Motorized Faders Make An Awesome Volume Mixer For Your PC

January 31, 2026 by 14 Comments

These days, Windows has a moderately robust method for managing the volume across several applications. The only problem is that the controls for this are usually buried away. [CHWTT] found a way to make life easier by creating a physical mixer to handle volume levels instead.

The build relies on a piece of software called MIDI Mixer. It’s designed to control the volume levels of any application or audio device on a Windows system, and responds to MIDI commands. To suit this setup, [CHWTT] built a physical device to send the requisite MIDI commands to vary volume levels as desired. The build runs on an Arduino Micro. It’s set up to work with five motorized faders which are sold as replacements for the Behringer X32 mixer, which makes them very cheap to source. The motorized faders are driven by L293D motor controllers. There are also six additional push-buttons hooked up as well. The Micro reads the faders and sends the requisite MIDI commands to the attached PC over USB, and also moves the faders to different presets when commanded by the buttons.

If you’re a streamer, or just someone that often has multiple audio sources open at once, you might find a build like this remarkably useful. The use of motorized faders is a nice touch, too, easily allowing various presets to be recalled for different use cases.

We love seeing a build that goes to the effort to include motorized faders, there’s just something elegant and responsive about them. Continue reading “Motorized Faders Make An Awesome Volume Mixer For Your PC” →

The finished product

Crouching Typewriter, Hidden PC

January 30, 2026 by 10 Comments

Go back a couple of generations, and rather than a laptop or a luggable, the office accessory of choice was a portable typewriter. As the 20th century wore on, the typewriter became electric before eventually being eclipsed by luggable and laptop computers. On YouTube, [Prototype] is turning back the clock, by turning an old Smith-Corona electric typewriter into a luggable computer– with a stretch goal of still being able to type.

Yeah, just gutting the typewriter and shoving an SBC inside wasn’t ambitious enough for [Prototype]: his goal is a working typewriter and an x86 gaming PC. To facilitate this, he guts the Smith-Corona keyboard, and 3D-prints a new top plate to add a little more vertical space in the old typewriter. The new top does recreate the original layout and the Corona switches get printed adapters to fit them to mechanical switches [Prototype] is using with a vibe-coded Arduino. Why one would bother with ChatGPT when QMK is right there, we could not say, but feel free to skip 6:20 to 15:00 if you’re watching the video but want to avoid that side quest.

Unfortunately, the “get the keyboard working” side-quest is either faked or deferred to video part II, which has not been posted yet. In this video he demonstrates that he can actuate a single hammer with a servo, but that’s a far cry from a working typewriter so, we’re really hoping he comes through on that promise in Part Two. Even if the build stops with just one hammer, that would give the tactile sound-and-feel that other builds turn to solenoids for. Squeezing a small-form-factor motherboard and graphics card into the old Smith-Corona is also going to be an interesting challenge. It’s certainly going to be a step up from using the keyboard as a terminal.

If you like this project but balk at the idea of destroying a working piece of vintage office equipment, it is possible to turn a typewriter into a USB keyboard non-invasively. 

If you like this project at all, join us in thanking [Katie] for the tip. Not your cup of tea? Tell us what is, with a tip of your own. Continue reading “Crouching Typewriter, Hidden PC” →

Using 3D Printing And Copper Tape To Make PCBs

January 28, 2026 by 89 Comments

In a recent video [QWZ Labs] demonstrates an interesting technique to use 3D printing to make creating custom PCBs rather straightforward even if all you have is a 3D printer and a roll of copper tape.

The PCB itself is designed as usual in KiCad or equivalent EDA program, after which it is exported as a 3D model. This model is then loaded into a CAD program – here Autodesk Fusion – which is used to extrude the traces by 0.6 mm before passing the resulting model to the 3D printer’s slicer.

By extruding the traces, you can subsequently put copper tape onto the printed PCB and use a cutting tool of your choice to trace these raised lines. After removing the rest of the copper foil, you are left with copper traces that you can poke holes in for the components and subsequently solder onto.

Continue reading “Using 3D Printing And Copper Tape To Make PCBs” →

PlayStation 3 Emulator RPCS3 Can Play Nearly Three-Quarters Of All PS3 Games

January 22, 2026 by 6 Comments

Although already having entered the territory of ‘retro gaming’, the Sony PlayStation 3 remains a notoriously hard to emulate game console. Much of this is to blame on its unique PowerPC-based Cell processor architecture, which uses a highly parallel approach across its asymmetric multi-core die that is very hard to map to more standard architectures like those in today’s x86 and ARM CPUs. This makes it even more amazing that the RPCS3 emulator team has now crossed the 70% ‘playable’ threshold on their compatibility list.

This doesn’t mean that you can fire up these games on any purported ‘gaming system’, as the system requirements are pretty steep. If you want any kind of enjoyable performance the recommended PC specifications feature an Intel 10th generation 6-core CPU, 16 GB of dual-channel RAM and a NVIDIA RTX 2000 or AMD RX 5000 series GPU or better.

