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Open Hardware/Modding Leftovers
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Raspberry Pi Weekly Issue #521 - Raspberry Pi Flash Drive available now from $30
Raspberry Pi Hey Hi (AI) HAT+ 2 videos have been trickling in on YouTube… You will like them. Howdy, This week, we launched a tiny new thing that you might like: the Raspberry Pi Flash Drive, designed to provide reliable storage capacity for Raspberry Pi and other compatible devices. This high-quality essential accessory is lightweight and travel-friendly, with a compact metal design that can attach to a keyring or lanyard. It's on sale now from $30.
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CNX Software ☛ Raspberry Pi CM5-based outdoor PoE security camera features 12.3 MP IMX500 sensor, IP66 enclosure
Arducam recently launched the All-in-One Raspberry Pi Hey Hi (AI) Camera Kit with CM5, a Raspberry Pi CM5-based PoE outdoor security camera featuring a 12.3MP Sony IMX500 Hey Hi (AI) vision sensor housed in an IP66-rated enclosure. The camera combines pixel-level sensing and Hey Hi (AI) inference on a single chip, reducing the need for cloud processing while improving efficiency and privacy.
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CNX Software ☛ ACEBOTT QD023 ESP32-based gesture control glove tracks finger movements with potentiometers
ACEBOTT QD023 is an ESP32-based wearable gesture control glove that tracks finger movements with potentiometers instead of more traditional flex sensors. The glove transmits data via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to control various robotics kits, such as bipedal walkers, mecanum-wheeled cars, and robotic arms. The glove integrates five potentiometers for finger bending detection, and a 6-axis MPU6050 IMU for wrist rotation, tilt, and hand posture detection in real time. Other Hardware features include a USB Type-C port for programming and debugging, four AAA batteries for power, buttons, LEDs, and more.
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Nicholas Tietz-Sokolsky ☛ Making niche solutions is the point
The thing is, most of the time, that ends up being not much different than ordering an item. You save on shipping costs, and you can usually get it you want much more quickly than if you ordered it. But... it feels in a lot of ways just like it's very fast shipping. You browse a website, click a button, and then a few hours or days later, an plastic widget is in your hands. Convince me that this isn't equivalent to incredibly good shipping. (It does make it sustainable to share extremely niche things that you could not otherwise handle the logistics for. So: extremely good shipping.)
For me, that's a side benefit. If I could only print things that I've designed myself, I'd be happy with my 3D printer still (though, likely, less happy). The main show is being able to get a niche solution that's been tailored to my exact use case. To get a solution that no one else has thought of, because no one else has that exact problem. This is all the same for software. We'll circle back to the software side of things, because this runs into things I see my consulting clients deal with regularly, but let's dive deeper from the 3D printing perspective first.
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Jeff Geerling ☛ Recapping My 5 Year Old Studio Monitors
tl;dw: there are two 1000µf 25V capacitors inside that were both bulging after 5 years of daily use. Here they are post-removal: [...]
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Challenger+ T3217 Packages 8-bit ATtiny3217 in a Compact, Battery-Ready Board
The board is based on the ATtiny3217, an 8-bit AVR microcontroller running at up to 20 MHz from its internal oscillator.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Dabao Evaluation Board to Showcase Open-RTL Baochip-1x RISC-V MCU
The Baochip-1x uses a VexRiscv RV32IMAC processor with Sv32 MMU support, instruction and data caches, and optional cryptographic extensions.
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Linux Gizmos ☛ Espressif Launches Industry’s First MCU-Based Matter Camera Solution
The architecture is built around a split-processing model designed to optimize efficiency. The ESP32-P4 acts as the primary application processor, handling the MIPI-CSI camera interface, multimedia processing, and AI workloads, and integrates a hardware H.264 encoder capable of Full HD (1920 × 1080) video at 30 frames per second.
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TechSpot ☛ A hobbyist built a 486-style motherboard using an FPGA and pure determination
As PC hardware becomes prohibitively expensive for many users, modders are increasingly turning to retro computing and related projects. One developer recently set out to build a fully functional 486 motherboard using modern components, and ultimately achieved far better results than initially expected.
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Hardcore: A programmer spent 6 months working intensively to build a 486 motherboard from scratch. They completed everything from drawing schematics to soldering chips, and successfully ran Linux, DOOM, and Win3.1 on it. [Ed: Not "from scratch." He cannot make the materials.]
If your understanding of "handcrafting a motherboard" still stays at soldering a few modules and inserting a ready-made chip, then the latest work of programmer and electronics enthusiast Maniek86 might directly reshape your perception.
Recently, Maniek86 spent less than six months to design a complete and usable Intel 486 architecture motherboard from scratch. He started with drawing the schematic diagram, then designed the printed circuit board (PCB) and implemented the chipset logic by himself.