CNC’d, CNC-inspired Adjustable Wrench Won’t Round Your Bolts

August 6, 2026 by Tyler August 37 Comments

We’ve probably all got one item in our toolboxes or chests that we really, really don’t like, but find too handy to toss. For [Someone Should Make That], that item was the bolt-rounding adjustable wrench. Rather than continuing to gripe about it, or alter his habits to make greater use of the full wrench set he also owns, he decided to build a better mousetrap. By mousetrap, we mean adjustable wrench.

It took a couple of iterations on-screen before he hits on a solution that seems to work quite well indeed. The problem [Someone] had with his adjustable wrench was one of physical slop: once adjusted, there’s just too much play in the mechanism, which results in rounded-off bolt heads. [Someone]’s CNC’d solution takes inspiration from the CNC machine that manufactures it: he’s using spring-loading in the adjustment screw akin to what you find in the anti-backlash nut on your CNC mill or 3D printer’s ball threads. The tension from the springs keeps the wrench tight to the bolt, and that keeps [Someone] from rounding them off. Speaking of 3D printers, he prototyped in plastic before machining, and the screw in the end product stayed that way. It would be interesting to see how well that holds up.

Not only do we appreciate that it’s solved a common problem many of us have, the ethos of “this angers me, so I shall hack it” is one we support 100%, so do give a watch unless you’re one of those people who absolutely can’t stand videos, even when they’re spring-loaded to have no slop. There’s some good tips for beginner CNC operators in there, too.

This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to reinvent this particular wheel, though the last version we liked was a ratchet.

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UV Printer? 3D Printer? HeyGears Says “Why Not Both”?

August 1, 2026 by Tyler August 14 Comments

There’s a new contender in the prosumer UV printer world up on Kickstarter, the HeyGears G1. This one’s particularly interesting as they’re explicitly marketing it as being able to produce full-color 3D prints along with the “print-on-anything” functionality we’ve come to expect from a UV flatbed printer.

You get two choices of bed, with the larger being 420 mm x 320 mm x 130 mm. Hardly the largest build volume we’ve seen around here. You can fill that with up to 6 KG of UV ink/resin from its Epson-brand head in glorious full color and layers as small as 10 um. The ink isn’t super cheap — the CMYK kit looks to MRSP at 189 USD — but you aren’t locked in to expensive cartridges at least. HayGears sells ink in bottles, and you’re free to grab any other brand’s bottles if you want to risk it.

The Kickstarter is ongoing, and it will be some time before backers get their printers. But we can report that the early review copies, like the one [Steve Makes Everything] got for the video embedded below, seem to live up to the manufacturer’s claims, which is promising indeed. Certainly the idea of SLA quality without the mess is very appealing to many — though the super-early-bird price of two grand on Kickstarter and the doubtless higher MRSP may temper some of that interest.

If you’re curious about this UV printer business and why a maker might want one that doesn’t do 3D, our own [Tom Nardi] went hands-on with the EufyMake E1 last year.

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Hacking A Commercial Colorimeter To Add RAL Color Code Support

July 31, 2026 by Julian Scheffers 3 Comments

When you need to match paint colors, one of the tools you’ll reach for is a deck of reference colors. Another might be a colorimeter. But what if you want both? [hallko1234] created just that by reverse-engineering and then patching a CR4501 colorimeter.

It starts with a problem: every time [hallko1234] needed to check a color, he had to take a reading, write it down, run to the office, match it with a table, and then walk all the way back. That sounds like too much effort. The natural solution, of course, is to automate the process.

So he did. The CR4501 will happily give you its entire firmware over the debug port, after which it was time for analysis in Ghidra. Some hiccups, brickings and accidental erasure of calibration data later, he finally had a working version. The end result is a simple screen that, after every time you measure, displays the closest RAL color code and how close it is.

On the off chance someone else has the same colorimeter, he even made an online tool to install it for you.

Wireless LCD Streaming For The ANENG AN870 Multimeter

July 17, 2026 by Maya Posch 8 Comments

Having the information shown on the display of a digital multimeter also recorded off-screen can be incredibly useful, but unless the device exposes something like SCPI on a network interface, you will have to get creative. In the case of the budget ANENG AN870 digital multimeter (DMM), [Bits und Bolts] really wanted to show its display clearly as an overlay in OBS instead of just the camera view, but with said DMM not offering an easy way he had to resort to just copying the data sent to its multiplexed LCD.

The GitHub project page contains the background information, as well as the instructions if you too have this DMM. It might of course also be useful as the jumping off point for your own DMM modification. In total the project requires three modules: an RP2040 Zero and HC-12 433 MHz transceiver on the DMM side, and another HC-12 plus ESP32-C3 module on the receiving side. A boost module is also added to generate 3.3 V out of the 2.4 V – 3 V provided by the meter’s two AA cells.

