Author: James Hobson

1404 Articles

laptop with external gpu

A Laptop With An External Graphics Card?

March 26, 2015 by 80 Comments

It used to be that desktop computers reigned king in the world of powerful computing, and to some extent, they still do. But laptops are pretty powerful these days, and in our experience, a lot of engineering companies have actually swapped over to them for resource hungry 3D CAD applications — But what if you still need a bit more power?

Well, [Kamueone] wasn’t satisfied with the performance of his Razer Blade GTX870m laptop, so he decided to hack it and give it its own external graphics card.

Now unfortunately this really isn’t quite a simple as running some PCIE extender cables — nope. You’ll have to modify the BIOS first, which according to [Kamueone], isn’t that bad. But after that’s done you’ll also need a way to mount your graphics card outside of the laptop. He’s using an EXP GDC Beast V6 which uses a mini PCIE cable that can be connected directly to the laptop motherboard. You’re also going to need an external power supply.

[Kamueone] ran some benchmarks and upgrading from the stock onboard GTX870m to an external GTX 780ti resulted in over three times the frame rate capability — 40fps stock, 130fps upgraded!

Actobotics Competition

SparkFun Stair Climbing Robot Challenge

March 26, 2015 by 5 Comments

In case you missed it, SparkFun recently held the Actobotics Stair Climber Challenge competition, where you could build a robot capable of ascending stairs and win some sweet SparkFun cash!

The contest is over now and the winners have just been announced — and some of the bots the contestants came up with are just plain awesome!

First prize went to the [Jaeger Family] who built a wheeled robot that can roll right up stairs without even batting an eyelash — it’s pretty cool to see. Check that out and more below.

Continue reading “SparkFun Stair Climbing Robot Challenge” →

Before Film There Were Zoetropes. Now We Have 3D Printed Zoetropes!

March 25, 2015 by 15 Comments

Reddit user [eyelandarts] has produced a rather unique 3D printing project. A 3D printed Zoetrope.

You see, a zoetrope was a device that created an animation effect that pre-dates film technology. It would create the illusion of motion much like a flip book does, but with a spinning cylindrical wall with slots cut into it. As the cylinder spins, you catch a glimpse of the animation through the slots. But, it’s just a 2-dimensional animation — what if you replaced it with an ever changing 3D model?

It’s actually been done before. A long time ago in fact. In 1887, [Etienne-Jules Marey] created a large zoetrope to animate plaster models of a bird in flight. Fast forward to today, and [eyelandarts] has 3D printed something similar — but ditched the cylindrical wall. Instead, a strobe light is used to see the animation!

The end result is quite awesome if we do say so our-selves. For another fun take on Zoetropes — how about a digital one made out of tiny LCD screens?

Siezure-warning… there’s a very flash-tastic demo gif embedded after the break if you’re brave enough to view such a thing.

Continue reading “Before Film There Were Zoetropes. Now We Have 3D Printed Zoetropes!” →

3D printed motorcycle

3D Printed Motorcycle Weighs Only 18kg

March 24, 2015 by 39 Comments

After discovering 3D printing a few years ago, [Jonathan Brand] was hooked. He loved the ability to design things on a computer, and then have them realized as a real 3D object he can touch — sometimes within hours of doing the CAD work. He’s always wanted a motorcycle, but it was never the right time so at long last he decided to print one.

First off — no, it doesn’t actually work — it’s a 1:1 scale model of a 1972 Honda CB500. But it is an amazing testament to 3D printing and prototyping. He’s been working on it for almost as long as he’s had a 3D printer, and while he didn’t quote exactly how long it took to print everything, we’re guessing its in the thousands of hours.

In fact, he printed tons of components, labeled them, and organized them for up to a year before even being able to assemble them together. Talk about project dedication.

He’s even designed loose fits for moving parts — the wheels spin! To give it the cool transparent look, each part is actually almost completely hollow — with thin wall thickness of only about a millimeter. Because of this, the whole bike only weighs 18kg.

For a slightly more functional large-scale 3D print — how about printing your own colorful kayak?

Continue reading “3D Printed Motorcycle Weighs Only 18kg” →

Help! There’s An Imp In My Coffee Pot!

March 22, 2015 by 20 Comments

Coffee. The lifeblood of our society. The sweet nectar of bean, whose chemical compound makes us feel so, so good. Doesn’t it deserve a place in the Internet of Things? [Matt] and [Don] thought so — so they connected their old coffee pot to their phones.

After receiving their developer version of the Electric Imp board, the two started thinking of small projects to test it out on; ones that might even have a real-world application. Since the Imp is capable of receiving inputs via the web, it’s super easy to write an app to control things — in this case, a coffee pot.

Hardware-wise it was actually pretty simple. The coffee pot control board provides power for the Imp, and the On/Off switch of the coffee maker is wired to one of the Imp’s outputs. One simple app later, and boom we have wireless java capabilities. Heh. Java.

Continue reading “Help! There’s An Imp In My Coffee Pot!” →

Bread slicer turned tool sharpener

Sharpening Knives Using A Bread Slicer?

March 18, 2015 by 19 Comments

[Joekutz] wrote in to tell us about his very interesting creation — a knife whetting machine, built from an automated bread slicer. Confused? So were we when we read the subject line!

Tired of sharpening knives by hand, [Joe] wanted to speed up the process. He recently saw our post on making a tool sharpening turntable out of a bread maker and figured, why not make one out of a bread slicer? We have no idea how you guys came up with these — finally some real hacks!

First he took apart the bread slicer and salvaged the motor, gears, and some of the electronics. He created an enclosure for it out of some laminate wood he had laying about and created a bearing axle for the disc from an old VCR. To control the speed he’s using a plain old light switch dimmer; not the most efficient but does the trick!

It uses sanding discs you can buy from any hardware store, and as you can see in the following video — it works pretty good according to the paper cutting test!

Continue reading “Sharpening Knives Using A Bread Slicer?” →

Toggle Magnet

Switchable Magnet With A Simple Circuit

March 17, 2015 by 26 Comments

Magnets are awesome. Electromagnets are even cooler. But what if you could make a semi-permanent switchable magnet that acts like an electromagnet, but doesn’t use any energy to hold metal? You’re going to want to take a look at this Low-power Magnetic Hold and Release Mechanism.

It’s actually a very simple concept. It is basically an electromagnet attached to a permanent magnet — it’ll hold any metal object exactly as you’d expect — but if you run current through the inductor attached to it, the magnetic field created by the electricity will temporarily cancel out the field of the magnet — thus freeing your object being held. Since gravity is pretty fast acting, this impulse of current doesn’t need to be very long, only fractions of a second.

Now the real question is how big could you go? We covered another project a while ago called Open Grab which discusses the possibility of using technology like this in Quadcopters.

For a solution that uses no power at all take a look at switchable magnet clamps used for welding — they’re pretty cool — but patent protected of course.