Hackaday Podcast Episode 364: Clocks, Cameras, and Free Will

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This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over assorted beverages to bring you the latest news, mystery sound results show, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so.

In the news, there’s quite a bit to talk about. Regarding Hackaday Europe, you can rest assured that the talks will be announced soon. The Green-Powered Challenge is still underway, and we need your entry to truly make it a contest. You have until April 24th to enter, so show us what you can do with power you scrounge up from the environment!

As...

Fixing an E-Waste ASUS P5A-B Socket 7 Mainboard

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=D5rMj8FdfHY

A fun part of retro computing is saving ‘e-waste’ that was headed for certain destruction. These boards can have any number of defects, modifications and more that have to be remedied prior to using them. In the case of the Asus P5A-B Socket 7 mainboard that [Bits und Bolts] rescued from the scrapheap at least one issue was obvious: someone had ripped off the plastic part of the ZIF socket, leaving only the metal pins poking out like an awkward kind of LGA socket.

In addition to the busted PGA ZIF socket there was additional damage, including a broken SMT capacitor...

This Week in Security: The Supply Chain Has Problems

The biggest story of the week is a new massive supply chain breach, which appears to be unrelated to the previous massive supply chain breaches, this time of the Axios HTTP project.

Axios was created as a more developer-friendly Javascript HTTP interface for node.js, giving a promise-based API instead of the basic callback API. (Promise-based programming allows for simpler coding workflows, where a program can wait for a promise to be fulfilled, instead of the developer having to manage the state of every request manually.) Javascript has since provided a modern Fetch API that provides similar functionality, but Axios remains one of...

Build your own Dial-up ISP with a Raspberry Pi

Last year my aunt let me add her original Tangerine iBook G3 clamshell to my collection of old Macs1.

It came with an AirPort card—a $99 add-on Apple made that ushered in the Wi-Fi era. The iBook G3 was the first consumer laptop with built-in Wi-Fi antennas, and by far the cheapest way to get a computer onto an 802.11 wireless network.

DC in the Data Center for a More Efficient Future

If you own a computer that’s not mobile, it’s almost certain that it will receive its power in some form from a mains wall outlet. Whether it’s 230 V at 50 Hz or 120 V at 60 Hz, where once there might have been a transformer and a rectifier there’s now a switch-mode power supply that delivers low voltage DC to your machine. It’s a system that’s efficient and works well on the desktop, but in the data center even its efficiency is starting to be insufficient. IEEE Spectrum has a look at newer data centers that are moving towards...

Realtek RTL8159 10GbE to USB 3.2 adapters sell for about $55 and up

Realtek unveiled low-cost, low-power 10GbE RTL8127 (PCIe) and RTL8159 (USB 3.0) controllers at Computex 2025. Since then, we noted that RTL8127-based M.2 and PCIe 10GbE cards had already launched for as low as $35. However, a new X post by Jeff Geerling reminded me it was time to check on those RTL8159 10GbE to USB 3.2 adapters. So let’s do that now, starting with the Wisdpi WP-UT9 mentioned in the post/tweet. Wisdpi WP-UT9 WisdPi WP-UT9 specifications: Chipset – Realtek RTL8159 Ethernet – Up to 10GbE RJ45 port; backward compatible with 5 Gpbs, 2.5 Gbps, 1Gbps, and 10/100Mbps Ethernet USB –...

Chicken Coop Door Performs in Harsh Environment

One of the pitfalls of modern engineering is that it’s entirely possible to end up in a situation where a product or solution has been designed by someone who has never left a desk. Which wouldn’t be a problem if things didn’t have a tendency to work differently in real life than they do in theory.

One of those things is automatic chicken coop doors, which have to operate reliably in not only a wide range of climates but with a number of possible physical limitations as well. [Vinnie] has taken on the challenge of building one which actually accomplishes all...

SupTronics X1208 – A UPS + M.2 NVMe SSD HAT for the Raspberry Pi 5

The SupTronics X1208 is a UPS and M.2 NVMe SSD HAT for Raspberry Pi 5 designed to offer fast storage and protect the system against data loss during power outages for Edge Computing, NAS, data logging, and other always-on applications. The HAT draws up to 5V/5A from the USB-C port, which charges a 21700 lithium-ion battery (1.5A) and powers the Raspberry Pi 5 directly through the 40-pin GPIO header, eliminating the need for extra cables. It also features an M.2 M-key NVMe slot supporting 2230/2242/2280 SSDs up to 4TB with PCIe 2.0/3.0 speeds. The UPS supports power switching, auto power-on,...

Кто и как узнаёт, что ваш лифт застрял?

Приветствую всех!

Все мы наверняка видели кнопку вызова диспетчера в каждой кабине лифта. Думаю, каждому из нас нет-нет, да хотелось однажды её нажать. А кому-то, возможно, и доводилось это делать по какой-то весомой причине.

Сегодня же мы посмотрим, что стоит за возможностью сообщить о неисправности лифта в любой момент нажатием одной-единственной кнопки. Посмотрим на само оборудование и, конечно, попробуем его запустить. Как оказалось, всё это намного сложнее, чем я думал…

Radxa Taco Updated for Raspberry Pi CM5 with 5× SATA and RAID Support

Radxa has updated its Taco carrier board with a new revision designed around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, targeting storage-heavy and network-oriented applications. The platform integrates multiple SATA interfaces, dual Ethernet ports, and PCIe expansion in a compact form factor. The V1.61 revision transitions the design to support the Raspberry Pi CM5 exclusively, replacing […]