Wrist Welcomes Wii Nunchuk As Gloriously Ergonomic Macropad

August 7, 2026 by Donald Papp 4 Comments

[John Dingley] spends a lot of time editing videos, and as many of us know, when it comes to repetitive tasks the more ergonomic the better.

Keyboard shortcuts exist for common video editing functions, but [John] found that the vast majority of his work needed only three or four of them. Feeling he could do better than a three-key macropad, he turned to what’s perhaps one of the most ergonomic devices ever designed — the Wii Nunchuk.

A Wii Nunchuk is an I2C device, so there needs to be some intermediary device involved if you want to plug it into a computer. [John] solves that with the ANAVI Handle, an open source adapter to make a Nunchuk act like a USB Human Interface Device (HID). That addresses the connectivity problem, but the default firmware on the adapter only treats the Nunchuk as a mouse or joystick, so a few more changes are required before it can be pressed into service as an ultra-comfortable macropad.

The ANAVI Handle runs CircuitPython code on an RP2040, and modifying its behavior is as simple as plugging it in via USB and editing the code right on the device. One has to define some keyboard events, configure the device to act as a keyboard, and send the right events when the buttons or joystick get pushed. [John] provides the code, and walks through the changes on video so even those without any coding experience can get it done.

The Nunchuk design is still being sold and used today, and it’s shown up in all kinds of places. We’ve seen a Bluetooth-enabled one and even seen a Raspberry Pi Zero shoehorned into one, complete with HDMI output.

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A Compact Game Controller For Your Phone

August 1, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 9 Comments

[Gil Yankovitch] noted that playing games on a touchscreen phone gave up a certain something in terms of the tactile feedback one gets from real buttons. To that end, he was inspired to build a controller specifically for phones that solved this very problem.

The result was JoyFon. It’s a small gamepad built around the Raspberry Pi Pico, and can be put together around an RP2040 or an RP2350 as desired. It has four face buttons, a directional pad, and start and select buttons, as well as additional shoulder buttons up top in later revisions.

The JoyFon enumerates as a standard USB HID gamepad, so you could use it to play games on just about any PC, laptop, or tablet. However, the JoyFon is specifically designed for use with smartphones in the vertical orientation. This guided the design of the 3D printed enclosure, which positions the USB-C port to plug into the base of a phone, such that the buttons sit neatly beneath it. It does cover some of the phone screen, but that’s not always a problem when playing emulated games with a 4:3 or similar aspect ratio. The result is a button and screen layout not dissimilar to that of the original Game Boy handhelds.

We’ve seen some other great custom controller builds over the years, like this fantastic design using keyswitches.

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Homebrew Macropad Looks Good

June 12, 2026 by Al Williams No comments

We are fans of macro pads and especially homebrew ones. The Apna Dost project by [np_vishwakarma] ticks most of our boxes. In addition to a few buttons, there’s an encoder, an OLED display, and it runs QMK firmware. Plus, it looks good, too.

We like that the system uses an RP2040. It is possible you have everything you need to put one of these together right now. We would wish for a few more keys, but it wouldn’t be hard to add them, either.

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Custom Mainboard For PS2 Portable

May 13, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 7 Comments

As time marches on, the retro gaming community gets more and more access to older systems. This is partially a product of modern computing having much more power to emulate more demanding systems, but also because many in the community have spent more time with their favorite systems. Such is the case for [tschicki] who has spent considerable time and effort reverse engineering the Playstation 2 to come up with this custom mainboard for a handheld version that still uses some of the original chips from the console.

This Playstation 2 handheld console is designed almost completely from the ground up, not just including the impressive main board but also its modernized features, including USB power delivery handled by an RP2040, digital video output, support for modern storage media like SD cards, a customized boot ROM, and upgraded audio. The DualShock 2 controller is also implemented within the handheld, and the case itself is designed to be 3D printed. It’s an impressive effort which preserves the original feel of the console without relying too much on ancient hardware for everything.

Before jumping in to building one yourself, though, [tschicki] cautions that this project is not for the faint of heart, as it requires some specilized tools and a high degree of skill, but for those still wishing to attempt this build all of the instructions are available on the project site. For such a popular console it’s no surprise we’ve seen plenty of other handheld PS2s before, from this one which uses an original PS2 mainboard to this one we featured way back in 2010.

Thanks to [raz] for the tip!

DIY Electrolysis Machine Removes Hair Permanently

May 7, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 38 Comments

If you talk to the FDA, there’s only one permanent method of hair removal—electrolysis. This involves sticking a needle into a hair follicle, getting it very hot or running a current through it, and then letting heat and/or the lye generated kill the root of the hair dead. Normally, you’d pay someone with a commercial machine to do this for you at great expense. Or, you could do it yourself with a home-built machine, as [n3tcat] did.

Based on the available information out in the wild, [n3tcat] decided to build a galvanic electrolysis machine. This specifically passes current through a needle in the hair follicle to generate lye at the hair bulb, which kills it. The amount of lye generated depends on the amount of current and the time over which it is applied. More lye is more likely to kill a follicle permanently, though there are limits with regards to avoiding scarring, other skin damage, and excessive pain.

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Digital Signal Processing On The Pi Pico

April 29, 2026 by Al Williams 10 Comments

If you want to dabble in audio digital signal processing, you would probably think of grabbing a dedicated DSP chip. But thanks to [WeebLabs], you could just pick up a Pi Pico and use this full-featured DSP library.

The system supports plug-and-play USB audio interface that enumerates on Windows, Linux, macOS, and iOS. It can handle 16- or 24-bit inputs at up to 96 kHz. You can output up to four channels of 24-bit S/PDIF or I2S, or switch to an RP2350 to get eight channels. This lets you drive a DAC easily. There is also a direct output for a subwoofer that doesn’t require a DAC.

Each channel has a pre-amp, and a matrix mixer allows routing with different gains and phases for each input. An equalizer allows ten bands per channel. There are also modules to do volume leveling, loudness compensation, and headphone cross-feed.

The library uses both cores of the CPU and manages up to ten preset configurations. The Pico does get an overclock and uses a fixed-point representation. The Pico 2 (RP2350) doesn’t need overclocking and uses single-precision floating point.

Overall, this looks like a great base for any sort of soundcard-like project. We’ve seen DSP stunts on the Pico before. This might also make a nice base for other audio projects.

Simulating The AVR8 For A Browser-based Arduino Emulator

April 6, 2026 by Fenix Guthrie 10 Comments

It’s always nice to simulate a project before soldering a board together. Tools like QUCS run locally and work quite well for analog circuits, but can fall short with programmable logic. Tools like Wokwi handle the programmable side quite well but may have license issues or require the cloud. The Velxio project by [David Montero Crespo] is quite an excellent example of an (online) circuit simulator with programmable logic and local execution!

It’s built largely around Wowki’s AVR8JS library for Arduino simulation. All CPU simulation occurs on the local computer, while sketch compilation happens on the backend using official Arduino tools. But this was certainly not the most impressive aspect of the project. Likewise, Velxio features RP2040 execution using the rp2040js library. It also features the execution of some ESP32 derivative boards built around the RISC-V architecture using the RiscVCore.ts library.

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