DIY

From waste to 3D filament: PETFusion 2.0 allows users of 3D printers to virtually produce their own filament from plastic bottles. The second generation of the machine promises higher productivity and comes with two nozzles.

Backflip AI, a 3D design platform, generates complex 3D models from text input or images. Theses are suitable for numerous applications, including 3D printing and game development.

CheckMag The impending end of Windows 10 support (October 2025) from Microsoft means that many owners of older computers will have to switch to a different operating system. One alternative could be Google's free ChromeOS Flex, which runs quite well on weak hardware.

The T-Keyboard S3 Pro is a modular, multifunctional macro keyboard with a rotary control. This is designed for particular uses, not only in video games but also in productive contexts.

Anycubic has a new 3D printer in the pipeline. Capable of printing with different colours and materials, this model is an enclosed system designed to be especially easy to use.

Starforge Systems has expanded its gaming- and anime-inspired PC case line-up with a Terraria edition, featuring art from the fan-favourite indie adventure RPG, Terraria, printed on a Lian Li O11D Evo RGB case. There is also a $2,049.99 limited-edition pre-built PC built in the same case.

The Pico W5 is an alternative to a compact Raspberry Pi board with numerous configuration possibilities. Various sensors and actuators can be connected, and the board may also be predestined for smart home projects.

The Anycubic Kobra 3 Max Combo is a 3D printer featuring a large print volume and multicolour support. It can also store multiple filament spools at proper humidity to increase their shelf life.

A good number of gaming handhelds have been introduced in the last few years, and Playdate is among the ones that got very popular. The slightly open-source nature even allows modders to bring out new creations, and PlayBot is one of them.

In their latest video, The Thought Emporium discusses the science and practical applications of the channel's latest and most advanced open-source radio telescope, the XJ9. Featuring a modular design and a host of radio-focused features, the XJ9 is an enticing project for radio enthusiasts.

Built on the ESP32-S3, CapibaraZero has arrived to offer an alternative to the popular but expensive Flipper Zero hacking gadget. While less refined than the Flipper Zero, this project maintains much of the same functionality.

The T5 E-Paper S3 Pro is a developer board with an E Ink touchscreen, wireless connectivity and wireless charging. The device is thus extremely versatile and also supports wireless connective via LoRa.

YouTuber Marcin Plaza has once again spent the last three months working on a very exciting project. Fans of DIY engineering projects will not be disappointed with his latest video. Marcin was dissatisfied with the current gaming handheld market, so he built his own from an old Lenovo Yoga laptop. He also designed the controller from scratch using an Arduino Pro Micro.

After over 22 years in development, FreeCAD 1.0 is finally available, with the latest release bringing much-needed UI tweaks and a new assembly module. The development team says it is dedicated to improving the FreeCAD project, but that it has solved the last two major problems that held back the 1.0 release.

CheckMag The Epomaker TH40 is an excellent affordable entry to the 40% keyboard form factor, but in our recent review, we found that it was impossible to use with the out-of-the-box layers and key bindings. Here's how we set up and optimised the Epomaker TH40 for general use and typing.

Corsair's 24.4 litre 2000D Airflow mini-ITX PC case has been discounted by a whopping 53% on Amazon, making it a rare budget small-form-factor mini-ITX case for DIY PC builders, at just $49.99. The Corsair 2000D Airflow has space for triple slot GPUs up to 365 mm long, and can fit a triple-fan setup or 360 mm liquid cooling radiator.

The Official Raspberry Pi Touch Display first launched over 9 years ago, offering a paltry 800 x 480 resolution. Used in projects and embedded products the world over for nearly a decade, the official panel has finally been upgraded with the same $60 price tag.

While gaming handhelds are becoming cheaper than before, you can always use the hardware available to you to build one. That's pretty much what modder Beth Le did, building a gaming handheld with a Framework laptop motherboard.

