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Designing a PCB GPS Antenna From Scratch
These days, when it comes to GPS devices the antenna is typically part of the package. But what better opportunity for [Pepijn] to learn how to make a GPS antenna from scratch for a badge add-on? A...
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EcoEDA Integrates Your Junk Bin into Your Designs
If you’re like us, there’s a creeping feeling that comes over you when you’re placing an order for parts for your latest project: Don’t I already have most of this stuff? With the well-stocked junk...
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Vectorscope KiCad Redrawing Project
When I saw this year’s Supercon Vectorscope badge, I decided that I had to build one for myself. Since I couldn’t attend in-person, I immediately got the PCBs and parts on order. Noting that the GitHub...
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Revive A Sony Vaio P-Series With KiCad’s Background Bitmaps
You might remember that KiCad 7 came out this February, with a multitude of wonderful features. One of them was particularly exciting to see, and the KiCad newsletter even had an animated GIF to...
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From KiCad to Blender for a Stunning Render
We love Blender. It brings you 3D modeling, but not in a CAD way — instead, people commonly use it to create animations, movies, games, and even things like VR models. In short, Blender is about all...
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KiCad 8 Makes Your Life Better Without Caveats
A few days ago, KiCad 8 was released, and it’s a straight upgrade to any PCB designer’s quality of life. There’s a blog post as usual, and, this year, there’s also a FOSDEM talk from [Wayne Stambaugh]...
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Share Your Projects: KiCad Automations And Pretty Renders
I have a pretty large GitHub repository, with all of my boards open-sourced there. Now, I’m finally facing the major problem it has – it can be uncomfortable for others to work with. I don’t store...
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CATS: A New Communication and Telemetry System
CATS is a new communication and telemetry standard intended to surpass the current Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) standard by leveraging modern, super-cheap Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)...
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Reverse Engineering the Quansheng Hardware
In the world of cheap amateur radio transceivers, the Quansheng UV-K5 can’t be beaten for hackability. But pretty much every hack we’ve seen so far focuses on the firmware. What about the hardware? To...
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Giving Your KiCad PCB Repository Pretty Pictures
Publishing your boards on GitHub or GitLab is a must, and leads to wonderful outcomes in the hacker world. On their own, however, your board files might have the repo look a bit barren; having a...
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Turbocase Generates A PCB Shell For You
Our PCBs greatly benefit from cases – what’s with all the pins that can be accidentally shorted, connectors that stick out of the outline, and cables pulling the board into different directions....
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Hacker Tactic: Single-PCB Panels
Ordering a PCB? Two of them? Three? Five? For about eight years now, I’ve been regularly ordering large numbers of different PCBs, and, naturally, have developed a toolkit to make things smoother. One...
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Keebin’ with Kristina: the One with the KiCad Plugin
Image by [fata1err0r81] via redditThe most striking feature of the Tenshi keyboard has to be those dual track pads. But then you notice that [fata1err0r81] managed to sneak in two extra thumb keys on...
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Your Battery Holder Is Also Your Power Switch With ToggleSlot
We really like PCB-level hacks, especially ones that show ingenuity in solving a real problem while being super cheap to implement. Hackaday.IO user [Steph] wanted a cheap way to switch a wearable on...
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Zero To Custom MacroPad In 37 Easy Steps
[Jeremy Weatherford] clearly has a knack for explaining projects well enough for easy reproduction but goes way further than most and has created a four-part YouTube series detailing every step from...
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Supercon 2024 Flower SAO Badge Redrawing in KiCad
Out of curiosity, I redrew the Supercon Vectorscope badge schematics in KiCad last year. As you might suspect, going from PCB to schematic is opposite to the normal design flow of KiCad and most other...
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Supercon 2024 SAO Petal KiCad Redrawing Project
Last week I completed the SAO flower badge redrawing task, making a complete KiCad project. Most of the SAO petals are already released as KiCad projects, except for the Petal Matrix. The design...
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Hackaday Links: November 24, 2024
We received belated word this week of the passage of Ward Christensen, who died unexpectedly back in October at the age of 78. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s understandable, because the man...
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Apollo-era PCB Reverse Engineering to KiCad
Earlier this year [Skyhawkson] got ahold of a Apollo-era printed circuit board which he believes was used in a NASA test stand. He took high quality photos of both sides of the board and superimposed...
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The 6809 8-Bit Microcomputer: A Father-Son Odyssey
If you’re nostalgic for the golden age of microprocessors and dream of building your own computer, this story might spark your imagination. [Eric Lind], passionate retro enthusiast and his 14-year-old...
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