Open firmware for the 3.5" NerdQAxe++ clones, with optional Ethernet

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The NerdQAxe++ is a small open-source Bitcoin (SHA-256) miner. On AliExpress you’ll find clones with a bigger 3.5" (480×320) screen, from sellers such as YYSlupping. The hardware is nice. The firmware is the problem.

The problem: closed firmware on an open-source miner

These clones ship with pre-installed firmware whose source code isn’t published. A miner has your pool login, your payout address and all your hashrate, and with closed firmware there’s no way to check what it does with them.

Building Fritzing 1.0.7 from source on macOS with one script

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Fritzing is a great tool for breadboard, schematic and PCB diagrams. It’s open source (GPLv3), but the prebuilt binaries are a paid download. You can build it yourself, but on macOS the build is fiddly: Fritzing expects a very specific set of dependencies in specific places.

So I wrapped the whole build in one script: Fritzing-macos.

Usage

git clone https://github.com/AguiMr/Fritzing-macos.git
cd Fritzing-macos
chmod +x build_fritzing_macos.sh
./build_fritzing_macos.sh

You need Homebrew and the Xcode Command Line Tools. If the tools are missing, the script starts their install and asks you to run it again. The first build takes about 20–40 minutes. After that, re-running skips everything that’s already built.

Posts on MrAgui

Open firmware for the 3.5" NerdQAxe++ clones, with optional Ethernet

The problem: closed firmware on an open-source miner

Building Fritzing 1.0.7 from source on macOS with one script

Usage