Cyberpunk glasses

Yesterday I got a package containing a "personal media viewer". The "converter" which contains the battery and a charger circuit was broken. I opened it and verified that the signal lines from AV in are just passed through to the HMD. Then I hacked down the glasses. Thumbs down to the manufacturer for the power supply wire colors: They used black for positive and yellow for negative. Thumbs up though, for using robust hardware that survives wrong polarity. I then mounted everything on the frame of my glasses. The result looks really cyberpunk-like:

Yes, this is a composite video input. What a blast from the past! However, it works. It is even quite comfortable since I removed all unnecessary weight.

I will order a beagleboard as soon as it is available again. Furthermore I found a pretty cool glove keyboard solution: Thumbcode. It is easy to implement in hardware and looks easy to learn and efficient. Stay tuned for more to come.

We do what we must because we can

Today I am posting about a new project that I just started. It's not something new, actually. Steve Mann has been doing this since the 1980s but now it seems to be possible with low-cost hardware and some DIY skills. I'm going to build a wearable computer. And I am going to document this in a way that you can make your own. I may even produce and sell these as cheap as possible. I think this may have a great impact on society, just look at a few ideas of what I would implement (hardware side):

• Head-mounted display
• First-person camera
• Pupil/Gaze tracking "mouse"
• Pinch glove "keyboard"
• UMTS internet uplink

And what would be possible:

• Hands-free access to the web all time
• Copy and paste text from reality into the Google search bar
• Catalogue of all people you ever met, combined with face recognition
• Instant recording and replay of every moment in your life
• Tweeting what you see wherever you are
• Decipher QR codes by looking at them

And I guess you can continue that list with a lot of ideas of your own.

Well, I am a technology enthusiast. I do this because it is possible. I am aware that this may have unforseen consequences. But this is not going to make me stop, no that is even making the whole thing more interesting. This morning I met Steffen Kurpierz, my former ethics teacher. I told him about my ideas and about how it could change everything. He asked the question that I had not thought about until then: Do we want those changes to happen? However, I think that we cannot stop the development anymore. Also it looks like the Japenese would love such a thing. Very dystopian, isn't it? Let me remind you that there is a company in Japan working on this right now and they are planning to make this available as a consumer product in 2020. Looks like that video is actually part of a viral marketing campaign for the Iron Man 2 movie. All other developments that I know are targeted at industrial or military use. But I am sure there are people working on this as a consumer product. If not, at least I am. We cannot stop it anymore but maybe we can influence the direction this goes. I recommend you to read this article (two parts, german) with wearable hardware in mind.

Well, while I've been writing this I got an email that the package containing the wearable display I ordered has been shipped. I will order the beagleboard as soon as it is available again. I am so excited.

Making PCBs: Ideas for improvement

As you might have seen in my videos about the Pill Reminder Project, my self-made PCBs look rather unprofessional and soldering is a mess. This is due to the method I currently use. It's cheap, fast and easy, but also limited:

1. Print the layout on glossy paper using a laser printer.
2. Place the printed side on the copper surface of the board, fix with (non-plastic) tape.
3. Use a regular iron on maximum heat to transfer the toner to the copper surface. (Don't remove the paper yet!)
4. Place the whole thing into warm water, add some soap. Wait.
5. Carefully(!) remove the paper using your fingers, without damaging the toner layer. If the toner comes off, you didn't press hard enough when ironing.
6. Etch using your favorite etchant. I use sodium persulfate.
7. Remove the toner with a circular brush tool.

The main problems are:

• High clearance needed because tracks increase in witdh due to squeezing.
• Lots of corrections needed because toner tends to flake off during etching.
• Due to the high number of repairs that need to be done manually, a solder resist mask cannot be used.

I used this method because it could be done without buying extra equipment. I will continue using it for prototypes because it is fast. Also it allows for corrections everywhere, such as adding parts, because there is no solder resist mask. However, I plan to make a second version of the pill reminder where the PCB, due to the use of SMD parts, fits entirely under the pill box. Squeezing and lack of solder resist are inaccaptable for SMDs, though.

That's why I am going to implement the standard photoresist process plus cemical tin coating and solder resist through laminating. However, I need to buy or make some equipment to do so:

• UV Lamp
• Laminating machine
• Inkjet transparencies
• Solder resist lamination stuff (e.g. Dynamask)
• Various chemicals (for developing, etching and tin-coating)

So stay tuned for some videos and posts about how I make all the stuff I need. (The laminating machine probably needs to be modiefied to eat PCBs). When I got everything in place I will make a tutorial on how to make PCBs using my new process. (Note that most of my viedeos aren't meant to be instructional videos. They just show how I solved the problems that I had. However I may make real instructional videos from time to time)

Pill Reminder Project #001

I uploaded new videos on my current project. It is an alarm clock combined with a pill box. LEDs in the pill box show the number of pills that should be left for each day. A blinking LED indicates the pill that should be taken.

The soldering looks quite messy. I haven't got the stuff to make a solder resist mask yet. But I'll try and use one next time. Also I need a new tip for my soldering iron. But electrically everything is connected the way it should be and I'm going to put the whole thing into a pretty case anyways.

Part one:

Part two:

Programming the ATtiny2313 Microcontroller

This is my first post on this new blog. I was inspired to do this by Jaimie Mantzel who makes YouTube videos about all the cool stuff he makes. I'm going to make videos, too and post them on YouTube and also in this blog, together with further explanations, links and discussions.

So this first thing is about the ATtiny2313 from Atmel. The programmer circuit I built is basically a clone of Brian Dean's Programmer. I used 470 Ohm resistors to limit the current through the parallel port. Pins 2, 3, 4 and 5 are used as power supply pins. Some medium-sized capacitor (47µF should be enough) is used as a buffer for VCC.

Now, see for yourself: