Samwise Makers' News
Thursday, May 7, 2026
PCB Material Shortage Looms as Iranian Strike Disrupts Saudi Petrochemical Supply
Saudi Arabia's Jubail petrochemical complex — operated by SABIC and accounting for approximately 70 percent of the global supply of high-purity polypropylene ether resin, a critical base material for PCB laminate — was struck in an attack on April 7, halting production. PCB laminate producers were already grappling with constrained fiberglass fabric and rising costs driven by AI-related demand for high-performance boards. Analysts warn that electronics manufacturers may need to secure materials six to nine months ahead rather than the conventional three-month planning cycle, pushing lead times and pricing to levels not seen since the 2021 chip shortage. Makers who buy bare PCBs should expect longer waits and higher prices.
Sources: Hackaday
HomoFaciens' Direct Granules Extruder V7.0 Brings Waste-Plastic Printing Closer to Reality
Open-source maker HomoFaciens has released V7.0 of the Direct Granules Extruder, a custom head for FDM 3D printers that feeds raw plastic granules from a hopper rather than spooled filament. Mounted on a water-cooled Prusa MK4, an auger screw meters material from a gravity-fed hopper, eliminating spool management and enabling direct reuse of shredded waste prints. V7.0 resolves a critical failure in V6.2 where molten plastic backed into the cold zone and caused clogs; improved thermal profiling and auger geometry now prevent this. Test prints show clean layer adhesion despite the extruder not yet having been fully tuned. All design files are available on Hackaday.io.
Sources: Hackaday
Ploopy Bean Ships as Fully Open-Source TrackPoint-Style Mouse on RP2040 and QMK
The Ploopy Bean is a 3D-printable, open-source hardware pointing stick mouse powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and running QMK firmware under the GPLv3 licence, with hardware design files released under the CERN OHL-S licence. The Bean integrates a Texas Instruments TMAG5273 magnetic sensor capable of 3-micron resolution at up to 20,000 samples per second, paired with four Omron D2LS-21 buttons for tactile feedback. Users can customise key bindings via the free VIA web configurator without flashing firmware. Available for pre-order directly from Ploopy at CA$69.99 (approximately US$51), all design files and source code are publicly available on GitHub.
Sources: CNX Software
MiixKey Brings FIDO2 and Password Vault to an ESP32-P4 with a 2-Inch Touchscreen
MiixKey is a compact offline hardware security key and password manager built around the Espressif ESP32-P4 SoC, featuring a 2-inch capacitive touchscreen and AES-256 encrypted storage for over 3,000 credentials. It supports FIDO2 passkeys, OpenPGP encryption, PIV smart card emulation, and time-based one-time password generation without any cloud connectivity. USB and Bluetooth HID emulation allow it to auto-type usernames and passwords into connected computers, acting as a keyboard. A Dangerous Mode PIN presents a decoy vault while wiping real credentials. Currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, early-bird units are priced at approximately US$99 with estimated delivery in July 2026.
Sources: CNX Software
Toradex Zinnia Gateway Brings Verdin SoM to Edge AI and Industrial Automation
Swiss embedded computing vendor Toradex has launched the Zinnia, a ruggedised Linux IoT gateway built around its Verdin system-on-module family and compatible with NXP i.MX 8M Plus, i.MX 8M Mini, i.MX 95, and Texas Instruments AM62 or AM62P SoCs. The Zinnia provides dual Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5, optional 4G LTE or 5G connectivity, a wide 9 to 36 V power input, and multiple USB and I/O ports. It ships preloaded with Torizon OS Linux, which handles OS-level maintenance and EU Cyber Resilience Act certification for customers. Samples of the Zinnia gateway are expected from June 2026 with supply guaranteed through 2036.
Sources: CNX Software
STMicro-Inria-Freie Universitat Study Finds Rust Viable but Larger than C on Cortex-M33
A peer-reviewed study from STMicroelectronics, Inria, and Freie Universität Berlin, published on arXiv, compared Rust and C for embedded firmware on an STM32U585AI Arm Cortex-M33 microcontroller with 2 MB of flash and 786 KB of SRAM. Two independent teams each implemented the same Vanilla Data Logger firmware over six weeks, then cross-reviewed for four additional weeks. Both implementations reached identical output data rates of 7,468 Hz, confirming Rust introduces no runtime performance penalty. The Rust binary is measurably larger than the C binary, a factor that could matter on more tightly resource-constrained MCUs. Full source code will be published to the STM32 Hotspot repository.
Sources: CNX Software
CARA 2.0 Cuts Quadruped Robot Cost in Half with Capstan Rope Actuators
Student maker Aaed Musa has released CARA 2.0, an upgraded open-source quadrupedal robot that replaces conventional gearboxes with capstan rope-drive actuators, dramatically cutting cost and weight. Each of the twelve capstan joints costs approximately US$80 in parts; the complete CARA 2.0 kit is priced at US$1,450 assembled, or substantially less when 3D-printing and laser-cutting structural components from the released design files. Capstan drives transmit torque through a tensioned rope looped around a motor drum, offering high backdrivability and impact resistance compared to rigid gearboxes, properties critical for dynamic quadruped gaits. The full bill of materials, CAD files, and firmware are openly published on Musa's project site.
Sources: Adafruit Blog
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. MiixKey — live on Kickstarter, early bird ~US$99
2. Prunt Board 3 — live on Crowd Supply, $9,500 goal
3. None verified this week
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. davidmonterocrespo24/velxio — 972★
2. ploopyco/bean-pointing-stick — new release this week
3. None verified this week
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Trieste — May 9–10, Trieste, Italy
Hackaday Europe — May 16–17, Lecco, Italy
Open Hardware Summit — May 23–24, Berlin, Germany
Curated by JD · samwise.agency