Having a 3D printer is great! You can make just about anything you can imagine, as long as it's made from something that comes in the form of a filament. However, there are limits to what you should bring into the world from your imagination. For example, it's probably a bad idea to print any of these.
Carbon fiber (CF) has attained somewhat of a near-mystical appeal in consumer marketing, with it being praised for being stronger than steel while simultaneously being extremely lightweight. This mostly refers to weaved fibers combined with resin into a composite material that is used for everything from car bodies to bike frames. This CF look is so sexy that the typical carbon-fiber composite weave pattern and coloring have been added to products as a purely cosmetic accent.
More recently, chopped carbon fiber (CCF) has been added to the thermoplastics we extrude from our 3D printers. Despite lacking clear evidence of this providing material improvements, the same kind of mysticism persists here as well. Even as evidence emerges of poor integration of these chopped fibers into the thermoplastic matrix, the marketing claims continue unabated.
As with most things, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. A recent paper by Sameh Dabees et al. in Composites for example covered the CF surface modifications required for thermoplastic integration with CF.
There are a number of ways to produce CF, often using polyacrylonitrile, rayon, or pitch as the feedstock. After spinning this precursor into a suitable filament, heating induces carbonization and produces the carbon fiber.
Following this process, the CF is typically in the form of a few micrometer-thick fiber that is essentially pure carbon. To create a structural interface between the CF and the polymer of a composite material, some kind of process has to take place that creates this interface.
The fundamental difference between thermoset and thermoplastic polymers is that thermoset polymers are reacting in the mold as it sets, providing an environment in which the epoxy precursor and hardener can interact with the normally not chemically very reactive CF to form covalent bonds.
In comparison, thermoplastic polymers are already finalized, with covalent bonds between thermoplastics and CF unlikely. This means that the focus with CF-reinforced thermoplastics is mostly on weaker, non-covalent interactions, such as Van der Waals forces, pi-interactions and hydrogen bonds. Each of these interactions is further dependent on whether the thermoplastic is compatible, such as the presence of aromatic rings for pi-interactions.
With those challenges in mind, how can thermoplastics be coaxed into forming a significant interface with CF? As noted in the earlier cited work by Sameh Dabees et al., there is no single surface treatment for CF that would work for every thermoplastic polymer, as a logical result of the limitations imposed by the available non-covalent interactions.
One way to prepare the CF is by applying a coating to the fiber, called a sizing. By applying a sizing to the fiber that is compatible with the target thermoplastic, the interface with the bulk material is expected to improve. In one cited study involving a polyamide-acid sizing for polyimide bulk material, this coating created an approximately 85 nm interface, with an interfacial shear strength increased by 32.3%. In another study targeting CF-PEEK, this had a polyimide-based, water-soluble sizing applied that also significantly improved the shear strength.
Of course, this sizing has to actually adhere to the CF, lest it simply vanishes into the bulk thermoplastic material. This is a problem that is easily observable in FDM-printed thermoplastic polymers as distinct voids around the CF where the bulk polymer pulled away during crystallization, and no interface formed. Obviously, these voids create a weak point instead of strengthening the material.
Although CF is often confused with carbon nanotubes, it does not have the rigidly ordered structure that they do. Instead it has a graphite structure, owing to the way that they are produced, meaning sheets of graphite placed together in a disordered fashion. Despite this, the external surface is still smooth, which is where the chemical inertness comes from. Combined with the lack of reactivity from the side of thermoplastics, this highlights the need for something to bridge the gap.
The review paper by Dabees et al. covers the most common types of surface treatments, with the above graphic providing a summary of the methods. Perhaps one of the most straightforward methods is the coating of the CF with an epoxy, thus shifting the interface from CF-thermoplastic to thermoset-thermoplastic. This kind of hybrid approach shows promising results, but is also cumbersome and not a universal fix.
Note that virtually all research here is focused on thermoplastic polymers like polycarbonate and PEEK, as these are most commonly used in industrial and medical settings. Yet even within that more limited scope the understanding of the exact effects of these modifications remains poorly investigated. Much of this is due to how hard it is to characterize the effects of one treatment when you take all other variables into account.
Perhaps most frustrating of all is how hard it is to research this topic considering the scale of the CF surface and the miniscule thickness of the CF-polymer interface. Relying on purely mechanical tests to quantify the impact is then tempting, but ultimately leaves us without a real understanding of why one method seems to work better than another.
