Les Pounder

Les Pounder

Les Pounder is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training programme "Picademy".

Articles by: Les Pounder

Jeff Merrick's Typeframe PS-85 cyberdeck

Alien fan builds a better Raspberry Pi cyberdeck — The MU/TH/UR of all homages to a classic movie series

By Les Pounder published

Powered by the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, Jeff Merrick's slab of 1970 / 1980s aesthetic screams the "charm" of the worn and broken Alien universe that belies the powerful single board computer within.

Olight imini 2

At 30% off, this remarkable $14 USB-rechargeable flashlight is an indispensable PC building tool — Olight lights up the dark corners of any DIY project

By Les Pounder published

Deals It's dangerous to go alone! Take this

Best Soldering Irons and Stations 2025

Best Soldering Irons and Stations 2026

By Les Pounder last updated

Choosing the right soldering iron can be difficult. Do you need temperature control, hot air rework and high wattage irons to do a good job?

Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2

Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 Review: The brains and the brawn

By Les Pounder published

Raspberry Pis latest AI accessory brings a more powerful Hailo NPU, capable of LLMs and image inference, but the price tag is a key deciding factor.

Raspberry Pi 5 placed near an older Raspberry Pi on a board

Raspberry Pi and mini PC home lab prices hit parity as DRAM costs skyrocket — price hikes force hobbyists to weigh up performance versus power consumption

By Ben Stockton published

The price of a Raspberry Pi now has parity with Intel N100 mini PCs at just over $200, with flash memory price spikes continuing to push prices up across the board.

MSI Lightning

CES award outs MSI's monstrous 1600W RTX 5090 Lightning GPU — new flagship has next generation liquid cooling, dual 16-pin power connectors, and a surface-mounted LCD display

By Hassam Nasir published

You can even overclock it via an app

Plex Server

How to use Plex and a spare computer to build a streaming movie service

By Les Pounder published

Build your own streaming service all from the comfort of your own home. You only need a spare PC and a few hours to serve media across your home.

Xbox Controller

How to connect an Xbox controller to your Windows PC — wired and wireless gaming made easy

By Les Pounder published

Game controllers on PC has come a long way since early serial and game port devices, and Windows now makes it easier than ever to get your game on.

Raspberry Pis imposed over the New York skyline

New York's Mayoral Inauguration bans Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero — devices join explosives, guns, drones, and beach balls on prohibited items list

By Les Pounder published

The invitation to Mayor-elect Mamdani's inauguration lists Raspberry Pi and Flipper Zero as prohibited items but does not provide a reason.

Windows 11

How to get Windows 11 for free (or less than $15) — Get the latest Microsoft OS for less than the price of Windows 10's ESU

By Avram Piltch last updated

Need an OS for your PC build? Microsoft charges a whopping $139 for Windows 11 Home. Here's how to get Windows free or at least cheap.

Tucker Shannon's ESP32 display monitor

Maker builds tiny $10 secondary 1.14-inch display using an ESP32 — you could play Crysis on it, if you squint

By Les Pounder published

A 1.14 inch secondary display built around an ESP32, that receives video frames over Wi-Fi, and you could build your own for $10. Sounds like a fun weekend project

USB PD

The USB Power Delivery (PD) Specification — everything you need to know about USB-PD

By Les Pounder published

Learn the secrets of the USB PD specification as we delve into how the specification has changed in over a decade of revisions

The new Commodore 64 Ultimate

Commodore 64 Ultimate Review: 21st Century Computing from a 1982 perspective: Updated

By Les Pounder published

Editor's Choice

After a 30-year wait, the new FPGA-based Commodore 64’s are coming off the production line, and we’ve got one for review. It does not disappoint!

Windows Powershell

Here are the top ten PowerShell commands in Windows that will get you started

By Les Pounder published

PowerShell is a powerful tool and if you want to be a Windows power user, you need to learn it, so here are the top ten PowerShell commands to get you started.

Arduino Uno Q

Arduino Uno Q Review: The board with two brains

By Les Pounder published

Two heads are better than one?

Fixing a PC

Best PC tool deals — deals on iFixit, Hoto, and Wuben

By Les Pounder last updated

Deals You really do need all of these tools to keep your electronics in good order, and luckily they are all on offer.

Best Black Friday Retro Gaming Hub

Best retro tech deals — deals on retro tech for the modern PC setup

By Les Pounder last updated

Retro tech is cool and we've scoured the internet for the best deals for nostalgic technology

PC building

The best deals on tools for building PCs and fixing electronics — save money on the tech that fixes your tech

By Les Pounder last updated

We've scoured the internet and found the best tools to keep your rigs running!

A yellow number 13 inside of a heart.

13 bargains under $13 to improve your tech life — the best cheap tech that you can still grab before Black Friday and Cyber Monday ends

By Les Pounder, Matt Safford last updated

Deals We've scoured Amazon Prime Day sales pages and found these 13 products that won't hurt your wallet too much

3D printer deals

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday 3D Printer sales bonanza is almost over, grab a deal while there is still time — these are the best deals we've found so far

By Les Pounder last updated

There are some great 3D printer deals happening right now, and we've found the best and put them all into one page for you.

Don't hold soldering irons like this!

Amazon has exceptional Cyber Monday soldering iron deals

By Les Pounder last updated

Deals I've scoured Amazon for the best soldering deals, and I've found all the kit you need, while saving you $$$

3D Printer Tools

Grab these vital 3D printer maintenance tools in these Back Friday 2025 deals — up to 40% off HOTO, Creality, Wera, iFixit

By Les Pounder last updated

3D printers need maintenance and with these great tools you’ll be producing great prints all day long.

Black Friday deals on Wera and iFixit tools

Get the best Black Friday deals on iFixit and Wera tools — the best quality tools for your dream projects

By Les Pounder last updated

Deals You don't have to spend big to get quality tools this Black Friday. These iFixit and Wera tools are reduced, and that means you can get the best tools to make your projects!

Bambu Lab P2S

The Bambu Lab P2S is now available to buy in the U.S. — 'logistics delays' appear to have been resolved

By Les Pounder published

The P2S was originally released in October, but the US market was omitted due to 'logistics.' However, it seems that they have been overcome, and the printer is now available in the US.

Saturn 4 Ultra

Get Elegoo's Saturn 4 Ultra resin 3D printer for 35% off this Black Friday — ultra-precise machine prints with 3.6x higher accuracy than the thickness of a human hair

By Les Pounder published

You don't have to spend big this Black Friday! For a low price, this 12K resin 3D printer will give you all the detail that you could ever want, while being friendly on your wallet.

Other versions of this page are available with specific content for the following regions: