Pause Print, Add Hardware, and Enjoy Strength

3D Printing is great, but it is pretty much the worst way to make any given part– except that every other technique you could use to make that part is too slow and/or expensive, making the 3D print the best option. If only the prints were stiffer, stronger, more durable! [JanTech Engineering] feels your plight and has been hacking away with the M601 command to try embedding different sorts of hardware into his prints for up to 10x greater strength, as seen in the video embedded below.

It’s kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it? If the plastic is the weak point, maybe we could reinforce the plastic. Most concrete you see these days has rebar in it, and fiber-reinforced plastic is the only way most people will use resin for structural applications. So, how about FDM? Our printers have that handy M601 “pause print” command built in. By creatively building voids into your parts that you can add stronger materials, you get the best of all possible worlds: the exact 3D printed shape you wanted, plus the stiffness of, say, a pulltruded carbon-fiber rod.

[JanTech] examines several possible inserts, including the aforementioned carbon rods. He takes a second look at urethane foam, which we recently examined, and compares it with less-crushable sand, which might be a good choice when strength-to-weight isn’t an issue. He doesn’t try concrete mix, but we’ve seen that before, too. Various metal shapes are suggested — there are all sorts of brackets and bolts and baubles that can fit into your prints depending on their size — but the carbon rods do come out ahead on strength-to-weight, to nobody’s surprise.

You could do a forged carbon part with a printed mold to get that carbon stiffness, sure, but that’s more work, and you’ve got to handle epoxy resins that some of us have become sensitized to. Carbon rods and tubes are cheap and safer to work with, though be careful cutting them.

Finally, he tries machining custom metal insets with his CNC machine. It’s an interesting technique that’s hugely customizable, but it does require you to have a decent CNC available, and, at that point, you might want to just machine the part. Still, it’s an interesting hybrid technique we haven’t seen before.

Shoving stuff into 3D-printed plastic to make it a better composite object is a great idea and a time-honored tradition. What do you put into your prints? We’d love to know, and so would [Jan]. Leave a comment and let us know.

youtube.com/embed/b1JfzW8GPZo?…

hackaday.com/2025/12/21/pause-…

Good evening Squirrel Fans.

Sometimes life’s events short circuit ones ambitions … like the fact I would love to try some of the more outrageous cocktails that will be on offer over the coming festivities, sadly Geoff the Gouty big toe would definitely not approve …

“It was one of those special cocktails where each very sticky, very strong ingredient is poured in very slowly, so that they layer on top of one another. Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow’s Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Good-bye, Mr. Brain Cell.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Remember Skwerl fans, once dem brain cells are gone then you’ll have to depend on AI! 😜

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I hope you’re well & safe! 😊🫶🖖

#WeirdFolks #SquirrelsOfMastodon #TheMammutMoves

For today’s diary update please follow #TimsASDjourney

Twenty five years ago this month I was diagnosed with cancer. First of all I just want to say, look at me, still here. I'm pretty happy about that.

But twenty five years ago, for a year my and my family's life revolved around surgery, chemo and radiation. And then the best part of a decade of medications with with their 'tolerated' side effects. And still the sneaky little blighter tried to stage a comeback a few years in, but we evicted it.

Twenty five years is a while, so my medical experiences are not current but there are a few things I learnt in that year and the ones after and I'd like to say them out loud -

Cancer did not make me a better person. It did not make me re-evaluate my life and see the world in a new perspective. It might for some people, but it just made me tired and grumpy. And intolerant of people's bullshit.

It was not a blessing in disguise. Having people tell me there had to be a silver lining or that everything happens for a reason was not helpful.

Everyone has their own approach. Mine was evidenced based western medicine. Random strangers (no friends, I'm glad to say), telling me I was poisoning myself was not helpful. I was poisoning *it*, the side effects on me were necessary collateral damage

The most important thing my friends did for me was to be normal. Doing stuff we usually did - grabbing a coffee, going out for a meal, seeing a movie. I was thinking about cancer every waking minute, respite from that was what I needed

The other day someone reminded me I told them this - One of the women in my support group talked about how hard it was not to cry in front of her kids. The facilitator asked, what message are you sending to your kids if, when something this bad happens, it's not okay to cry? This is one of the most important things I've ever learnt. Hiding your feeling doesn't let people in and it's not a viable strategy for longer than half a second. 1/2

#cancer #science #luck #ReflectionOnLife #HappyToBeHere

Sbarca sul Dark Web DIG AI! Senza Account, Senza costi e … senza nessuna censura

Un nuovo strumento AI è apparso sul dark web e ha rapidamente attirato l’attenzione degli esperti di sicurezza, e non per le migliori ragioni.

Si tratta di un servizio di intelligenza artificiale chiamato DIG AI, privo di limitazioni integrate. Questo bot è già attivamente utilizzato in schemi fraudolenti , sviluppo di malware, diffusione di materiale estremista e creazione di contenuti relativi allo sfruttamento sessuale dei minori.

I ricercatori di Re Security avevano rilevato per la prima volta tracce di DIG AI il 29 settembre 2025. Quasi subito dopo il suo lancio, l’amministratore del servizio ha iniziato a promuoverlo attivamente su un forum della darknet, vantandosi del suo carico di lavoro: nelle prime 24 ore, il sistema avrebbe elaborato circa diecimila richieste.

A differenza dei precedenti strumenti di intelligenza artificiale per la criminalità organizzata come FraudGPT o WormGPT, venduti in abbonamento, DIG AI è progettato in modo diverso. Non richiede registrazione, pagamento o addirittura un account: richiede semplicemente l’accesso tramite la rete Tor. Inoltre, il creatore afferma che il servizio è distribuito sulla propria infrastruttura e non si basa su cloud di terze parti, migliorando ulteriormente la sua resilienza ai blocchi.

