Another Old ThinkPad Gets A New Motherboard

May 10, 2025 by Jenny List 18 Comments

The Thinkpad line of laptops, originally from IBM, and then from Lenovo, have long been the choice of many in our community. They offer a level of robustness and reliability missing in many cheaper machines. You may not be surprised to find that this article is being written on one. With such a following, it’s not surprising that a significant effort has gone into upgrading older models. For example, we have [Franck Deng]’s new motherboard for the Thinkpad X200 and X201. These models from the end of the 2000s shipped as far as we can remember with Core 2 Duo processors, so we can imagine they would be starting to feel their age.

It’s fair to say the new board isn’t a cheap option, but it does come with a new Core Ultra 7 CPU, DDR5 memory, M.2 interfaces for SSDs alongside the original 2.5″ device, and USB-C with Thunderbolt support. There are a range of screen upgrade options. For an even more hefty price, you can buy a completely rebuilt laptop featuring the new board. We’re impressed with the work, but we have to wonder how it would stack up against a newer Thinkpad for the price.

If you’re curious to see more of the same, this isn’t the first such upgrade we’ve seen.

Thanks [Max] for the tip.

An LLM For The Raspberry Pi

May 10, 2025 by Al Williams 32 Comments

Microsoft’s latest Phi4 LLM has 14 billion parameters that require about 11 GB of storage. Can you run it on a Raspberry Pi? Get serious. However, the Phi4-mini-reasoning model is a cut-down version with “only” 3.8 billion parameters that requires 3.2 GB. That’s more realistic and, in a recent video, [Gary Explains] tells you how to add this LLM to your Raspberry Pi arsenal.

The version [Gary] uses has four-bit quantization and, as you might expect, the performance isn’t going to be stellar. If you are versed in all the LLM lingo, the quantization is the way weights are stored, and, in general, the more parameters a model uses, the more things it can figure out.

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Restoring A Sinclair C5 For The Road

May 10, 2025 by Jenny List 25 Comments

The Sinclair C5 was Sir Clive’s famous first venture into electric mobility, a recumbent electric-assisted tricycle which would have been hardly unusual in 2025. In 1985, though, the C5 was so far out there that it became a notorious failure. The C5 retains a huge following among enthusiasts, though, and among those is [JSON Alexander, who has bought one and restored it.

We’re treated to a teardown and frank examination of the vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses, during which we see the Sinclair brand unusually on a set of tyres, and the original motor, which is surprisingly more efficient than expected. Sir Clive may be gone, but this C5 will live again.

We’ve had the chance to road test a C5 in the past, and it’s fair to say that we can understand why such a low-down riding position was not a success back in the day. It’s unusual to see one in as original a condition as this one, it’s more usual to see a C5 that’s had a few upgrades.

Move Over, Lithophane: 3D Printed 3D Photos With Gaussian Splats

May 10, 2025 by Tyler August 24 Comments

If you had asked us yesterday “How do you 3D Print a Photo”, we would have said “well, that’s easy, do a lithophane”– but artist, hacker and man with a very relaxing voice [Wyatt Roy] has a much more impressive answer: Gaussian splats, rendered in resin.

Gaussian splats are a 3D scanning technique aimed at replicating a visual rather than geometry, like the mesh-based 3D-scanning we usually see on Hackaday. Using photogrammetry, a point cloud is generated with an associated 3D Gaussian function describing the colour at that point. Blend these together, and you can get some very impressive photorealistic 3D environments. Of course, printing a Gaussian smear of colour isn’t trivial, which is where the hacking comes in.

Continue reading “Move Over, Lithophane: 3D Printed 3D Photos With Gaussian Splats” →

Best Practices For FDM Printing

May 10, 2025 by Al Williams 37 Comments

If you’ve been designing parts for 3D printing, you probably have some tricks and standards for your designs. [Rahix] decided to write out a well-thought-out set of design rules for FDM prints, and we can all benefit.

One of the things we liked about the list is that it’s written in a way that explains everything. Every so often, there’s a box with a summarized rule for that topic. At the end, there’s a list of all the rules. The rules are also in categories, including part strength, tolerance, optimization, integration, machine elements, appearance, and vase mode.

For example, section two deals with tolerance and finish. So, rule R2.8 says, “Do not use circular holes for interference fits. Use hexagon or square holes instead.”

We also appreciate that [Rahix] touched on some of the counter-intuitive aspects of designing for FDM printing. For example, you might think adding voids in your part will reduce the filament and time required to print it, but in many cases it can have the opposite effect.

Some of these — maybe even most of these — won’t surprise you, but you still might take away a tidbit or two. But having it all down in a checklist and then the ability to scroll up and find the rationale for the rule is great.

Do you have any rules you’d add? Or change? Let us know. Meanwhile, we were eyeing our favorites about adding machine elements to prints.

“Man And Machine” Vs “Man Vs Machine”

May 10, 2025 by Elliot Williams 10 Comments

Every time we end up talking about 3D printers, Al Williams starts off on how bad he is in a machine shop. I’m absolutely sure that he’s exaggerating, but the gist is that he’s much happier to work on stuff in CAD and let the machine take care of the precision and fine physical details. I’m like that too, but with me, it’s the artwork.

I can’t draw to save my life, but once I get it into digital form, I’m pretty good at manipulating images. And then I couldn’t copy that out into the real world, but that’s what the laser cutter is for, right? So the gameplan for this year’s Mother’s Day gift (reminder!) is three-way. I do the physical design, my son does the artwork, we combine them in FreeCAD and then hand it off to the machine. Everyone is playing to their strengths.

So why does it feel a little like cheating to just laser-cut out a present? I’m not honestly sure. My grandfather was a trained architectural draftsman before he let his artistic side run wild and went off to design jewellery. He could draw a nearly perfect circle with nothing more than a pencil, but he also used a French curve set, a pantograph, and a rolling architect’s ruler when they were called for. He had his tools too, and I bet he’d see the equivalence in mine.

People have used tools since the stone age, and the people who master their tools transcend them, and produce work where the “human” shines through despite having traced a curve or having passed the Gcode off to the cutter. If you doubt this, I’ll remind you of the technological feat that is the piano, with which people nonetheless produce music that doesn’t make you think of the hammers or of the tremendous cast metal frame. The tech disappears into the creation.

I’m sure there’s a parable here for our modern use of AI too, but I’ve got a Mother’s Day present to finish.

PoE-powered GPIB Adapter With Ethernet And USB-C Support

May 10, 2025 by Maya Posch 9 Comments

In the world of (expensive) lab test equipment the GPIB (general purpose interface bus) connection is hard to avoid if you want any kind of automation, but nobody likes wrangling with the bulky cables and compatibility issues when they can just use Ethernet instead. Here [Chris]’s Ethernet-GPIB adapter provides an easy solution, with both Power over Ethernet (PoE) and USB-C power options. Although commercial adapters already exist, these are rather pricey at ~$500.

Features of this adapter include a BOM total of <$50, with power provided either via PoE (802.3af) or USB-C (5V-only). The MCU is an ATmega4809 with the Ethernet side using a Wiznet W5500 SPI Ethernet controller. There is also a serial interface (provided by a CH340X USB-UART adapter), with the firmware based on the AR488 project.

The adapter supports both the VXI-11.2 and Prologix protocols, though not at the same time (due to ROM size limitations). All design documents are available via the GitHub repository, with the author also selling assembled adapters and providing support primarily via the EEVBlog forums.