[HN Gopher] Beginners guide to building a hardware hacking lab
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Beginners guide to building a hardware hacking lab
Author : wrongbaud
Score : 205 points
Date : 2023-10-22 17:47 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (voidstarsec.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (voidstarsec.com)
| softfalcon wrote:
| Is anyone else having a terrible time navigating this on mobile?
|
| I can't scroll up or down properly at all, the page is weirdly
| scaled to mobile with text being cut off on both left and right,
| and there is an odd modal up top that doesn't work properly as it
| resizes itself constantly.
| dvh wrote:
| Works fine in reader mode.
| nfin wrote:
| on chrime mobile: desktop mode is also helping out
| anon_cow1111 wrote:
| Also has an unnecessary 12 megabyte gif halfway down,
| presumably as a middle finger to people using a data plan.
|
| (oh and another 7mb gif below with extremely poor optimization)
| a1o wrote:
| Erh, is the scrolling of that website weird to everyone?
|
| I think you don't need all that, but you can start simple with
| less, like a simple Arduino kit.
|
| Also you can get some Tektronix or similar if you get used. I
| know I would love some old used HP or Agilent bench multimeters.
| wrongbaud wrote:
| I believe it is a bug affecting IOS devices in Git-Wiki.
| https://github.com/Drassil/git-wiki-theme
| goryramsy wrote:
| Reader mode is saving me on iOS
| bvan wrote:
| What happened to jtagulator? I would have thought this would have
| been included as a go-to JTAG tool.
| wrongbaud wrote:
| I decided to leave that out mainly because it has been
| discontinued, but I could add it as a reference!
| bpye wrote:
| The Glasgow Interface Explorer [0] is starting to ship out
| now as well. I got mine a couple weeks back. It's a neat
| option for a multi-purpose debug tool.
|
| [0] - https://www.crowdsupply.com/1bitsquared/glasgow
| mikewarot wrote:
| When you get up to buying meters, the main advantage of Flukes is
| that you can accidentally put 500 volts into them, and they
| survive it. When soldering, it's important to wear Jeans, or
| other heavy non-plastic full length pants.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I've never had solder come anywhere near my clothes when
| soldering electronics.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Yet :-)
| syntaxing wrote:
| I've seen more than once people tinning their solder irons by
| add some solder and flicking the solder onto the floor hard.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I did that for many years, and even hit my bare legs or
| feet a few times. But the solder cools really fast, and
| doing that doesn't cause a great deal of pain or damage.
| Just enough to remind you to be more careful.
|
| These days, I flick the solder onto my soldering mat
| instead.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I've fried my 3D printer board once because of using a cheap
| meter. My good meter was out of reach so I grabbed a closer
| dirt cheap one to measure the output of the 24V bed. Instantly
| shorted my board and welded the leads to the screw. Long story
| short, don't cheap out on multimeters.
| fest wrote:
| What exactly happened there, and why do you think it wouldn't
| happen with a more expensive meter?
| snovv_crash wrote:
| My fluke has a fuse on the ammeter.
| MountainMan1312 wrote:
| I'm a beginner here, but I want to assume that if it was
| enough to weld it, the cheap meter wasn't the problem.
| c_o_n_v_e_x wrote:
| Sounds like you tried measuring voltage while your meter was
| set to measure amperage
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Counterpoint: The IC at the heart of basically every cheap
| meter is a clone of the IC in an old Fluke DMM
|
| https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn27a-voltmeter.html
|
| Honestly I would say cheap out on the DMM and splurge for a
| good oscilloscope, you get much farther with that.
|
| But, I'm someone who doesn't do high voltage much, or really at
| all.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| I would suspect the clamp diodes / protections would be
| external to the IC?
| flashback2199 wrote:
| Right, I agree that if you're doing HV or need high
| accuracy, don't cheap on the DMM, otherwise I do think
| cheap DMMs are good enough for a lot of things and that
| being able to see the waveform is often more useful than a
| perfect static measurement
| f1shy wrote:
| so much this. Also, (1) if you are laying with 500V you
| should be careful. (2) cheap DMM will typically also survive
| (ask me how I know) (3) You can destroy 10 cheap DMM before
| is more rentable a durable Fluke
| analog31 wrote:
| Something I've learned by looking at "clones" of my own
| products is that it's not a copy unless it copies my
| component sources, manufacturing, and quality standards.
