Author: Dan Maloney

3373 Articles

Automate Parts Kitting With This Innovative SMD Tape Slicer

June 7, 2022 by 5 Comments

Nobody likes a tedious manual job prone to repetitive stress injury, and such tasks rightly inspire an automated solution. This automatic SMD tape cutter is a good example of automating such a chore, while leaving plenty of room for further development.

We’re used to seeing such tactical automation projects from [Mr Innovative], each of which centers on an oddly specific task. In this case, the task involves cutting a strip containing a specific number of SMD resistors from a reel, perhaps for assembling kits of parts. The mechanism is simple: a stepper motor with a rubber friction wheel to drive the tape, and a nasty-looking guillotine to cut the tape. The cutter is particularly interesting, using as it does a short length of linear bearing to carry a holder for a razor blade that’s mounted perpendicular to the SMD tape. The holder is mounted to a small motor via a crank, and when the proper number of parts have been fed out, the motor rotates one revolution, driving the angled blade quickly down and then back up. This results in a shearing cut rather than the clipping action seen in this automated wire cutter, also by [Mr Innovative].

Curiously, there seems to be no feedback mechanism to actually measure how many resistors have been dispensed. We assume [Mr Innovative] is just counting steps, but it seems easy enough to integrate a photosensor to count the number of drive sprocket holes in the tape. It also seems like a few simple changes would allow this machine to accommodate SMD tapes of different sizes, making it generally useful for SMD kitting. It’s still pretty cool as a tactical project, though, and does a great job inspiring future improvements.

Continue reading “Automate Parts Kitting With This Innovative SMD Tape Slicer” →

3D-Printed Power Loom Shows How Complex Weaving Really Is

June 7, 2022 by 35 Comments

The seemingly humble flying-shuttle loom, originally built to make the weaving of wide cloth faster and easier, stood at the threshold between the largely handcrafted world of the past and the automated world that followed. And judging by how much work went into this miniature 3D-printed power loom, not to mention how fussy it is, it’s a wonder that we’re not all still wearing homespun cloth.

Dealing with the warp and the weft of it all isn’t easy, as [Fraens] discovered with this build. The main idea with weaving is to raise alternate warp threads, which run with the length of the fabric, to create a virtual space, called the shed, through which a shuttle carrying the weft thread is passed. The weft thread is then pressed in place by a comb-like device called the reed, the heddles carrying the warp threads shift position, and the process is repeated.

[Fraens]’ version of the flying-shuttle loom is built mostly from 3D-printed parts, with a smattering of aluminum and acrylic. There are levers, shafts, and cams galore, not to mention the gears and sprockets that drive the mechanism via a 12-volt gear motor. The mechanism that moves the shuttle back and forth in the shed is particularly interesting; it uses cams to release the tension stored in elastic bands to flick the shuttle left and right. Shuttle timing is critical, as a few of the fails later in the video show. [Fraens] had to play with cam shape and lever arm length to get the timing right, not to mention having to resort to a chain drive to get enough torque to move the shuttle.

We’ve seen power looms before, but mainly those that operate at a somewhat more stately pace than this one. Hats off to [Fraens] for showing the true complexity involved in automating weaving.

Continue reading “3D-Printed Power Loom Shows How Complex Weaving Really Is” →

Aerial Robotics Hack Chat

June 6, 2022 by 2 Comments

Join us on Wednesday, June 8 at noon Pacific for the Aerial Robotics Hack Chat with Nick Rehm!

When it comes to robots, especially ones that need to achieve some degree of autonomy, the more constrained the environment they work in, the easier it is for them to deal with the world. An industrial arm tethered next to a production line, for example, only has to worry about positioning its tool within its work envelope. The problems mount up for something like an autonomous car, though, which needs to deal with the world in two — or perhaps two and a half — dimensions.

But what about adding a third dimension? That’s the realm that aerial robots have to live and work in, and it’s where the problems get really interesting. Not only are there hardly any constraints to movement, but you’ve also got to deal with the problems of aerodynamic forces, navigation in space, and control systems that need to respond to the slightest of perturbations without overcompensating.

join-hack-chatThe atmosphere is a tough place to make a living, and dealing with the problems of aerial robotics has kept Nick Rehm occupied for many years as a hobbyist, and more recently as an aerospace engineer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Nick has spent his time away from the office solving the problems of autonomous flight, including detection and avoidance of mid-air collisions, development of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and fixed-wing aircraft, and even ground-effect aircraft. He’ll drop by the Hack Chat to discuss the problems of aerial robots and the challenges of unconventional aviation, and help us figure out how to deal with the third dimension.

Our Hack Chats are live community events in the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, June 8 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a handy time zone converter.

