The week on the bench · Monday to Sunday, UTC
Week 27, 2026 · 29 June to 5 July
11 entries published: 5 tools, 3 builds, 1 Magic Smoke, 1 guide, 1 news. This page lists what was published; it is not a newsletter issue.
The week as a scope trace
One channel per kind, one pulse per entry at the hour it was published. Taller pulses have more points.
Build of the week · BB-0108
WLKATA MT4 arm gets new firmware, vision pick-and-place and an MCP server for LLM control
Sigurd Enghoff replaced the WLKATA MT4 desktop arm's stock firmware and built a vision and MCP control stack on top. His ATmega2560 firmware runs Cartesian moves on the arm, ArUco markers calibrate a fixed camera, and an MCP server takes requests from Claude Code or Cursor. Linked videos show the arm stacking cubes and following typed instructions.
Tools5
All tools3 mo ago
Konnect: a native KiCad 10 plugin that gives Claude 228 PCB design tools
Konnect plugs into KiCad 10 as a single Rust binary and exposes PCB design tools to Claude and other MCP clients. Its 228 tools in 21 on-demand toolsets cover schematic capture, placement, routing, ERC and DRC, JLCPCB part search and manufacturing export. It succeeds the author's KiCAD-MCP-Server and is marked beta, with Windows the most tested platform.
Claimed3 mo ago
scopebench-mcp: MCP server and agent skill for Rigol DHO800 oscilloscopes
scopebench-mcp connects a coding agent to a Rigol oscilloscope over USB or LAN through an MCP server and an agent skill. The agent sets channels, timebase and triggers, captures waveforms and screenshots to files, and gets structured JSON back. The README names the DHO804D as its tested scope; USB control is Windows-only. We have not seen captures.
Claimed3 mo ago
neorv32-mcp: debug a NeoRV32 RISC-V soft core on an FPGA over UART and JTAG
neorv32-mcp offers 15 tools in two MCP servers for a NeoRV32 RISC-V core on an Alchitry Pt V2 FPGA board. UART tools load an ELF into RAM or flash it to SPI; OpenOCD tools halt the CPU and read memory. Flashing is refused unless the same ELF ran from RAM first, checked by SHA-256. The README shows no test logs.
Claimed3 mo ago
bus-mcp: MCP tools for a Raspberry Pi's CAN, RS-485, I2C, SPI and GPIO
bus-mcp runs on a Raspberry Pi and exposes CAN, CAN-FD, RS-485, UART, I2C, SPI and GPIO as 18 MCP tools. Buses are read-only until writes are enabled for chosen bus kinds. An installer sets up a systemd service with an HTTP endpoint. The README gives a loopback test procedure but no recorded results.
Claimed4 mo ago
pico-mcp: an MCP server for PicoScope 5000A USB oscilloscopes
pico-mcp talks to the ps5000a driver directly to control PicoScope 5000A USB oscilloscopes from an agent. It configures channels, runs the built-in signal generator, captures blocks with measurements and sweeps frequency response. The author wrote it because an existing server crashed and leaked device handles. The README says every code path was checked on a 5442B; it shows no captures.
Claimed
Builds3
All builds3 mo ago
Programming the Fri3d Camp 2024 badge with Claude Code
David Steeman used Claude Code to reverse-engineer and program the Fri3d Camp 2024 badge, an ESP32-S3 handheld with an LCD. Claude backed up the flash in ROM mode, worked out the OTA boot scheme and wrote a serial upload tool. Steeman says the app launcher and name badge it built ran on the device. The photos show only the hardware.
Claimed3 mo ago
WLKATA MT4 arm gets new firmware, vision pick-and-place and an MCP server for LLM control
Sigurd Enghoff replaced the WLKATA MT4 desktop arm's stock firmware and built a vision and MCP control stack on top. His ATmega2560 firmware runs Cartesian moves on the arm, ArUco markers calibrate a fixed camera, and an MCP server takes requests from Claude Code or Cursor. Linked videos show the arm stacking cubes and following typed instructions.
Shown working3 mo ago
IRIS: coding agents build a robot face on two Teensy boards and a Raspberry Pi 4
One maker had coding agents build IRIS, a robot face with gaze-tracking eyes, on two Teensy boards and a Raspberry Pi 4. Its speech and vision models run locally. Over 195 sessions, one AI planned each change, a second critiqued it and a coding agent made and checked it over SSH. The README shows no photos of the robot.
Claimed
Magic Smoke1
All Magic Smoke3 mo ago
StationX: an AI agent designs a KiCad 10 badge and DRC catches its beginner mistakes
Nathan House had an AI assistant with KiCad 10 design a coin-cell LED blinker badge. It picked an NE555 that needs 4.5 V, put a via 0.0285 mm from a pad, broke courtyard rules and reported a 150.4% duty cycle. The article says datasheet checks, DRC and an analytic check caught each one before any board was ordered.
Claimed
Guides1
All guides3 mo ago
Draeger-IT: Claude Code versus Claude.ai for Arduino UNO and ESP32-C3 projects (German)
In a German video, Stefan Draeger compares Claude Code with the Claude.ai chat on an Arduino UNO R3 and an ESP32-C3 Super Mini. Claude.ai writes a sketch inside the chat, while Claude Code works on a project's files directly. Draeger says generated code still has to be checked and tested. A blog post goes with the 7-minute video.
Claimed
News1
All news3 mo ago
HARDWARIO publishes a Claude Code control plane for its TOWER firmware, CLI and HIL bench
HARDWARIO published a repository on 30 June that holds its TOWER IoT kit's protocol, STM32L083 firmware, CLI, flasher and hardware-in-the-loop bench. It began as a Claude Code control plane over submodules and is now a Rust monorepo with agent instructions. The README says bench runs flash a physical Core Module and measure power with a PPK2.
Claimed
