IFixit Releases Command Line Docs For FixHub Iron

January 11, 2025 by Tom Nardi 16 Comments

When we reviewed the iFixit FixHub back in September, one of the most interesting features of the portable soldering station was the command line interface that both the iron and the base station offered up once you connected to them via USB. While this feature wasn’t documented anywhere, it made a degree of a sense, as the devices used WebSerial to communicate with the browser. What was less clear at the time was whether or not the user was supposed to be fiddling with this interface, or if iFixit intended to lock it up in a future firmware update.

Thanks to a recent info dump on GitHub, it seems like we have our answer. In the repo, iFixit has provided documentation for each individual command on both the iron and base, including some background information and application notes for a few of the more esoteric functions. A handful of the commands are apparently disabled in the production version of the firmware, but there’s still plenty to poke around with.

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Remotely Controlled Vehicles Over Starlink

January 8, 2025 by Tom Nardi 35 Comments

Modern remote control (RC) radios are capable of incredible range, but they’re still only made for line-of-sight use. What if you want to control a vehicle that’s 100s of kilometers away, or even on the other side of the planet? Cellular is an option, but is obviously limited by available infrastructure — good luck getting a cell signal in the middle of the ocean.

But what if you could beam your commands down from space? That’s what [Thingify] was looking to test when they put together an experimental RC boat using a Starlink Mini for communications. Physically, there was no question it would work on the boat. After all, it was small, light, and power-efficient enough. But would the network connection be up to the task of controlling the vehicle in real-time?

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More Things To Do With Your Cheap Yellow Display

January 7, 2025 by Tom Nardi 16 Comments

The Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) is an ESP32 development board that’s been making the rounds for a while now, thanks to its value and versatility. For around $10 USD, you get a nicely integrated package that’s perfect for a wide array of projects and applications. Toss a couple in on your next AliExpress order, and all you need to do is come up with an idea. [Craig Lindley] had two ideas, and maybe they will help get those gears turning in your head. Even if you don’t need a network-connected MP3 player or GPS information display, we bet browsing the source code would be useful.

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Logging Baby’s Day In Linux

January 7, 2025 by Tom Nardi 38 Comments

There’s plenty of surprises to be had when you become a parent, and one of the first is that it’s suddenly your job to record the frequency of your infant’s various bodily functions in exacting detail. How many times did the little tyke eat, how long did they sleep, and perhaps most critically, how many times did they poop. The pediatrician will expect you to know these things, so you better start keeping notes.

Or, if you’re [Triceratops Labs], you build a physical button panel that will keep tabs on the info for you. At the press of each button, a log entry is made on the connected Raspberry Pi Zero W, which eventually makes its way to a web interface that you can view to see all of Junior’s statistics.

In terms of hardware, this one is quite simple — it’s really just an array of arcade-style push buttons wired directly into the Pi’s GPIO header. Where it shines is in the software. This project could have been just a Python script and a text file, but instead it uses a MariaDB database on the back-end, with Apache and PHP serving up the web page, and a custom Systemd service to tie it all together. In other words, it’s what happens when you let a Linux admin play with a soldering iron.

It probably won’t come as much surprise to find that hackers often come up with elaborate monitoring systems for their newborn children, after all, it’s a great excuse for a new project. This machine learning crib camera comes to mind.

No Frills PCB Brings USB-C Power To The Breadboard

January 6, 2025 by Tom Nardi 30 Comments

At this point, many of us have gone all-in on USB-C. It’s gotten to the point that when you occasionally run across a gadget that doesn’t support being powered USB-C, the whole experience seems somewhat ridiculous. If 90% of your devices using the same power supply, that last 10% starts feeling very antiquated.

So why should your breadboard be any different? [Axiometa] has recently unveiled a simple PCB that will plug into a standard solderless breadboard to provide 3.3 and 5 VDC when connected to a USB-C power supply. The device is going to start a crowdfunding campaign soon if you want to buy a completed one — but with the design files and Bill of Materials already up on GitHub, nothing stops you from spinning up your own version today.

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3D Printed Case Turns Pixel 6 Pro Into Palmtop

January 3, 2025 by Tom Nardi 33 Comments

Despite initial interest in the 1990s and early 2000s, palmtop computers never really took off. Realistically most consumers were probably satisfied enough with smartphones as they became more widely available, but those of us who would prefer a real keyboard on our mobile devices are still feeling the pain. Today there are still a few commercial palmtop-like machines out there, but they aren’t exactly mainstream.

Which is why this 3D printed case for the Pixel 6 Pro from [TypingCat] is so interesting. It takes a relatively popular and capable contemporary phone, pairs it with a physical keyboard, and manages to create something that looks quite practical. Thanks to Termux, you can even get a fairly usable Linux environment going on the thing.

There aren’t too many components at play here, but still, we appreciate the fact that [TypingCat] provided links for not only the specific Bluetooth keyboard used, but the fasteners required to hold the three printed parts together. A link is also provided to the Termux-Desktops project, which allows you to get a Linux X11 desktop environment running on Android. It’s not the pocket Linux computer of our dreams, but it’s pretty close.

While the Pixel 6 Pro is a solid enough choice to base this project around, we’re interested in seeing if the community will come up with variants of this case to hold other similarly sized phones. It’s interesting to note that [TypingCat] has decided to use the “No Derivatives” variant of the Creative Commons license for the bottom half of the case. But since the top half is a remix of an existing Pixel 6 Pro case from [JoshCraft3D], it carries a more permissive license and must be distributed separately. Long story short, folks can create and distribute custom versions of the phone-side of this case, but the bottom needs to remain the same.

If you’ve got filament to ~~burn~~ extrude and would rather have a more pure Linux experience, we saw a printable Raspberry Pi Zero palmtop a couple months back that looked quite promising.

FPV Flying In Mixed Reality Is Easier Than You’d Think

January 3, 2025 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

Flying a first-person view (FPV) remote controlled aircraft with goggles is an immersive experience that makes you feel as if you’re really sitting in the cockpit of the plane or quadcopter. Unfortunately, while your wearing the goggles, you’re also completely blind to the world around you. That’s why you’re supposed to have a spotter nearby to keep watch on the local meatspace while you’re looping through the air.

But what if you could have the best of both worlds? What if your goggles not only allowed you to see the video stream from your craft’s FPV camera, but you could also see the world around you. That’s precisely the idea behind mixed reality goggles such as Apple Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest, you just need to put all the pieces together. In a recent video [Hoarder Sam] shows you exactly how to pull it off, and we have to say, the results look quite compelling.

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