3d printed

688 Articles

Voicebox FX Is A Blueprint For CircuitPython I2S Audio

September 5, 2026 by 1 Comment

[Adafruit]’s Voicebox FX gadget is a fun, well-documented project that serves another useful purpose: being a fantastic reference design for audio on CircuitPython, with I2S audio components. Be sure to check it out if you have a project that involves any of that and could use a few pointers, or if you just want to jog a few ideas loose.

I2S (Inter-IC Sound) is a protocol aimed squarely at moving audio data between components as digital signals. Our own [Jenny List] can tell you everything you need to know about I2S. It’s a relatively simple interface that is not at all fussy about actually being used for audio, and that has led to it being put to some unusual uses.

The Voicebox FX uses an I2S microphone, an I2S amplifier, and an RP2350 microcontroller to record and play sound as well as offer a variety of effects controlled by physical inputs. It’s all wrapped up in a slick 3D printed case, and while it’s a fantastic reference design, it looks like a fun toy in its own right.

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Parchment Paper Paired With 3D-Printed Grid Gives A Nice Glow

September 4, 2026 by 14 Comments

This custom enclosure for a 64×64 RGB LED matrix by [Davisan1001] not only provides a mount point for a Raspberry Pi, but presents a clean and smooth face with square pixels thanks to a 3D-printed grid, some parchment paper, and a sheet of clear plastic.

The first clever thing in this design is the way [Davisan1001] created the grid that acts as a light blocker for each LED in the matrix, preventing light from “spilling” over into its neighbors. Instead of designing the grid from scratch, the solution was just to leverage slicer settings. By printing a flat square with a grid pattern infill and zero solid top and bottom layers, the slicer creates the grid all by itself. A little trial and error was required to get the spacing just right, but it seems to have worked out fine. We’re not sure it’s better than designing a grid in CAD, but it was certainly a clever way to avoid having to do so.

[Davisan1001] also struggled to find an effective and economical solution for a diffuser. Certainly, high-quality diffuser films are available for sale, as are specialty acrylic sheets, but surely there was some household DIY option to do the trick. A sheet of plain white paper blocks too much light. Wax paper handles poorly, and off-angle viewing is poor. The sweet spot was parchment paper.

Parchment paper is commonly used in baking and is thin, easy to handle, flat and even in color, and just opaque enough to act as an effective diffuser while still transmitting enough light to not impede clarity. Cover the LED matrix with the 3D-printed grid, lay parchment paper over that, cover with a sheet of clear plastic, and the job is done.

Light diffusion can be tricky to get just right in a DIY project, and what works for one application won’t necessarily work for another. Our community had loads of suggestions on different solutions, so consider this one more idea to try the next time you have a project that calls for it.

A Split Keyboard Designed For Human Hands

September 3, 2026 by 8 Comments

A surprising number of things we use in everyday life retain most of their design cues from their 19th century ancestors. The bicycle retains the same basic design as it had in 1890, as does the sewing machine, the toilet, the car, and of course, the keyboard and the QWERTY layout from old typewriters. But we aren’t doomed to have our technology perpetually living in the past. [Paul] wanted a keyboard designed around human hands, rather than being designed around a machine, so he built this unique split keyboard.

The design of this specific keyboard went through around 50 iterations before he was comfortable with it. Other design goals here were for it to be portable, and the split nature of this certainly makes it more compact as does the use of low-profile switches. Each finger’s column is angled and spaced based on the needs of that finger, with the ring finger keys sitting higher and the index finger columns angled inward. Each thumb has access to three keys, one of which is the spacebar and the other two layer keys, which is what enables this design to get down to only 36 total keys.

When thinking about it for any length of time, the modern keyboard’s design holdovers from the 1800s are fairly wasteful compared to this split, ergonomic version. Especially when looking at the spacebar, which ties up both thumbs and only performs a single task, there’s a lot of opportunity for modern designs to be more efficient, more portable, and easier on one’s body. Feel free to take this to the extreme and use all three dimensions, as long as you aren’t particularly concerned with portability.

Reject Fluid Simulations, Return To Rheoscopic Fluid

August 25, 2026 by 15 Comments

Fluid simulations are one of the “killer apps” of high-performance computing, but if you can’t afford the performance, they can take a depressingly long time to run. Depending on your use case, as long as you keep the Reynold’s number in mind– or are just looking for a qualitative look at pretty flows–you might be able to get away with purely-practical simulations using rheoscopic fluid, as [Visual Thinker] demonstrates in a recent video.

The fluid, as you can guess from the name, lets you scope out rheos— that’s flow, for those of you didn’t take Greek. Making it is as simple as you could ask for: get some mica flakes, which are readily available to add ‘sparkle’ to cosmetics, and mix with water and a drop of soap. The soap isn’t always necessary, but depending on your mica it helps keep it in suspension and avoid clumping– [Visual Thinker] found it helped him a good deal. Being flat plates of reflective material, the mica flakes catch the light and sparkle beautifully– and since they align with the fluid shear, they show you exactly what’s going on in your ‘simulation’.

