Joy-Cons Plus WiiMotes Make For Switch 2 Wii-Cons

August 18, 2026 by No comments

As popular as the Nintendo Switch and its sequel are, it’s hard to argue that its click-on Joy-Con controllers are ergonomic, barring you having very uniquely shaped hands. This thought and a stack of Wii controllers led [KOUZEX] to the mad project of merging Joy-Cons and WiiMotes into what can affectionately be called Wii-Cons, or perhaps JoyMotes.

Suffice it to say that it’s not a very clean or easy mod, and you could definitely make the point that a custom PCB and 3D-printed shell would  have been a lot easier. Making space for the Joy-Con’s side rail, thumb stick and PCB without simply tossing the WiiMote’s PCB was a tough ask, and these are two WiiMotes that will never connect to a Wii again.

With the WiiMote-shaped Joy-Cons working pretty well after all that work, the issue of remapping Joy-Con buttons that have no match on WiiMotes was probably the biggest headache. Here having said custom version could be rather helpful to have more control over the button layout, also to not have to keep harvesting the dwindling supply of WiiMotes to make WiiCons. It might even be possible to keep all the WiiMote functionality that way, to really blow people’s minds when you use your fancy Joy-Cons to next play a game on an original Wii.

Continue reading “Joy-Cons Plus WiiMotes Make For Switch 2 Wii-Cons” →

Compress Links For Optimal QR Codes

August 18, 2026 by 9 Comments

Link shorteners have been a staple of the online world for over two decades now, but they’ve got some issues– for one thing, it’s totally non-transparent where the link actually goes, leaving you open to all sorts of shenanigans, of which RickRolling is probably the best case. For two, your traffic is going through an external service who may have their own nefarious intent. [PortalRunner] had an idea: don’t shorten the link, but compress it.

You see, a traditional URL shortener like tinyurl just generates a random code and associates that with your original link in its database. That’s fine, but you’re relying on a third party database. The alternative is to take the URL, encode it in some way, and apply some compression algorithm to the data. If the encoding and compression are open-source– which [Portal ]’s absolutely are— then you can check yourself before following the link, and/or self-host the whole thing for piece of mind. As a bonus [Portal]’s Ha.mr– that’s pronounced Hammer– also gives you a QR code optimized for easy scanning. QR codes have a specific alphanumeric character set built in, and it isn’t the full UTF-8– if you naively use random text, you’re in byte mode, which needs a lot more QR real estate. Or inverting that, the fewer bits it has to store, the easier a qr code is to scan at the same size. The text version of the compressed links can use UTF-8– including emoticons– but they don’t have to.

The whole project has a “why isn’t everyone doing it this way” vibe about it. We’d probably want to self-host this if we were using it seriously– [Portal] put this together on a lark and makes no promises it will be online forever–but again, this is open source, so we can. [Portal] is using normal compression algorithms here, but if you really want to squeeze text, use a neural net. 

Continue reading “Compress Links For Optimal QR Codes” →

A Hot End And Material Database For 3D Printing

August 18, 2026 by 3 Comments

When it comes to 3D printing in the FDM world, you can go a long way just relying on standard settings that ship with your 3D printer and/or slicer. If you want to push the limits, though, it pays to better understand the hardware and materials you’re working with to know what you can get away with. To that end, [Robert Samples] put together the MeltCalc database to help. 

The purpose of MeltCalc is simple—it collates data on hot ends and materials regarding factors like maximum flow rate, print speeds, and heater requirements. If you’re wondering whether a given hot end can flow a given filament at a given rate, for example, this tool is a great place to start. It features 64 different hot ends and 36 polymers typically used in the 3D printing world, and can spit out maximum flow rates and print speed estimations even accounting for fancy tech like Core Heating Technology (CHT) nozzles. It’s all based on thermodynamic modelling which [Robert] put together based on his experience as a chemist who works with polymers. His aim was to provide a tool with realistic flow rates for hot ends, so that end users don’t have to just rely on often-optimistic marketing numbers.

For those eager to dive deeper into the code and modelling, the project source is available on Github. We’ve featured all kinds of other useful hacks in this space lately, too, like our recent look at how to achieve wave overhangs. If you’ve got your own nifty 3D printing tools in the works, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline.

Reverse Engineered Grill Controller Gets Open Firmware

August 18, 2026 by 5 Comments

If you are a regular reader, then the odds are you have taken apart an electronic gadget, either for a fix, or simply because your curiosity got the better of you. Once inside, it’s all but impossible to help yourself from doing at least a little reverse engineering. That’s what happened when [PRBS23] took a look inside a Gravity 800 Grill for a simple wire fix. But one thing led to the next, and now open source firmware for the grill is freely available!

