Renaming LUNA Hardware to Cynthion

Note: This is a crosspost of a Cynthion update on Crowd Supply: https://www.crowdsupply.com/great-scott-gadgets/luna/updates/renaming-luna-hardware-to-cynthion.

Until now, the name LUNA has referred both to our USB multitool hardware platform and to the USB gateware framework that supports it. From now on, we want these projects to have separate names. We’ve decided to name the hardware platform Cynthion. The gateware framework will continue to be called LUNA.

This renaming is happening because we have often had conversations, both internally and with external folks, in which we’ve had to say, “Wait. Are you referring to LUNA hardware or LUNA gateware?” Additionally,...

Omega2 Guaranteed Available until 2028

The Omega2 family of modules is now guaranteed to be available until January 2028.
This is a 3 year extension of our previous guarantee.

After the guaranteed date, we will continue to produce and sell the hardware modules as long as there is demand.

The subject of the Omega2 family EoL date was starting to come up in our conversations with customers. Realizing this is important to our customers, we got to work on this front.

In 2021 and 2022 we focused on strengthening our supply chain and establishing deeper relationships with our suppliers. As a result, we are able to confidently extend...

Free Stuff - December 2022

The December recipient for the Great Scott Gadgets Free Stuff Program is Shiva. Shiva is new to hardware and IoT. We have sent Shiva a GreatFET One so they can do some research on devices they have in their own home. We are looking forward to hearing about their results!

RetroNetCall: "Datex-L, the German CSPDN"

I've presented about Datex-L, the German CSPDN (Circuit Switched Public Data Network) as part of the RetroNetCall talk series on retro-networking technology.

You can find the video recording at https://media.ccc.de/v/retronetcall-20230201-laforge-datex-l-cspdn

I've always been fascinated by "ancient" data communications - both the kind that I personally consciously witnessed from the late 1980s as well as the kind that I never experienced myself (like Datex-L).

I am not an expert in the subject by all means, as I was never involved in its design, implementation or even used it. However, given that there's very few public information online about Datex-L and/or other CSPDNs, I thought I could improve the situation by presenting about it.

My wireguard cheatsheet

I always search for this so I will write it down here.

cd /etc/wireguard
wg genkey | tee privatekey | wg pubkey > publickey
vi wg0.conf

[Interface]
PrivateKey = 
Address = 10.9.0.X/24

[Peer]
PublicKey = dg1cKCId81d6h5cWUQ61BMHksBbi0FdFnitjxDuOuno=
Endpoint = vpn.danman.eu:51820
AllowedIPs = 10.9.0.0/24
PersistentKeepalive = 25

wg-quick up /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
systemctl enable wg-quick@wg0.service
systemctl edit wg-quick@wg0.service

[Service]
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5s

systemctl stop wg-quick@wg0.service
vi /etc/wireguard/wg0
systemctl start wg-quick@wg0.service

wg syncconf wg0 <(wg-quick strip wg0)

LUNA Revision 0.5 Completed

Note: This is a crosspost of a Cynthion update on Crowd Supply: https://www.crowdsupply.com/great-scott-gadgets/luna/updates/luna-revision-0-5

We are happy to say that hardware revision 0.5 for LUNA has been completed and that revision 0.6 is well under way! Some highlights from revision 0.5 are an upgrade to using KiCAD 6, adding some of our planned part substitutions, and improving labeling. Full details of hardware revision 0.5 can be viewed in the GitHub pull request for that task https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/luna/pull/190. As for hardware revision 0.6, our current set of tasks can be seen in this GitHub issue: https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/luna/issues/185. Progress has been made on almost every item...

Desk improvements: 3d printed webcam ball socket, lightbar friction mounts and lightbar brightness controller

Heavily improving my webcam and desk lighting adjustability. Several years of work and different projects combined. Abuse of nonlinear circuits to defeat other nonlinear circuits.

Project: RJtoner, a multiway network cable toner/tracer (plus open source STC micro stuff)

For when your cabling is cursed by the light touch of a thousand techs. Uses STC 8-bit 8051 micro with an open source toolchain. Old project from 2019.

Встроенные предохранители

Увидел забавное в интернете. Предоранитель из дорожки. А рядом «запасные» дорожки. Весьма упоротое решение, но тем не менее имеющиее право на жизнь. Я бы только добавил рядом еще пады для впайки обычного предохранителя. На всякий случай.

Вообще в прототипах я так часто делал, но не в серийном изделии.

З.Ы.
Кстати, рядом видно дорожку вскрытую от маски. Если кто не знает, то так делают чтобы увеличить сечение дорожки. При лужении платы на нее ляжет припой и увеличит толщину проводника. Правда мне это решение не нравится, прирост сечения небольшой, а проблем от такого вскрытия куда больше. Это и отслоения маски могут быть и...

Updating RNS315 maps for fun and profit

I have RNS315 radio/navigation/media system (I will call it unit) in my car. I bought it with maps from 2014 which are hugely outdated so I started to research how to update the maps.

The obvious way is to go to the dealer and buy map update but that costs some higher tens of Euros so I started researching other options.

The update comes on an SD card which is unreadable in PC – this is because the card is locked with CMD42 and most operating systems cannot deal with this lock. There is a very nice technical note where you can...