Author: Zoe Skyforest

3683 Articles

Using A Nintendo Switch To Speed Up A 3D Printer

May 15, 2026 by 8 Comments

3D printers are almost never fast enough. [Cocoanix] had a Prusa MK3S with this very problem. He found it to be disappointingly tedious when completing even simple prints, and sought a way to make it faster. Thus, he grabbed a Nintendo Switch and got to work.

It might sound like an odd choice, and that’s because it is. There’s no special magic inside a Nintendo Switch that makes 3D printers faster – it’s just that the handheld console was a useful platform on which to run Klipper. As [Cocoanix] explains, Klipper is designed to run on faster general-purpose computers compared to the more limited microcontrollers used in some printers. It’s designed to off-load complex motion processing tasks to a faster CPU, while the printer’s onboard microcontrollers are freed up to simply handle the low-level tasks of driving the motors and so on. An older printer equipped with Klipper can often print faster, while implementing techniques like input shaping to further improve speed as well as print quality.

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to use a Nintendo Switch for this. It’s just a good hook for the YouTube video. Typically you’d use a Raspberry Pi or some other computer instead, but the fact it runs on a jailbroken console is amusing nonetheless. It’s also cool to see the results – in this video, [Cocoanix] got the Benchy printing time down from 90 minutes to just 8.

We’ve previously discussed the benefits of Klipper at length.

Continue reading “Using A Nintendo Switch To Speed Up A 3D Printer” →

Mix Your Own ECN-2 Development Chemicals

May 14, 2026 by 4 Comments

After the digital camera rose to prominence, it became a cool hobby to keep taking photos on film. It was even cooler if you did the same with an old motion picture camera. The retro film revival has kept a dedicated bunch of photo labs in business over the years, but it’s still possible to save some cash on development by doing it yourself. If that’s your game, you might try mixing up your own development chemicals. 

As explained by [No Grain No Gain], it’s quite possible to mix up your own ECN-2 chemistry from scratch if you know what you’re doing. ECN-2 is the chemistry you’ll want if you’re trying to develop any of Kodak’s Vision3 films, along with CineStill films.

The problem with traditional methods of making developer is that once it’s mixed up, it doesn’t keep well, and the more you use it, the worse the quality gets. To beat this problem, this method involves producing two stock solutions which can be kept on the shelf for long periods of time. They can then be combined together with a little CD-3 developer on an as-needed basis. This makes it easy to always have fresh developer on hand for the best possible results on every roll processed. To make everything, you’ll need sodium sulfite, potassium bromide, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, and the specialist CD-3 developing agent. It’s then a simple job to mix up the dry chemicals with a bunch of distilled water to make the two necessary solutions to keep on hand. The video also explains how to deal with RemJet films if you happen to be shooting those.

[No Grain No Gain] estimates that this method can cut the cost of development to as little as 50 cents a roll. There’s plenty of labor involved, but if you want the freshest, best developer on hand for your home lab, it’s a method worth considering.

We’ve explored modern film development techniques before, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Mix Your Own ECN-2 Development Chemicals” →

DIY Electrolysis Machine Removes Hair Permanently

May 7, 2026 by 38 Comments

If you talk to the FDA, there’s only one permanent method of hair removal—electrolysis. This involves sticking a needle into a hair follicle, getting it very hot or running a current through it, and then letting heat and/or the lye generated kill the root of the hair dead. Normally, you’d pay someone with a commercial machine to do this for you at great expense. Or, you could do it yourself with a home-built machine, as [n3tcat] did.

Based on the available information out in the wild, [n3tcat] decided to build a galvanic electrolysis machine. This specifically passes current through a needle in the hair follicle to generate lye at the hair bulb, which kills it. The amount of lye generated depends on the amount of current and the time over which it is applied. More lye is more likely to kill a follicle permanently, though there are limits with regards to avoiding scarring, other skin damage, and excessive pain.