Control board schematic.
Control board schematic.

The first order of business in creating the firmware is reverse engineering the original controller. Opening it up immediately reveals an ESP-32 and a well-labeled programming port. The rest of the control board is equally simple, including connectors for four thermistor temperature sensors, lid open/close switch, fan driver, 16 segment LCD, piezo buzzer, and some physical inputs.

The thermistor along with the physical inputs are connected to a 16 pin chip, interfacing with the MCU over a 9600 baud UART connection. [PRBS23] cannot determine an ADC chip meeting these specifications, so the most likely answer is a cheap MCU programmed to act as a simple analog fronted.

The neatly labeled programming header is used to quite easily dump the firmware with the espflash utility. Analyzing this dump reveals a rather strange ADC correction function used by the original firmware. The necessity and overall utility of this function remains unclear, does corrects a maximum of around 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Most of the other features ended up being at least somewhat easier. The CS1621 segmented display driver is reasonably well documented with datasheets making its implementation far easier. Likewise, the other odds and ends were implemented in a far more normal manner compared to the thermistors.

All this reverse engineering work got tied together into a neat little firmware package. It comes with over the air updates PID controlled temperature, and a real-time web interface. This also isn’t the first time we have seen an IoT device liberated from proprietary firmware, and this remains one of our favorite uses of reverse engineering!

 

An open-source, DIY, point-and-shoot digital camera.

PolyShot Camera Focuses On Nostalgia

August 18, 2026 by 6 Comments

Although we personally have yet to see anyone brandishing an old digital point-and-shoot camera, we hear they’re back in vogue. Why, though? People are nostalgic for that image quality. While he certainly could have simply picked up a vintage model somewhere for a likely inflated price, [Arnov Sharma] decided to build his own version and call it the PolyShot.

The core of this project is the Unihiker K10 dev board, which uses an ESP32-S3, a whopping 2 megapixel camera, and a micro SD card to capture photos and display them back on the screen. The tricky part, if you can call it that, is the custom PCB. It’s a simple board with just three buttons: shutter, gallery, and next image. We do like that the position of the battery compartment creates a nice grip.

The biggest difference here is that there is a few-second delay between pressing the shutter button and actually capturing the image, which you can see in the short videos below. So if you’re trying to get a shot of a skink or something equally speedy, we wish you good luck.

In a future iteration, [Arnov] wants to address the issue of image quality, because this project ended up evolving into a more traditional digital camera. He would also improve the battery life, for which the current expectancy is around three hours on a charge. Ultimately, [Arnov] wants to ditch the Unihiker and design everything from the ground up, using an ESP32-S3 module.

Continue reading “PolyShot Camera Focuses On Nostalgia” →

Announcing The 2026 Hackaday Retrocomputing Challenge

August 18, 2026 by 4 Comments

What is it about retrocomputing? For some people, it’s nostalgia. For others, it’s the appeal of simplicity. For still others, it’s the chance to save old machines from the graveyard. Whatever your motivation, there’s no denying that we’ve seen a metric ton of retrocomputer projects here at Hackaday. And we’d like to see more!

We’re happy to announce the 2026 Hackaday Retrocomputing Challenge!

Now’s the chance to put your retrocomputer project up for all to see. Open up a Hackaday.io project that features your retrocomputer project, and we’ll pick our three favorites for a $150 gift certificate courtesy of this contest’s sponsor, DigiKey. You have until Tuesday, October 27th. So get hacking!

Continue reading “Announcing The 2026 Hackaday Retrocomputing Challenge” →

So, You Want To Fix An Old Camera

August 18, 2026 by 10 Comments

Old cameras are a fantastic way to experiment with photography, and outside a few brands, they can be an inexpensive way too. It’s easy to find older cameras in a broken condition for  a lot less money, but if you’re tempted to fix one then [enthdegree] has some advice for you.

It’s ostensibly a set of notes on the disassembly and repair of a Nikon F100 35mm film SLR, but along the way it’s full of useful tips and tricks for camera disassembly. he materials you’ll need, advice on not losing screws is one, and warnings against disassembling too much is another. It’s all the stuff he wished he’d known before starting, and now you can know it too.

Fixing up old cameras in this way is rewarding, and something we’ve certainly been known to do ourselves. But it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s not for the faint-hearted, and with decades of old film cameras sitting unused, often a working example might make more sense.