The overall conclusion that we draw from this particular review paper is that although we know that composite materials can often provide improvements, in the case of thermoplastic-CF composites we realize that our understanding of the fundamentals is still rather lacking.
Outside of the less mainstream world of industrial and medical settings, CF is now widely being added to thermoplastic polymers, primarily in the form of filaments for FDM 3D printers. Without detailed information on whether the manufacturers of these filaments perform any kind of CF surface modification, it is very hard to even compare different CF-polymer filaments like this, even before taking into account individual FDM printer configurations and testing scenarios.
Considering that CF has for a few years now been identified as a potential carcinogen akin to asbestos, this raises the question of whether we really want to put CF and particularly the very small chopped carbon fibers into everything around us and thermoplastics in particular. When the empirical evidence available to us today shows that any mechanical improvements are not due to a solid CF-polymer interface, and any potential carcinogenic risks still years into the future of becoming clear, then the logical choice would be to hold back on CF-thermoplastics until we gain a better understanding of the benefits and risks.
[Clough42] created a 3D print for a lathe tool and designed in some support to hold the piece on the bed while printing. It worked, but removing the support left unsightly blemishes on the part. A commenter mentioned that the support doesn’t have to exactly touch the part to support it. You can see the results of trying that method in the video below.
In this case [Cloug42] uses Fusion, but the idea would be the same regardless of how you design your parts. Originally, the support piece was built as a single piece along with the target object. However, he changed it to make the object separate from the support structure. That’s only the first step, though. If you import both pieces and print, the result will be the same.
Instead, he split the part into the original two objects that touch but don’t blend together. The result looks good.
We couldn’t help but notice that we do this by mistake when we use alternate materials for support (for example, PETG mixed with PLA or PLA with COPE). Turns out, maybe you don’t have to switch filament to get good results.
There are a few types of continuous 3D printing with FDM printers, with a conveyer belt and automatic build plate swapping the most common types. The advantage of build plate swapping is that it automates the bit where normally a human would have to come in to remove finished parts from the build plate. A recent entry here is the Chitu PlateCycler C1M which the [Aurora Tech] YouTube channel had over for a review. This kit bolts onto the Bambu Lab A1 Mini FDM printer and comes with four extra PEI build plates for a not unreasonable $79 (€69).
As also noted in the review video, this is effectively a clone of the original swapmod A1m kit, but a big difference is that the Chitu kit comes with all of the parts and doesn’t require you to print anything yourself.
The different plates are prepared using a special tool that inserts G-code between the plate changes. Moving the bed in a specific way triggers the switch that lifts the finished plate off the magnetic bed by the plastic grip on the plate and loads a fresh plate from the stack. Here it was found that a small tolerance issue prevented the last plate from being used, but some sandpaper fixed this. Other than that it was a fairly painless experience, and for e.g. multi-color prints with separated colors – as demonstrated – it would seem to be a great way to churn out the entire model without manual intervention or a lot of wasted filament.
Perhaps the main issue that is central to all of these build plate swap mods is where the plates go after they’re pulled off the magnetic bed: the padded box is a great idea for the first one or two plates, but after that you get your PEI build plates with parts on them crashing on top of each other.
This is where perhaps something like a passive roller conveyer system could provide a nice gentle off-ramp, though this too would increase the footprint of the system. Regardless, the overall system seems to work well enough, allowing one to stack fresh plates in the chute and if you turn on build plate detection in the A1 you can even prevent the printer from trying to print on the magnetic bed.
You have a part that needs different colors or different material properties — with a multi-color 3D printer, no problem. You can also laboriously switch filaments on a single-color printer. But [anonymous kiwi] points out a different way, which is surprisingly obvious once you think about it. You simply add a previously made part to another one.
If you’ve ever experimented with adding a nut or a magnet into a print in the middle, the idea is exactly the same: you print one piece and then print a second piece, pausing in the middle to insert the completed first piece. The video example shows TPU robot wheels with PLA hubs. Of course, the same idea could apply to using different colors or even multiple materials or parts. You could imagine a hub with a steel nut embedded in it, then further being embedded in a TPU wheel, for example.
With multi-material printers becoming more commonplace, this technique might seem antiquated. But even if you have one of such a printer, this technique could save time and reduce waste. Not every part would work out this cleanly, but it is something to remember for the times when it does.
