Intro I’ve wanted to build a compute array for a while, and now, with the ease of access to many small but powerful computer boards, it is easier than ever to do so. I decided to use the Raspberry Pi family of boards as the compute node and started looking for existing mounting options that […]
Building a small Pi Cluster Read More »
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, rather hefty but nice to use. The keyboard and trackpoint are great, and the screen is OK as well. This got me thinking; I have two
Retrofitting a Lenovo T520 with a Raspberry Pi CM4 – Part 1 Read More »
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 remoticon workshop, when Mohit Bhoite was showing off his tools and mentioned these. In short, Xuron makes an excellent range of cutting tools, coming in a variety of shapes
Pretty much anybody who does electronics prototyping needs to master reflow soldering at some point. There are a few ways to do it. The simplest is to set up the PCB with solder paste and components pre-applied, onto a preheater to get up to a starting temperature. Then, apply the additional reflow heat with hot
PCB Reflow Toaster Read More »
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 at this point to mention impedance. Many single-ended clocked signals are
Repurposing a video distribution amplifier – part 1 Read More »
I was thinking about prototyping electronics again, as I often do, and I was wondering about what might be optimal (as in most flexible) for handing small SMT parts like SOT23-3. Your choices are many, but pretty much all are bog-standard offerings derived from the original Veroboard layout (i.e. 0.1″ hole array, with a series
Fixed Layout Prototyping Read More »
