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Slicer Settings for “Indestructible” Battle-Bot Worthy PLA Parts

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If you follow [Maker’s Muse] on YouTube, you know he’s as passionate about robot fights these days as he is about the tools he uses to make the robots. Luckily for us, he’s still got fame as a 3D printing YouTuber, as this has given him the platform to share his trade secrets for strong, robot-combat-worthy prints . He fights robots in a ‘plastic ant-weight’ division, which restricts not only the weight of the robot but also the materials used. Not only must they be primarily plastic, but only certain plastics are allowed: PLA is in, but engineering filaments, Nylon, and TPU are out. Since necessity is the mother of invention, this has led to strong evolutionary pressure to figure out how to print the most impact-resilient PLA parts for armor and spinners. He’s using the latest OrcaSlicer and shares the profile as a pay-what-you-want 3MF file . It’s all about solidity: a solid part with solidly fused walls and solidly linked layers. It makes sense: if you’re going to be hammering on...
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Quantum Computers Are Not a Threat to 128-bit Symmetric Keys

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A lot has been made about a post-quantum computer future in which traditional encryption methods have suddenly been rendered obsolete. With this terrifying idea in mind, it’s reassuring to see some recent pushback to the idea with some factual evidence. In a recent blog post by [ Filippo Valsorda ] – a cryptography engineer – the point is raised that 128-bit symmetric keys like AES-128 and SHA-256 are at risk of being obliterated in a post-quantum future. Rather than just taking [Filippo]’s word for it, he takes us through a detailed explanation of the flawed understanding of Grover’s algorithm that underlies much of the panic. While it’s very true that this quantum search algorithm can decrease the amount of time required to find a solution, the speed-up with a single thread is quadratic, not exponential. While asymmetric cryptography systems like ECDH, RSA, and kin are very much at risk courtesy of Shor’s algorithm, the same is not true for symmetric systems. An interesting deta...
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You Wouldn’t Download a Combustion Engine

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Although 3D printing it a great tool for making all sorts of things, the nature of the plastics used in most desktop FDM printers means it isn’t the first tool most would think of to build an internal combustion engine. [Alexander] is evidently not most people, as he’s on his third generation 3D printed engine. There are 3D printed pumps to distribute coolant water and oil, plus some clever engineering in the head to make sure they don’t mix — a problem with a previous iteration. As you probably guessed, the engine isn’t fully printed. Assembling it requires add-on hardware for things like bearings, belts, and filters. But it’s still impressive just how much of this beast is actually made of plastic. Not even fancy engineering plastic, either — there are a few CF-Nylon parts, but most of it is apparently good old ASA and ABS. If you’re looking for “cheats”, the plastic engine block does get a stainless steel sleeve, and the head is CNC’d aluminum, but we hesitate to call anything t...
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2026 Green Powered Challenge: Ventilate Your Way To Power!

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Have you ever looked out across the rooftops of a city and idly gazed at the infrastructure that remains unseen from the street? It seems [varunsontakke80] has, because here’s their project, harvesting energy from the rotation of a rooftop ventilator . The build is a relatively straightforward one, with a pair of disks with magnets attached being mounted on the ventilator shaft inside its dome. A third disk sits between them and is stationary, with a set of coils in which the magnets induce current as they move. A rectifier and charge circuit completes the picture. This appears to be part of a college project, but despite searching, we can’t find any measure of how much power this thing generates. We’d be concerned that it might reduce the efficiency of the ventilator somewhat. There will be an inevitable tradeoff as power is harvested. Still, it’s a neat use of a ubiquitous piece of hardware, and we like it for that. This hack is part of our 2026 Green Powered Challenge . You’ve g...
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Muon Magnetic Moment Matches Model, Making Major Malaise

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Sometimes, a major discovery is exactly what you were hoping not to find. That’s the case with a team at Penn State who seem to have recently closed the door on any new physics stemming from a longstanding discrepency in the magnetic moment of the muon. It turns out, the model was fine, and we just needed better calculations . The Muon is a heavier cousin to the electron. Like the electron, it has an intrinsic magnetic moment, but the traditional methods to calculate it did not quite match experiments, which was very exciting because it made us hope our models could be improved. Rather than try the traditional approximation methods for the unsolvable equations, the group at Penn State set up what you can think of as the Quantum Chromodynamic equivalent of a Finite Element Model (FEM) simulation–a grid of discrete steps in space and time. Tiny ones, of course, because the muon, like the electron, is a point-like particle with no lower size limit. In any case, according to their paper ...
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Audio-Forward Case Mod of Classic 90s Portable TV

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The humble cathode ray tube (CRT) was once the technology behind almost all of our televisions and computer displays. Its replacements, from LCD screens to OLED and others, are generally cheaper to make and better to look at. Old televisions were comparatively large as well, but their size can be an advantage for people like [ManicMods] aka [Jeff]. His latest build ditches the CRT from an old Bently portable TV and uses the huge space available in the case for a hi-fi audio system and some other parts that turn it into an impressive portable home theater system . After removing most of the internals of the TV, the first part to go in is the stereo and subwoofer combo as it takes up the most amount of space. The subwoofer section points downward and the two stereo speakers are mounted to the sides. To free up the most space inside, the new display is mounted forward of the original bezel, with a new 3D printed one helping to hold it in place. Behind it goes a Raspberry Pi, loaded with...
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A Smart Thermostat For 120V Fan Coil Systems

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Many HVAC systems in North America operate off 24V systems, which can be readily upgraded with off-the-shelf  smart thermostats quite easily. However, there are many people living in buildings with 120-volt fan coil units who aren’t so lucky. [mackswan] is one such individual, who set about building a smart thermostat to work in these situations. The build is based around an ESP32 running ESPHome firmware. It rocks a 2.42″ OLED screen with automatic brightness adjustment for showing temperature and control parameters. There’s a rotary encoder on the front with an integrated button for control, with [mackswan] building the physical device to look as clean and neat as possible. The device uses a relay to switch the fan coil system on and off to heat or cool as needed, with an SHTC3 temperature and humidity sensor used to monitor current conditions in the home. If you’re in an apartment building or live in a condo with this kind of setup, [mackswan’s] build might be just what you’r...
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