[Visual Thinker] isn’t starting with serious simulations; the first thing he tries is essentially a toy that lets him see fluid flow around a Benchy by sticking magnets in it and using it to move a cross-section of its hull though a thin layer of fluid sandwitched betwixt pieces of laser-cut acrylic. We don’t call it a toy to disparage it, though– we totally want one. [Visual] mentions the idea of a coffee table combining the concept with the kind of underslung mechanism we see in sand drawing tables, which sounds dangerously hypnotic. If any of you build one, please try and tear your eyes away long enough to let us know.

He has another beautiful piece that make the video worth watching: a wind-tunnel, again made of laser-cut acrylic and printed parts. With careful consideration of the scale and flow speeds, that one might actually prove useful– and even if it doesn’t, it’s pretty enough that it doesn’t really matter. Beauty has its own utility sometimes.

Most wind tunnels we see around here use actual wind, but rheoscopic fluid was invented for this sort of thing, even if it does make for pretty baubles.

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3D Printed Scooter Fits In Your Luggage, Some Assembly Required

July 10, 2026 by 17 Comments

Though [Ivan Miranda] calls the 3D printed vehicle in his recent video a motorbike, what he ultimately pulls out of his suitcase is clearly a scooter. Linguistic confusion aside, the “Mirandetta” looks like an awesome build and pulling a scooter out of your suitcase and whizzing past everyone in the taxi line just sounds amazing, especially knowing you made it yourself.

Aside from a whole lot of filament, he’s got a couple of tool batteries for hot-swappable energy that Airport security shouldn’t mind too much — provided you carry them with you, anyway — plus the usual e-bike motor and electronic speed control you might expect, and lawnmower tires which you might not. The narrow 3D printed rims round over the normally-flat tires to make them usable for this application. He seems particularly taken with the bi-stable mechanism he built for the kickstand, and we can’t blame him as we love seeing that kind of thing ourselves. The TPU seat is also a nice touch to keep with ‘everything printed’ vibe.

Now while the finished product does indeed fit into his suitcase, it needs to be completely disassembled. Well, unless you have an over-sized suitcase, perhaps. So our dreams of zooming away from the luggage line from the first paragraph were perhaps a bit premature. Still, from the footage at Prague Maker Faire at the end of the video, it looks like it was a fun enough ride that we can forgive [Ivan] for our overactive imaginations.

If you want an open-source e-bike, we’ve seen those too — but that won’t fit in any kind of suitcase.

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A black plastic cube is shown in front of another, larger rectangular black plastic box. The plastic cube has a silver microscope objective protruding from one side, with green light being emitted from it into a small plastic tube held on a positioning stage.

2026 Frikkin Lasers Challenge: A 3D-Printed Raman Spectrometer

July 5, 2026 by 19 Comments

When light reflects off a surface, not all of it reflects off at the same wavelength; some photons impart a portion of their energy to raising the vibrational energy of the surface’s molecules, and are thus scattered away at a lower energy and longer wavelength. This is called Raman scattering, and the precise wavelength shifts are characteristic of the particular molecule being illuminated. It can therefore be used in Raman spectroscopy to identify molecules; these spectrometers are normally elaborate, expensive instruments, but [Allegedly Science] was able to build a simple system with surprising sensitivity.

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Make A DIY E-ink Faceplate For Valve’s Steam Machine

July 4, 2026 by 15 Comments

Valve has always designed hacker-friendly hardware, and in that spirit, [NaKyle Wright] released Inkterface, a design for an E-ink faceplate to fit the recently released Steam Machine. As far as projects go, this one is meticulously documented, so give it a peek.

The system uses a selection of components that include a 5.83″ E-ink panel and driver board, a small lithium-polymer battery, and an ESP32-based controller board.  A cleverly-designed 3D printed frame and bezel hold everything just so, creating a snug assembly with minimal wiring hassles.

A small service can be easily configured to control how the display updates.

The faceplate is wireless and self-contained, attaching with the help of four magnets. On the software side, the host machine communicates over Bluetooth, and a service takes care of pushing updates. An app for configuring and talking to the display will be available on Steam eventually, but in the meantime one can install that part manually.

[NaKyle]’s bill of materials calls for specific components, but the underlying design is very modular. Should one wish to make hardware or component changes, alterations to the 3D printed parts might be needed as well. Fortunately, [NaKyle] includes the .step files alongside the .stl models. We love to see that, because it makes tweaking or customizing so much more accessible. A homebrewed version of this E-ink panel might be just the thing to complement a homebrewed Steam machine.

Be sure to also check out the repository of Steam hardware, which contains drawings and 3D models of the Steam Deck and Steam Controller, useful for designing holders or custom brackets or whatever else one may need.