John's blog

Talking about technology (mostly)

Framework laptop

Posted on 2026-02-12 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

Here’s a good run down of what’s in a Framework laptop:

A Display Powered by Air

Posted on 2026-02-07 [Saturday] by Jay Jay

This is fun. He made a mechanical AND gate so he could use a multiplexer!

Day in the life of a network installer

Posted on 2026-02-07 [Saturday] by Jay Jay

Capacitive sensors as an alternative to resistive sensors

Posted on 2026-02-05 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

Over on YouTube @elewizard shows us how to make a capacitive sensor for the water level for a pot plant. He also shows us how to use a 555 timer and an MCU to measure small capacitances by the frequencies they generate.

Today I added capacitive, and capacitances to my spellcheck!

One ROM 24 – Adding USB-C to a 0.75″ x 1.25″ PCB

Posted on 2026-02-05 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

Our mate Piers over on @piers_rocks has added USB-C connections to One ROM. The video shows how he did it.

Reverse engineering a multi-layered PCB

Posted on 2026-02-05 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

In this video checkout someone reverse engineering a complex PCB.

A Wicked inspired Symbiote

Posted on 2026-02-05 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

As explained by Wikipedia a Symbiote is a fictional species of extraterrestrial parasitic life forms appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly in association with Spider-Man. This inspired the fun build below.

A husband-and-wife team building a robotics startup: nLab

Posted on 2026-02-05 [Thursday] by Jay Jay

Today I bumped into the shorts video below. It’s from @get-nlab who have an early access form for their nLab project over here: https://getnlab.com/early-access. From their pre-order page:

About nLab Kit

Get ready to learn real electronics, build real projects, and join a community of future innovators. The nLab Kit is a complete hands-on learning system featuring an oscilloscope, power supply, function generator, and 12+ guided projects designed for beginners, students, and makers.