| alright2565 wrote:
| It's also possible to cheap out on the meter while still
| getting a quality product. I like to look here for good
| reviews/tests of multimeters: https://lygte-
| info.dk/info/DMMReviews.html
| redprince wrote:
| You can put that into other quality meters as long as their CAT
| rating is sufficient and was verified by a reputable testing
| lab (Underwriter Labs, TUV, etc.). Fluke isn't the only player
| in town with quality meters.
|
| Also don't skimp on the meter, buy something decent. There is a
| lot to be said about the real life and noticeable differences
| in cheap and quality meters when testing or repairing
| electronics but in the realm of embedded device hacking I
| particularly found the following features handy:
|
| - A high speed voltage bar at the bottom of the instrument
| which tells you if a voltage is indeed stable. You can detect
| the TX pin of serial lines with that. Cheap meters may have
| that bar but the update speed is way too slow to be useful
|
| - A high speed and loud continuity tester. Many cheap meters
| (and some expensive as well) have a large delay between
| shorting out the leads and the buzzer going off. That's rather
| annoying when you can't make good contact long enough (also see
| below for test leads).
|
| After working with a cheap meter for a while (Uni-T) I went for
| a Brymen BM869s and never looked back.
|
| Also get yourself some high quality pointy, hard gold coated
| test leads. I personally can wholeheartedly recommend the
| Probemaster 8000 series.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I'd suggest adding a few boxes of common
| resistors/capacitores/leds and a simple power supply.
| cdcarter wrote:
| Surprised not to see a recommendation for the Rigol DS1054
| series, which is another good beginner scope and generally
| slightly cheaper than the Sigilent.
| wrongbaud wrote:
| I can definitely add this, it's by no means a definitive list,
| and I'm hoping to get more insight to add to it over the years
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| And upgradeable, in more ways than one. :)
| willis936 wrote:
| Lots of talk about soldering irons but none on lead. If you do
| use lead solder please treat the area as contaminated, don't
| touch your face, and wash your hands afterwards. Lead poisoning
| is a quiet and long term thing. A little bit of care upfront will
| prevent a sad end for your loved ones in decades.
| analog31 wrote:
| The earliest lead-free solders were definitely not beginner-
| friendly. Things have improved. I prefer an alloy called Kester
| K100, which is lower melting and more solder-like. Others might
| chime in on alloys that work for beginners. Also worth
| considering are solder pastes that you can apply to the joint
| and then heat up with an iron. And flux pen.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| solder paste is awesome. At a FabLab I worked at we got
| pretty proficient at grinding 2-layer circuit boards with a
| CNC machine (1/64" bit), cutting solder masks with a craft
| vinyl sticker cutter, applying solder paste over the mask and
| then baking in a toaster oven. Great process for making 10 of
| something.
| m-ee wrote:
| Never verified but I was always told the fumes from lead free
| are more noxious than the leaded counterparts, maybe because of
| the higher temp requirements. Should be using a fume extractor
| regardless but I've always been more conscious of it when
| working with lead free.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| Fumes from leaded solder, rosin, flux, are on the order of
| 100x more harmful than lead free
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Can you provide citation? Leadfree also requires rosin and
| flux, no?
| snvzz wrote:
| Is the lead even in the fumes? The temp it evaporates at is
| much higher.
|
| I understand "lead-free" fumes are actually worse, but you
| should avoid all fumes regardless.
| willis936 wrote:
| I agree with the conclusion: always use a fume extractor with
| flux regardless of the type. They're a cheap insurance
| policy. For what you pay to insure your car for two weeks you
| could insure your lungs for all soldering.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| "you can wash your hands but you can't wash your lungs"
|
| I've also heard the folk wisdom that the leadfree fumes are
| worse for you, targeted instead at automated high-volume RoHS
| compliant factories than the hobbyist hunched over his
| protoboard but wouldn't know how to find out if one if more
| harmful than another.
