Dave

Retrofitting a Lenovo T520 with a Raspberry Pi CM4 – Part 1

I was looking around the storage rack in my main workshop when I stumbled upon an old Lenovo laptop, specifically a T520 model. These are nicely made, solid machines. They are rather hefty but nice to use. The keyboard and trackpoint are great, and the screen is also OK. This got me thinking; I have

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Xuron 9110f

New Cutters Day

This is a super quick update to extol the virtues of some very good value side cutters I bought recently on a tip. Thanks to the Hackaday Circuit Sculpture emoticon workshop, when Mohit Bhoite was showing off his tools, he mentioned these. In short, Xuron makes an excellent range of cutting tools that come in various

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VisualMicro: An Arduino IDE that doesn’t suck

Occasionally, I get asked to build or modify boxes or prototyping platforms using open-source or off-the-shelf components. There are multiple reasons to do this: Sometimes, a client wants to be more hands-on, so I get them started with a working platform, and then they take over from there. IDEs that suck Some integrated development environments

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Repurposing a video distribution amplifier – part 1

Many timing-type instruments, such as frequency counters, AWGs, and oscilloscopes, can be tied to an external frequency reference, most commonly 10 MHz. This enables the correlation of measurements from different instruments and vastly improves their accuracy and repeatability. Impedance and Termination It is useful to mention impedance at this point. Many single-ended clocked signals are

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DIY workbench

Workshop Update

During the latest COVID-19 lockdowns, I shut down my main workshop and rebuilt from the ground up. The storage rack is in and is quite full of all my parts, projects, and tools. This worked out well. The next area of concern is my working space. My previous two workbenches were too small, too low, and wobbly,

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It’s been too long

I’ve been quiet. Very quiet. Building a business, caring for foster children, and other boring life things are all taking my time and energy. But I’m back, and I’m ready for some more action. I’ve got a tonne of ideas for projects, builds that need completing and ideas for articles and guides, even an eBook

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Fixing the laser cutter

Southampton Makerspace hosts a large A0-bed industrial laser cutter (an Epilog Legend 36EXT) that we bought a couple of years back from a company in Farnborough. We spent quite a lot of our members’ money on this machine, and we’re quite precious about it, especially regarding maintenance. This isn’t the usual ‘hackerspace laser.’ This is

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Electronics Design Service

Electronic Design Services

My company Sobuildit Limited offers Electronic Design Services to other businesses and individuals. I will make a free quotation after discussing your technical needs, even if an NDA is needed – that is no problem! I am located in Hampshire, UK, and provide personal services to the local area and surrounding cities. I can also

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