Open Hardware: Sparkfun, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Purism
-
$200 Swarm M138 kit enables two-way satellite connectivity for IoT projects - CNX Software
Sparkfun has launched a Satellite Transceiver Kit based on the Swarm M138 satellite and GNSS modem that allows low-bitrate two-way connectivity for IoT projects anywhere on earth.
Remote IoT applications have benefited from LPWAN standards such as LoRaWAN and NB-IoT, but in some extreme cases coverage may still be challenging, so satellite communication may be the only practical option. It used to be really expensive, but Swarm makes this more affordable, and companies like SigFox and Semtech also have (or had?) plans to use low-earth orbit satellites for their respective LPWAN technologies.
-
Lilbits: Comparing single-board computers, Thunderbird for Android, and Nothing’s next phone could come to the US - Liliputing
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the first Raspberry Pi computer hitting the streets. And while the folks at Raspberry Pi certainly weren’t the first to release a compact, low-power, single-board computer, they were among the first to offer such a device at a low cost, while encouraging adoption by educators, students, and hardware and software hackers.
Over the past decade we’ve seen hundreds of additional products flood this space. Keeping them all straight can be a lot of work… but the folks at HackerBoards (previously Boards-DB), have produced a pretty great resource for finding and comparing specs for many known single-board computers. The site’s been around for a while, but it recently relaunched with additional features and more detailed specs.
-
DIY digital spool scale tells you how much filament is left | Arduino Blog
We’ve all been there: you’re about to start a new print job and the filament on the spool is looking pretty sparse. You start the print hoping that there is enough filament for the job, but it runs out 90% of the way through and your part is ruined. A filament runout sensor will help you address this problem when it occurs, but this DIY digital spool scale will prevent the problem altogether.
Every popular slicer on the market will provide a fairly accurate estimate of the amount of filament (in mass and length) that a job will require. To determine if you have enough filament, you just need to know the length of the filament left on the spool or its weight. Figuring out the length is almost impossible unless you track the feed over time, but it is easy to weigh the filament. As long as you can subtract the weight of the spool (set the tare), you can determine if you have enough filament. This device both weighs the current spool and subtracts the tare.
-
Spotlight on PureBoot Restricted Boot [Ed: They call it restricted and still do that anyway]
Most Big Tech efforts to secure the boot process give the vendor control over what software you are allowed to boot on your laptop, with keys they control.
With PureBoot Restricted Boot, you can lock down your boot firmware to only boot trusted, signed executables both on a local disk and USB, so you control the keys. Let’s see how you tighten down your boot security with Restricted PureBoot in this video.