| the-dude wrote:
| We have The Woz on video with solder in his mouth and he is
| pretty old. This is just fear mongering BS.
| meatmanek wrote:
| Lead solder didn't bother me at first (I had read all the
| arguments about vapor pressure, solubility of lead, people's
| lived experiences, etc. Plus, my initial experiences with lead-
| free were terrible). What convinced me was when I realized how
| much fine solder dust I was making every time I cleaned my
| soldering iron tip. More than once I've had the dust from the
| brass sponge spill out onto my desk and leave a big grey mark.
|
| I've been using some low-temp lead-free solder from ChipQuik in
| both paste and wire form, and it works perfectly fine for
| prototyping. It doesn't seem as strong as other solder types,
| but the low melting point (even lower than leaded solder) means
| I don't have to stress the chips as much with temperature
| swings (great for rework), and I can keep my iron cooler, which
| reduces tip oxidation.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Its a good list, the only thing I would change is that I like a
| deeper workbench (30" is good 32" deep is even better) because
| I'll put a shelf in the back so that the test equipment can be
| vertical from the surface (and yet the probes can still reach the
| surface easily). For RF work, I've got a spectrum analyzer,
| vector signal generator, and an oscilloscope that are pretty much
| always there, and a network analyzer that I bring out when I'm
| trying to get debug RF networks.
|
| And while modern (expensive) equipment is light and not so deep,
| if you're buying stuff used or surplus you'll end up with older
| gear that can be 18 or 19" deep and on a 24" deep bench that gets
| a bit crowded.
| cushychicken wrote:
| I finally shelled out for the Proline 32 inch deep benches and
| man do I love them. The overhead shelf and light are great, as
| is the French cleared rail.
| gdynamics wrote:
| As an aside, I'm not paid or associated or anything, but I did
| the hardware hacking class with this company and it was pretty
| good. If you're looking to get into the space it's not a bad
| place to start.
| LanternLight83 wrote:
| I learned to solder while building a keyboard and flashing IOT
| devices earlier this year, and can't recommend Pine64's Pinecil
| Soldering Iron highly enough (just be sure to pick up a capable
| power-source while you're there).
|
| > The Pinecil is a smart mini portable soldering iron with a
| 32-bit RISC-V SoC featuring a sleek design, auto standby and it
| heats up to an operating temperature in just 12 seconds when
| paired with a sufficiently powerful power supply unit. > --
| https://www.pine64.org/pinecil/
| culopatin wrote:
| Why do I need a soldering iron with processing power?
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| To let it turn off when you're not using it. It uses an
| inertial sensor.
| f1shy wrote:
| A PID for keeping temperature.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Your regular soldering station will also contain a
| microcontroller, same as a shocking amount of other tools.
| They can be incredibly cheap (a couple cents if you have
| enough volume), so even if you could do it with analog
| circuits they can be a reasonable solution. And of course
| this soldering iron comes with buttons and a display, so of
| course you use a microcontroller.
|
| But I guess what you are getting at is that normally you
| don't brag about the architecture of your microcontroller. As
| you correctly suspect, that's done just for coolness points.
| Chances are an 8 bit AVR or an 16 bit PIC could have done the
| same thing, but on a soldering iron you don't care about the
| power draw of the microcontroller, and a 32bit RISC-V fits
| Pine64's brand better. It's the equivalent of "aircraft-grade
| aluminum" or "military-strength encryption".
|
| Also the choice makes it easier to run Doom on it.
| mecsred wrote:
| You don't. I can recommend my daily driver, a naturally
| aspirated charcoal furnace and several large blocks of
| copper.
| noman-land wrote:
| Pinecil is surprisingly excellent. I bought it on a lark and
| was shocked at how fast it heats up and cools down. I'm talking
| a few seconds to get to temp. I don't do a lot of serious
| soldering but but I do I rarely bust out the Weller now that I
| have this little thing. I happily use it while plugged into my
| laptop charger.
| timmaxw wrote:
| As a beginner, I've been a big fan of the Digilent Analog
| Discovery. This guide lists it under "logic analyzers", but it's
| also a passable oscilloscope if you don't need more than 30MHz
| bandwidth. Because the target market is undergraduates learning
| electrical engineering, it's designed to be inexpensive, doesn't
| take up much space, is easy to get started with, etc.