Continue reading “DIY Electrolysis Machine Removes Hair Permanently” →

How Giant Tanks Of Fluid Could Help Support The Power Grid

May 5, 2026 by 76 Comments

If you’ve been paying any attention to the renewable energy space, you’ll know that generation isn’t really the problem anymore. Solar panels are cheap, and wind turbines are everywhere. The problem is matching generation with demand—sometimes there’s too much wind and sun, and sometimes there’s not enough. Ideally, you could store that energy somewhere, and deploy it when you need it.

The answer everyone keeps reaching for is lithium-ion batteries, and they work just fine. However, there’s a competing technology that’s been quietly scaling up in the background—the vanadium flow battery. It has some unique advantages that could see it rise to prominence in the world of large-scale grid storage.

Continue reading “How Giant Tanks Of Fluid Could Help Support The Power Grid” →

Camera Slider: Build Instead Of Buy Goes Awry

May 4, 2026 by 1 Comment

[TheHyperFix] had a problem. He’d spied a brilliant camera slider, but didn’t want to lay out big money to acquire it. The natural solution? Build one! Only, life is seldom so straightforward.

The plan was straightforward – take an old broken 3D printer, and repurpose its parts to make a camera slider instead. The build started with a aluminium extrusion, some V-slot wheels, and a 3D printed platform to hold the camera. Moving the platform was done via a belt drive, using the stepper motors and some software to tell the original printer controller what to do.

Unfortunately, the early experiments failed when the controller blew up under load. An Arduino was subbed in with a CNC shield, which got things back on track, and [TheHyperFix] had a somewhat functional slider with relatively jerky movement. A tough iterative design process ensued to work out problems with bearings and the Arduino’s pulse limit, among others.

As it stands, the slider is semi-functional, but it’s not quite well behaved enough to use for professional shooting. Still, for a first attempt at electronics prototyping, we think [TheHyperFix] did a pretty solid job. It might not be all there yet, but it’s well on the way, and a great deal was learned in the process.

If you’re trying to build a camera slider in a hurry, you might like to try recreating one of the builds we’ve featured before. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Camera Slider: Build Instead Of Buy Goes Awry” →

Why Leaded Fuel Is Still A Thing

May 4, 2026 by 101 Comments

Leaded fuel is considered one of the greatest environmental failures in modern human history. Adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline reduced knock in internal combustion engines, which was widely considered a good thing. It was only later that the deleterious health effects came into view, by which point there was a massive fleet of lead-dependent automobiles and an industry reluctant to change. Still, the tide turned, and over the last 50 years, unleaded fuel has become the norm for automotive use across the world.

And yet, there remains a hold out—a world where engines still burn leaded fuels and spray their noxious fumes across the countryside. In the aviation sector, leaded fuel remains a normal part of everyday operations to this day amidst concerted efforts to eliminate it for good.

Continue reading “Why Leaded Fuel Is Still A Thing” →

TagTinker Lets You Hack Electronic Shelf Labels

May 4, 2026 by 71 Comments

Was there ever anything wrong with simple paper price labels? Absolutely not. And yet, the world invented the electronic price tag anyway. If you happen to come across some of these devices and want to hack them, you might like TagTinker from [i12bp8].

TagTinker is a Flipper Zero application specifically built for talking to infrared electronic shelf labels (ESLs). These are e-paper devices that receive commands and updates via an infrared interface, and they’re relatively simple to talk to. [i12bp8] built upon previous work from [furrtek] which revealed the protocols used to update these devices, and implemented it into an app that runs on the Flipper. It can do neat things like scan the NFC tags built into ESLs to ID them, deploy bitmap images to the tags, or run live-updated dashboards on the devices with the aid of a Flipper WiFi devboard.

If you’ve always wanted to play with these tags but didn’t want to do the grunt work yourself, it just got a whole lot easier to mess around. Though, it’s worth noting, [i12bp8] has strictly prohibited any illegal uses of this app, so be good out there. We’ve seen these tags repurposed before, too – who knew they could make such good conference badges?