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Open Hardware/Modding: ESP32, Banana Pi, and More
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CNX Software ☛ Simplia CONNECT RW612 6-in-1 M.2 2230 module offers WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, 802.15.4, LTE-M, NB-IoT, and GNSS connectivity
Simplia CONNECT RW612 is a 6-in-1 M.2 2230 wireless module that offers dual-band WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.4 LE, an 802.15.4 radio for Zigbee or Thread, LTE Cat-M, NB-IoT, and GNSS connectivity. It’s the first module I’ve seen that implements so many wireless standards into a tiny M.2 2230 module.
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CNX Software ☛ Waveshare ESP32-C6-Zero-B – A tiny ESP32-C6 USB-C board with 5V-36V wide supply voltage
Espressif Systems ESP32-C6FH8 CPU Single-core 32-bit RISC-V clocked up to 160 MHz Low-power RISC-V core @ up to 20 MHz Memory – 512KB SRAM Storage
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CNX Software ☛ Banana Pi BPI-VP10 – A low-cost servo control board based on Fortior FU7512L dual-core RISC-V MCU
Banana Pi BPI-VP10 is a low-cost servo control board based on the Fortior FU7512L RISC-V MCU and the FD6288Q pre-driver chip, designed for industrial control applications that rely on 100W/200W servos. The servo motor control board supports multiple control modes, including pulse/direction, analog, and RS485, and is compatible with absolute encoders (Tamagawa/BiSS-C protocols), incremental encoders, and Hall encoders. The BPI-VP10 board, also called BPI-BJ2403N, aims to provide an easy-to-source platform for developers to experiment with the FU7512L microcontroller and design projects or products around it.
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Digital Camera World ☛ What do you do if flying your drone is banned? 5 genius aerial photography alternatives to beat no-fly zones and go viral
My solution? Extendible poles. Both DJI and Insta360 offer very long versions of a selfie stick. The Insta360 "Extended Selfie Stick" is made of carbon fibre, has a nice padded handle with the brand in the logo, and extends to 9.8ft.
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Hackaday ☛ Hard Drive Speakers Crank Out Classic Demo
Hard drives are great for storing data. They’re designed for this purpose. What they’re not designed for is acting as speakers, but you can hack them into acting that way if you’re so inclined. For this project, [Niv] pulled apart a whole stack of drives, so they could be repurposed in this way. The principle is simple enough—just feed audio to the coil driving the head, and it will vibrate and wiggle around, creating soundwaves in the air. It’s not particularly effective, and you get limited volume with a terrible frequency response, but that’s half the fun. [Niv] actually took some of this into account, too. Four Western Digital Caviar 500GB drives were chosen for this build, two for the left channel, and two for the right. Each channel had a crossover, allowing one drive to handle low frequencies while the other handled higher ones. For a further nice touch, the platters spin with the beat as well, with [Niv] providing a great explanation on how this was achieved with the use of some nifty PWM tricks.