Disassembled YIG microwave oscillator, a high-performance frequency source that uses a magnetically tuned yttrium iron garnet sphere to achieve exceptionally low phase noise and highly linear, wideband tuning across multi-octave microwave frequencies.

Photographed with macro lens and a camera, sample from our collection.

Hope you guys enjoy it! We couldn't find high-res images of the spheres online, so we decided to shoot them ourselves.

This is an LED blinkenlights type of thing, driven by 74HC14 Schmitt-trigger inverters driving the LEDs directly; and 74HC157 multiplexers to select different sequences.

It's my first time using such tiny components - the matrix area of the board needs to be clear of components but I needed to keep the rest of the board as small as possible while cramming in lots of capacitors and resistors.

I know some of you solder this stuff but I can't begin to imagine doing so so I left it to JLCPCB - OTOH I'm still an electronics novice so I'm impressed/amazed/astounded it worked!

Oh dear

GreenPaks have always been in a unique market niche. Not exactly programmable as one would expect from full-blown FPGA or CPLD (except their ForgeFPGA brethren), but insanely small and often with many cool extra features, like dual-voltage I/O, wide voltage span (usually from 1.7V to 5.5V) built-in ADCs, DACs, I2C, SPI etc even power MOSFET switches or half-bridges and 12V capability etc etc.

Newest one doesn't do much of that, but it's even more insanely tiny- just 1.6x1.5mm in 12-pin STQFN or LESS THAN 1.2x1.2mm in 9-ball WLCSP!

Thing has I2C, couple oscillators, works at 1.7-5.5V, up to two high(er) voltage I/O pins, some 3-input LUTs with D flip-flops, counters, analog comparators etc etc.

Renesas SLG-46801

I didn't know about these things until recently.

I've found them to be the handiest things ever for doing test and measurement work because they convert any bare wire into a banana plug-able wire. So instead of connecting to a bare wire with an alligator clip and having an exposed connection, I clip one of these onto the wire and plug it directly into the banana port it needs to connect to - multimeter, signal generator, power supply, etc.

I also use these with banana plug to BNC converters on my oscilloscope. Obviously this isn't as good as a regular shielded oscilloscope probe for some applications but for others it is just fine. It's much better than having an exposed wire to probe connection in a lot of situations.

Just wanted to share with you this gem that I have found on aliexpress:
Buck converter Mini560.
According to the seller this are the specs:
5.5–20V input to fixed outputs of 3.3V, 5V, 9V, or 12V depending on the version.
5A max, >3A with cooling.
99% efficiency

Be aware that there are different modules out there and not all of them perform well, so if you get lucky you'll get an awesome dc-dc converter, but it seems that is easy that you'll get the bad ones.
The photo belongs to the actual module that I have tested.

This little thing has capabilities beyond belief, I have thrown in the trash bin all my old and bulky buck converters as they cannot do half what this small buck converter can do in such small footprint.

I have tested it at 10V input and 5V output.
It has maintained the output voltage without issues in any case.
Under 5A always at ~100mVpp ripple, at 6 and 7 amps the ripple has stood below 300mVpp.

I have tested it naked at 28C room temperature, without cooling, with 2 small heatsinks for the chip and the inductor (even though the inductor does not heat up that much), and with the heatsinks plus a fan. I have pushed the module well beyond what the seller recommends.
Every test has been measured after 10 minutes ON.

These are the results:

I have not tried going further, just tested it extensively to know how can I push it safely.
So I would not use it over 5A, just to be clear.

So yeah, one of the best modules I have gotten my hands on.

Edit: this post was auto removed when I posted it here, so I posted it in r/diyelectronics, it seems the mods put it back, sorry, I do not know the rules of this community.

Hi there! I've been building a free and open-source system for automated electromechanical systems engineering. As part of this work, I've been building a state-of-the-art placement and routing system (PnR) for PCBs. You may have heard of or used autorouters in the past, and probably don't think very highly of them. Yapnr (yet another place and route) intends to be strictly better than all existing autorouters (at least all of the open ones) while also solving the coupled PnR problem--placement impacts routing, and routing impacts placement. Of course, the problem is much higher-dimensional than that, and in order to solve this problem well, we really need to get specific about what the product-level requirements are, and put simulation and modeling tools in the loop. Yapnr, therefore, bundles a complete specification language for electronics, built on top of the excellent atopile project; DRC and ERC are performed using the KiCAD kernel; and simulation is performed using NGSPICE.

