Self-Reflowing Circuit Boards Don’t Require Soldering Equipment
Electronics engineer Carl Bugeja uploaded another great video the other day showing off his self-reflowing PCB.
He created a layer in the board with a long winding trace, so when power is added, it acts like a heating element. 9V of input voltage is enough to reach 165C (329F) and melt the solder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0csHZveVvY
https://github.com/CarlBugeja/Open-Reflow
How To Build A Electric Cargo Bicycle Mounted Snow Plow
From Phil’s Shop on Youtube:
“This video is showcasing a snow plow attachment I have been working on for my electric front loading cargo bicycle. It’s had a few hours use now and around 25 kilometers of total riding distance. The plow is easy to install and you can ride to your destination then drop the blade down and start plowing!”
ZSWatch / The Open Source Zephyr Based Smartwatch
Jakob Krantz has designed the ZSWatch, an open source smartwatch. Features include nRF52833 BLE chip, 1.28″ 240×240 circular display, accelerometer, heartbeat sensing, vibration motor, external 8MB flash, 220 mAh battery and more.
All the files are included on Github, though Jakob suggests waiting for V2, which is in the works. You can get notifications on the new release via Github, or through the Google form he has set up.
Designing New 3D Printed Version Of Partial Prosthetic Hand
Ian Davis uploaded a new Youtube video recently showing off a new 3D printed version of his famous metal partial prosthetic hand that he originally created for himself.
Ian mentions that there are some drawbacks to compared to the alu based hand, but he is working through iterations with the aim of getting the design out to people who would benefit from it.
How To Make A Useful Mini Electric Saw For Your Workshop
KendinYap on Youtube uploaded a video the other day demonstrating a little 3D printed electric saw he designed.
In the video description is a full list of parts, along with other links to 3D files and more info.
Learn How To 3D Print Your Own Mini Wind Turbine
Youtuber 3DPrintedLife made an informative video showing the wind turbine he designed and printed. He went all out with the features, replicating full size wind turbines by adding variable pitch blades, on board wind measuring station and a fully custom PCB for controlling the power generated.
The files are open source and available to recreate your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyhi5bzijzA
https://github.com/DDeGonge/SmartWindTurbine
NODE Is Looking For A Front End Web Developer (HTML/CSS/JS)
Hey everyone, I’m looking for a front end web developer with good design sense to collab with on an open source HTML template project. It’ll be a free resource for designers/engineers/makers.
If you want to help build something awesome, send portfolios/github links to:
Project Aims To Build Offline Open Source Home Assistant
The Home Assistant project recently uploaded a new blog post stating their intentions for 2023. The team plans to make an open source Alexa/Siri-like platform that works in multiple languages and can be used offline too.
Information about contributing and testing is on the page for those interested.
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/12/20/year-of-voice/
Introducing BRUCE, A Kid-Sized Mini Bipedal Robot
Westwood Robotics recently announced the BRUCE (Bipedal Robot Unit with Compliance Enhanced) mini humanoid robot.
Originally developed at RoMeLa in joint effort with Westwood Robotics, BRUCE will be made open source to the robotics community, and is currently open for application, with only 10 units being available for testing during Q2 2023.
https://www.westwoodrobotics.io/bruce/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFfn8bBUek
First Stable Release Of Vanilla OS 22.10 Kinetic Is Out
The launch of Vanilla OS 22.10 marks the first stable release of the polished GNOME-based OS.
This could be a good choice for those who would like an alternative to Ubuntu. Check out the official blog post for more details on the features.
https://vanillaos.org/2022/12/29/vanilla-os-22-10-kinetic.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDvIJ_Hu90Y
@Shiura Creates Open Source ‘Space Mushroom’ 6DOF Mouse
Engineer Shinsaku Hiura (@shiura) recently released the Space Mushroom mouse which has 6 degrees of freedom. It uses three analog joystick sensors for game controllers.
Shinsaku has created an Instructables page, detailing how it’s made along with code and 3D models to download to free.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6Xte4gOxk
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5739462
https://www.instructables.com/Space-Mushroom-Full-6-DOFs-Controller-for-CAD-Appl/