Hackaday Prize Entry: Open Source Electrospinning Machine

May 21, 2016 by Moritz Walter 6 Comments

Electrospinning is a fascinating process where a high voltage potential is applied between a conductive emitter nozzle and a collector screen. A polymer solution is then slowly dispensed from the nozzle. The repulsion of negative charges in the solution forces fine fibers emanate from the liquid. Those fibers are then rapidly accelerated towards the collector screen by the electric field while being stretched and thinned down to a few hundred nanometers in diameter. The large surface area of the fine fibers lets them dry during their flight towards the collector screen, where they build up to a fine, fabric-like material. We’ve noticed that electrospinning is hoped to enable fully automated manufacturing of wearable textiles in the future.

[Douglas Miller] already has experience cooking up small batches of microscopic fibers. He’s already made carbon nanotubes in his microwave. The next step is turning those nanotubes into materials and fabrics in a low-cost, open source electrospinning machine, his entry for the Hackaday Prize.

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Find A Drone

May 21, 2016 by Al Williams 56 Comments

Flying a drone usually leads to–sooner or later–crashing a drone. If you are lucky, you’ll see where it crashes and it won’t be out of reach. If you aren’t lucky, you’ll know where it is, but it will be too high to easily reach. The worst case is when it just falls out of the sky and you aren’t entirely sure where. [Just4funmedia] faced this problem and decided to use some piezo buzzers and an Arduino to solve it.

Yeah, yeah, we know. You don’t really need an Arduino to do this, although it does make it easy to add some flexibility. You can pick two tones that are easy to hear and turn on the buzzers with a spare channel or sense a loss of signal or power.

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Build A Replica Apple ///

May 21, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 15 Comments

[Mr. Name Required] pointed us to a great video on the modeling of a replica Apple /// to the small scale needed to contain a Raspberry Pi by [Charles Mangin].

[Mr. Name] pointed out that the video was a great example of the use of reference photos for modeling. [Charles] starts by finding the references he needs for the model. Google image search and some Apple history websites supplied him with the required images.

He modeled the Apple /// in Autodesk 123. It has sketch tools, but he chose to craft the paths in iDraw and import them into the software. This is most likely due to the better support for boolean combination tools in vector editing software. Otherwise he’d have to spend hours messing with the trim tool.

Later in the video he shows how to change the perspective in photographs to get a more orthographic view of an object. Then it’s time for some heavy modeling. He really pushes 123 to its limit.

The model is sent off for professional 3D printing to capture all the detail. Then it’s some finishing work and his miniature Apple /// is done. Video after the break.

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DIY Jigsaw Table Makes Cutting Wood Even Easier

May 21, 2016 by James Hobson 26 Comments

Power tools are fantastic. They make short work of whatever you throw at them, but compared to their big brothers (i.e. full size powered tools you can’t move), they’re less accurate, and difficult for precision work. Then there’s the hybrid tools — power tools you can mount in stands or bases to get better control of your work piece. Some are designed for this, some aren’t. But sometimes, making your own stand for a power tool can be pretty darn easy.

[Yonatan] needed a bandsaw for one of his projects, and not being overly confident in his jigsaw skills (the tool he did possess), he decided to upgrade it, by building a jigsaw table. Still not quite a bandsaw, but almost. Continue reading “DIY Jigsaw Table Makes Cutting Wood Even Easier” →

Hacklet 108 – Simple Functional 3D Prints

May 21, 2016 by Adam Fabio 4 Comments

We featured 3D printer projects on last week’s Hacklet. This week, we’re looking at a few awesome projects created with those printers. Trying to pick great 3D printed projects on Hackaday.io is a bit like staring at the sun. There are just way too many to choose from. To make things a bit easier, I’ve broken things down into categories. There are artistic prints, complex mechanical or electronic prints, and then there are simple functional prints, which is the topic we’re featuring today. Simple functional prints are designs which perform some function in the world. By simple, I mean they have only a few moving parts or electronic components. Let’s get right to it!

We start with [Scott] and L Extrusion Endcaps. Every Home Depot, Lowes, or hardware store has a selection of extruded aluminum. Typically there are a few flat bars, and some L brackets. L brackets are great, but they can be a pain to work with. Most of us don’t have the skills or the tools to weld aluminum, so nuts and bolts are the only way to go. [Scott’s] given us another option. He’s designed a set of 3D printable brackets that slip onto the ends of the brackets. The brackets make quick work of building boxes, racks, or anything with 90° or 45° angles.

