Robots that kick, a reverse engineering dream team, and jump starting a car with a coin cell

Figuring out how commercial LED sign panels work is a tough challenge that is being pushed forward by a dedicated team who are reverse engineering on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 [Barco NX-4 Group Reversing Adventure »]( Reverse Engineering Team Takes on Pro LED Panels Start pulling on thread of mystery electronics and before you know it you'll find yourself down the rabbit hole of reverse engineering. That's the case with this [team of hackers working on reverse engineering some Barco NX-4 LED modules](. These are not your run of the mill panels. They were produced as indoor LED displays that can be rented for events but have lately been popping up on the used market. Several Hackaday.io users grabbed them (typically sold in boxes of 10) and are doing a fascinating job of sharing their reverse engineering adventure. Each module has an FPGA to control all the pixels and communicate with adjacent panels. The team has dumped the EEPROM and captured activity on the communication buses during boot-up. Figuring out the original protocol is not likely to happen unless someone can get their hands on a master controller. But they have established enough info to write their own replacement programs and reflash the FPGAs to gain control of the displays. This is a spectacular example of the team you can bring together on Hackaday.io. Form your engineering dream team today, we're always on the lookout to feature collaborative projects. Highlights from the IO POPULAR BITS [Coin Cell Jump Starter]( Can you jump start a car using a coin cell battery? Maybe, and that's as good a justification as any to take on this entry for the [Hackaday Coin Cell Challenge](. Ted Yapo trickle charges a super capacitor to get a big enough kick to turn the automobile's starter [Beautiful CNC Build with an Exquisite Controller]( This is one of the most stunningly beautiful CNC mill builds we've ever seen. The controller itself is a work of art and Dean Gouramanis just posted a video walkthrough letting us peer inside. [Robots for tabletop scale football.]( This little bot fits in your hand but packs a punch. The dual solenoids use about 200 Watts to give a ball an alarmingly powerful kick for its size. Don't miss the video demos. Featured Projects POPULAR BITS [Monoprice Select Mini Painless Extruder Upgrade]( [ESP8266 Sees Another Take on Safety-Pin Programming]( [Check In on Hackaday Coin Cell Challenge Entries]( [Mysteries of the Next AND!XOR Badge]( Live Events MEETUPS, CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS [Friday: Hack Chat]( on Hackaday.io | Matt Berggren hosts this week's Hack Chat to discuss all that's new with Eagle PCB design software over the last year. [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( Hackaday · 61 South Fair Oaks Avenue · Suite 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105 · USA