Samwise Makers' News
Thursday, October 8, 2026
Arduino Reports 270,000 UNO Q Boards Shipped in First Year
Arduino marked one year since joining the Qualcomm Technologies family and announcing its UNO Q board with an October 8 blog post reporting more than 270,000 UNO Q boards shipped worldwide, over 400 ecosystem events, and 4,000-plus contest participants who delivered 250-plus official builds, as of September 29. The board pairs a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 microprocessor with a real-time STM32U585 microcontroller. Arduino said library downloads grew roughly 50 percent year on year to more than 244 million, and that it remains open source, with Arduino App Lab available on GitHub. Winners of its UNO Q contest with Hackster are set to be announced October 9.
Sources: Arduino Blog
Q8botOne Palm-Sized Open-Source Quadruped Robot Launches on Crowd Supply
ZeroWire Robotics has launched the Q8botOne on Crowd Supply, an open-source, palm-sized quadruped robot built around an ESP32-C3 microcontroller and eight ROBOTIS DYNAMIXEL XL330-M077-T smart actuators. Its main circuit board doubles as the structural chassis in a wire-free design, and the roughly 250-gram robot can jog, jump, and carry up to twice its weight. Power comes from two 14500 Li-ion cells, and a separate ESP32-C3 controller with an Adafruit Mini I2C Gamepad communicates with the robot over ESP-NOW. The campaign has a $10,000 goal. The barebones kit costs $199 without actuators, the assembled version $599, and deliveries are expected from late March 2027.
Sources: CNX Software
Efinix Sapphire RV64 Brings Configurable 64-Bit RISC-V Soft Cores to Its FPGAs
Efinix has introduced the Sapphire RV64 SoC, a configurable 64-bit RISC-V soft-core processor for its Titanium and Trion FPGAs, CNX Software reported. Based on the VexiiRiscv core, it can be configured with one to four cores running at up to 400 MHz, with a seven-stage pipeline, configurable L1 caches, an optional 64 to 512 KB L2 cache, and 4 to 512 KB of on-chip RAM. It supports DDR3, LPDDR4x, and HyperRAM with external memory from 4 MB to 8 GB, plus an optional SV39 MMU for Linux support. The SoC is available in the Efinity IP Manager and requires Efinity 2026.1 or newer.
Sources: CNX Software
RP2350 Converter Lets Old TTL RGB Video Cards Drive DVI Displays
A maker known as Charlysan has built a TTL-to-DVI video converter around an RP2350 microcontroller, Hackaday reported, aimed at owners of TTL video cards with no compatible monitor. TTL RGB came before VGA and carried TTL logic voltages on the connector instead of analogue voltages. The RP2350’s PIOs sample the TTL input into a framebuffer, while the rest of the chip generates DVI output using PicoDVI. The design needs some level-shifting hardware, at minimum a set of resistors, and targets the Waveshare RP2350-PiZero board with its ready-made HDMI socket. A USB serial terminal, with a Tk GUI script, manages the converter. The project, pico-ttl2dvi, is on GitHub.
ESP32-S3 AM Transmitter Keeps Vintage Tube Radios Playing
A maker posting as GarethDaviesLondon has built a small AM transmitter to keep vintage tube radios playing as legacy AM broadcast bands fade away, Hackaday reported. An ESP32-S3 takes an online radio stream and transmits it as RF generated with a pulse chain on a GPIO pin. To radiate enough signal, a 3D-printed box with stand-offs holds a widely spaced wire coil, which the vintage receivers can pick up. The output runs at 200kHz for the European long wave band, and Hackaday suggested a higher medium wave frequency could also be generated. The builder points out that the transmitter may not be legal. The project is published on GitHub.
Repair Shop Revives Two Costly Registered DDR5 Server Memory Sticks
Repairer northwestrepair documented fixing two registered ECC DDR5 memory modules handed over by a business, Hackaday reported. The 128 GB stick failed DDR5 training on boot, suggesting a cracked solder joint under a DRAM BGA package, and a single reflow cycle brought it back. The 256 GB stick appeared completely dead. Swapping and reflashing the SPD ROM made no difference, and after extensive reballing the faults turned out to be one shorted MLCC and a broken PMIC, potentially caused by the module being dropped on a server room floor. Hackaday noted cracked MLCCs are a very common cause of failures.
Microtari Go Turns a Miniature Atari 2600 Into a CRT Handheld
Nick Bild has turned his miniaturized Atari 2600 console into a handheld with a built-in CRT, called the µTari Go and pronounced “Microtari,” Hackaday reported. The 3D-printed case places the buttons roughly where Game Boy players would expect them, with a cartridge socket at the top above the screen. The PCB packs the original circuit into a smaller space, which supports Bild’s claim of using original hardware. The display is a flattened Sony CRT module of the kind still found online, and the unit includes a small speaker. Power comes from an external 12 V jack, and Hackaday suggested a USB-C power pack could make it fully portable.
RNDS-Stream Lets the 2008 Nintendo DSi Play Games Streamed From a Linux PC
Developer gavff64 has released RNDS-Stream, homebrew software that lets Nintendo’s 2008 DSi handheld show games streamed over the network, Hackaday reported. The program decodes an MJPEG stream from a server on a Linux PC, displaying the contents of an X11 or xWayland window with relatively low latency at around 15 to 20 frames per second. Audio streaming is not supported yet, and the project is described as very much a work in progress. It also serves as a showcase for RubyNDS, gavff64’s Ruby-based homebrew framework for the DSi. The code is available on GitHub under an MIT license, and a video shows the system in action.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
Morpho Desktop UV Printer — nearly $10M pledged, Kickstarter (runs to Oct 14)
Q8botOne quadruped robot — $10,000 goal, Crowd Supply (launched Oct 8)
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WeebLabs DSPi firmware — 1.2k★
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