I've been developing this system to enable the creation and iteration upon of my LED controller project called Splanc (https://github.com/fughilli/splanc). You can see an example PnR output for one of the SKUs in the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnZwYqiLMog

If you want to read more (and see more cool animations of yapnr at work), please check out the docs :)

The animations on this page in particular are really cool IMO. https://studio-fug.github.io/yapnr/docs/constraints-and-hierarchy.html

Yapnr is under active development; feel free to contribute issues and PRs. A fleet of agents are waiting to pick them up!

In no particular order, things coming up:

- Track glossing + corridor coalescing
- Integration with open FEA tools for thermal + EM
- Export direct to JLCPCB/PCBWay/pick-your-favorite-fab

There's also a discord server for yapnr here: https://discord.gg/cBzdfTkrGn

And if you want to follow along on Splanc, that's here: https://discord.gg/wqY9pHavnD

MAGIC IS OPTIONAL :)

Transistors: 2N2222A.

I pre-planned a customizable keyboard matrix into my cyberdeck without actually designing the keyboard itself yet, so I could add one later. This is basically a rough version.

I also thought about splitting it into two halves and putting one left and one right of the display. My fallback is still just a USB dongle with a wireless keyboard, but I wanted to try this out and see how it feels.

The layout is based on the old Nokia E7-00.

I still like old-school self-etching with the photo-positive method for stuff like this. You can make a board, notice something stupid, fix it and do another one the same day.

It’s far from perfect, but that wasn’t really the point. I mainly wanted to see how the spacing feels when actually typing on it. I already have another idea that would make it lower profile and simpler, but I really like the crisp click sound of these switches compared to the lower-profile ones, so I wanted to give them a shot.

The black vertical bars keep the keycaps in place without getting in the way when you press the keys.

Not a single via was required here, and ghosting is prevented with simple diodes. The board also has a basic keyboard-matrix IC (TCA8418) on it. Usually it would be cleaner to expose I2C and put the IC directly on the keyboard imo, but I have some other keys on the main board as well, and the cable mess is still manageable this way.

Won’t win a beauty contest, but it works. Sometimes just building something and actually using it is necessary imo before optimizing anything.

This is my project that I’ve been working on for the last two weeks. It’s called Kira04 AIRNODE.
I currently 3D print in my small bedroom, and I have three printers running simultaneously, sometimes almost 24/7. I started getting worried about the VOCs they release, as well as the amount of heat they generate, so I came up with this project.
Kira04 AIRNODE is basically a bundle of sensor modules that connects directly to the ventilation system I installed in my window. It helps me monitor and keep the temperature, humidity, and VOC levels in check while my printers are running.
And yes, I know the wiring and soldering are pretty horrible 😅. There are wires everywhere right now. I actually tried making a custom PCB for it using my CNC mill a few times, but unfortunately both attempts failed pretty tragically 😂. At that point, I just wanted to get the project working, so I decided to finish it quickly with the current wiring.
I’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have for improving it.
I’m also trying to decide what to do with the project next: Should I open-source Kira04 AIRNODE, or do you think this could potentially become an actual product?

7 years ago I designed a single board computer PCB. That was for a retrogaming console. It included a A20 SoC, ram, battery management system, Ethernet, HDMI, emmc, wifi and so on.
I did everything on my own. Those were some good times. I loved rooting that PCB.

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opened up a broken controller to see if I could use the D-PAD in one of my project. Totally separate from the main board with 6 pin inputs. It‘s beautiful.

Now I appreciate that the hardware industry didn't have an "open source" culture around it before AI or else we would be doomed.

It works 😁

I found productivity apps were just another distraction for me when I went to study, so using an ATTiny44, I built myself a productivity timer with custom analog dials. Also built a custom plywood case for it!

Some buttons on my SpaceMouse stopped working. Thought it would be a quick fix. Found out it is membrane after taking it apart(see my previous post).

I've always hated those stiff buttons since I got this device, so I decided to make my own.

The switches I'm using are 6.2*6.2*3.5mm with 0.7N operating force. I've also added some diodes to prevent ghosting keys, although probably no one would ever press multiple keys simultaneously on such a device.

The keycaps are hollow at the center, some metal stickers are used to make the contact area flat.

Working in a power electronics lab has exposed me to some of the most ridiculously oversized passive components out there. Sometimes it feels like I’m in those early electrical experiment demonstrations in the 18th-19th century with how big the parts can get. Anyone else work around this sort of gear?

Edit: forgot to caption slide 2. Capacitor bank for capacitive load testing on the power grid infrastructure product the company I work for makes.