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| As a fellow beginner, I have always been a fan of Salee
| https://www.saleae.com/] stuff, for much the same reasons you
| describe.
| wrongbaud wrote:
| The problem with Saleae IMO is that their current price point
| is way out of reach for beginners. The software is wonderful
| (as is the hardware), but it's hard to justify as a newcomer
| to the hobby at that price point
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| Eek. I have not looked at their prices in too long! You are
| absolutely right. My memory suggested Saleae based on
| prices like this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/378
| ($USD 149. Very clearly, no longer the case!
|
| Appreciate the pointing out the staleness.
| nxobject wrote:
| I think Saleae's made way in the low-end market to Chinese
| Saleae clones that have similar software and hardware to
| their original models - at similar prices, too.
| zw123456 wrote:
| Excellent! I could quibble over details of this or that brand but
| that would be silly. The only category I would add is a
| ventilation system, especially if you have a 3D printer but even
| soldering and de-soldering can generate a lot of noxious fumes.
| Of course it depends on the environment your lab is in but
| assuming it's a basement or some closed in area, having a good
| exhaust system can be a godsend.
| wrongbaud wrote:
| Great point! I will add a small paragraph on fume extraction
| this week
| redprince wrote:
| The microscope recommendations are a bit problematic, except for
| the mantis. When you can afford it, get yourself a binocular
| stereo microscope with sufficient viewing distance from the work
| piece. In contrast to USB microscopes, those will have no image
| delay, which can make hand-eye coordination difficult, allow for
| depth perception and have way superior image quality.
|
| When buying a trinocular it should be a simul-focal one where the
| stereo microscope and the camera are focused and available all at
| the same time (no switching of the light path to the camera).
| Example for such a trinocular microscope: AmScope SM-4NTP. A
| bincular microscope with matching specs will be slightly cheaper.
|
| Louis Rossmann explaining in more detail:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_eQrbop-J4
| wrongbaud wrote:
| That is definitely the segment that I have the least hand-on
| experience with. I've always used the mantis in my shop and not
| used much else for soldering. Feel free to toss on a PR with
| some reccomendations/updates!
| analog31 wrote:
| A stereo microscope is a prominent fixture on my bench. It's on
| an arm so I can swing it into place. Can't recommend a brand,
| since mine was a dumpster dive.
|
| I also like having a magnifying visor, so I don't have to move
| something to the scope. McMaster-Carr has a selection.
| cushychicken wrote:
| I have a stereo Amscope that I really love.
| iamricks wrote:
| For SWEs what is a good way to get an intro into hardware?
| wrongbaud wrote:
| I think the best approach is to start taking things apart that
| interest you, and learn along the way. For example - on my blog
| I use things like arcade cabinets and home routers to introduce
| some hardware reversing concepts:
|
| https://wrongbaud.github.io
|
| There is also nothing wrong with getting some of the arduino
| starter kits on amazon and using those to learn how to interact
| with various peripherals, etc.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Adafruit tutorials and Neopixels can be fun with a very low
| barrier to entry. Get into sensors and networking from there.
| The RP2040 by Raspberry Pi is a great chip to start learning
| with micropython.
| mhb wrote:
| Jim Williams' workshop:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyohm/sets/721576294448252...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Ha ha, that looks like mine.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > ESD Protections
|
| > The last thing that you want to happen is for you to
| accidentally destroy a device with static electricity, In order
| to avoid this, it is always a good idea to get an ESD wrist strap
| or an ESD protective mat.