An enterprising engineer has reverse-engineered Apple's MacBook storage interface and created a slotted SSD solution for Apple's laptops. Although the mod certainly voids the warranty and likely hardly makes sense from a cost point of view, it calls into question Apple's reasoning for opting for a complicated soldered storage solution.

Beelink just announced that its Multi-Functional EX docking station for mini PCs is now open-source with free plans for anyone to use. Along with the announcement, Beelink published documentation to build the PCIe-enabled docking station. It hopes that access to the plans for the accessory will enrich the mini PC ecosystem.

Bambu Lab has launched an AI based text-to-3D tool that lets you create Pokemon-like characters from your own imagination. PrintMon Maker generates full-colour 3D models, which can then be edited, refined and printed directly from Bambu Studio or by downloading an OBJ file. The entire process requires little to no knowledge of 3D modelling and printing.

iFixit's latest teardown might help confirm a lot of suspicions held by virtual reality (VR) fans about Meta's latest Quest 3S headset - the fact that it is more of a direct Quest 2 successor included. In fact, some parts can even be swapped between the 2 devices, which seems to be a thrifty move on the OEM's part.

Oriolus has opened pre-order sales for the OA-JC3 USB DAC and OA-JC5 headphone amplifier kits, which can be assembled without soldering. Both devices utilize vacuum tubes for warm, rich sound reproduction.

The Ploopy Trackpad is a 3D printed trackpad with multi-touch gesture support and a high degree of customisability, thanks to its QMK firmware and 3D printed construction. All of the part files, QMK firmware, and build instructions are available online for free, but Ploopy also sells a $72.50 DIY build kit and a pre-assembled trackpad for $94.25

Apple's new metallic battery housing might end up being one of the iPhone 16 Pro's most important upgrades in the long run - accordingly, it is a shame that there is no see-through version of the new flagship. A prominent teardown vlogger has set out to fix that, however, with the help of some unexpected equipment.

CheckMag Google is notorious for tracking people across websites, and this extends to almost every service it offers, including Android and YouTube. If you are on a quest to escape Google's aggressive data practices, you might want to consider hosting your own YouTube front end. But how easy is it, and is it worth it?

Oddly Specific Objects has launched a crowdfunding campaign for the Sensor Watch Pro for Casio F-91W and A158W digital watches. The product allows you to replace the watch’s quartz crystal with an ARM Cortex M0+ microcontroller. This brings Movement firmware with a wide range of features, including interval timers, Wordle and a TOTP Authenticator.

A new YouTube channel has popped up with an incredible video detailing how to convert an old Apple Desktop Bus mechanical keyboard from an outdated wired connector to a USB type-C/wireless keyboard. He also managed to add in some nifty features, like an OLED display and open-source ZMK firmware for endless customisability. All project files are also available on GitHub.

Nintendo is expected to launch the Switch 2 sometime before April 2024, but a new Lite variant is likely a few years away. As for the current Switch Lite, the new SUPER5 OLED mod has just offered it an unofficial screen upgrade.

CheckMag The PS5 Pro is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. At $699 (plus $75 extra if you want a physical disk drive), that’s a good chunk of change for a device that only really plays games. So, exactly how much PC could one buy for that amount of cash, and would it be competitive?

Apple boasts that the latest button added to the new iPhone 16 series is as robust as it is novel, with a sapphire crystal coating. That is just as well, as it can't be replaced if it does break, according to some knowledgeable YouTubers. The findings might set the Cupertino giant's well-hyped progress in iPhone reparability back somewhat.

The vanilla 16 and 16 Plus are touted to be the first iPhones capable of killing the pull-tab with a new and potentially easier way to remove their batteries. The device teardown group iFixit set out to make sure that this new "debond on demand" process can indeed improve reparability in the latest base-model iPhone.

Apple asserts that it will include features to make the independent repair of iPhones easier, safer and more legitimate in the next major upgrade to iOS. Some teardown vloggers have found that some of the Cupertino giant's infamous ''software locks" are indeed gone in the new build - however, it seems that the use of the OEM's new and supposedly repair-friendly options come with some drawbacks all their own.