To be able to read the LCD signal lines, a custom PCB was created that is installed inside the DMM. With the LCD’s segments mapped, this meant being able to send a perfect copy of the display’s state to the ESP32-C3 and from there making it available via WiFi.

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Building A Better CNC Hot Wire Foam Cutter

July 12, 2026 by Maya Posch 14 Comments

Cutting foam with a hot wire is a common technique to shape foam in a wide variety of shapes. If you want to cut something detailed and precise, like an airfoil, you probably want to use a computer-controlled cutting tool. Here [Michael Rechtin] has been working on creating a very versatile DIY CNC hot wire cutter, with the results recently announced in a video, along with the GitHub project repository if you want to give it a shake yourself.

Key in hot wire foam cutting is getting the nickel-chromium wire hot enough to gently slice through the foam rather than annihilating it or having the wire encounter significant resistance. For an automated cutter it either needs to be able to adjust the current on the fly, or have a predetermined optimal current for the cutting speed.

The machine itself is a 4-axis system, allowing the wire to be moved just about any way in between the two sides. It uses typical NEMA 17 stepper motors, along with other components that you’d find on a 3D printer. The same is true for the control board that processes the g-code from the software.

The unique part is the pulley-based mechanism that tensions the cutting wire, along with the way that the current gets passed through the wire, which uses MIG welding tips rather than just some alligator clips, which would probably also have worked but not looked as nice.

There are a few 3D-printed parts for which the STLs are provided, and the design is such that the entire assembly can be fairly easily collapsed into a compact shape that’s much easier to store if you’re not cutting foam every single day. For [Michael] cutting airfoils is the main use, for which you got a few software packages that are mentioned in the video.

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Die Casting Comes Home

July 9, 2026 by Tyler August 11 Comments

You don’t normally think of die casting as something to do at home. Pressurized fluids demand respect at all times, which is perhaps in part why we see most projects skipping hydraulics for linear actuators. When the pressurized fluid is molten metal? Well, we’d say don’t try this at home, except that’s exactly what this video by [Know Art] is making us want to do. He’s doing die-cast aluminum, and it looks way easier than we thought it would.

If you’re wondering why anyone would attempt such a thing, it’s for the same reason die-casting has been an industrial powerhouse for the last couple hundred years — you can crank out a lot of parts, very quickly, with excellent detail and dimensional stability. You just need a mold, which in this process is called a die, and a way to squeeze metal into it with some force.

In this case the die was carved on a desktop CNC machine. Depending on how long you want your die to last, you’ll need something hard and heat resistant, like the graphite used in this video. Graphite is also used in constructing the piston for the injector, which is made from a modified hydraulic cylinder and a couple of old trampoline springs.

He first tests the setup with molten wax before moving onto aluminum, as the process is the same regardless: pour the hot liquid in, release the springs to provide the pressure that forces it into the die, and a part is made. It looks easy, if a bit frantic, as you have to work fast before the metal cools in the cylinder.

After CNC milling, EDM machining and all the fun things we’ve learned how to do with lasers and 3D printers, and now this we’ve got to wonder– is there any industrial process you can’t hack onto your desktop? We’ve even seen the chemists get in on the game.

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Extract Fumes In Midcentury Style With Nixie Tubes And Military Surplus

July 5, 2026 by Tyler August 9 Comments

Nobody wants to breathe solder fumes; that’s a given. For most of us, an industrial-looking fan-and-filter made in China and picked up cheap feels like more than enough to keep our lungs clear. Other people, people like [George Conneely], have more refined tastes. Why have a fume extractor when you can have a work of art?

The insides aren’t quite as pretty as the outside, but it’s a clean build.

This is one of those projects where the images really speak for themselves, because the whole point is to be beautiful. Sure, the wooden case is lovingly sculpted by a—wait, it’s 3D-printed!? Yes, with the right stain and care applying it, it seems Wood PLA can fool the eye, or at least the camera. Inside that PLA case there’s a custom PCB with an ATMega microcontroller and some MOSFETS to drive the Nixie tubes. The two digits represent the fan’s set RPM as a percentage of maximum, as is clearly labeled. Using a READY/NOT READY indicator pulled from a Panvia Tornado to show whether the fan has actually spun up to its set speed is an amazing touch.

The only problem with this build is that it is too nice. We’d almost rather see it on Don Draper’s desk than risk dirtying it on a lab bench. Evidently, [George] ascribes to the philosophy that one should surround oneself with beauty whenever possible. Your tastes may differ, but to many, nixie tubes certainly qualify– whether on a desk clock or in a car’s dashboard, there’s just something about that incandescent glow.

Thanks to [George] for the tip.