It's Chriiiiiiisssssttttmmmaaassss - 2023
Happy Christmas/Seasonal Greetings/Appropriate Greeting for your planet
Yes! It’s that time of year - It’s Christmas!
Ho-ho-ho Makers! Slightly early edition this month as it’s Christmas and I wanted to give you some things to watch and read while you digest your turkey!
So grab a cup of eggnog (or something stronger) along with a plate of mince pies and settle down to a few hours of watching videos and reading articles.
There’s a bunch of interesting projects, from dissecting a Furby to reverse engineering LED lights. And there are some great articles to read as well.
Welcome to the Christmas issue of the newsletter!
Things To Watch
Furby Autopsy
It sounds a bit morbid, but it’s actually pretty interesting. Becky Stern dissects a 2023 Furby to unveil its inner workings. Don’t worry though, the Furby is put back together and doesn’t seem to have suffered from its traumatic experience!
ESP32-S3 Safety Pins
It’s the age old question when building anything with an MCU - particularly an ESP32 - “Which pins am I allowed to use?” - I’m sure we’ve all experienced the frustration of plugging our freshly manufactured board in and realising it’s completely dead… Hopefully this new guide from atomic14 will make this a thing of the past!
Debug Anywhere Screen
I don’t know about you, but my PC is not really anywhere near my workbench (probably for the best really!), so I’m often stuck when it comes to debugging bits of hardware. Fortunately, element14 has a solution: a mobile display tool for on-the-go debugging.
CheerLights Setup Simplified
Globally synchronised LEDs! Send a tweet or post to discord and everyone’s lights will change colour. Becky Stern gets it up and running on an Arduino Nano ESP-32 with some WS2812 LEDs.
LO Guv'nor Signal Generator
Based on the Si5351, this lab bench tool from Psychogenic Technologies gives signals that range from KHz to hundreds of MHz! What’s more, he’s given it an intuitive and usable interface with button, knobs and a clear display.
It’s Curtains for These LEDs
Atomic14 take a look at some LED curtains from AliExpress and discovers something quite interesting about them. With a bit of disassembly, these LEDs can be controlled from an ESP32 using the fantastic WLED software. Could be good for those Christmas decorations!
LED Christmas Star 2.0
Enwi originally built this LED Christmas star in 2019, but it had some flaws, so it’s been completely redesigned from the ground up for 2023. Featuring WS2812B LEDs and an ESP01 - it’s smaller and even more dazzling.
How Chips Get Made
Ever wondered how chips get made? Join Matt Venn as he makes a visit to a semiconductor factory. This is a rare chance to see what goes on behind the scenes.
Paper Stars
These aren’t just any old paper stars - they are paper stars created from code! What’s more, they’ve got an ESP32 inside each one along with a neopixel - as always it’s fantastically creative stuff from bleeptrack.
Things To Look Forward To
The 37th Chaos Communication Congress (37C3) takes place in Hamburg, 27-30 Dec 2023. It’s a four-day conference on technology, society and utopia organised by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and volunteers. You can stream all the talks here.
Things to read
Nike Missile Math
We’re not talking sneakers here, we’re talking missile systems. This article sheds light on the analog computing that powered missile guidance with details about both the Nike Hercules Analog and Digital Computers.
Listening Via Fiber Optics
Fiber optic cables - apparently not only useful for light, they can also detect sound! In particular the loud sound of cicadas. This may allow entomologists to use fiber optics as a monitoring tool for insect populations.
Nuclear Reactor Game
If you’ve watched Homer Simpson at work, this game should be easy! Nuclear safety inspectors should probably look away…
ESP32 Open Wi-Fi Project
We love a bit of open source and this is a pretty ambitious attempt to create an open source version of the ESP32’s WiFi layer.
Beware Fake Chips
We’re not talking McDonalds or Burger King here - this is a tale of multiple fake chips with NMOS 6502s masquerading as CMOS chips and 65C02s chips with dodgy date codes. It’s a jungle out there when it comes to buying old ICs.
DIY Tree Hydration
It feels like a desperate attempt to stop the tree drying out and shedding needles. And with these kind of projects you do sometimes feel that a watering can would be simpler - but let he who has no personal projects cast the first stone…
LCD Reverse Engineering
This takes reverse engineering to a new level - I don’t think I’ve ever decapped an IC to trace where the bond wires go! But it would have been a terrible shame to have to scrap 150 of these great displays.
Cracking LED Protocols
There’s a cautionary tale here - the author successfully reverse engineers the bluetooth signals being sent to his lights, but then makes the fatal mistake of trying to turn them up to 12 which then bricked his firmware! (I wish it has been 11 as then I could have worked in a Spinal Tap joke…).
Bit Banging a Floppy
Have you ever wanted to connect to a floppy disk drive from your microcontroller? Me neither - until now! This site is a complete guide on how to bit bang a floppy disk.
Closing Thoughts
This is the last edition of 2023! What an amazing year it’s been - we’ve covered an absolute ton of projects.
As always, thanks for your continued support and enthusiasm. I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings - it’s going to be another year of projects and excitement!
Merry Making and Happy New Year!