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Please note, idk if this is still a “legally valid opal card” when if it works transits might be old fashioned, in a bad mood or butthurt that your opal card is cooler than theirs! (or perhaps there’s a ‘do not tamper with card’ rule?)

Hi all,

 

A few years before Sydney had an electronic ticketing system, I read an article where a man in London performed some experiments on his Oyster card, and turned it into a ring! ( http://www.ds72.com/projects/oyster-ring )

Inspired by this I set out to do something similar with my Opal card.

I found an old  Opal card I had laying around, scanning it reveals I had $1.17 left on it, I can sacrifice that if the experiment fails.

So I took a deep plate and put about 25ml of acetone into it, then I submerged the Opal card.

Around 30 minutes later I returned to check on it and great! it was dissolving! all the outer layer had gone funky, pics after the break!

I removed the funky stuff and then set the card back into the bath upside down to get the other side, again 20 minutes later it had the same effect. the sides of the card had been peeling up so it was kinda difficult getting it evenly dissolved.

I managed, and after a while I had a thin card with the antenna and chip in it.

The chip was inside a cutout in the card, probably to reduce size, The antenna removed itself from the chip so maybe it was just pressure fit?

Either way with some careful finger work I was able to strip the antenna out of the card as I couldn’t get this piece to dissolve.

With the antenna and chip free, I re attached the antenna to the chip with some solder  (enameled wire antenna, I accidentally burnt about  8mm of the wire off when removing the enamel, but it still functions fine.)

 

After it was back together, I scanned it with my phone and hurray! it still scans!

So I folded the coil in on itself creating a coil half the size, and tried again to scan it. IT WORKED!

 

I folded it once more to make it around the size of a 10c coin, and then tried once more and OMG it still works!

To finish it off for now, I took a small thick plastic bag, and inserted the coil, pushing it neatly into the corner. I cut the plastic bag as close to the coil as I could to get minimum size, and then put some kapton tape over the two open sides.

I now have a small rigid opal card.

I had a Visa paywave band that I got from my mobile telco, Optus. Its just a silicone wrist band, and a small Visa paywave card. maybe 20x30mm ?

I ordered a second one, in red, because I can do so for free.

When it arrived, I inserted my new small opal card into the wristband and put it on my wrist.

To my amazement through all that silicone and plastic the card could still easily be scanned by my phone!

Even with the reduced coil surface area!

 

 

I have yet to test it in production, I will do so this afternoon. I will load it with $5-10 and see how it goes.

 

For now, enjoy a few random photos I took during the process:

Dissolving:

Opal Card dissolving

 

Optus Visa PayWave band + finished miniOpal:

miniOpal and Cash by Optus band

 

 

Update:

 

I did some testing, the new style opal loading machine keeps saying invalid card, the old style one gives me the option to top up and correctly reads the balance, however it sometime scans saying “multiple cards detected ”
The gates take a bit longer to read the card than a normal full size card, and they take a few times to find the right spot, note: this is more difficult when its in the wrist band and on the wrist!

 

I think it’s not worth the extra time to have this form factor

 

 

Im going to be working on a DJ Sona (LOL skin) cosplay prop for a friend, Ill stick info into this post.

Hardware:

• Sheet of acrylic / perspex to install shit onto
• arduinos, one or two. Ill probably have one for the audio side and one for the lights…. I can get the lights one to have a sound reactive mode hooked into the audio one output or something idk ill figure it out.
• slider pots – the amp board has a knob pot, but the cosplay itself has sliders, so why not make them work?! – http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/351670018046
• audio amp board, probably overkill but med it has a knob: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/162165468840
• mp3 player module, this ones a simple serial device, i can send commands to it from button presses on the control panel on the prop – http://www.dx.com/p/uart-control-serial-mp3-music-player-module-for-arduino-avr-arm-pic-blue-silver-342439#.V_DnLfB96Uk
• buttons! http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/191782628706 – ill get 10 – 20 and put them in two rows of 5, on either side maybe ? (that nice microswitch click <3 plus theyre already illuminated blue!)
• LED strip! – it seems the board is always blue but sometimes theres some green too ? ill get RGB just in case! http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/331314589180 5 meters is more than enough. it will just be used for accent lighting and illuminating the acrylic panel.
• LED strip connectors – I learnt my lesson on hand wiring heaps of tiny connections on an object that will move around a lot! so many broken joints :/ – http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/281100571322
• spare LED wire – http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/182236567919
• other random wire for switches and stuff
• If we wanna get super fancy on the large spinny things, we can stick a bearing under each one! ooh mama so smooth – http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/331208176722
• Speaker – some random bluetooth speaker probably
• Power – Probably a lipo because convenient – include step down for 5v stuff? arduinos can take 12v easy usually through onboard reg…

That should just about cover everything.

mash it all up together and let someone else make the details

maybe lasercut the perspex to shape ? is there enough to make the spinny things also ?

TBD

WIP

There is a few services out on the web where you can submit a file and someone in the community with a 3d printer can print it for you, think of ride sharing except with 3d printers! 

