The Hardware Hacker: Bunnie Huang's Tour-De-force

[zcarter]

Prominently featured in a recent documentary on manufacturing in Shenzhen. Recommended: http://www.wired.co.uk/video/shenzhen-full-documentary

[reubenmorais]

I second the recommendation. The documentary talks in detail about the differing views on intellectual property between Western countries and China that is mentioned in the article.

[joatmon-snoo]

I watched that docu before realizing who he was, and man, they could not have chosen a more appropriate person to narrate it. His work is absolutely amazing.

[eltoozero]

Bunnie is also responsible in no minor way for both Chumby[1], and the Novena[2] open laptop.

Met him briefly at Maker Faire and I made sure to thank him for all his excellent work.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby [2]: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena

[andrewguenther]

I really loved the idea of Chumby. Would have killed it if it had come out more recently as an IoT device.

[ekianjo]

i have a chumby and the fact that it was designed to ran flash apps was a bad decision from the get go. that and the fact you could only stream apps and not download them.

[jaymcnuggets]

Excited to give this a read - he's also got a good reference book for non-native Mandarin speakers on navigating the Shenzhen markets[1]

Just bought mine from the publisher as an ebook + hardcover package for about $10 more than Amazon price for just the book, includes early access with code EARLYBIRD: https://www.nostarch.com/hardwarehacker

[1] https://www.adafruit.com/product/3189

[danial]

I bought a copy too. I was a little disappointed that the early access ebook has the last few chapters missing.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cjoxjb1pk1lmo5b/Hardware%20hacking...

[beh]

If you haven't had the chance to read one of Bunnie's hardware teardowns, you're missing out. His teardown of the Form 2 3D printer (https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4641) is a great example of his work.

[Animats]

That's a nice description of the Form 2 3D printer. You don't see that grade of engineering from most startups. That Formlabs makes their own mirror galvanometers is impressive, but probably necessary. The off the shelf units are either low-precision ones for light shows, or small-volume scientific instrument components.

[j_s]

Non-affiliate link to the pre-order for Bunnie's new book: https://amzn.com/dp/159327758X

OP is ~450 word announcment summarizing each half of the new book - if you're interested (hardware manufactring and hacking), you'll already know it and can skip the ads.

[endgame]

It's published by nostarch, so if you get it from them directly you can get a DRM-free ebook: https://www.nostarch.com/hardwarehacker

[justin66]

Thank God for that. I was worried Boing Boing might earn five cents when I clicked on that Amazon link.

[deutronium]

There's a table of contents of the book at: https://www.nostarch.com/hardwarehacker

I'm really looking forward to getting my copy :)

[j_s]

Thanks for linking to a place that actually has the (early access) e-book available right now rather than real soon now.

[anjneymidha]

In addition to this and the Wired doc, I'd recommend the keyboard.io blog post from October for those who haven't been to Shenzhen yet, but are in the 'deciding' stage: https://shift.newco.co/what-50-buys-you-at-huaqiangbei-the-w...

[tjmaglio]

and to these, I would add a talk that he gave at FOSS Asia earlier this year about a hardware devicde made for Burning Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNtQsyysaGk&t=5s

The amount of thought put into the design and implementation is remarkable and inspiring.

[kasbah]

I believe this book is a print edition of a selection of blog posts that have appeared on http://www.bunniestudios.com/.

[billpollock]

It's based on bunnie's blog but one of our editors poured her heart and soul into this. She's a EE with incredible passion. In other words, this isn't just a print out of his blog. It's a real book.

[agumonkey]

His SoC ISA reverse engineering through FPGA MitM made me smile a lot.