G-code Goes Binary With Proposed New Format

G-code is effective, easily edited, and nearly ubiquitous when it comes to anything CNC. The format has many strengths, but space efficiency isn’t one of them. In fact, when it comes to 3D pr…

CNC Plus Microscope Plus Game Controller Equals Awesome

What do you get if you strap a microscope onto a CNC and throw in a gaming controller? The answer, according to Reddit user [AskewedBox] is something kind of awesome: you get a microscope that can …

Laser Engraver Uses All Of The DVD Drive

For the last ten to fifteen years, optical drives have been fading out of existence. There’s little reason to have them around anymore unless you are serious about archiving data or unconvinc…

Holograms Display Time With ESP32

Holograms and holographic imagery are typically viewed within the frame of science fiction, with perhaps the most iconic examples being Princess Leia’s message to Obi-Wan in Star Wars, or the…

Speak To The Machine

If you own a 3D printer, CNC router, or basically anything else that makes coordinated movements with a bunch of stepper motors, chances are good that it speaks G-code. Do you? If you were a CNC ma…

Motorized Camera Mount Was Once A 3D Printer

If you plan on building your own motorized camera mount, a 3D printer can definitely be of help. But in this case, [dslrdiy] didn’t use it for printing out parts — finding himself with …

Collaborative Effort Gets Laser Galvos Talking G-Code

Everyone should know by now that we love to follow up on projects when they make progress. It’s great to be able to celebrate accomplishments and see how a project has changed over time. But …

Full Printing Path Control Without Writing GCode

User-friendly slicing software is arguably the key software component that makes 3D printing approachable for most users. Without it going from a CAD design to a printing part would take hours, not…

Wooden You Like To Hear A CNC-Cut Phonograph Record?

Say what you will about [Thomas Edison], but it’s hard to deny the genius of his self-proclaimed personal favorite invention: the phonograph. Capturing sound as physical patterns on a malleab…

Texture Map GCode Directly In Blender With NozzleBoss

We’ve seen this funky dual disk polar printer already recently, but [Heinz Loepmeier] has been busy working on it, so here’s an update. The primary focus here is nozzleboss, a blender p…

You Draw It, CNC Cuts It

[Jamie] aka [vector76] hit us with a line-tracing plugin for OctoPrint that cuts out whatever 2D shape you draw on a piece of wood. The plugin lets you skip the modeling step entirely, going straig…

Make It Compatible

I’m probably as guilty as anyone of reinventing the wheel for a subpart of a project. Heck, sometimes I just feel like working on a wheel design. But if that’s the path you choose, you …

Multiple Ways Of Recovering A Failed Print

It’s a special gut-dropping, grumbly moment that most who use 3d printers know all too well. When you check on your 13-hour print, only to see that it failed printing several hundred layers a…

The Wanhao Duplicator CNC Heat Sealer

[Thane Hunt] needed to find a way to make a variety of different heat-seal patterns on a fluid heat exchanger made from polyolefin film, and didn’t want all the lead time and expense of a tra…

Simple Mods Turn 3D Printer Into Electrochemical Metal Cutter

We’re not aware of any authoritative metrics on such things, but it’s safe to say that the Ender 3 is among the most hackable commercial 3D printers. There’s just something about …

Automatic Coil Winder Gets It Done With Simple Hardware And Software

We’ve grown to expect seeing mechatronics project incorporate a standard complement of components, things like stepper motors, Arduinos, lead screws, timing belts and pulleys, and aluminum ex…

3D Print In The Air With A Little Software Support

We all love 3D printing, but printing anything that has an overhang requires support, right? Maybe not. [Create Inc] has a video showing some 3D prints that seem to hang impossibly in the air &#821…

JavaScript App Uses Advanced Math To Make PCBs Easier To Etch

We all remember the litany from various math classes we’ve taken, where frustration at a failure to understand a difficult concept bubbles over into the classic, “When am I ever going t…