One problem with this though is it’s almost entirely a manual process. 

You place your order, the website processes it, the person with the printer gets the file, at their earliest convenience they start the print, once they realise it’s complete they let you know. 

I believe a number of parts of this process could easily be automated. 

First comes octoprint, it can run on a raspberry pi and connects the printer to the internet. 
Utilising the API the online service could automatically send the print job to the printer. 

This is the first hurdle, the job can now be sent to the printer automatically, negating the need for the owner to load the file and start the print. 

This isn’t perfect, what if the incorrect filament was loaded? Running out? Or just plain you wanted it resized?

There’s sensors you could integrate for the first two, and you could pre splice your model if you wanted it resized. 

Note what if there was already a model on the print bed?

You could sense that somehow too, my first choice would be machine vision to check if there is anything there that isn’t normally. I think this would be the most accurate. 

But you could accomplish this with a much cheaper and simpler sensor like a proximity sensor, or a rangefinder going over the bed level. 

The octoprint API again would be able to stream you a live stream of the print, and when its finished it could send the online service a trigger that the print is finished, along with a photo of the completed print the moment it was finished printing. 

It could even go as far as sending the recorded time lapse over to YouTube and linking it in the completed email!

This would let the user review the print and check for defects / print problems to some degree, so they could instantly email the printer owner if something went wrong and request a re print. 

This could save a lot of time and speed up the process. 

#tramthoughts

Hi,

Ive wanted to do this for a while, and ive started making a bit of progress. I was hoping I could finish this tonight but it doesnt look like thats going to happen.

 

Following the guidance of the write up over here: https://github.com/zeroflow/ESPAircon

 

Ive come up with the following data from my A/C remote:
ON: 9E00000A
OFF: 8E00000A

16C: 9A00000A
17C: 9A80000A
18C: 9A40000A
19C: 9AC0000A
20C: 9A20000A
21C: 9A00000A
22C: 9A60000A
23C: 9AE0000A
24C: 9A10000A
25C: 9A90000A
26C: 9A50000A
27C: 9AD0000A
28C: 9A30000A
29C: 9AB0000A
30C: 9A70000A

LOWFAN: 9E00000A
MEDFAN: 9600000A
HIFAN: 9A00000A

AC: 9A60000A
DHM: 5A60000A
FAN: DA60000A

SWN: 9A00000A
NOSW: 9800000A

 

 

The end piece is 0000A, this seems to remain constant on mine. It might have data in it for timer, but I don’t care about that. The vent swinging data seems to change the same bits as the fan speed data, but to an alternate value.

I’ve been reading through DL_Aircon.cpp for a while now and I cant grasp what goes where..

Now, I can see the patterns, not that I understand them :’)

I was never good at understanding things like this..

I need someone to help me in understanding how to get my data into the code so that I can get it uploaded to my ESP8266 and test it.

I might hit up Ruiqi Mao again… hmmm

http://lewys.eu/dev/DL_Aircon.cpp

This is the file the data has to go into…

Using a readily available micro laser projector, a fan or two and a 3d printed part to create a small air curtain 

Add in a smoke generator of some sort to give a projection surface and a small portable hologram generator thing can be built, note to self, give it a shot some time 

I picked up this keyboard for about $30, + $10 or so for shipping. This is pretty cheap for a mechanical board. 
After feeling the switches for a bit I can see why. 

They’re inconsistent, some of them just don’t register sometimes, and the only option i had was tactile clicky blue. 

Luckily they’re imitating cherry mx switches, so I can replace them!
This begins the adventure of desoldering 87leds and switches!

After about 45 minutes of desoldering and emptying the solder pump, I had managed to replace 13 switches!

Also worth noting, the controller is discrete from the PCB, and has the rows and columns labeled!

It could easily be removed and replaced for a full custom firmware board!

I plan to do the top row next and work my way down the board from there. 

I’ll update this post or make a new one when I’ve made more progress!

It has come to my attention that the biggest risk at a keyboard meetup is having your keyboard stolen. For this I propose a precaution that can be taken to protect your board.  
The case and the ground pin in a mini / micro USB connector are not always shorted together. In cases where they are an open circuit until you connect them,a custom device can be made. 

You create a cable where it uses the ground pin and the plug casing as a switch. When it is plugged into a keyboard, it will close the circuit. When I bugged the circuit will then open. You can use the circuit opening event to trigger a loud audible alarm, along with anything else like flashing lights or whatever you want. 

This way you could make it a requirement to speak to an event staff or enter a pin to remove your keyboard. 

Therefore only the owner of the board is able to disconnect it without drawing everyone’s attention to the act. 

As an added bonus you can feed in +5v on the appropriate pin to power the board for lights and sounds and whatnot. 

This same method can likely be adapted to different connector types providing the ground pin is not already connected to the connector casing. 
And with some trickery that requirement can probably be worked around. 
I might make a prototype soon when I get a mini USB connector.