Open Hardware/Modding: RISC-V, SBCs, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 08, 2025

• CNX Software ☛ VisionFive 2 Lite low-cost RISC-V SBC launched for $19.90 and up (Crowdfunding)

  StarFive VisionFive 2 Lite is a low-cost, credit card-sized RISC-V SBC powered by a 1.25 GHz JH7110S quad-core 64-bit processor and equipped with 2GB to 8GB RAM, and a microSD card slot for storage. It’s the little brother of the VisionFive 2 Pico-ITX SBC introduced in 2022, but in a more compact Raspberry Pi-like form factor with an M.2 2242 socket for storage, Gigabit Ethernet, optional WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4, four USB ports, HDMI 2.0, MIPI DSI and CSI connector, and a 40-pin GPIO header.

• CNX Software ☛ XIAOML Kit with ESP32-S3, camera, microphone, and IMU complements a free Machine Learning Systems book

  The XIAOML Kit is one of the devkits that complements Harvard University Professor Vijay Janapa Reddi’s book “Introduction to Machine Learning Systems“, available for free as a 2050-page PDF file. Made by Seeed Studio, the XIAOML Kit is composed of the XIAO ESP32S3 Sense with an ESP32-S3 WiFI and Bluetooth SoC, a microSD card slot, a built-in OV3660 camera and microphone, and the “IMU Breakout board” featuring a 6-axis IMU and 0.42-inch OLED display.

• Hackaday ☛ Teardown Of A Persil Smartwash Smart Laundry Detergent Ball

  Ever since the invention of washing machines, the process of doing laundry has become rather straightforward. Simply toss the dirty laundry into the machine, fill up the detergent, and let the preset program handle the rest. This of course has not prevented companies from coming up with ways to add more complexity to doing laundry, with Henkel’s Smartwash technology the latest example, as demonstrated by German YouTube channel [ZeroBrain] with a complete teardown.

• CNX Software ☛ DisruptorX V2 – An ESP32-based BLE penetration testing device with Sour Fashion Company Apple exploit mode

  DisruptorX V2 is an ESP32-based wireless security and penetration testing tool designed to analyze, jam, spoof, and disrupt Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals. Developed by C1PH3R-FSOCITEY in India, it’s designed for cybersecurity professionals, penetration testers, and ethical hackers for BLE-focused security testing. Built around an ESP32-WROOM-32 module, DisruptorX V2 supports BLE signal jamming, scanning, spoofing, and packet analysis.

• Hackaday ☛ 2025 One Hertz Challenge: The Easy Way To Make A Nixie Tube Clock

  Let’s say you want to build a Nixie clock. You could go out and find some tubes, source a good power supply design, start whipping up a PCB, and working on a custom enclosure. Or, you could skip all that, and just follow [Simon]’s example instead.

• Let’s talk about cameras on the new Fairphone (Gen. 6)

  It’s 2025. Mobile phones have come a long way since the days of T9 and grainy, pixelated selfies that are in desperate need of photo sharpening. Your smartphone is only as good as the camera(s) on it. You can go full flagship and buy one that will shoot the moon for you.

• PC World ☛ The Framework Desktop may be the easiest PC you've ever built

  Enter the Framework Desktop. If you have the time, money, and desire, you can build a desktop PC from scratch! It’s fun and rewarding. For the suburban parent who will happily change their wiper blades but not their oil, the Framework Desktop offers configurability for little effort. Building an Ikea bookshelf is complicated compared to this.

• Robotic Systems LLC ☛ Output limit reason reporting - mjbots blog

  There are many configurable values and internal firmware limits in the moteus brushless motor controller that result in the output current being less that would exist in an ideal system or less than what was commanded. To date, the only way to know if any of these factors was resulting in limiting behavior was to know all of the possible limiting factors, and look at factor specific diagnostic values one by one to see which was the culprit. Now, as of firmware release 2025-07-21, moteus will report exactly which feature is limiting the output at any given point in time, making that diagnostic process much simpler.

• Arduino ☛ A robotic hand with the dexterity to sign the whole ASL alphabet

  Gonzalez was even able to achieve that on a modest budget of $300. Most of that went into the 24 servo motors (four in each finger, five in the thumb, and three for the wrist/forearm). Almost all of the mechanical parts are 3D-printed. The two other major components are an Arduino Mega 2560 board and a PCA9685-based servo driver board.

• Lars Wikman ☛ Booting 5000 Erlangs on Ampere One 192-core

  In the previous post on 500 virtual linux devices on ARM64 I hinted that I expected serious improvements if we got KVM working. Well. We’re there. Let’s see what we got going on.

• Chris Aldrich ☛ | Chris Aldrich

  The grinding/sticking I was originally getting mid-carriage was due to a piece of the right carriage cover being bent back and over itself. Removing it and forming it back remedied the situation fairly quickly. I cleaned and treated the rear body panels which show signs of rust developing underneath the paint. (Rust on other portions of the machine indicate it was kept in a less-than-ideal location for years.)