After previously putting carbon fiber-reinforced PLA filament under the (electron) microscope, the [I built a thing] bloke is back with a new video involving PLA-CF, this time involving co-extrusion rather than regular dispersed chopped CF. This features a continuous CF core that is enveloped by PLA, with a sample filament spool sent over by BIQU in the form of their CarbonCore25 filament.
In the previous video chopped CF in PLA turned out to be essentially a contaminant, creating voids and with no integration of the CF into the polymer matrix. Having the CF covered by PLA makes the filament less abrasive to print, which is a definitely advantage, but does it help with the final print’s properties? Of note is that this is still chopped CF, just with a longer fiber length (0.3-0.5 mm).
Samples of the BIQU filament were printed on a Bambu Lab H2D printer with AMS. In order to create a clean fracture surface, a sample was frozen in liquid nitrogen to make it easy to snap. After this it was coated with gold using a gold sputtering system to prepare it for the SEM.
Compared to the finer chopped CF PLA-CF, what is notable here is that CF is not present between the layers, which is a good thing as this degrades layer adhesion significantly. Less good is that the same lack of polymer matrix integration is visible here, with the PLA clearly detaching from the CF and leaving behind voids.
This shows that BIQU’s PLA-CF filament fails to address the fundamental problem with PLA-CF of extremely poor matrix integration. To verify this, an undisturbed sample was put into the Micro CT scanner.
Fascinating about the Micro CT findings was that there is carbon black in the filament, which is ironically highly abrasive.
Also in the images were again what looked like air bubbles, much like in the previous video’s results. These bubbles turned out to be always linked to a CF strand, which could be due to how the PLA-CF mixture cools with the mismatch between the solid CF inside the still liquid PLA.
After a series of mechanical tests on the printed samples, the conclusion is that the part is stiffer by about 15% and due to the CF contaminant not intruding between layers it’s also better than typical PLA-CF. Of course, regular PLA outperforms both types of PLA-CF in most tests by a considerable margin, so most people are probably still better off with regular PLA.
If you’re reading this, that means you’ve successfully made it through 2025! Allow us to be the first to congratulate you — that’s another twelve months of skills learned, projects started, and hacks….hacked. The average Hackaday reader has a thirst for knowledge and an insatiable appetite for new challenges, so we know you’re already eager to take on everything 2026 has to offer.
But before we step too far into the unknown, we’ve found that it helps to take a moment and reflect on where we’ve been. You know how the saying goes: those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That whole impending doom bit obviously has a negative connotation, but we like to think the axiom applies for both the lows and highs in life. Sure you should avoid making the same mistake twice, but why not have another go at the stuff that worked? In fact, why not try to make it even better this time?
As such, it’s become a Hackaday tradition to rewind the clock and take a look at some of the most noteworthy stories and trends of the previous year, as seen from our rather unique viewpoint in the maker and hacker world. With a little luck, reviewing the lessons of 2025 can help us prosper in 2026 and beyond.
While artificial intelligence software — or at least, what passes for it by current standards — has been part of the technical zeitgeist for a few years, 2026 was definitely the year that AI seemed to be everywhere. So much so that the folks at Merriam-Webster decided to make “slop”, as in computer-generated garbage content, their Word of the Year. They also gave honorable mention to “touch grass”, which they describe as a phrase that’s “often aimed at people who spend so much time online that they become disconnected from reality.” But we’re going to ignore that one for personal reasons.
At Hackaday, we’ve obviously got some strong feelings on AI. For those who earn a living by beating the written word into submission seven days a week, the rise of AI is nothing less than an existential crisis. The only thing we have going for us is the fact that the average Hackaday reader is sharp enough to recognize the danger posed by a future in which all of our media is produced by a Python script running on somebody’s graphics card and will continue to support us, warts and all.
But while most of us are on the same page about AI in regards to things like written articles or pieces of art, it’s not so clear cut when it comes to more utilitarian endeavours. There’s a not insignificant part of our community that’s very interested in having AI help out with tedious tasks such as writing code, or designing PCBs; and while the technology is still in its infancy, there’s no question the state of the art is evolving rapidly.
For a practical example we can take a look at the personal projects of two of our own writers. Back in 2023. Dan Maloney had a hell of a time getting ChatGPT to help him design a latch in OpenSCAD. Fast forward to earlier this month, and Kristina Panos convinced it to put together a customized personal library management system with minimal supervision.
We’ve also seen a uptick in submitted projects that utilized AI in some way. Kelsi Davis used a large language model (LLM) to help get Macintosh System 7 running on x86 in just three days, Stable Diffusion provided the imagery for a unique pizza-themed timepiece, Parth Parikh used OpenAI’s Speech API to bring play-by-play commentary to PONG, and Nick Bild used Google Gemini to help turn physical tomes into DIY audio books.
