Wayland Comes To Minecraft

May 21, 2026 by 1 Comment

The overall adoption and implementation of Wayland — intended as a replacement for the decades-old X11 windowing system — in the Linux world has been full of fits and starts. But perhaps the most surprising adopter we’ve seen yet is this Minecraft patch which brings a full Wayland compositor into the game.

This software project, called Waylandcraft, is the brainchild of a developer known as [EVVIE] who spent a considerable amount of time and effort getting this to work. According to a post on GamingOnLinux it was also done the old fashioned way, with no AI involved.

Users wanting to run this compositor need a Linux system to run Minecraft, as well as the Fabric mod loader and a few other tools. For those wishing to show off to their friends, though, they’ll need to do so in-person as streaming the Wayland windows to other users in the server is not possible.

With everything running, you’ll be able to launch arbitrary programs and have the windows placed within the Minecraft world as if they were in-game. Users can place the windows in any orientation and can interact with them like any other desktop environment. [EVVIE] has released all of the code under the GPL for anyone wanting to try it out or build on the project itself.

If you haven’t spun up a Minecraft server at all yet, all you really need is something like an ESP32 to get started.

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Building A Better Automotive Rotary Controller

May 21, 2026 by 2 Comments

If you’ve ever spent time in a modern BMW, you’ve probably fussed about with the goofy iDrive controller. It’s a rotary knobbery slidery thing that just never really feels that good to use. [Garage Tinkering] was inspired to try and build a better version for his own car.

The first order of business was to choose the right knob as the core of the build. [Garage Tinkering] eventually landed on the Crowpanel 1.28″ rotary knob which integrates a push-button encoder, a round screen, and an ESP32-S3 all into one convenient package. He then set about designing a 3D printed housing that would integrate it into the vehicle’s interior, along with a diffuser ring for the knob’s inbuilt LEDs and some additional buttons for added control. The goal is to use the rotary control as the human interface for a broader system being implemented in the vehicle, which will feature a larger infotainment screen and multiple digital gauges. The rotary control will allow switching things like interior and underglow lighting, and display of other vehicle parameters.

The cool thing about building your own gear is that you can make it work exactly the way that suits you. We’ve seen great hacks in this realm before, too, like this rad car data display.

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Yes, that's a MacBook Neo. The important parts, anyway.

Unlocking The True Power Of A MacBook Neo By Cooling It

May 20, 2026 by 10 Comments

Mobile devices generally have one Achilles’ heel when it comes to computing power: thermal throttling. Outside of bulky desktop and server systems, chips have to run at a fraction of their true potential to keep from cooking themselves to death. The MacBook Neo, with its iPhone-derived A18 processor, is no exception. Since Apple’s budget offering first came out, though, there’s been an arms race on the benchmark sites to see just how far you can push it, and [Salem Techsperts] briefly claimed the accolade of ‘fastest MacBook Neo’, and of course provided a video showing how it’s done.

It’s hardly rocket science: you cool the chip. Outdoing Apple’s cost-cutting design in that regard is not difficult; you can evidently get notable performance increases just with decent thermal paste. [Techsperts] goes further than that, combining PTM7950 phase-change thermal paste with a peltier cooler to actively suck watts of heat out of the SOC, heatsinks that likely weigh more than the laptop itself, and an industrial air blower to serve as the highest CFM air cooler we’ve probably ever seen.

By this point it’s hardly a laptop anymore, with the logic board removed to sit inside a cooling sandwhich– water cooled with the peltier on one side, and air-cooled by the blower on the other–but the point wasn’t to have a light, practical daily-driver here. Apple already covered that. The point was to go fast. With 41.47% higher Cinebench scores than the stock laptop, and a power draw of 11W compared to the stock 4W, we can say he’s succeeded in that. Interestingly enough, [Techsperts] could not best the top 3DMark score, in spite of his Cinebench success. It’s possible he just lost the silicon lottery when it comes to the GPU section of this particular A18 chip, but if you have another theory, be sure to let us know in the comments.

Of course you could go colder. For all the absurd impracticality of this setup, it’s not liquid nitrogen cooling, which means there are still gains to be made-– we saw a Pi 5 clocked at 3.6GHz that way last year— and that just means the crown is laying in the gutter, waiting for anyone to pick it up. Unless they already have by the time this prints. In which case, all hail the cryogenic king, and please send us a tip so we can hail their glory.

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Investigating The Health Impacts Of UFPs And VOCs From FDM Printers

May 20, 2026 by 11 Comments

FDM 3D printing is fairly messy on a molecular scale, with the filament being heated up to temperatures high enough to melt it, which produces ultra-fine particles (UFPs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in addition to the new plastic item on the build plate. Recently [Simon Pow] got somewhat worried about this pollution considering that he spends a considerable amount of time in the same room as FDM printers, sharing air.

