News

Almost every hacker in the world seems to have had an idea for their own Arduino-compatible microcontroller board, but every so often you find one that is genuinely interesting. Michael Tedeschi's ChainDuino closes its Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign this week with nearly $10,000 - four times its original $2,500 goal - to build Uno-style Arduino boards with integrated power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and RS-485 serial connectivity. The reason? To build smart sensor and control networks from daisy-chained boards over distances of up to 1,000 feet using nothing more than cheap CAT5 twisted-pair cabling. Isn't RS-485 old technology? If by old, you mean "has...

The guys over at SchmartBoard, creators of novel solder applications designed to make it easier for beginners to get started, have announced an impending new product that could prove handy: the SchmartPatch. Designed to make it easy to repair circuits with damaged solder pads on surface-mount components, the SchmartPatches are PCB strips with common surface-mount device (SMD) pads pre-printed. Find the pad matching the damaged circuit portion, cut it off and stick it to the board with the pre-applied adhesive. Solder on your new component, connect it to whatever remains of the original pads - or nearby traces if the...

For many makers, the obvious next step on from breadboarding prototypes is to build a printed circuit board - but home-etching is falling out of favour thanks to low-cost services like Dangerous Prototypes' Dirty PCBs. The tagline "no bull, just crappy PCBs" might not fill you with confidence, but as Stefano Di Paolo found when building a VA meter the quality is typically higher than a homebrew board could ever reach. That said, there's still a satisfaction to be gained by doing it yourself if you don't mind playing with a few harsh chemicals and spending a fair while drilling...

Here at oomlout we're big fans of continuous lifelong learning - in case our Arduino Experimentation Kit (ARDX) wasn't enough of a clue - which is why we're tickled pink to have found an electronics-themed trading card set on the Tindie marketplace. Designed by London-based Nick Johnson's Arachnid Labs as gifts for those who buy his kits, the full 32-card set is now available as a single pack for just shy of £10 delivered. Each card contains the circuit diagram and description of a particular common circuit type, from a field-effect transistor (FET) switch to a sample-and-hold loop. You won't...

There's a bodger's rule that states that you need only two tools in the workshop: a hammer for things that don't move but should, and gaffer tape for things that move but shouldn't. We're fans of diversity here at oomlout, so our kit box includes a third item: glue guns, for when gaffer tape won't cut it. We're lucky enough to have picked up some industrial-grade units cheaply, but for the maker on a budget Ed Simmons' Frakengluegun, spotted via Hack a Day, is a project worth reading: upgrading a cheap hobbyist-grade glue gun to include accurate temperature control. I...