Sherline Closing Sale

Because we use their great products while making robots, we’ve also carried Sherline products almost since we started Solarbotics. But the time has come to start cutting things that aren’t core to our business, and the Sherline machine tools definitely … Read more…

Netduino!

Not just another *uino clone, as this uses a 32-bit Atmel AT91SAM7X ARM microcontroller. Sure, it uses the same form factor (well, except for the breadboard-friendly mini version), but the Netduino uses the .NET micro framework. What’s that mean? Well, … Read more…

Closed Monday, February 21st

We all have family, in one form or another. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, pets… In some cases, even a delapitated, 20 year-old Honda Civic lovingly referred to as Lou. It has rust in the rear quarter panels … Read more…

Hakko FA-400 Smoke Absorber

It’s cool. Well, not quite. But it’s smoking. Umm,  that’s not right, either. It’s anti-smoking. Whoever redesigned their 493 smoke absorber did a pretty good job – it’s much better than it was before! And Hakko even posted a cool … Read more…

Ex-Interns and their projects…

Jerome Demers, our ex-intern of two seasons, just sent me a link to one of his latest projects. The (sigh…) “Fart-o-Meter”. He even put it up on Instructables too. Good to see the experience he got at Solarbotics is being … Read more…

New Hakko Iron & SMD LoL Shields

I wasn’t very interested when the new Hakko FX-888 soldering iron showed up, but as I opened it and explored more, I got to thinking “Dang – this is a nice iron…”. It’s small, heavy, made-o’-metal, and of Hakko quality. … Read more…

Interesting Mini-sumo build

This mini-sumo design by Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin features our wheels, and one of our favourite building materials, Sintra. We can’t laser-cut sintra (PVC=bad stuff when burned), but milling it works well, as this builder shows. The asymmetric motor layout works, as … Read more…