Hardware, devices, and hacking projects
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Open Hardware/Modding
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Hackster ☛ Designing PCBs for the Kria KV260 on the Kria KV260
I've been wanting to create my own peripheral boards to use with my Kria development kits for a while, and I though it'd be fun to see if I could use one of my Krias to design and layout the PCBs. I got the idea when I initially launched KiCad on my main PC and I remembered that a full desktop version of Ubuntu is available for the Kria SoMs, and I wondered if I could get KiCad to work in the Ubuntu desktop on the Kria.
While the K24 and K26 SoMs have the same processor and GPU specs that would impact the performance of an app like KiCad running in the user space of the OS, I decided that either my KR260 or KV260 would be the better option over my KD240 since the KR260 and KV260 both have 4GBs of RAM versus the KD240 with 2GBs. And since my KR260 is still tied up with my ever-evolving Lego Defender robot project, the Kria KV260 was the winner for this little experiment.
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The Register UK ☛ PiStorm turbocharges vintage Amigas with the Raspberry Pi
The PiStorm is an ingenious way to make real vintage Commodore Amiga hardware not only run again, but do it over three orders of magnitude faster – using cheap, open source hardware and software.
The PiStorm project has gone through several iterations, and Andrew Hutchings demonstrated and talked about two recent developments: the PiStorm32-Lite accelerator board for the Amiga 1200, running the Emu68 bare-metal 68000 emulator for Arm.
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Purism ☛ Purism Differentiator Series, Part 4: Hardware
When people ask what Purism does, the explanation some staffers give to the average person is along the lines of: “we make privacy and security respecting hardware, like the Liberty Phone that runs PureOS not Android nor iOS.” Immediately after that, it becomes easy to point to our hardware kill switches to demonstrate how we take a different approach from most other hardware out there. It’s a great example of a simple, easy-to-understand security measure that provides a tangible benefit to everyone.
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Arduino ☛ Build a better spindle controller for your CNC mill
Proper spindle speed control is necessary to get good CNC milling results. If your spindle speed is inconsistent, your speed and feed calculations will be wrong. That will lead to poor finishes and even broken end mills (and ruined parts) in extreme cases. But cheap CNC mills and routers often have insufficient spindle speed controllers. That’s why Joekutz’s Workbench built an improved spindle speed controller for his generic CNC 3040.
This DIY spindle speed controller has two major improvements: more precise adjustment and closed-loop feedback.
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Olimex ☛ CPM65 porting progress for the Open Source Hardware Modern Retro Computer Neo6502
Lot of people have asked can CPM65 be also ported on it, so David Given took this challenge and as you can see from the picture above he posted on Neo6502 Discord developers server he is close to the goal 🙂
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CNX Software ☛ NRFICE is a Bluetooth FPGA board in the Arduino UNO form factor (Crowdfunding)
The NRFICE FPGA is a Bluetooth FPGA board designed for edge computing and IoT applications. It is built upon a combination of the dual-core nRF5340 Bluetooth SoC and the Lattice ICE40UP5K FPGA. The ICE40 UltraPlus is a low-power, high-performance FPGA for edge computing and artificial intelligence projects and the nRF5340 is a Bluetooth 5.3 SoC that supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Bluetooth Mesh, Thread, NFC, and Zigbee.
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Raspberry Pi ☛ How to use the real-time clock functionality in Raspberry Pi 5 | #MagPiMonday
The official battery part is a rechargeable lithium manganese coin cell, with a pre-fitted two-pin JST plug and an adhesive mounting pad. This is suitable for powering the Raspberry Pi 5 RTC when the main power supply for the board is disconnected, with a power-off current draw measuring in single-digit µA, giving a retention time that can be measured in months.
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CNX Software ☛ SparkFun Thing Plus – ESP32-C6 board comes with 16MB flash, LiPo battery support
SparkFun has launched yet another ESP32-C6 board with the “Thing Plus – ESP32-C6” based on the ESP32-C6-WROOM-1-N16 module with 16MB flash and a PCB antenna and range of I/Os and power options. The board features 28 through holes with up to 23 multi-function GPIOs and a Qwicc connector for expansion, and supports 5V or LiPo battery power through respectively a USB-C port a 2-pin JST connector combined with a charging chip, and a fuel gauge.
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It's FOSS ☛ Using a USB Serial Adapter (UART) to Help Debug Your Raspberry Pi
A UART attached to your Raspberry Pi can help you troubleshoot issues with your Raspberry Pi. Here's what you need to know.
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Other Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Steam Deck 1200p screen replacement goes under scrutiny – better than the original but outshined by the latest OLED model
Digital Foundry evaluates the 1200p DeckHD screen replacement for the original Deck vs the 800p Steam Deck OLED screen as upgrade options for Deck users. Having reviewed both products, we also have some practical advice to share.
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Hackaday ☛ Understanding Deep Learning: Free MIT Press EBook For Instructors And Students
The recently published book Understanding Deep Learning by [Simon J. D. Prince] is notable not only for focusing primarily on the concepts behind Deep Learning — which should make it highly accessible to most — but also in that it can be either purchased as a hardcover from MIT Press or downloaded for free from the Understanding Deep Learning website. If you intend to use it for coursework, a separate instructor answer booklet and other resources can be purchased, but student resources like Python notebooks are also freely available. In the book’s preface, the author invites readers to send feedback whenever they find an issue.
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Hackaday ☛ Tandy Pocket Computer Assembly Is… Weird
Radio Shack had a long history of buying things overseas, having their name slapped on them, and selling them in the United States. That was the case with the Tandy Pocket Computers, which were in that awkward space between calculators and full-blown computers. Like many computers of those days, if you wanted to do anything interesting, you needed to turn to assembly language. But as [Old Vintage Computing Research] recalls, the assembly for these little devices was very strange, even for an assembly language. He found out that there is a reason it is so strange and shares it in a deep dive into the device’s machine code history.
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CNX Software ☛ Duo 256M is a compact SBC based on SG2002 multi-architecture SoC
Duo 256M is a small board powered by SOPHGO SG2002 multi-architecture Arm/RISC-V/8051 SoC with 256MB of on-chip RAM and a 1 TOPS NPU, a microSD card for storage, a camera connector, a USB-C port for power and programming, and two headers for GPIO expansion. We covered the SOPHGO SG2002 (and SG2000) Arm+RISC-V+8051 Hey Hi (AI) SoC earlier this month saying a couple of boards were expected very soon.
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