Fixing a Milltronics ML15 CNC Lathe Despite the Manufacturer’s Best Efforts

When you’re like [Wes] from Watch Wes Work fame, you don’t have a CNC machine hoarding issue, you just have a healthy interest in going down CNC machine repair rabbit holes. Such too was the case with a recently acquired 2001 Milltronics ML15 lathe, that at first glance appeared to be in pristine condition. Yet despite – or because of – living a cushy life at a college’s workshop, it had a number of serious issues, with a busted Z-axis drive board being the first to be tackled.
The Glentek servo board that caused so much grief. (Credit: Watch Wes Work, YouTube)
The identical servo control board next to it worked fine, so it had to be an issue on the board itself. A quick test showed that the H-bridge IGBTs had suffered the typical fate that IGBTs suffer, violently taking out another IC along with them. Enjoyably, this board by one Glentek Inc. did the rebranding thing of components like said IGBTs, which made tracking down suitable replacements an utter pain that was eased only by the desperate communications on forums which provided some clues. Of course, desoldering and testing one of the good IGBTs on the second board showed the exact type of IGBT to get.

After replacing said IGBTs, as well as an optocoupler and other bits and pieces, the servo board was good as new. Next, the CNC lathe also had a busted optical encoder, an unusable tool post and a number of other smaller and larger issues that required addressing. Along the way the term ‘pin-to-pin compatible’ for a replacement driver IC was also found to mean that you still have to read the full datasheet.

Of the whole ordeal, the Glentek servo board definitely caused the most trouble, with the manufacturer providing incomplete schematics, rebranding parts to make generic replacements very hard to find and overall just going for a design that’s interesting but hard to diagnose and fix. To help out anyone else who got cursed with a Glentek servo board like this, [Wes] has made the board files and related info available in a GitHub repository.

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hackaday.com/2025/11/20/fixing…

So Long, Firefox, Part One

It’s likely that Hackaday readers have among them a greater than average number of people who can name one special thing they did on September 23rd, 2002. On that day a new web browser was released, Phoenix version 0.1, and it was a lightweight browser-only derivative of the hugely bloated Mozilla suite. Renamed a few times to become Firefox, it rose to challenge the once-mighty Microsoft Internet Explorer, only to in turn be overtaken by Google’s Chrome.

Now in 2025 it’s a minority browser with an estimated market share just over 2%, and it’s safe to say that Mozilla’s take on AI and the use of advertising data has put them at odds with many of us who’ve kept the faith since that September day 23 years ago. Over the last few months I’ve been actively chasing alternatives, and it’s with sadness that in November 2025, I can finally say I’m Firefox-free.

Just What Went Wrong?

Browser market share, 2009 to 2025. Statcounter, CC BY-SA 3.0.
It was perhaps inevitable that Firefox would lose market share when faced with a challenger from a player with the economic muscle of Google. Chrome is everywhere, it’s the default browser in Android and ChromeOS, and when stacked up against the Internet Explorer of fifteen years or so ago it’s not difficult to see why it made for an easy switch. Chrome is good, it’s fast and responsive, it’s friendly, and the majority of end users either don’t care or don’t know enough to care that it’s Google’s way in to your data. When it first appeared, they still had the “Don’t be evil” aura to them, even if perhaps behind the warm and fuzzy feeling it had already worn away in the company itself.

If Firefox were destined to become a minority player then it could still be a successful one; after all, 2% of the global browser market still represents a huge number of users whose referrals to search engines return a decent income. But the key to being a success in any business is to know your customers, and sitting in front of this particular screen it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that Mozilla have lost touch with theirs. To understand this it’s necessary for all of us to look in the mirror and think for a moment about who uses Firefox.

Somewhere, A Group Of Users Are Being Ignored

Blink, and its name will change: Phoenix version 0.1. Mozilla Foundation; Microsoft, Inc., CC BY-SA 4.0.
A quick straw poll in my hackerspace revealed a majority of Firefox users, while the same straw poll among another group of my non-hackerspace friends revealed none. The former used Firefox because of open-source vibes, while the latter used Edge or Safari because it came with their computer, or Chrome on their phone and on their desktop because of Google services. Hackaday is not a global polling organisation, but we think it’s likely that the same trend would reveal itself more widely. If you’re in the technology space you might use Firefox, but if you aren’t you may not even have heard of it in 2025. It’s difficult to see that changing any time soon, to imagine some killer feature that would make those Chrome, Safari, and Edge users care enough to switch to Firefox.

To service and retain this loyal userbase then, you might imagine that Mozilla would address their needs and concerns with what made Phoenix a great first version back in 2002. A lightweight and versatile standards-compliant and open-source web browser with acceptable privacy standards, and without any other non-browser features attached to it. Just a browser, only a browser, and above all, a fast browser.

Instead, Mozilla appear to be following a course calculated to alarm rather than retain these users. Making themselves an AI-focused organisation, neglecting their once-unbeatable developer network, and trying to sneak data gathering into their products. They appear now to think of themselves as a fad-driven Valley startup rather than the custodians of a valuable open-source package, and unsurprisingly this is concerning to those of us who know something about what a browser does behind the scenes.

Why Is This Important?

If you have ever had to write code like this, you will know. Bret Taylor, CC-BY 2.5.
It is likely that I am preaching to the choir here, but it’s important that there be a plurality of browsers in the world. And by that I mean not just a plurality of front-ends, but a plurality of browser engines. One of the reasons Phoenix appeared all those years ago was to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Internet Explorer, the tool by which the Redmond software company were trying to shape the online world to their tune. If you remember the browser wars of that era, you’ll have tales of incompatibilities seemingly baked in on purpose to break the chances of an open Web, and we were all poorer for it. Writing Javascript with a range of sections to deal with the quirks of different browser families is now largely a thing of the past, and for that you have the people who stuck with Firefox in the 2000s to thank.

