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  It's not often that adding a shiny new electronic device to your set-up can reduce electricity usage, but Josh Forwood's Power-On-PC project is designed to do just that. Recently brought to our attention by Hackaday, the device itself is a self-build based around the Arduino Mega which allows the various computers on Josh's network to be placed into an almost-but-not-quite off mode where the network interface is still powered up. When Josh - or any other user with a PC on his network - logs into a Teleduino-based web interface they can use the Arduino to send a magic...

Conductive ink is a great tool in the arsenal of the electronics hobbyist, allowing for circuit tracks to be created freehand on almost any surface - but it's hardly well-suited to professional production. A student project at Cornell University has attempt to take an off-the-shelf pen-based conductive ink and bring it out of the hand-construction market into computer numeric control (CNC) with a circuit printer. A relatively simple combination of pen-based two-axis plotter and a Circuit Scribe conductive ink pen, the project was brought to our attention by Embedded Lab and shows considerable promise for small-scale circuit creation. Although limited...

With the Internet of Things (IoT) shining brightly in marketers' eyes and winter firmly here, it's no surprise to find the market becoming increasingly flooded with 'smart' thermostat controllers - many of which cost a considerable amount of money. William Dudley decided they cost too much money for too little flexibility, and turned to Arduino to build his own. Brought to our attention by Hackaday, William's build uses an Arduino Mega 2560 to control three heating zones, to synchronise the system's clock using the network time protocol (NTP) for high accuracy and to provide a handy web interface. Based on...

We're big fans of the humble light-emitting diode here at oomlout, whether it's in the form of an eyeball-searing 100W unit driving a torch or more sedate versions helping wake up a child, and given that we're rapidly approaching a certain special day we were thrilled to see an impressive Arduino-powered decoration project highlighted by our friends at Adafruit: a Christmas star built from a thousand 10mm high-brightness LEDs. Using an Arduino Uno-compatible board, a dedicated power supply, 74HC595 shift registers and TIP122 transistors, Sudheera Vishwamithra Silva has created an impressive piece which includes animation capabilities shown off to great...

For the uninitiated, laser cutting can seem like a dark art - and even for those with a little experience, the journey from idea to creation can be somewhat trial-and-error. Fellow laser-cutting enthusiast James Stokebrand has worked to help reduce the 'error' part of that process, creating a sample board design which shows off various vector line and raster fill settings for laser engraving. Although designed for use with the Ponoko create-on-demand service, the files are freely available to download and modify and are perfect for hobbyists to use on their personal - or hackspace-provided - laser cutter. Simply load...