cards, FAT file […]
Daft punk coffee table/display
Sam documented his daft punk coffee table/display build. Yes, I know this has been done before, but I wanted to build my own, using as few parts as possible. I built this as a table top or wall mount model, but it can be scaled up to make a coffee table. I built it as […]
NESBot: Arduino powered robot beating Super Mario Bros
Peter documented his NES playing robot build. I recently uploaded the details of a project of mine, the NESBot, and I figured you guys might be interested. This is an arduino based bot which can play back tool assisted speedruns on the NES. If you’ve ever seen the “Super Mario Bros 3 beat in 11 […]
Brain wave monitor with Arduino + Processing
Frontier Nerds have been experimenting with brain wave tech as part of their Mental Block project. In this well documented project they take the headset from Mattel’s Mind Flex game and hack it to communicate with an Arduino board to measure brain waves and display their levels graphically on a PC via Processing. They chose […]