A technique to avoid warping on large 3D prints

[Jamie Mantzel] figured out his own way of 3D printing large objects without fear of warping. First a bit of background information. When using a 3D extrusion printer like the RepRap or Makerbot, prints that span a large area tend to warp. That’s because these printers lay down one thin layer of plastic at a time. If the first … Read the rest

DIY LED photography lights

led-light-box

[Markus] had been drooling over some LED panels to use as a soft light source for photography, but being a hobbyist, he didn’t want to spend a ton of money to buy them. He figured that he had enough electronics know-how to build his own panels, while saving a boatload of cash in the process.

He hoped to keep the … Read the rest

Snake-bot gives us the mechanical heevy-jeevies

Basilisk? Nope, just your run-of-the-mill giant serpentine robot build. This build aims to recreate Titanoboa, a prehistoric snake which measured more than fifty feet long and weighted over a ton. They’re well on their way to completing the goal, as what you see above is fully operational, lacking only cosmetic niceties which would only serve to make the beast … Read the rest

Stylophone 5 – modernizing the best of the 1968 hardware

We love looking in on [Simon Inns'] projects, and this must be one of his very best. This is the fifth version of his MIDI-capable stylophone. The gist of the control system is that a conductive keyboard (made of a tinned PCB) is played by making a connection with the tip of a wired stylus — hence the name. … Read the rest

Audio output selection courtesy of the Internet

[Peter] was tired of crawling behind his desktop computer to switch between headphones and speakers. We feel his pain, as the headphone port on our computer speakers has its own demonic hum rendering the jack useless to us. His solution was to build this output selector board, then control it via the network.

A relay is responsible for routing … Read the rest

ColorHug: A reasonably-priced, completely open color calibration tool

colorhug-opensource-color-calibrator

[Richard] wanted to create a color profile for his computer monitor, but he wasn’t thrilled with the existing color calibration offerings he found for sale. Color calibration tools can be somewhat costly, but even more troubling to [Richard] was the fact that they are all closed source. Closed hardware and closed software can be a drag, especially when manufacturers drop … Read the rest

Solder reflow toaster oven

[Sebastian] needed a small solder oven so he bought himself a small toaster oven (Spanish, Google Translate). It’s not the kind of thing we’d make our breakfast in now, but for soldering it’s a very nice oven.

After a little bit of research on Google, [Sebastian] discovered that the best technique when dealing with reflow ovens and solder paste … Read the rest