Continue reading “Aerial Robotics Hack Chat” →

Hackaday Links Column Banner

Hackaday Links: June 5, 2022

June 5, 2022 by 16 Comments

The big news this week comes from the world of medicine, where a woman has received a 3D-printed ear transplant. The 20-year-old woman suffered from microtia, a rare congenital deformity that left her without a pinna, the external structure of the ear. Using scans of the normal ear, doctors were able to make a 3D model of what the missing pinna should look like. Raw material for the print was taken from the vestigial ear of the patient in the form of cartilage cells, or chondrocytes. The ear was printed using a bioprinter, which is a bit like an inkjet printer. The newly printed ear was placed into a protective structure and transplanted. The operation was done in March, and the results are pretty dramatic. With a little squinting, it does look a bit like there are some printing artifacts in the ear, but we’d imagine that’s more from the protective cage that was over the ear as it healed.

Continue reading “Hackaday Links: June 5, 2022” →

The Dangerously Delightful Homemade Rockets Of Thailand

June 4, 2022 by 25 Comments

Every once in a while, we here at Hackaday stumble across something that doesn’t quite fit in with all the other amazing hacks we feature, but still seems like something that our dear readers need to see as soon as possible. This video of homemade rockets in Thailand is one of those things.

It comes to us from our friend [Leo Fernekes], who documents a form of amateur rocketry that makes the Estes rockets of our youth look pretty tame. It’s far easier to watch than it is to describe, but for a quick summary, the rockets are bamboo rings with a steel pipe across the diameter. The pipe is packed with homemade gunpowder and provided with nozzles that create both thrust and rotation. When ignited by torches touched to seriously sketchy primers, the rocket starts to spin up, eventually rising off the launch pad and screwing itself into the sky on a twisting column of gray smoke.

At three or four meters across, these are not small vehicles. Rather than letting a steel pipe plummet back to Earth from what looks like several hundred meters altitude, the rocketeers have devised a clever recovery system that deploys a parachute when the rocket motor finally melts through some plastic straps. The use of banana tree bark as a heat shield to protect the parachute is simple but effective; which is really the way you can describe the whole enterprise. [Leo] has another way to describe it: “Dangerously negligent madness,” with all due respect and affection, of course. It looks like a big deal, too — the air is obviously filled with the spirit of competition, not to mention the rotten-egg stench of gunpowder.

Should you try this at home? Probably not — we can think of dozens of reasons why this is a bad idea. Still, it’s amazing to watch, and seeing how much altitude these cobbled-up rockets manage to gain is truly amazing. Hats off to [Leo] for finding this for us.

Continue reading “The Dangerously Delightful Homemade Rockets Of Thailand” →

Hackaday Podcast 171: Rent The Apple Toolkit, DIY An Industrial CNC, Or Save The Birds With 3D Printing

June 3, 2022 by 4 Comments

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for a tour of the week’s best and brightest hacks. We begin with a call for point-of-sale diversity, because who wants to carry cash? We move on to discussing glass as a building material, which isn’t really easy, but at least it can be sintered with a DIY-grade laser. Want to make a call on a pay phone in New York City? Too late — the last one is gone, and we offer a qualified “good riddance.” We look at socially engineering birds to get them away from what they should be really afraid of, discuss Apple’s potential malicious compliance with right-to-repair, and get the skinny on an absolute unit of a CNC machine. Watching TV? That’s so 2000s, but streaming doesn’t feel quite right either. Then again, anything you watch on a mechanical color TV is pretty cool by definition.

Direct Download link

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast

Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 171: Rent The Apple Toolkit, DIY An Industrial CNC, Or Save The Birds With 3D Printing” →

A Rotocasting Machine Sized For The Home Shop

June 3, 2022 by 5 Comments

If you’ve ever wondered how large, hollow plastic structures like tanks and drums are formed, you’re in luck: [Andy] not only fills us in on the details of rotational casting and molding, but he also built this sweet little rotational casting machine to help him with his DIY projects.

Granted, [Andy]’s build won’t be making anything too large, like a car fuel tank or a kayak. Not only is it sized more for smallish parts, but those structures are generally made with the related process of rotational molding. Both processes use an enclosed multipart mold that’s partially filled with plastic resin, and then rotate the mold around two axes to distribute a thin layer of resin around the inside of the mold. The difference is that roto-molding uses a thermoplastic resin, whereas roto-casting uses resins like polyurethane and silicone that set at room temperature.

The machine looks simple, but only because he took great pains to optimize it. The videos below cover the build in detail — feel free to skip to the 11:38 mark of the second video if you just want to see it in action. Though you’ll be missing some juicy tidbits, like welding a perfect 90° joint in square tubing. There’s also the custom tool [Andy] built to splice the beaded chain he used to drive the spinning of the mold, which was pure genius.

Using the machine and a complex nine-piece mold, [Andy] was able to create remarkably detailed tires for RC cars from polyurethane resin. We’d love to see what else this rig is good for — almost as much as we want to see details on how the mold was made. We’ve seen other rotational casting machines before, but this one takes the cake for fit and finish.

Continue reading “A Rotocasting Machine Sized For The Home Shop” →