While there is a lot of context within the topic, it’s notable that even ‘low risk’ PLA already emits formaldehyde, a group 1 carcinogen. Studies like this 2022 one by [Taehun Kim] et al. on formaldehyde, PM10 and PM2.5 show that common filaments like PLA, ABS and TPU score pretty bad here, even compared to the often maligned resin printing, also in the study. Having good ventilation in a room helps a lot, but it doesn’t reduce the levels to zero.

As noted by [Simon], PETG is much better in the VOC area, while TPU emits siloxanes, some of which are dangerous but most are considered harmless. Once you hit nylon (e.g. PA6), you’re adding caprolactam, which is mildly toxic but mostly just an irritant. Where things get serious is with ABS and ASA, when you add styrene to the mix. This substance is very dangerous, being toxic, mutagenic and possibly carcinogenic, but on the plus side it smells kind of sweet.

Polycarbonate (PC) emits BPA, with its worrying long-term health implications, while carbon fibers in particular can have asbestos-like long-term effects, as we covered previously. Definitely wear PPE while doing things like sanding CF parts and safely dispose of any debris.

Of course, you can do something about this problem, such as having an enclosure around the printer, with HEPA filtration and activated carbon, potentially exhausting into the outside air. The options here are covered in the video, including a BentoBox filter. For [Simon] the biggest improvement – as measured by a whole room sensor – came from a big fan in the window, while the default activated carbon filter in the Bambu Lab printer did effectively nothing.

The problem here is mostly one of long-term exposure, so even basic precautions like filtration and ventilation can already make all the difference. Ideally you’d not have the printer in the same room as where you work, of course, but adding a good filtration setup doesn’t have to be expensive or hard.

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Building Festival Badges That Sync Themselves Up

May 20, 2026 by No comments

Lots of music events these days hand out various glowing tchotchkes that flash and sync up with the performance. [Tony Goacher] has whipped up his own badges that can do just that, all without needing any sort of pairing or infrastructure to speak of.

The CrowdClock badges each feature a ring of 16 addressable RGB LEDs. Running the LEDs is an ESP32 microcontroller, which has lots of neat wireless capability baked in from the factory. [Tony] decided to leverage the ESP-NOW wireless communication protocol to enable each badge to broadcast its current local clock tick. Each device also listens out for clock ticks from other badges in the area, and updates its current clock tick value if it receives a higher one from another badge. This behaviour allows a bunch of badges within radio range to all sync up automatically in short order, and then run their LED sequences in sync. There’s no need for a master designation or anything, the devices just all sync to whichever badge has the highest clock value and go from there.

It’s a really neat way to create propagating self-syncing behaviour in distributed wireless nodes. Files are on Github for those curious to learn more. Meanwhile, if you’ve ever wondered how those concert wristbands work, we’ve looked at that too. Video after the break.

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A DIY 3D Printing Filament Dryer

May 20, 2026 by 11 Comments

In a recent video [Saša Karanović] revisits the DIY filament dryer that he gave a shot a couple of years ago. Back then he reused an existing filament dryer, adding a custom controller and such to improve its performance. This technically-not-fully-DIY dryer got some feedback since then, and thus the V2 version is an example of how to better DIY such a dryer, including a custom PCB and a GitHub project for all the details.

Those who just want to dive into the documentation for assembly and the BOM can look at the available documentation. At its core the whole assembly consists of some kind of container like the shown 5L food storage type, along with an SHT30 temperature and humidity sensor and 100K NTC temperature sensor. These connect to the controller board which then switches on or off the 12V polymide resistive heater.

One thing that could be improved here is that the saturated warm air has nowhere to go. This is a common issue with filament dryers and why it’s recommended with even commercial filament dryers like the common Sunlu types to leave them slightly ajar so that the moist air can be replaced with cooler air that can much more readily absorb moisture.

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DIY Potentiometer Is A Great Teaching Aid

May 20, 2026 by 10 Comments

A potentiometer is a simple electrical device that allows resistance to be varied at will. Most everyone in the electronics field is intimately familiar with how they work on a fundamental level. Of course, we all had to be taught once, though, and a great way to do that would be with a teaching tool like the one [DiscoLapy] built.

What you’re looking at here is a very simple potentiometer that bares its function for all to see. It consists of a 3D printed base and knob, which form the mechanical part of the device. A paper track is then laid on top to act as the main resistive element, once properly covered with graphite from a regular old pencil. From there, it’s as simple as adding the necessary contacts and wiper to the device, and you’ve got a potentiometer sitting in front of you.

What’s great about this build is that it’s very intuitive. Just by looking at it or putting it together, you get a straightforward understanding of everything that’s going on. By drawing the resistive trace, and by turning the knob, particularly if hooked up to an LED or something like in the demonstration, it’s easy to see how the potentiometer varies its resistance and affects a circuit.

We’ve featured some other fantastic teaching tools in the past, too. If you’ve got your own educational gems, be sure to let us know.