community news
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KiCad in a Browser Tab: India's ZiroEDA Ports KiCad 10 to TypeScript So You Can Design PCBs With Nothing Installed If you have ever wanted to fix a footprint on a college lab PC or a Chromebook where you cannot install anything, this one is for you. Akshay Rukade and the ZiroEDA project have ported KiCad 10's C++ source to TypeScript, so KiCad's schematic editor, PCB editor, interactive router, ERC and DRC run in a normal browser tab. It opens and saves native .kicad_pro projects directly, with no import… |
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This $32 Open-Source PCB Encoder Measures Position to 40 µm Using the Same Trick as Your Digital Calipers Cheap digital calipers hide a clever capacitive encoder inside, and Nick Steele (nichlock) has turned that idea into an open-source linear scale you can build yourself. It is just two PCBs, a sensor board with an STM32L4 and a passive copper "reflector" strip, sliding about 0.1 mm apart. The maker rates it at 40 µm accuracy against a Mitutoyo digital indicator, and the build costs roughly $32… |
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A 2011 Nokia E6 Now Boots Linux 6.12 and Runs Wayland, and It No Longer Reboots Every Four Minutes The Nokia E6, the 2011 Symbian business phone with a QWERTY keypad and a 640x480 touchscreen, is getting a second life as a Linux machine. Developer fluffleswaffles has brought up Linux 6.12 on it. The project's milestone log starts with a first boot to a BusyBox shell on 13 October, and the kernel now drives the phone's own display, runs the Wayland compositor weston with the foot terminal,… |
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Seven Resistors and an ESP32-C5: This Open-Source FPV Receiver Uses the Wi-Fi Radio to Catch Analog Drone Video Analog FPV goggles normally need a dedicated 5.8 GHz receiver module, but Leon (Twotoz) has built one out of a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-C5 and seven resistors. His open-source C5VRX-5 firmware uses the ESP32-C5's own dual-band Wi-Fi radio to pick up the FM video from a drone's analog VTX, demodulates it, and pushes composite PAL or NTSC video out of six GPIO pins into your goggles, a DVR or a… |
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Two Eyes, One Tiny Chip: This Open-Source Board Computes Stereo Depth So Your Arduino Doesn't Have To Hardware hacker machinehum (Rootkit Labs) has built 4reel, a small open-source stereo vision board that gives robots depth perception without a Raspberry Pi or a PC riding along. Two OV9281 global-shutter cameras sit at either end of the PCB, and the depth maths runs on the board's own Rockchip RV1103 chip. Your Arduino or ESP32 just reads the results over UART. Powered by a single-core 1.1… |
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No PC, No Cables: This Raspberry Pi 4 Beams an FPV Drone Sim Straight Into Your Analog Goggles Developer juricabi has built StickTime Pi, an open-source project that turns a Raspberry Pi 4 into a "virtual quad". The Pi runs the StickTime FPV simulator and pushes the picture through a 5.8 GHz video transmitter (VTX) wired to its AV jack, so the game shows up in the same analog goggles you use for real flights. You fly it with your own radio over the ExpressLRS/Crossfire WiFi joystick,… |
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Clotty Is a Uterus-Shaped RP2040 Board Built to Track Periods Offline, and It Already Runs DOOM Maker Kati (missmolerat) has designed Clotty, a palm-sized RP2040 board cut in the shape of a uterus. It's meant to be an offline, privacy-first period tracker that plays like a Tamagotchi, and it passed the hacker world's oldest test early: it runs DOOM. The two ovaries are capacitive touchpads, the screen sits in the middle, and the USB-C port is exactly where you'd guess. Kati says the… |
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Building a Private AI Media Library With Raspberry Pi 5 for Smart Photo Search and Auto Backups to Two USB Drives Alonso Vidales has built Off The Cloud, an open-source Raspberry Pi 5 project that lets users store, search and share family photos without relying on a traditional cloud photo and video -storage service. Instead of sending photos and videos to an external server for storage and AI analysis, the system keeps them on a device at home. It automatically backs up full-resolution photos and videos… |
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Connecting ESP-Mosaico Boards Wirelessly Over ESP-NOW to Run Multiple Guitar Amplifier Models in Parallel Maker Armağan Amcalar demonstrates how multiple ESP-Mosaico boards can work together to build a modular guitar effects system.ESP-Mosaico is a development platform based on the ESP32-S31 chip. In his demonstration, Amcalar uses ESP-NOW, a wireless communication method, to connect boards and run different guitar amplifier models at the same time. These models are software-based simulations that… |
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Turning a Backyard into an 8-Foot Satellite Ground Station with Raspberry Pi to Capture Weather Images from Space Cranktown City has built a DIY satellite ground station that uses an 8-foot satellite dish to follow satellites as they move across the sky and receive the radio signals they transmit. Unlike a manually operated dish, this system can calculate a satellite's position and automatically move the dish to follow it. One of the project's biggest achievements is receiving full-disk weather images… |
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This DIY ESP32 Music Player Combines Bluetooth, MicroSD Storage, and a CNC-Machined Aluminum Body With a Brass Knob HVT Lab recently built a custom portable music player using an ESP32 microcontroller, combining local music playback, rotary encoder controls, and Bluetooth connectivity in a compact retro-inspired design. The project allows users to load their favorite songs onto a microSD card and play them through a 3.5 mm headphone jack. An OLED display provides a simple interface, while a rotary encoder… |
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An ESP32-S3 Project Lets AI Read an iPhone Screen and Execute Actions Through USB HID Without Jailbreaking An open-source project called ESP32 iPhone Agent lets an AI model control a real iPhone using a low-cost ESP32-S3 development board. Created by Henry Yuan, the project can perform actions such as tapping, swiping, typing text, drawing paths and pressing keys. It can also return to the home screen or complete a task. The Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 board costs around $7, and the project does not… |
