Open Hardware/Modding: Raspberry Pi and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 03, 2026

• CNX Software ☛ Mekotronics R57-5S – Rockchip RK3576 mini PC and digital player integrates inclined 5-inch touchscreen display

  Mekotronics is known for its unusual Rockchip devices, and the R57-5S is a Rockchip RK3576 mini PC for kiosks and digital signage applications with a built-in, inclined 5-inch touchscreen display. The system ships with up to 16GB LPDDR5, up to 128GB eMMC flash, or up to 1TB UFS flash. It also features an M.2 socket for storage or an Hey Hi (AI) accelerator, HDMI 2.1 and USB-C DP video outputs, a 4K-capable HDMI input port, dual GbE, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.1, optional 4G LTE, a few USB ports, and a terminal block with RS232 and RS485 interfaces.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Modders use jumper wires and a custom BIOS to save a damaged RTX 4090 from the trash — resurrected Nvidia gaming GPU loses 4GB of VRAM to overcome terminal PCB sagging

  A YouTuber resurrects a damaged RTX 4090 with a bent PCB, using a custom BIOS to disable one of its memory channels, reducing its VRAM to 20GB but stabilizing it in the process.

• Raspberry Pi ☛ A new 3GB Raspberry Pi 4 for $83.75, and more memory-driven price increases

  As many of you are aware, the price of memory continues to rise, with a seven-fold increase over the last year in the price of the LPDDR4 DRAM used on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5. Providing low-cost general-purpose computing remains a non-negotiable priority for us at Raspberry Pi, so while we can’t avoid passing on a portion of these increased costs, we’re also doing engineering work to expand the range of memory-density options available to our customers: we want to make sure you don’t pay for more memory than you need.

• Tom's Hardware ☛ Raspberry Pi flagship 500+ model now costs almost as much as a Mac Mini — firm Pi launches 3GB model to fight increasing DRAM prices

  The DRAM shortage continues to cause chaos in the computing market and is driving up the price of of various Raspberry Pi units yet again. Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi, announced that the Raspberry Pi 4, 5, 500, and 500+ are seeing another price jump, with outgoing pricing of the 500+ now approaching that of the M3 Mac Mini. The new price hikes have also led to the introduction of a new 3GB Raspberry Pi 4 to give customers more memory options to choose from.

• Hackaday ☛ The Raspberry Pi 4 With 3 GB RAM Is No Joke

  Although easily dismissed by some as another cruel April Fools joke, Raspberry Pi’s announcement of a new 3 GB model of the Raspberry Pi 4 along with (more) price increases for other models was no joke. Courtesy of the ongoing RAMpocalypse, supplies of LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 are massively affected, leading to this new RPi 4 model with two 1.5 GB LPDDR4 chips, as these are apparently cheaper to source.

• Hackaday ☛ Anything Can Be A Router, If You Try Hard Enough

  If you’re an American and you use the Internet at home, it seems probable that routers are going to be in short supply. The US government recently mandated all such devices be home grown for security reasons, which would be fine were it not that the US has next-to-no consumer-grade router manufacturing industry.

• The Verge ☛ Five questions for the guys who made a compass that points to the Times Square Olive Garden

  For this question we tapped in the great people over at Glub Glub Labs who did all the hard tech bits: We’re using an Arduino Nano microcontroller to manage the inputs and outputs for the compass. The Nano is connected to a GPS unit (SAM-M10Q) which is typically used for drone flight navigation, a gyro sensor to track rotation once the unit locks into a north reference, a stepper motor to turn the dial, and is powered by two batteries that we salvaged from some disposable vapes.

• Hackaday ☛ Pan And Tilt The Weatherproof Way, With Bowden Cables

  Over the years there have been many designs for pan-and-tilt camera mounts suitable for single board computer cameras. Often they mount small servos for the movement, but those in turn present problems when the device finds its way outdoors. [GOAT Industries] is here with a novel solution to this problem, instead of trying to cover up the servos on the mount itself, the whole thing is remotely controlled by linear actuators through Bowden cables.

• Arduino ☛ Pick and place without the CNC

  This is just a PnP machine, but without all that fancy CNC robot stuff. With this, you’re the robot and you hold the “end effector.” You likely won’t have the precision or work ethic of a robot, but you’ll be able to place SMD components on your board without resorting to sticky, staticky, pinchy tweezers.