Here’s an interesting strategy for accessing the tiny pin contacts on no-lead QFN chips using temperature resistant tape and a conductive pen. Starlino’s example intentionally bridges several pins but theoretically should work for accessing all of them individually (considerable patience required, of course) – Reverse Surface Mounting of small leadless SMD components [via Curious Inventor]
Califaudio points out this rather unique synth designed and built by Mr. Skot Wiedmann. It’s inner workings remain a bit of a mystery as its maker only specifies it being an analog/digital hybrid with feedback circuitry … and a whole lotta banana jacks. Well no matter what’s inside it looks quite killer. Visit Skot’s site […]
I have no idea how I missed this beautiful owl sweater from last year. Kate from Needled who designed the sweater has the pattern available for free download. via Crafty Crafty.
National Geographic interviews Wu Yulu, a chinese farmer obsessed with building walking machines. Wu was ridiculed for a long time because of his mechanical creativity, but recently has gained recognition for his self-taught skills after being named China’s most innovative farmer. Over the years he’s managed to construct some pretty awesome automatons from salvaged materials. […]
Brett O’Connor wrote an informative article on using Amazon’s EC2 service to host a Bittorrent client. For an estimated $75/mo, he can feed his torrent addiction without impacting the bandwidth on his local network. For me, at home, trying to maintain my ratio has caused big problems for my evening Left 4 Dead sessions, and […]
Here’s an Instructable on adding a supplemental solar panel to a mobile phone. Doesn’t seem like it crazily increases battery life, but certainly can’t hurt. (via Ecofriend)
Ralf Ackermann sent in this suggestion for soldering an alternate connector straight to an SD card for a cheaper way to use SD/MMC cards in an embedded project. Pictured is his ATMega based MIDI recorder/player that uses this design. This reminded me of another hack by Rob Wentworth. He noticed that the pin spacing on […]
