If you happen to do a lot of SMD work, a pick and place machine is an incredible time saver. The problem is that most automated pick and place solutions are well outside of the “small outfit” price range, let alone the budget of a hobbyist. We have seen some great DIY pick and place …
OpenPnP working to create an affordable and completely open Pick and Place machine
Update: Bluetooth Super Nintendo controller for Android
[Rich's] newest version of a Bluetooth connected Super Nintendo controller takes what was already good and makes it better. We looked at the original version back in May, which is built into a knockoff controller – [Rich] mentions that he got a lot of flack for defacing retro equipment and wants to set the record …
The weighted companion cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, is a subwoofer
From the techPowerUp! forums comes an awesome weighted companion cube subwoofer built by the metonymical user named [Cube]. This build started off as a coffee table that was to have an oval glass top (no word if the edges were going to be blue or orange). The guts of the cube are taken from a …
Laser etched PCB production
Like most of us, [reonarudo] isn’t satisfied with the current methods of homebrew PCBs, so he put a laser on a reprap and started burning some boards. The basic procedure is to cover a copper clad board with matte black spray paint. A laser was installed on the X carriage of the reprap. [reonarudo] used …
Lab Matters – Kaspersky Academy – a platform for connection
Kaspersky Lab is paying a lot of attention to IT security education & literacy development sharing its knowledge & experience actively through its educational program “Kaspersky Academy” which offers unique opportunities for students & young profession…
How to build a vacuum form table that gets it right every time
[James] builds all sorts of robots and superhero costume replicas at home, so he is always searching for a better way to get consistent results when using his vacuum table. A lot of people use their oven or exposed heating coils from electric frying pans to warm the plastic sheets, but [James] wasn’t really interested in going …
Apple Called: It Wants Its 3G MacBook Pro Back
Remember that cool MacBook Pro with built-in 3G that one lucky surfer picked up on Craigslist? It got a lot of attention a couple weeks ago when it was listed on eBay, with bids in excess of $70,000. Unfortunately for its owner, Apple had the listin…
A Design Contest with High Odds of Winning!
[John] wrote in to tell us about this contest hosted by Avnet. All one has to do is upload a video of their design to Avnet’s Youtube page. There are four categories to choose from including: Solar, Communications, Transportation, and Entertainment. Four contestants can win an iPad2. The only catch, if you can call it …
Setting it straight about science fair solar energy breakthrough
There’s been a lot of stories about arranging solar panels to mimic leaves on a tree, thereby boosting their efficiency. But before reading that story you might want to check out this blog post correcting some flaws in that breakthrough (page is down, here’s a cached version). Before we go any further, we’d like to point …
One-man SMD assembly line shares a lot of tips about doing it right
Need to use that antiquated hardware that can only be connected via a parallel port? It might take you some time to find a computer that still has one of those, or you could try out this USB to Parallel port converter. It’s not limited to working with printers, as the driver builds a virtual …
