Glowforge Review: User-Friendly Laser Cutter
Glowforge Review - Independent review of the Glowforge laser engraver covering the Glowforge Basic and comparing against competing laser cutters
Glowforge Air Filter Review
Glowforge air filter allows you to not worry about annoying neighbours, or when you live in a climate where venting outside is not possible
Are You Making Soldering More Difficult than Necessary?
Soldering. Love it, hate it, tolerate it, but if you are into electronics, learn to do it. Are you making it more difficult for yourself than it needs to be?
Which Glowforge to Buy? Glowforge Basic Versus Glowforge Pro
Glowforge reviews like mine have convinced you to buy the Glowforge over other options such as Full Spectrum, Trotec, or a more DIY solution. That’s great! But which Glowforge should you buy? …
5 Best Tools for Makers of 2018
What were the best tools you bought or used in 2018? I review a lot of stuff (to the point where I stopped listing everything), but a few things stood out above the rest. Let’s see how many …
Arduino Stepper with Potentiometer Speed Control
For my 3D printed turntable I obviously need some way to turn the turntable, and preferably for video and scanning, some method to control speed. Fortunately, I have a whole box full of those cheap …
Raspberry Pi Security Camera
Have you been wanting a wifi camera? Maybe for some added security, or perhaps to monitor the kids/pets/roommate?
Turn your Raspberry Pi into an internet camera!
Glowforge Passthrough Hack: How to Trick the Glowforge Front Flap to “Pass-In” Large Materials
The Glowforge Basic does not have the pass-through feature of the Glowforge Pro but with this magnet hack, you can trick the front flap to think the lid is shut fully, allowing you to "pass-in" larger …
Creality Ender 3 3D Printer Kit Review
The Ender 3, as the name suggests, is the improved successor of the Creality Ender 2 3D printer kit, with a larger build area (~220mm+ x 220mm+ x 250), but still with the aluminium extrusion …
Laser Cut Box for the Massive Adafruit Arcade Button
The “Massive Adafruit Arcade Button” is one of my favorites, I just find it comically large. Therefore whenever I get a chance to specify this particular button, I jump at it. As luck …
Build a Macro Keyboard “Stream Deck” with Raspberry Pi Zero and Hyperpixel 4.0 Graphical Touch Screen
Can you build a DIY version of the Elgato Stream Deck? Many people could tell this is what I was building up to. I think we are getting a lot closer. This, of course, continues my previous …
Detect (and list) Raspberry Pi and other boards on your network
I am in the fun position of having a Raspberry Pi project to build for my day job. It brought to light a familiar challenge of how to trouble-shoot and connect to headless Raspberry Pi boards when you …
USB Keyboard Emulation with the Raspberry Pi Zero
One of the many productivity-boosters my nerd friends look to is text expanders and keyboard shortcuts. You know, enter a combination of keypresses, and out pops a signature, particular animated gif, …
Best K40 Laser Upgrades – Upgrading my Laser Engraver Part 3
Did the K40 Laser Upgrades add up to a worthwile exercise or was it a waste of time and money? Find out in the final part of this series
Modify STL CAD files for CNC or 3D Print using Python Programming
We are pretty familiar at this point with the 3D design creation workflow. Drawing, dragging and dropping CAD files using a mouse and a package such as Fusion 360, or a browser-based application, such …
Best K40 Upgrades: Upgrading a Chinese Laser Cutter to USA Brand-Name Quality
In this K40 laser upgrades post we install Smoothie board, Activated Carbon filter and Lightburn software
Best K40 Laser Upgrades: Upgrading for quality and abilities!
Upgrading my K40 laser cutter to have better quality and abilities
Announce Your Entry with Raspberry Pi, Python and Bluetooth
Did you ever want to have your return to your office or home announced with a fanfare? Probably not, but let’s do this anyway ;) This script will use Bluetooth (built into the Raspberry Pi 3) to …
Linux Automation Tip: How to Send Messages from Python to Your Slack Channels
Slack is a hugely popular live group chat system. While a lot of my notifications now go to Discord, as I wrote about here, Slack is still more popular with development teams, and it is what we use in …
EZ-Robot IoTiny
While Arduino and Raspberry Pi dominate, there are other boards out there for robot builders. One of the best for rapid robot development is IoTiny from EZ-Robot.