Make no mistake, an over-reliance on AI tools can be dangerous. In the best case, the user is deprived of the opportunity to actually learn the material at hand. In the worst case, you make an LLM-enhanced blunder that costs you time and money. But when used properly, the takeaway seems to be that a competent maker or hacker can leverage these new AI tools to help bring more of their projects across the finish line — and that’s something we’ve got a hard time being against.
Another tech that gained steam this year is Meshtastic. This open source project aims to allow anyone to create an off-grid, decentralized, mesh network with low cost microcontrollers and radio modules. We fell in love with the idea as soon as we heard about it, as did many a hacker. But the project has reached a level of maturity that it’s starting to overflow into other communities, with the end result being a larger and more capable mesh that benefits everyone.
Part of the appeal is really how ridiculously cheap and easy it is to get started. If you’re starting from absolutely zero, connecting up to an existing mesh network — or creating your own — can cost you as little as $10 USD. But if you’re reading Hackaday, there’s a good chance you’ve already got a supported microcontroller (or 10) laying around, in which case you may just need to spring for the LoRa radio module and wire it up. Add a 3D printed case, and you’re meshin’ with the best of them.
If you’re OK with trading some money for time, there’s a whole world of ready to go Meshtastic devices available online from places like Amazon, AliExpress, and even Etsy for that personal touch. Fans of the retro aesthetic would be hard pressed to find a more stylish way to get on the grid than the Hacker Pager, and if you joined us in Pasadena this year for Hackaday Supercon, you even got to take home a capable Meshtastic device in the form of the Communicator Badge.
Whether you’re looking for a backup communication network in the event of a natural disaster, want to chat with neighbors without a megacorp snooping on your discussion, or are simply curious about radio communications, Meshtastic is a fantastic project to get involved with. If you haven’t taken the plunge already, point your antenna to the sky and see who’s out there, you might be surprised at what you find.
In terms of headlines, the acquisition of Arduino by Qualcomm was a pretty big one for our community. Many a breathless article was written about what this meant for the future of the company. And things only got more frantic a month later, when the new Arduino lawyers updated the website’s Terms and Conditions.
But you didn’t see any articles about that here on Hackaday. The most interesting part of the whole thing to us was the new Arduino Uno Q: an under $50 USD single-board computer that can run Linux while retaining the classic Uno layout. With the cost of Raspberry Pi hardware steadily increasing over the years, some competition on the lower end of the price spectrum is good for everyone.
As for the Qualcomm situation — we’re hackers, not lawyers. Our immediate impression of the new ToS changes was that they only applied to the company’s web services — “The Platform” in the contract — and had no bearing on the core Arduino software and hardware offerings that we’re all familiar with. The company eventually released a blog post explaining more or less the same thing, explaining that evolving privacy requirements for online services meant they had to codify certain best practices, and that their commitment to open source is unwavering.
For now, that’s good enough for us. But the whole debacle does bring to mind a question: if future Arduino software development went closed-source tomorrow, how much of an impact would it really have on the community at this point? Today when somebody talks about doing something with Arduino they are more likely to be talking about the IDE and development environment than one of the company’s microcontroller boards — the licenses for which mean the versions we have now will remain open in perpetuity. The old AVR Arduino code is GPLed, after all, as are the newer cores for microcontrollers like the ESP32 and RP2040, which weren’t written by Arduino anyway. On the software side, we believe that we have nothing to lose.
But Arduino products have also always been open hardware, and we’ve all gained a lot from that. This is where Qualcomm could still upset the applecart, but we don’t see why they would, and they say they won’t. We’ll see in 2026.
The “Year of Linux on the Desktop” is a bit like fusion power, in that no matter how many technical hurdles are cleared, it seems to be perennially just over the horizon. At this point it’s become a meme, so we won’t do the cliché thing and claim that 2025 (or even 2026) is going to finally be the year when Linux breaks out of the server room and becomes a mainstream desktop operating system. But it does seem like something is starting to shift.
That’s due, at least in part, to Microsoft managing to bungle the job so badly with their Windows 11 strategy. In spite of considerable push-back in the tech community over various aspects of the operating system, the Redmond software giant seems hell-bent on getting users upgraded. At the same time, making it a hard requirement that all Windows 11 machines have a Trusted Platform Module means that millions of otherwise perfectly usable computers are left out in the cold.
