Our friend Pyrofer wrote in about his new VFD Clock. “It sets itself via NTP and adjusts for daylight savings time so no buttons and it never needs adjusting. It can be monitored via SNMP for logging the temperature and checking system uptime. The entire SNTP stack was written from scratch and it all fits in one AVR 328P. For a screen I am using a salvaged VFD from
Looks like Itead is trying to get the Arduino clone price way down. They have setup an Indiegogo canpaign that has prices a low as $5 per board. The individual $5 boards have gone but you can still get shipped boards for $8 or 3 boards for $20. When you consider shipping is included in this the price is rock bottom. Itead is based in Shenzhen, China which is the
mikeselectricstuff gives us a one hour video describing how he goes about reverse engineering. He was trying to see how easy it would be to use the tiny LCD displays which are normally used in the iPod Nano 6. It is often good to look to see what very popular components are used in mass produced electronics since they are often available inexpensively as a repair item. Mike suggests
Ben Heck uses glue guns alot to put things together. They sure do a good job of quick and dirty strain relief and fixing things in place quickly. With a bit of heat from a big fat soldering iron (one that isn’t used for soldering wires) you can easily release things that were previously glued together. The main part of the DIY glue gun is the heating chamber, Ben
The prize this week is an Arduino Pro Mini. This contest will run for one week (December 7 – 13, 2013). Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item above and what it can be used for. Please note the image above is a side view of the thing. Please do not give the answer in the comments. Send an email to contest @
Dave from the EEVblog checks out the Sydney Mini Maker Faire which was held at the power house museum. Quite a few 3D printers and robots driving around. At 5:45 there is a guy who does a brain wave scan of people, combines it with weather data and 3D prints a design that combines the two. At 8:30 you can see some rockets on display outside and a demonstration
We featured the MakiBox here before, taking about their inexpensive 3D printer (still the cheapest as far as I know). They have two models, one that goes for $200 and one that goes for $300. So what happens to your company when you offer a hot product at this kind of price? You get lots of orders and need to ramp up very quickly. They have a number of
