Author: Lewin Day

3210 Articles

Blowtorching Electroplated 3D Prints For Good Reason

June 30, 2025 by 27 Comments

What if you electroplated a plastic 3D print, and then melted off the plastic to leave just the metal behind? [HEN3DRIK] has been experimenting with just such a process, with some impressive results.

For this work, [HEN3DRIK] prints objects in a special PVB “casting filament” which has some useful properties. It can be smoothed with isopropanol, and it’s also intended to be burnt off when used in casting processes. Once the prints come off the printer, [HEN3DRIK] runs a vapor polishing process to improve the surface finish, and then coats the print with copper paint to make the plastic conductive on the surface. From there, the parts are electroplated with copper to create a shiny metallic surface approximately 240 micrometers thick. The final step was to blowtorch out the casting filament to leave behind just a metal shell. The only problem is that all the fire tends to leave an ugly oxide layer on the copper parts, so there’s some finishing work to be done to get them looking shiny again.

We’ve featured [HEN3DRIK]’s work before, particularly involving his creation of electroplated 3D prints with mirror finishes. That might be a great place to start your research if you’re interested in this new work. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Blowtorching Electroplated 3D Prints For Good Reason” →

Sand Drawing Table Inspired By Sisyphus

June 30, 2025 by 7 Comments

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a figure who was doomed to roll a boulder for eternity as a punishment from the gods. Inspired by this, [Aidan], [Jorge], and [Henry] decided to build a sand-drawing table that endlessly traces out beautiful patterns (or at least, for as long as power is applied). You can watch it go in the video below.

The project was undertaken as part of the trio’s work for the ECE4760 class at Cornell. A Raspberry Pi Pico runs the show, using TMC2209 drivers to command a pair of NEMA17 stepper motors to drag a magnet around beneath the sand. The build is based around a polar coordinate system, with one stepper motor rotating an arm under the table, and another panning the magnet back and forth along its length. This setup is well-suited to the round sand pit on top of the table, made with a laser-cut wooden ring affixed to a thick base plate.

The trio does a great job explaining the hardware and software decisions made, as well as showing off how everything works in great detail. If you desire to build a sand table of your own, you would do well to start here. Or, you could explore some of the many other sand table projects we’ve featured over the years.

Continue reading “Sand Drawing Table Inspired By Sisyphus” →

Building A Piezo Noise Box

June 29, 2025 by 3 Comments

The humble piezo element is often used as little more than a buzzer in many projects. However, you can do more with them, as [Something Physical] demonstrates with their nifty piezo noise box. Check out the video (and audio) below.

The construction is simple enough, attractive in its own way, with a rugged junk-assembly sort of style. The video starts out by demonstrating the use of a piezo element hooked up as a simple contact microphone, before developing it into something more eclectic.

The basic concept: Mount the piezo element to a metal box fitted with a variety of oddball implements. What kind of implements? Spiralled copper wires, a spring, and parts of a whisk. When struck, plucked, or twanged, they conduct vibrations through the box, the microphone picks them up, and the box passes the sound on to other audio equipment.

It might seem frivolous, but it’s got some real value for avant-garde musical experimentation. In particular, if you’re looking for weird signals to feed into your effects rack or modular synth setup, this is a great place to start.

We’ve seen piezos put to other percussive uses before, too.

Continue reading “Building A Piezo Noise Box” →

Ancient SoundBlaster Cards Just Got A Driver Update

June 28, 2025 by 11 Comments

Old hardware tends to get less support as the years go by, from both manufacturers and the open-source community alike. And yet, every now and then, we hear about fresh attention for an ancient device. Consider the ancient SoundBlaster sound card that first hit the market 31 years ago. [Mark] noticed that a recent update squashed a new bug on an old piece of gear.

Jump over to the Linux kernel archive, and you’ll find a pull request for v6.16-rc3 from [Takashi Iwai]. The update featured fixes for a number of sound devices, but one stands out amongst the rest. It’s the SoundBlaster AWE32 ISA sound card, with [Iwai] noting “we still got a bug report after 25 years.” The bug in question appears to have been reported in 2023 by a user running Fedora 39 on a 120 MHz Pentium-based machine.

The fixes themselves are not particularly interesting. They merely concern minutiae about the DMA modes used with the old hardware. The new updates ensure that DMA modes cannot be changed while the AWE32 is playing a PCM audio stream, and that DMA setups are disabled when changing modes. This helps avoid system lockups and/or ugly noises emanating from the output of the soundcard.