It should be noted here also that the ‘playable’ tag in the compatibility list means that the game can be completed without game breaking glitches. Performance remains an issue, with very creative optimizations through e.g. the abuse of x86 SIMD instructions remaining the topic of research by the emulator developers. Yet as original PS3 hardware gradually becomes less available, the importance of projects like RPCS3 will become more clear.

Header: Evan-Amos, Public domain.

The Mini PC. Without a banana for scale, you might be fooled.

Jam Like It’s The 1980s With A Mini-IBM PC

January 16, 2026 by 15 Comments

A lot of retrocomputer enthusiasts have a favourite system, to the point of keeping up 40 year old flame wars over which system was “best”.   In spite of the serious, boring nature of the PC/AT and its descendants, those early IBMs have a certain style that Compaq and the Clones never quite matched. Somehow, we live in a world where there are people nostalgic for Big Blue. That’s why [AnneBarela] built a miniature IBM PC using an Adafruit Fruit Jam board.

If you haven’t seen it before, the Fruit Jam board is an RP2350 dev board created specifically to make minicomputers, with its two USB host sockets, DVI-out and 3.5mm jack. [Anne] loaded a PC emulator by [Daft-Freak] called PACE-32 that can emulate an IBM compatible PC with an 80386 and up-to 8 MB of RAM on this particular board. The video is VGA, 640×480 — as god intended– piped to a 5″ LCD [Anne] picked up from AliExpress.

That display is mounted inside a replica monitor designed by [giobbino], and is sitting on top of a replica case. Both are available on Thingiverse, though some modification was required to provide proper mounting for the Fruit Jam board. [giobbino] designed it to house a FabGL ESP32 module– which has us wondering, if an RP2350 can be a 386, what level of PC might the ESP32-P4 be capable of? We’ve seen it pretend to be a Quadra, so a 486 should be possible. It wasn’t that long ago that mini builds of this nature required a Raspberry Pi, after all.

Speculation aside, this diminutive IBM build leaves us but with but one question: if you played Links386 on it, would it count as miniature golf?

M8SBC-486 Is An FPGA-Based “Kinda PC Compatible” 486 SBC

January 8, 2026 by 25 Comments

[Editor’s note: We got this one wrong! The computer uses an actual 486: the FPGA is running essentially as the chipset, interfacing the RAM and the ISA bus with the CPU. And since this went to press, [maniek-86] put out a nicer writeup of the project, which you should go check out, in addition to the GitHub link below.]

 

Given the technical specs of the FPGAs available to hobbyists these days, it really shouldn’t be a shock that you can implement a relatively-modern chipset on one, like one for a 486 system. In spite of knowing that in the technical sense, we were still caught off guard by [maniek-86]’s M8SBC project that does just that– the proas both CPU and BIOSducing a 486 FPGA chipset with a motherboard to boot.

Boot what? Linux 2.2.6, MS-DOS 6.22 or FreeDOS all work. It can run DOOM, of course, along with Wolfenstien 3D, Prince of Persia, and even the famous Second Reality demo– though that last without sound. [maniek-86]’s implementation is lacking direct memory access, so sound card support is right out. There are a few other bugs that are slowly being squished, too, according to the latest Reddit thread. Continue reading “M8SBC-486 Is An FPGA-Based “Kinda PC Compatible” 486 SBC” →

3D Printed PC Case Focuses On Ease Of Access

December 26, 2025 by 24 Comments

There are all kinds of fun, glowing PC cases on the market these days. However, if you want something that focuses on serviceability over flash while still looking stylish, you might like the Makeyo MK01. It’s a PC case that you can print yourself, and [Marst_art] has published a video on what it’s like to whip one up at home.

The MK01 is assembled from lots of smaller parts, so the components can be made on any 3D printer that has a print area of 210 x 210 mm or more. All the outer panels are affixed to the main chassis with magnets, which makes servicing easy. You can just pop off panels when you need to get inside without undoing any fasteners or clips.

Plus, the cool thing about the MK01 is that since you’re printing it yourself, you can easily make whatever mods you like prior to printing it out. [Marst_art] notes that he threw in a USB-C port to the front panel for easy access, and a few internal mounts for 2.5″ SSDs. He also made some mods to the power switch assembly. It also bears noting—you get to choose your own color scheme when you make one of these. This level of customization is something you simply don’t get when you buy off the shelf!

[Marst_art]’s video is a useful guide if you’re planning to undertake such a build yourself. It outlines what it’s like to actually print one of these things on a consumer printer, and how the settings will influence the final look and feel. It’s worth noting that you’ll probably want to print this in ABS or another filament that can handle high heat, unless you’re building a very cool running machine.

It’s not just a great looking case, it’s a highly functional one, too. Files are available on Printables if you’d like to make your own. We’ve featured other printed cases before, too.

Continue reading “3D Printed PC Case Focuses On Ease Of Access” →