|
| Work is a different story, and maybe it's because I've only ever
| done electronics work on the relatively humid east coast, but
| I've personally never have taken special ESD precautions during
| my hobby time (such as grounding my desk at home or wearing a
| strap), yet have never discharged static electricity through any
| one of my personal circuits.
|
| Am I doing it wrong?
| GravitasFailure wrote:
| >Am I doing it wrong?
|
| If you're not killing anything, then probably not. It's not a
| bad thing to be conscientious of, but if static just isn't a
| problem for you and you aren't handling super sensitive
| components, stressing about it isn't terribly productive.
| mcshicks wrote:
| Only if you want to sell it.
| analog31 wrote:
| Stuff has gotten a lot more robust, except for specialized
| things such as laser diodes. Also, once an IC is soldered onto
| a circuit board, it's not invincible, but less prone to damage
| because the capacitance on the board limits the voltage spike.
|
| The only time I ever damaged IC's was when I had my office
| chair on one of those plastic mats that lets you roll your
| chair around on a carpeted floor. That was a static electricity
| generator.
|
| If you're regularly getting static zaps during dry winter
| weather, on things like doorknobs, it's a sign that you need to
| be more careful with your electronics.
| bsder wrote:
| Nah. Modern chips generally have great ESD protections. If you
| aren't creating a spark, it's probably not gonna kill it.
|
| The only time I need ESD straps is if I'm working with genuine
| old school metal gate 4000 series CMOS chips or some whacky,
| super sensitive input that ESD circuitry is omitted from
| because the leakage will mess it up (high end RF and ADC spring
| to mind).
| nullc wrote:
| For electronics work a video microscope is the way to go:
|
| https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803915366071.html
|
| I have the 180x, though I mostly use it zoomed out. Perhaps some
| would prefer the 120x for more working distance. Be sure to get a
| kit with the light.
|
| https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832167751376.html
|
| (I'm told the stand can be found on ebay with lower shipping
| cost).
|
| For oscilloscopes, Check out the new Rigol DHO800/900 series.
| They're super compact and USB powered, but basically have the
| 5000 series features and are 12-bit. The lower bandpass ones are
| fairly inexpensive and they're hackable to higher bandpasses
| (craftily, instead of eliminating hackability Rigol has made
| features like the logic analyzer only exist in higher end
| models).
|
| I'd like to see some inexpensive options for sidechannel
| analysis, I've tried varrious things with SDRs monitoring shunt
| resistors and really had any interesting signals blasted out by
| LDO noise and USB noise.
|
| Back when I worked on libsecp256k1 I really wanted to setup a CI
| rig that ran blind side channel analysis on a commit by commit
| basis, e.g. by looking at the cross correlation of aligned traces
| with different secret material, but I wasn't able to get
| something working.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Hah, I'm surprised he mentioned Lauterbach at all. It's
| ruthlessly powerful, but not remotely hacker / user friendly.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| During the pandemic, I bought a Chinese JBC clone that takes real
| JBC tips. Temperature calibration was possible and it heated up
| fast enough, but not like a real JBC station. For 15% of the
| price, it's a steal and close enough.
|
| Also got a 100 Mhz oscilloscope with paid options but hackable to
| 200 MHz, WiFi (COTS USB), and a 16-channel IIRC logic analyzer.
|
| Picked up an Agilent PSU with a bad fan. That was an easy fix.
| Will have to calibrate it but it's already pretty close.
|
| Then I spent too much money on a Fluke 289 DMM. The price went up
| significantly now, I wouldn't recommend it now.
|
| In general, buy used, repair, and recycle.
| Namidairo wrote:
| The CH341A requires a somewhat large warning on it, given there
| are still many floating around that'll happily push 5V data lines
| still when supposedly configured for 3.3V
|
| Later revisions supposedly fixed this, but the reviews on the
| Amazon link seem to indicate it may be of older stock.
|
| This can be fixed with fairly simple modifications luckily.
| lormayna wrote:
| For RF low cost tooling I suggest Evilcrow RF v2
| (https://github.com/joelsernamoreno/EvilCrowRF-V2) instead of
| Yard Stick One.
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