Resecurity ha condotto una serie di test e ha concluso che il bot risponde senza esitazione a domande relative alla produzione di esplosivi, droghe, altre sostanze proibite, frodi finanziarie e altri argomenti vietati dal diritto internazionale. Durante gli esperimenti, il sistema ha generato script dannosi funzionanti , tra cui codice per l’installazione di backdoor e altri tipi di malware. Gli analisti ritengono che i risultati siano piuttosto adatti all’uso pratico.

C’è particolare attenzione alla capacità di DIG AI nella community di cybersecurity, anche in relazione alle sue capacità di elaborare contenuti pornografici. Lo strumento era in grado sia di creare materiali interamente sintetici sia di modificare immagini di minori reali, trasformando fotografie innocue in materiale illegale. Gli esperti definiscono questo aspetto uno dei più allarmanti.

Nonostante tutte le sue potenzialità, il servizio presenta ancora dei limiti. Alcune operazioni richiedono diversi minuti per essere completate, il che indica risorse di elaborazione limitate. Ma questo problema può essere facilmente risolto, ad esempio introducendo un accesso a pagamento e scalando l’hardware in base alla domanda.

Intanto su varie piattaforme TOR ci sono banner pubblicitari di DIG AI associati al traffico di droga e alla rivendita di dati di pagamento compromessi. Questa selezione di piattaforme descrive accuratamente il pubblico a cui si rivolge lo sviluppatore del servizio. L’amministratore, che usa lo pseudonimo di Pitch, afferma che uno dei tre modelli disponibili è basato su ChatGPT Turbo.

Tra il 2024 e il 2025, le menzioni e l’uso effettivo di strumenti di intelligenza artificiale dannosi sui forum underground sono triplicati. I criminali informatici stanno padroneggiando sempre più modelli linguistici di grandi dimensioni e l’emergere di nuovi sistemi non fa che accelerare questo processo.

Ovviamente queste tecnologie possono portare un aumento significativo delle minacce già a partire dal 2026. Questa preoccupazione è accentuata dai grandi eventi internazionali previsti per quel periodo, tra cui le Olimpiadi invernali di Milano e la Coppa del Mondo FIFA.

Gli analisti ritengono che i sistemi di intelligenza artificiale criminale stiano abbassando le barriere d’ingresso per la criminalità informatica automatizzando e amplificando gli attacchi, ampliando così il bacino di potenziali aggressori.

L'articolo Sbarca sul Dark Web DIG AI! Senza Account, Senza costi e … senza nessuna censura proviene da Red Hot Cyber.

Why Chopped Carbon Fiber in FDM Prints is a Contaminant

A lot of claims have been made about the purported benefits of adding chopped carbon fiber to FDM filaments, but how many of these claims are actually true? In the case of PLA at least, the [I built a thing] channel on YouTube makes a convincing case that for PLA filament, the presence of chopped CF can be considered a contaminant that weakens the part.

Using the facilities of the University of Basel for its advanced imaging gear, the PLA-CF parts were subjected to both scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Micro CT imaging. The SEM images were performed on parts that were broken apart to see what this revealed about the internal structure. From this, it becomes apparent that the chopped fibers distribute themselves both inside and between the layers, with no significant adherence between the PLA polymer and the CF. There is also evidence for voids created by the presence of the CF.

To confirm this, an intact PLA-CF print was scanned using a Micro CT scanner over 13 hours. This confirmed the SEM findings, in that the voids were clearly visible, as was the lack of integration of the CF into the polymer. This latter point shouldn’t be surprising, as the thermal coefficient of PLA is much higher than that of the roughly zero-to-negative of CF. This translates into a cooling PLA part shrinking around the CF, thus creating the voids.

What this means is that for PLA-CF, the presence of CF is by all measures an undesirable contaminant that effectively compromises it as much as having significant moisture in the filament before printing. Although for other thermoplastics used with FDM printing, chopped CF may make more sense, with PLA-CF, you’re effectively throwing away money for worse results.

As also noted in the video, in medical settings, these CF-reinforced FDM filaments aren’t permitted due to the chopped CF fragments. This topic has featured more widely in both the scientific literature and YouTube videos in recent years, with some significant indications that fragments of these chopped fibers can have asbestos-like implications when inhaled. Looking for the thrill of a weird filament? Maybe try one of these.

youtube.com/embed/w7JperqVfXI?…

hackaday.com/2025/12/21/why-ch…

A Compact, Browser-Based ESP32 Oscilloscope

An oscilloscope is usually the most sensitive, and arguably most versatile, tool on a hacker’s workbench, often taking billions of samples per second to produce an accurate and informative representation of a signal. This vast processing power, however, often goes well beyond the needs of the signals in question, at which point it makes sense to use a less powerful and expensive device, such as [MatAtBread]’s ESP32 oscilloscope.

The oscilloscope in its housing.
The oscilloscope doesn’t have a display; instead, it hosts a webpage that displays the signal trace and provides the interface. Since the software uses direct memory access to continually read a signal from the ADC, it’s easy to adjust the sampling rate up to the hardware’s limit of 83,333 Hz. In addition to sampling-rate adjustment options, the browser interface includes a crosshair pointer for easy voltage reading, an adjustable trigger level, attenuation controls, and the ability to set the test signal frequency. The oscilloscope’s hardware is simply a Seeed Studio Xiao development board mounted inside a 3D-printed case with an AA battery holder and three pin breakouts for ground, signal input, and the test signal output.

This isn’t the first ESP32-based oscilloscope we’ve seen, though it is the fastest. If you’re looking for a screen with your simple oscilloscope, we’ve seen them built with an STM32 and Arduino. To improve performance, you might add an anti-aliasing filter.

hackaday.com/2025/12/21/a-comp…