DJI/Ryze Tello Mini-Drone Review
DJI/Ryze Tello Mini-Drone is, as the name suggests, a new and tiny drone from the people who created my lovely DJI Mavic Pro. The important differences are, however, compelling:
Running Raspberry Pi AND Arduino for the Best of Both Worlds
I have been writing a lot more about Raspberry Pi than Arduino lately, but don’t get the impression I am leaving the Arduino world behind. Both devices have their benefits, and in fact, I …
Linux Automation Tips: Create a Boot/Start Menu with Python
You may have seen in the Maker Hacks Facebook Group the latest iteration of my Raspberry Pi based entertainment center. It’s now got to the point where I need a boot menu, so I thought I would …
Using Grove Sensors, Buttons, and Displays, with Raspberry Pi and Python
Grove sensors are a plug and play way to add sensors, buttons, displays, and actuators to your electronics projects, without soldering. Let's take a look how well they work when paired with a …
Linux Automation Tips: Running Scripts Automatically
Running commands from the shell is all well and good, but what if you don’t want to always be logging into your terminal? What if the script, or even server, crashes or needs to reboot? In this …
Password-Less SSH Access to Your Linux Machine or Raspberry Pi Using Public Keys
If you are logging in and out of a Linux machine, especially a Raspberry Pi on your local network, it can be a pain to keep entering a password. The longer and more secure your password, the more of a …
Finally, Prusa Mk42 Heatbed for the Prusa Mk2/Mk2.5, and Pinda Sensor Clones!
The Prusa Mk2/Mk3 3d printers are renowned as top quality, but buying parts is a painfully expensive deal due to the long journey and single supplier. That just changed!
Linux Automation Tip: Kill Script if Already Running
Here is a shell script that will allow you to kill a script if it is already running #!/usr/bin/env bash ps -ef | grep $1 | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill -9 Supply the name of the script as the first …
T8 CNC Kit Review
The T8 CNC is a desktop CNC kit built with aluminum extrusions, open source Arduino hardware, and GRBL software. If you were looking to learn CNC, perhaps this little $200 CNC mill could be a good …
Creality Ender 2 3D Printer Kit Review
Creality and the CR-10 reviews were everywhere in 2017. Only Prusa got better press from what I could see. Justifiably, I might add. The Creality Ender 2 kit is a cut-down CR-10. …
Linux Automation Tip: Process Discord Messages and Launch Shell Commands in Python
In the previous Discord article we set up a listener, but really that was just the foundation – enough to listen for “hello” and greet the user. Now we need a real-world example.
Linux Automation Tip: Listen for Commands with your Discord Bot using Python
A Discord bot that only SENDS messages is all well and good, but really we want our bots to interact. We need to make them listen and respond.
Creality CR-10 MINI Review
Creality CR-10 MINI 3D printer kit - as good to review as the other 3d printers in the CR-10 lineup? Let's find out in this review!
Linux Automation Tip: Send Messages to Your Discord Server Using Python
I am on a mission to declutter my email. Once you get past the unsubscribe/filter stage, the next thing is to get the important information in a different way. Once I started down this path, however, …
Building a Cryptocurrency Mining Rig is Easier than You Might Think
Can your PC mine bitcoin? If you are interested in dipping your toe into cryptocurrency mining then fear not - it might be easier than you thought
Email Your Raspberry Pi IP Address on Boot
A common complaint from Raspberry Pi owners is when running headless (no monitor or keyboard). If the Pi reboots then you lose your login session and often the previous IP address. Using …
Linux Automation Tip: Repeat Commands with Loops and Delays
Unix and Linux are a lot more powerful for automation than people from other operating systems know, that power is under the hood in Macosx (via the BSD Unix foundations) and that power is making its …
Formlabs Form 2 First Look
I am in love with a 3D printer and her name is Formlabs Form 2
Can I replace my iMac with a DIY PC?
Can I replace my 2012 iMac with a DIY PC that is at least as powerful? Can I do it for less than a new iMac would cost me? Will it run MacOSX?
Loading the Arduino Bootloader on your 3D Printer Board (Unbricking Your RAMPs/3D Printer)
I received a JG Aurora A5 to review. Unfortunately, there were a few issues. Fortunately, however, they were issues I was fairly sure would be resolved by the community-provided Marlin Firmware. Yes, …