We all know, we should use more renewable energy. Here is my contribution. Use solar power if you want to cut 20mm wooden rods. And plan ahead because it may take a while.
WOODWORKING is a tricky skill to master. Students learn to measure carefully before they reach for a saw, and to cut as true to the design as hand and eye allow. But, even so, precise cutting is a painstaking job, full of pitfalls and mismatched moldings.
Alec Rivers, a Ph.D. student at M.I.T., guides a cutting tool through wood by watching a computer screen.
Now computers and their tireless calculations may bolster the skills of many people who want to create well-cut picture frames, inlays or furniture but lack the dexterity.
Alec Rivers, a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleagues have created a prototype for a compact, computerized addition to power tools that automatically performs precision measuring and cutting.
The system, which has a tiny camera, motors and a video screen, takes part of the pain out of woodworking, by using what Mr. Rivers calls “tool GPS.”
NEW PRODUCT- Magnetic Project Mat. Repairs can be tough. You don’t need missing screws making it worse. iFixit designed this mat to make repairs easier. You won’t lose screws and won’t forget which screws go where.
Magnetized to hold tight onto small screws.
Dry erase surface lets you keep notes and stops mistakes.
Reduces reassembly time by up to 40% while preventing errors.
Magnetic surface is safe for hard drives, and other modern electronics.
Anyone who has done electronics repair knows how irritating lost screws can be—if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a slightly lighter laptop. If you’re unlucky, your $1,000 laptop will be brought to its knees by a $0.05 clip hiding under a table leg. Designed by fixers, for fixers, the 8”x10” Magnetic Project Mat solves this repair problem. Spacious and secure, the mat will catch screws as you pull them out of a device and hold them there.
Use it as a workmat during cell phone repairs, and you’ll be able to stop worrying about screw tracking and focus on the cell phone; All the screws will be right where you left them. For laptops with up to hundreds of screws, use the whole mat as a screw guide and keep careful notes to not get lost. It will serve you as a dutiful partner, and you will lose fewer screws.
The pen is made by Staedtler, the German pen company that makes top-of-the-line artists’ pens and pencils, as well as the expensive precision pens architects use for blueprints. Their Lumocolor Correctable pen doesn’t smear or wipe away like most dry erase markers. If you brush your hand across the mat while performing a repair, the ink doesn’t scratch or smear. But the eraser tip or a dry cloth erases the ink clean every time. Designed and made by iFixit.
Hi Adafruit, just wanted to say thanks for the USB microscope! It has proved useful in inspecting SMD soldering, capturing video for blog posts, and seeing all kinds of things I could never dream of seeing without it. This is a link to a Flickr Photo set (1X, 20X and 200X) of an “LED indicator” on a Apple Magic Trackpad. There are 37 holes laser cut into the aluminum that let light from an LED, mounted behind the aluminum, shine through, while remaining virtually invisible while off. Genius.
USB Microscope – 5.0 Megapixel / 220x magnification / 8 LEDs. As electronics get smaller and smaller, you’ll need a hand examining PCBs and this little USB microscope is the perfect tool. Its smaller and lighter than a large optical microscope but packs quite a bit of power in its little body. There’s a 5.0 megapixel sensor inside and an optical magnifier that can adjust from 20x (for basic PCB inspection) to 220x (for detailed inspection). Eight white LEDs are angled right onto whatever you’re examining so you get enough lighting to see, and are smoothly adjustable via a dial on the side.
New! We’ve upgraded from the previous model we stocked, this is a microscope to 5.0 Megapixel (from 2.0M) and this one comes with two removable plastic caps to get close ups for a wider focusing range.
If you plug this into any computer, it just shows up as a standard USB camera (we used this for our weekly Ask an Engineer show) and the Windows/Mac software lets you take snapshots using the button on the side of the microscope or direct from the software (so you don’t move the camera).
We tried a bunch of different USB microscopes and found this one to be the best combination of optical clarity, usability, and price. It’s perfect for electronics hacking, rework, SMT (de)soldering, inspection, and soon you’ll find yourself pulling it out to look and photograph all sort of cool small stuff around your lab and home.
Articulated Arm Stand for USB Microscope. We love pulling out our 5 Megapixel USB microscope for inspecting PCBs once in a while, but we really got to use it every day when we picked up this beautiful machined aluminum 3D stand. It has multiple articulated ‘joints’ for positioning the microscope in any way and is very sturdy and solid with a large flat base.