The fear is that here in 2025 we are in an analogous situation to the early 2000s, with Google replacing Microsoft. Such is the dominance of Google Chrome and the WebKit-derived Blink engine which powers it, that in effect, Google have immense power to shape the Web just as Microsoft did back in the day. Do you trust them to live up to their now-retired mission statement and not be evil? We can’t say we do. Thus Firefox’s Gecko browser engine is of crucial importance, representing as it does the only any-way serious challenger to Blink and WebKit’s near-monopoly. That it is now tied to a Mozilla leadership treating it in so cavalier a manner does not bode well for the future of the Web.

So I’ve set out my stand here, that after twenty-three years, I’m ready to abandon Firefox. It’s not a decision that has been easy, because it’s important for all of us that there be a plurality of browsers, but such is the direction being taken by Mozilla that I am not anxious to sit idly by and constantly keep an eye out for new hidden privacy and AI features to turn off with obscure checkboxes. In the following piece I’ll take a look at my hunt for alternatives, and you may be surprised by the one I eventually picked.

hackaday.com/2025/11/20/so-lon…

Rare Filament Makes Weird Benchies

[Zack], in addition to being a snappy dresser, has a thing for strange 3D printing filament. How strange? Well, in a recent video, he looks at filaments that require 445 C. Even the build plate has to be super hot. He also looks at filament that seems like iron, one that makes you think it is rubber, and a bunch of others.

As you might expect, he’s not using a conventional 3D printer. Although you might be able to get your more conventional printer to handle some of these, especially with some hacking. There is filament with carbon fiber, glass fiber, and more exotic add-ons.

Most of the filaments need special code to get everything working. While you might think you can’t print these engineering filaments, it stands to reason that hobby-grade printers are going to get better over time (as they already have). If the day is coming when folks will be able to print any of these on their out-of-the-box printer, we might as well start researching them now.

If you fancy a drinking game, have a shot every time he changes shots and a double when the Hackaday Prize T-shirt shows up.

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hackaday.com/2025/11/20/rare-f…

Il Consiglio Supremo di Difesa Italiano discute sulla minacce ibride e digitali in Italia e Europa

Il Consiglio Supremo di Difesa, si è riunito recentemente al Quirinale sotto la guida del Presidente Sergio Mattarella, ha posto al centro della discussione l’evoluzione delle minacce ibride e digitali che investono l’Italia e l’Europa.

La guerra in Ucraina resta lo scenario da cui originano molte delle tensioni che ricadono anche sul dominio cyber, con Mosca che continua a utilizzare strumenti tecnologici e informativi come leve strategiche per destabilizzare i Paesi occidentali.

Una parte rilevante della riunione è stata dedicata all’impiego sempre più aggressivo dei droni da parte della Russia, non solo in Ucraina ma anche con violazioni dello spazio aereo di Paesi NATO. Sebbene si tratti di operazioni prettamente militari, il Consiglio ha sottolineato come tali tecniche riflettano un salto di qualità nell’integrazione tra mezzi fisici e digitali, confermando la necessità di potenziare le capacità europee di innovazione e difesa tecnologica, in linea con quanto previsto dal Libro Bianco per la Difesa 2030.

Il tema centrale sul fronte cyber è stato però l’aumento della minaccia ibrida. Il Consiglio ha riconosciuto che la Russia – insieme ad altri attori ostili – sta intensificando attività che spaziano dalla disinformazione alle interferenze nei processi democratici, sfruttando la velocità e l’ubiquità delle tecnologie digitali, oltre alle potenzialità dell’intelligenza artificiale per manipolare lo spazio cognitivo e costruire narrazioni polarizzanti.

Sempre più frequenti sono anche le operazioni cyber dirette contro infrastrutture critiche italiane ed europee. Ospedali, reti energetiche, sistemi finanziari e piattaforme logistiche rientrano tra gli obiettivi più vulnerabili.

L’obiettivo di questi attacchi è creare interruzioni, generare sfiducia nelle istituzioni e colpire la stabilità economica e sociale. Per questo, il Consiglio ha ribadito l’urgenza di rafforzare i meccanismi di difesa e coordinamento nazionale, in continuità con le iniziative già intraprese a livello UE e NATO.

Accanto alle minacce digitali, il Consiglio ha evidenziato come nuovi domini – lo spazio e il sottosuolo marino – stiano rapidamente diventando aree chiave di competizione strategica. La protezione dei cavi sottomarini, dei satelliti e delle infrastrutture spaziali è ormai parte integrante della sicurezza cyber nazionale, poiché un attacco in questi ambiti avrebbe ricadute dirette sulle comunicazioni digitali e sui servizi essenziali.

In chiusura, oltre ai rischi cyber e ibridi, il Consiglio ha espresso forte preoccupazione per le tensioni nei principali scenari di crisi globali – Ucraina, Medio Oriente, Libano, Sahel e Balcani – ricordando che ogni instabilità regionale si ripercuote anche sulla sicurezza informatica europea.

Il messaggio finale è stato chiaro: l’Italia deve continuare a investire nella resilienza digitale e nella cooperazione internazionale, mantenendo alta la vigilanza su tutte le dimensioni della sicurezza contemporanea.

L'articolo Il Consiglio Supremo di Difesa Italiano discute sulla minacce ibride e digitali in Italia e Europa proviene da Red Hot Cyber.