The RedMagic Nova is about to hit the international market as the first Android tablet with active, fan-powered cooling for its top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Leading Version processor. Do these custom "unparalleled gaming" features make it any harder to take the tablet apart? A well-known teardown vlogger finds out in a new video.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold Google's latest foldable smartphone, and seems to be one that has made strides in terms of internal design despite being only a second-gen product, according to a new teardown video. Then again, the new top-end flagship has some of the same drawbacks as its non-foldable counterpart in this regard.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL is increasingly widely regarded as the closest equivalent to the iPhone 15 Pro Max among Android smartphones. It also seems more durable than its predecessor already. However, Google may not have made the new device any more reparable than its Apple counterpart, according to some popular online teardown enthusiasts.

A YouTuber named Ksrnate has uploaded a walkthrough on installing a 67 Wh battery on Asus ROG Ally, almost doubling the energy capacity from the original 40 Wh battery. Unlike the 88 Wh DIY mod by iFixit, this one doesn’t leave anything exposed, making it a more polished option to get more runtime from the gaming handheld.

The modified version of the Optimum Zeromouse V35 shaves 10 g off the production super-light gaming mouse and is very minimal, with nary a scroll wheel or side buttons remaining from its Razer Viper V2 Pro donor. The Optimum Zeromouse is already basically just a plastic frame, grip pads, and the mouse PCB.

While laptop CPUs and GPUs have become quite powerful, they are still way behind their desktop counterparts in terms of performance. Being fed up with this performance gap, a YouTuber that goes by Socket Science built a custom DIY gaming laptop that packs nothing but desktop hardware.

The Mars 5 Ultra from Elegoo is a new 3D printer designed to enable the production of particularly detailed 3D prints and is easy to use for beginners. The model can also be conveniently accessed via WiFi.

HTC is back (again) with the U24 Pro, one of 2024's very few 5G Android smartphones with a 3.5mm jack and microSD card slot. The OEM also aims for "Unique Brilliance" with its design, which is put to the ultimate test of durability in the latest JerryRigEverything video.

ETA Prime on YouTube has recently demonstrated how to turn a broken Steam Deck into a fully functional mini PC on the cheap. You don't even need in-depth knowledge or specialised tools to accomplish the task, and the parts-bin Steam Deck can be found on eBay for as little as $142.

The Nord 4 brought the metal unibody back to the 2024 Android smartphone world - however, it seems that the new and potentially robust chassis has its drawbacks. OnePlus' "Absurdly Good" mid-ranger has achieved one of the worst reparability scores of the year thus far in a popular teardown YouTuber's latest video.

The Raspberry Pi 400 is yet to see a successor, but a DIY maker named Arnov Sharma has taken the matter into his own hands. He built what he calls the Raspberry Pi 1000, which features a Raspberry Pi 5 inside. The maker has also shared proper documentation of the project, making it easier for anyone to build it on their own.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra has roundly been accused of looking just like its Apple namesake on the outside - however, they are not the same on the inside, according to iFixit. The teardown enthusiasts now indicate that Samsung's Watch Ultra might be the more repairable flagship wearable of the two.

Super Nintendo is best known for having a large library of games. However, the two-chip variant of the SNES has had one big issue that Nintendo eventually solved in the one-chip model: blurry video output. Voultar has been working on a fix for this for years, and the hardware hacker has finally developed an Edge Enhancer kit.

CheckMag Windows 11 is packed full of garbage which is one of the reasons people are determined to stick with Windows 10 or look for alternatives. Tiny11 is impressive, especially now it works on all Windows 11 variants. However there is an easier way that utilises Microsoft's own tools to create a bloat free Windows 11 installer in seconds.

Samsung's Galaxy Buds3 Pro design update has apparently backfired on the company with reports of generationally reduced build quality thus far. However, the new flagship wireless earphones' switch to an Apple AirPod-like design has a point, according to a popular YouTuber. It may make it easier for a Buds 3 Pro user to remove and replace some (but not all) important components.