It’s incredibly unlikely this update will affect you, unless you’re one of a handful of users still using an ISA soundcard in 2025. Still, if you are — and good on you — you’ll be pleased someone still cares about your user experience. Meanwhile, if you’re aware of any other obscure old-school driver updates going on out there, don’t hesitate to let us know on the tips line. Want to relive your ISA card’s glory days? Plug it into USB.

Image credit: Gona.eu, CC BY-SA 3.0

[Thanks to Meek Mark for the tip!]

BeyBlades Made Ever More Dangerous With 3D Printing

June 28, 2025 by 11 Comments

If you’re unfamiliar with Beyblades, they’re a simple toy. They consist of spinning tops, which are designed to “fight” in arenas by knocking each other around. While the off-the-shelf models are deemed safe enough for children to play with, [Jon Bringus] decided to take the danger level up a few notches with some custom launchers of his own design.

[Jon]’s project started with some of the early metal Beyblades, which are traditionally launched with a small geared ripcord device. He soon realized he could up the action by doing one simple thing—spinning the tops far faster than the manufacturer ever intended. More rotational speed equals more kinetic energy equals more legal liability fun, or so the equation goes.

The design for [Jon’s] “WMD Launcher” is straightforward enough—he combined a lawnmower pull starter with a 12:1 geartrain to turn the Beyblades at truly ludicrous speeds. It’s basic engineering — a couple of 3D-printed gears do the job — but the results are hilarious. The tops begin to emit loud noises as they turn in combat, and some move so fast and erratically that they won’t even stay inside the arena. Protective eyewear is virtually mandatory. Files are on Printables for those eager to build one at home.

Yes, ruining a game of Beyblades is as simple as building an irresponsibly fast launcher. You needn’t even use some fancy brushless motor to hurt yourself — just a little gearing is enough to cause havoc. We’ve featured similar work on this topic before, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “BeyBlades Made Ever More Dangerous With 3D Printing” →

Building A 3D-Printed RC Dump Truck

June 27, 2025 by 1 Comment

Whatever your day job, many of us would love to jump behind the controls of a dump truck for a lark. In the real world, that takes training and expertise and the opportunity is denied to many of us. However, you can live out those dreams on your desk with this 3D-printed build from [ProfessorBoots.]

The build exists as two separate parts—the tractor, and the trailer. The tractor is effectively a fairly straightforward custom RC build, albeit with a few additional features to make it fit for purpose. It’s got six wheels as befitting a proper semi, and it has a nifty retractable magnetic hitch mechanism. This lets it hook up to various trailers and unhitch from them as desired, all from a press on the remote. The hitch also has provision for power and control lines that control whatever trailer happens to be attached.

As for the trailer, it’s a side-dumper that can drop its load to the left or right as desired. The dumping is controlled via a linear actuator using a small DC motor and a threaded rod. A servo controls a sliding locking mechanism which determines whether the truck dumps to the left or right as the linear actuator rises up.

The design video covers the 3D printed design as well as some great action shots of the dump truck doing its thing. We’ve featured some builds from [ProfessorBoots] before, too, like this neat 3D-printed forklift . Video after the break.

Continue reading “Building A 3D-Printed RC Dump Truck” →

Standing Desk Uses Pneumatics To Do The Job

June 27, 2025 by 6 Comments

Most standing desks on the market use electric motors or hand cranks to raise and lower the deck. However, [Matthias Wandel] found a Kloud standing desk that used an altogether different set up. He set about figuring out how it worked in the old-fashioned way—by pulling it apart.

The Kloud desk relies on pneumatics rather than electrical actuators to move up and down. Inside the desk sits a small tank that can be pressurized with a hand-cranked mechanism. A lever can then be used to release pressure from this tank into a pair of pneumatic cylinders that drive the top of the desk upwards. The two cylinders are kept moving in sync by a tensioned metal ribbon that ties the two sides together. The mechanism is not unlike a gas lift chair—holding the lever and pushing down lets the desk move back down. Once he’s explained the basic mechanism, [Matthias] gets into the good stuff—pulling apart the leg actuator mechanism to show us what’s going on inside in greater detail.

If you’ve ever thought about building your own standing desk, this might be a video worth watching. We’ve featured some other great pneumatics projects before, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Standing Desk Uses Pneumatics To Do The Job” →