What we’re left with is a whole lot of folks who either are unwilling, or unable, to run Microsoft’s latest operating system. At the same time desktop Linux has never been more accessible, and thanks in large part to the efforts of Valve, it can now run the majority of popular Windows games. That last bit might not seem terribly exciting to folks in our circles, but historically, the difficulty involved in playing AAA games on Linux has kept many a techie from making the switch.
Does that mean everyone is switching over to Linux? Well, no. Certainly Linux is seeing an influx of new users, but for the average person, it’s more likely they’d switch to Mac or pick up a cheap Chromebook if all they want to do is surf the web and use social media.
Of course, there’s an argument to be made that Chromebook users are technically Linux users, even if they don’t know it. But for that matter, you could say anyone running macOS is a BSD user. In that case, perhaps the “Year of *nix” might actually be nigh.
There was a time when desktop 3D printers were made of laser-cut wood, used literal strings instead of belts, and more often then not, came as a kit you had to assemble with whatever assistance you could scrounge up from message boards and IRC channels — and we liked it that way. A few years later, printers were made out of metal and became more reliable, and within a decade or so you could get something like an Ender 3 for a couple hundred bucks on Amazon that more or less worked out of the box. We figured that was as mainstream as 3D printing was likely to get…but we were very wrong.
Today 3D printing is approaching a point where the act of downloading a model, slicing it, and manifesting it into physical form has become, dare we say it, mundane. While we’re not always thrilled with the companies that make them and their approach to things that are important to us like repairability, open development, and privacy, we have to admit that the new breed of printers on the market today are damn good at what they do. Features like automatic calibration and filament run-out sensors, once the sort of capabilities you’d only see on eye-wateringly expensive prosumer machines, have became standard equipment.
While it’s not quite at the point where it’s an expected feature, the ability to print in multiple materials and colors is becoming far more common. Pretty much every printer manufacturer has their own approach, and the prices on compatible machines are falling rapidly. We’re even starting to see printers capable of laying down more exotic materials such as silicone.
Desktop 3D printing still hasn’t reached the sort of widespread adoption that all those early investors would have had us believe in the 2000s, where every home would one day have their own Star Trek style personal replicator. But they are arguably approaching the commonality of something like a table saw or drill press — specialized but affordable and reliable tools that act as a force multiplier rather than a tinkerer’s time sink.
Finally, we couldn’t end an overview of 2025 without at least mentioning the ongoing tariff situation in the United States. While it hasn’t ground DIY electronics to a halt as some might have feared, it’s certainly had an impact.
A tax on imported components is nothing new. We first ran into that back in 2018, and though it was an annoyance, it didn’t have too much of an impact at the hobbyist scale. When an LED costs 20 cents, even a 100% tariff wouldn’t be much of a hit to the wallet at the scale most of us are operating at. Plus there are domestic, or at least non-Chinese, options for some jellybean components. The surplus market can also help here — you can often find great deals on things like partial reels of SMD capacitors and resistors on eBay if you keep an eye out for them.
We’ve heard more complaints about PCB production than anything. After years of being able to get boards made overseas for literal pennies, seeing a import tax that added at checkout can be quite a shock. But just like the added tax on components, while annoying, it’s not enough to actually keep folks from ordering. Even with the tariffs, the cost of getting a PCB made at OSH Park is going to be much higher than any Chinese board house.
Truth be told, if an import tax on Chinese-made PCBs and components resulted in a boom of affordable domestic alternatives, we’d be all over it. The idea that our little hobby boards needed to cross an ocean just to get to us always seemed unsustainable anyway. It wouldn’t even have to be domestic, there’s an opportunity for countries with a lower import tariff to step in. Instead of having our boards made in China, why not India or Mexico?
But unfortunately, the real-world is more complex than that. Building up those capabilities, either at home or abroad, takes time and money. So while we’d love to see this situation lead to greater competition, we’ve got a feeling that the end result is just more money out of our pockets.
One thing that absolutely didn’t change in 2025 was you — thanks to everyone that makes Hackaday part of their daily routine, we’ve been able to keep the lights on for another year. Everyone here knows how incredibly fortunate we are to have this opportunity, and your ongoing support is never taken for granted.
We’d love to hear what you thought the biggest stories or trends of 2025 were, good and bad. Let us know what lessons you’ll be taking with you into 2026 down below in the comments.
Login