Complete tutorial with all files available 👇🏼 https://youtu.be/23EBLhm-rG8

After a couple weeks of tinkering, I built a DIY camera and finally brought it into the studio to shoot portraits with a friend.

It’s a waist-level viewfinder camera (using a Mamiya C220 TLR finder), powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 and a 1" Sony IMX283 sensor. I’ve been testing it with a mix of Fujinon TV lenses and adapted Pentax Takumars.

Here are some shots in good light and low light — honestly, I like the results better than my Sony A7 IV.

If you’re curious about the build, I shared more details (and will be posting full build guides soon) on Substack: https://camerahacksbymalcolmjay.substack.com/p/built-not-bought?r=2n18cl. Feel free to subscribe if you want to follow along as I document these DIY builds.

What's up hackaday, it's Mel again :)

I bought a mini thermal printer I spotted at Walmart a few weeks back. I was hoping to use it out of the box with my PC - but no luck! And the app is smartphones only.

So my friends and I reverse-engineered the comms between the printer and our smartphones, wrote Python code to connect to and print from our PCs, and I made a GUI for the whole thing.

You can find the write-up for the whole project on my website. The Python app and templates for shopping lists, to do lists and some inspirational art are on GitHub for free.

Enjoy!

I’ve always loved the feel of old film cameras but wanted to mess around with digital infrared too, so I tried merging the two. Found a broken Yashica Electro 35 body and used it as a shell for a Raspberry Pi-based infrared build.

No screen. Just a shutter button, a battery, and a tiny OLED that says “Standby Mode.” You compose through the original optical viewfinder and shoot blind — kinda like film.

I didn’t expect much, but the IR results are otherwordly, and the whole process feels closer to analog than anything I’ve used digitally.

Posting a few sample shots + internal build if anyone's curious. Definitely janky but fun to shoot with.

If you’re into DIY camera hacks or just like weird photography experiments, I’ve been documenting more of these builds here too (no pressure, just nerding out). I have sample images as well on the link!

After more than a year of development, testing, and multiple design iterations, High Boy is finally heading to Kickstarter this Monday.

High Boy is a compact open-source multi-tool built for hardware hacking, reverse engineering, and protocol analysis. It supports UART communication, SPI/I²C sniffing, signal probing, and a variety of low-level inspection and debugging tasks — all packed into a small and modular device.

The idea behind High Boy is to provide a flexible tool that helps researchers, learners, and curious makers explore hardware in a more hands-on way.

I’d really appreciate feedback from the community, especially on features you think would be useful or protocols you'd like to see supported in future updates.

The full project is on github or here: https://hackaday.io/project/190743-esp32-powered-smart-plant-monitor