Today, Microchip released a few interesting tools for embedded development. The first is a free online IDE called MPLAB Xpress, the second is a $10 dev board with a built-in programmer. This pair is aimed at getting people up and running quickly with PIC development. They gave us an account before release, and sent over a sample board. Let’s take a look!
Continue reading “Microchip Unveils Online MPLAB IDE And $10 Board”
[amazingdiyprojects] has been working on a 3D printable jet engine. You may remember seeing a 3D printed jet engine grace our front page back in October. That one was beautiful didn’t function. This one flips those values around. [amazingdiyprojects] seems to make a living from selling plans for his projects, so naturally most of the details of the build are hidden from us. But from what we can see in the video clips there are some really interesting solutions here.
Some of the parts appear to be hand-formed sheet metal. Others are vitamins like bearings and an electric starter. We really liked the starter mechanism, pressing in the motor to engage with a spline, or perhaps by friction, to give the starting rotation.
What really caught our attention was casting the hot parts of the printer in refractory cement using a 3D printed mold. It reminds us of the concrete lathes from World War 1. We wonder what other things could be built using this method? Flame nozzles for a foundry? A concrete tea-kettle. It’s pretty cool.
We’re interested to see how the jet engine performs and how others will improve on the concept. Video of it in action after the break.
UPDATE: [amazingdiyprojects] posted a video of the engine being disassembled.
Continue reading “A 3D Printed Jet Engine Appears To Function”