A single hand-friendly knob is used to loosen all the joints for positioning, then tighten it up to fix the position. The microscope is clamped in solidly but it can easily be removed by releasing the clasp for hand positioning when you need it. This is the best stand available for this microscope and it makes an excellent companion! Instructions here (PDF).
This is just a microscope stand, a USB microscope is not included! Please check out our 5MP USB Microscope in the shop to pick up a matching microscope.
NEW PRODUCT – Articulated Arm Stand for USB Microscope. We love pulling out our 5 Megapixel USB microscope for inspecting PCBs once in a while, but we really got to use it every day when we picked up this beautiful machined aluminum 3D stand. It has multiple articulated ‘joints’ for positioning the microscope in any way and is very sturdy and solid with a large flat base.
A single hand-friendly knob is used to loosen all the joints for positioning, then tighten it up to fix the position. The microscope is clamped in solidly but it can easily be removed by releasing the clasp for hand positioning when you need it. This is the best stand available for this microscope and it makes an excellent companion! Instructions here (PDF).
This is just a microscope stand, a USB microscope is not included! Please check out our 5MP USB Microscope in the shop to pick up a matching microscope.
Based on the Adafruit Resistor Helper papercraft resistor calculator designed by Adafruit with Mathew Borgatti.
Nope, you can’t purchase one, you gotta make it yourself.
Unless you are one of those who can remember the entire color code for 4- and 5-band marked resistors (test later on how many possible combinations there are; I’m still working on wiring up CAT-5 correctly), you need the help of a reference chart or you can use the handy papercraft Adafruit Resistor Helper. Need a cool thing to wear to work or school? What better time to make or give the gift of a tie? Of course, for the geek and technically inclined, a hacked tie would be even better.
Overview: (a:) A position-correcting tool. The device consists of a frame and a tool (in this case a router) mounted within that frame. The frame is positioned manually by the user. A camera on the frame (top right in the figure) is used to determine the frame’s location. The device can adjust the position of the tool within the frame to correct for error in the user’s coarse positioning. (b): To follow a complex path, the user need only move the frame in a rough approximation of the path. In this example, the dotted blue line shows the path that the tool would take if its position were not adjusted; the black line is its actual path. (c): An example of a shape cut out of wood using this tool.
Using SMT component books for through-hole parts, isonno writes -
A few years ago I purchased a kit from Digi-Key with 70-some of the most common resistors in a small box. While it’s super convenient to have them all on hand, the packaging was tedious – little bags of bags of components.
On a hunch, I purchased AdaFruit’s blank SMT component book, and hired my son to trim the labels from the Digi-Key kit and place them in the book. It works really well.
The books are so much more convenient than boxes of packets of parts, and take up much less space than plastic containers with bins or drawers. I could imagine this working for other through-hole parts (small caps, diodes, etc.). With a slightly different layout – say, horizontal pockets for labels with square vertical pockets beneath – it’d work for transistors and other components.
The most important debugging tool in any E.E.’s toolbox is a trusty multimeter. A multimeter can measure continuity, resistance, voltage and sometimes even current, capacitance, temperature, etc. It’s a swiss army knife for geeks!
Today’s partfinder isn’t an electrical part, or even a storage solution, it’s a notebook. National Brand #43648 Computation Notebook, to be precise. The greatest engineering notebook of all time. I have several dozen of these — one for each (non-humanities) course I took in college, plus many more filled with different project notes. I love these books because they’re well made and durable, and the pages are 9.25 x 11.75, so you can easily paste or tape A4 sheets inside. Excellent for engineering or math class notes, or project sketches, measurements, etc.
There are several different kinds of computation books available: spiral bound, three-hole, etc. I like this square-bound type the best because you can ‘crack’ the binding and make it lay flat — very helpful if you’re left-handed.
These are available sometimes from larger office supply stores, but you can always find them on Amazon — check ‘em out in the partfinder!
This is just a friendly FYI to all hackers. Once you get a little more adventurous you can get real confused about what usb devices are plugged in etc (which com ports,…)
USB complexity got you down? Need a hand with enumeration? Reverse engineering a USB device? You will fall in love with the Beagle 12 USB Analyzer. This hardware analyzer is completely non-intrusive, and is much better than flaky software analyzers. Perfect for when a problem is bad enough it crashes the USB host, or for real time data capture analysis. We used the big-sister version (the Beagle 480) for our famous Open Kinect reverse-engineering bounty! It worked so well we decided to carry these in the shop.
This particular model is good for Low-Speed & Full-Speed USB debugging. If you’re debugging something that runs at High Speed (such as video or other high speed data transport devices), check out the Beagle 480.
Printable catalog (PDF) or (EPUB)
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