3D-printable thermoacoustic Stirling engine now fully available

A thermoacoustic Stirling engine is now fully 3D-printable, making the design available for fabrication with consumer-grade printers and no specialized industrial equipment. The project demonstrates that hobbyists can build functional thermal energy conversion systems using additive manufacturing alone.

MakerWorld user shares Arduino Uno R3 and breadboard holder design

MakerWorld user TheGadge shared a 3D-printable design for an Arduino Uno R3 and breadboard holder. The project addresses the common need to secure standard-sized breadboards alongside microcontroller boards and supports an Elegoo Uno R3 alongside a standard breadboard. A key feature is that the model prints without supports, simplifying fabrication for hobbyists. As TheGadge notes: “The breadboard I buy has a sticky back which makes a permanent fixture, or you could just hot glue, etc.”

Joseph DiGiovanni reverse-engineers Litter Robot 4 to enable local automations

Joseph DiGiovanni has reverse-engineered the Litter Robot 4 to bypass the manufacturer’s cloud service, enabling local automations via custom firmware. The device relies on an ESP32 microcontroller for connectivity and a PIC chip for low-level hardware control. DiGiovanni built an ESPHome-based solution that emulates the communication between these chips, integrating the unit with Home Assistant without compromising mechanical safety features. He achieved this by capturing and processing data with an LLM to understand the original hardware’s protocols. The project files are now available on Codeberg for other tinkerers seeking to customize their smart pet care devices.

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