Next up is [Joe M] with 3D Printed Molds: Custom Silicone Earbuds. [Joe] had a set of Bluetooth earbuds he enjoyed, but the rubber tips left a bit to be desired. Not a problem when you have a 3D printer on hand. [Joe] measured the plastic part of his earbuds and the rubber tips from a different set he liked. A bit of CAD magic later, and he had a model for the perfect earbud tip. While he could have directly printed the tip in a flexible filament like NinjaFlex, [Joe] opted for a pure silicone tip. He printed molds, then mixed silicone caulk with cornstarch (as a catalyst). The resulting earbuds sound and feel great!

Next we have [Jetty] with Highly Configurable 3D Printed Helmholtz Coil. Helmholtz coils are used to create uniform magnetic fields. Why would you want to do that? It could be anything from measuring magnets to cancelling out the effect of the earth’s magnetic field on a device being tested. [Jetty’s] wrote an OpenScad program which allows the user to enter parameters for their coil. [Jetty’s] program then calculates the coil’s magnetic properties, and outputs a printable .stl file. Building the coil is as simple as printing it and wrapping some copper wire. [Jetty] found that his coil was within 60nT (nanoTesla) of the expected value. Not bad for a bit of plastic and wire!

Finally we have StickScope, [SUF’s] entry in the 2016 Hackaday Prize. Like many of us, [SUF] loves his StickVise. Sometimes you need a bit of magnification to see those tiny 0201 resistors though. [SUF] had a cheap USB microscope on hand, so he designed StickScope, a USB microscope mount designed especially for the StickVise. Two 6mm steel rods are the backbone of the design. 3D printed clamps hold the system together like a miniature boom microscope. This is actually the third revision of the design. [SUF] found that the original design couldn’t be used with parts close to the bar which holds the microscope. A small jaw extender was the perfect tweak.

If you want to see more simple functional 3D printed projects, check out our new simple functional 3D prints list! If I missed your project, don’t be shy, just drop me a message on Hackaday.io. That’s it for this week’s Hacklet. As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

Gaming Chair Gives Full Body Feeling To Collisions

May 21, 2016 by Steven Dufresne 18 Comments

A PS-3 controller has an unbalanced motor inside that vibrates your hand whenever you crash a car into a wall or drive it off a cliff and hit the rocks below but [Rulof Maker] wanted that same feeling all over his body. So he added a serious unbalanced motor to his favorite gaming chair to make his whole body vibrate instead.

To do that he opened up the controller and found the wires going to the unbalanced motor. There he added a small relay, to be activated whenever the motor was energized. Wires from that relay go to a female connector mounted in the side of the controller, keeping the controller small and lightweight.

Next he needed to attach a much bigger unbalanced motor to the underside of his favorite gaming chair. For the unbalanced mass he poured concrete powder and molten lead into a tin can mold and attached the result to the motor’s shaft. Using a piece of wood he attached the motor to the chair’s underside.

All that was left was to power the motor and turn it on when needed. For that he wired up a bigger relay, with the relay’s coil wired to a male connector to plug into the PS-3 controller. Now when the PS-3 wants to vibrate, that relay is energized. All that was left was to wire the relay’s normally open switch, the motor and a power cord in series, plug it into the wall socket, and he was ready to shake.

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Field Expedient Bandsaw Mill Deals With Leftover Logs

May 21, 2016 by Dan Maloney 22 Comments

When a questionable tree threatened his house, [John Heisz] did the sensible thing and called in a professional to bring it down. But with a flair for homebrew tools, [John] followed up with a seemingly non-sensible act and built a quick and dirty DIY bandsaw mill to turn the resulting pile of maple logs into usable lumber.

A proper bandsaw mill is an expensive tool. Prices start in the mid-four figures for a stripped down version and can easily head into the multiple tens of thousands for the serious mills. [John] makes it clear that his mill is purpose-built to deal with his leftover logs, and so he made no attempt at essentials like a way to index the blade vertically. His intention was to shim the logs up an inch after each cut, or trim the legs to move the blade down. He also acknowledges that the 2-HP electric motor is too anemic for the hard maple logs – you can clearly see the blade bogging down in the video below. But the important point here is that [John] was able to hack a quick tool together to deal with an issue, and in the process he learned a lot about the limitations of his design and his choice of materials. That’s not to say that wood is never the right choice for tooling – get a load of all the shop-built tools and jigs in his build videos. A wooden vise? We’d like to see the build log on that.

We’ve featured a surprising number of wooden bandsaws before, from benchtop to full size. We’re pretty sure this is the first one purpose built to mill logs that we’ve featured, although there is this chainsaw mill that looks pretty handy too.

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