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DIY & Life Hacks
Build guides, repair databases and instruction sites for physical tasks. The internet at its most straightforwardly useful.
14 sites
Thousands of free electronics tutorials with full wiring diagrams and working code. The gentlest on-ramp to microcontrollers there is.
- 10 min
Free woodworking plans with cut lists and costed materials, aimed squarely at people who own exactly one saw.
- 10 min
Every knot worth knowing, animated frame by frame so you can scrub back and forth until your hands finally get it.
Home repair guides with proper tool lists and honest time estimates, written for somebody already standing in front of the problem.
- 10 min
Daily coverage of hardware projects that had no commercial reason to exist. Reliably the most inventive corner of the web.
Free illustrated repair manuals for phones, laptops, cars and appliances, plus teardowns that name and shame every glued-in battery.
- 10 min
Step-by-step build guides for anything from a bookshelf to a plasma cutter, written by the people who actually made the thing.
Daily tips on doing ordinary things slightly better, running since 2005 and still occasionally genuinely surprising.
- 10 min
The maker movement's own magazine: projects, tool reviews and the long-running argument about what counts as making something.
- 10 min
Millions of product manuals as PDFs, for the appliance whose paperwork went in the recycling back in 2011.
- <1 min
Finds your nearest free community workshop where volunteers help you fix the thing instead of replacing it. Thousands worldwide now.
- 10 min
Campaigns for the right to repair and runs community fixing parties, publishing the data on what breaks and why.
- 10 min
Fifty years of home renovation broken into how-tos, with actual tradespeople explaining why the obvious shortcut fails.
- 10 min
Instructions for very nearly anything, illustrated in that unmistakable cartoon style. The artwork alone justifies the visit.
How we picked these
Every entry in Detour is hand-sorted rather than scraped: filed under one category, given one to three moods, and placed in a time band for how quickly it pays off. The practical facts — cost, sign-up, sound, device and whether it is safe at a desk — are recorded per site and shown on every card, so you can rule things out before you click.
DIY & Life Hacks: questions
How many sites are in DIY & Life Hacks?
14 sites, each hand-sorted by category, mood and how long it takes to pay off.
Which of these sites are free with no sign-up?
14 of the 14 are free and need no account. None of them are paid.
Do these sites work on a phone, and are they safe for work?
14 of 14 work on a phone; the rest are desktop only. 14 are safe for work and 14 work with the sound off.