Utility Mat Turns Waste Epoxy Into Useful Tools

February 9, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 46 Comments

Epoxy is a great and useful material typically prepared by mixing two components together. But often we find ourselves mixing too much epoxy for the job at hand, and we end up with some waste left behind. [Keith Decent’s] utility mat aims to make good use of what is otherwise waste material.

The concept is simple yet ingenious. It’s a flexible mat that serves as a mold for all kinds of simple little plastic workshop tools. The idea is that when you have some epoxy left over from pouring a finish on a table or laying up some composites, you can then pour the excess into various sections of the utility mat. The epoxy can then be left to harden, producing all manner of useful little tools.

It may seem silly, but it could save your workshop plenty of nickels and dimes. Why keep buying box after box of stir sticks when you can simply make a few with zero effort from the epoxy left from your last job? The utility mat also makes other useful nicknacks like glue spreaders, scrapers, wedges, and painter’s pyramids.

We’ve seen other great recycling hacks over the years too. Video after the break.

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Simple Wood-Fired Water Heater Is Surprisingly Effective

February 8, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 55 Comments

These days, humans have gotten all fancy-schmancy with their gas and electric water heaters. Heck, some are even using heat pumps to do the work as efficiently as possible. [HowToLou] got back to basics instead, with his simple wood-fired water heater design.

The design is straightforward, featuring 100ft of quarter-inch copper tubing wrapped directly around a steel barrel. Room-temperature water is fed into the tubing via a garden hose, and comes out much hotter, thanks to a fire burning away in the barrel stove of [Lou’s] own construction.

For an input water temperature of 41 F, the output reaches 105 F at a flow rate of 0.67 gallons per minute. By [Lou]’s calculations, that’s a heat transfer to the water of roughly 21,000 BTU per hour. [Lou] achieved this with just $55 worth of copper tubing, and he notes that simply doubling up the tubing would increase the heat transfer to the water even further.

If you’re looking for a hot shower from your outdoor wood stove, a build like this might be just the ticket. With the stove burning hot and your hose as a water supply, you could experience the joy of the hot water while you’re standing in the snow outside. We’ve seen [Lou]’s work before, too. Video after the break.

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Building A Plasma Piano Ain’t Easy

February 8, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 17 Comments

Electronic arcs can be made to “sing” if you simply modulate them on and off at audible frequencies. We’ve seen it done with single Tesla coils, and even small Tesla choirs, but [Mattias Krantz] took this to extremes by building an entire “plasma piano” using this very technique.

The build relies on ten transformers more typically used in cathode ray tubes. The transformers are capable of generating high enough voltages to create arcs in the air. The transformers are controlled by an Arduino, which modulates the arcs at musical frequencies corresponding to the keys pressed on the piano. Sensing the keys of the piano is achieved with a QRS optical sensor strip designed for performance capture from conventional pianos. For the peak aesthetic, the transformer outputs are connected to the metal hammers of the piano, and the arcs ground out on a metal plate in the back of the piano’s body. This lets arcs fly across the piano’s whole width as its played. Ten transformers are used to enable polyphony, so the piano to play multiple tones at once.

Building the piano was no mean feat for [Mattias], who admitted to having very limited experience with electronics before beginning the build. However, he persevered and got it working, while thankfully avoiding injury from high voltage in the process. This wasn’t easy, as Arduinos would regularly freeze from the noise produced by the arcs and the system would lose all control. However, with some smart software tweaks to the arc control and some insulating panels, [Mattias] was able to get the piano playable quite well with a beautiful chiptune tone.

It bears stating that HV work can be dangerous, and you shouldn’t try it at home without the proper understanding of how to do so safely. If you’re confident though, we’ve featured some great projects in this space before. Video after the break.

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Model Train Delivers Fresh Coffee

February 8, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 26 Comments

Model trains are good fun, though few of them serve any purpose beyond amusement or authentic railway simulation. [ProjectAir] decided to put his model train to practical use by having it deliver fresh espresso, and faced plenty of difficult challenges along the way.

It sounds simple, but the practicalities of the task proved difficult. After all, even a slight wobble is enough to tip a coffee cup off a small train. Automating everything from the railway itself to the kitchen coffee machine was no mean feat either. Plus, the aim was to deliver coffee from a downstairs kitchen up to an upstairs office. This meant finding a way to get the train to climb a steep staircase and to carry the coffee over a 20-meter journey without losing the caffeinated beverage in the process. That required the construction of a fancy train elevator to do the job — an impressive accomplishment on its own.

The final system is a joy to watch. Having a train roll into the upstairs workshop with a fresh brew certainly beats having to go all the way downstairs for a cup. Just don’t think about the fact that moving the coffee machine upstairs might have been a quicker solution.

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Fox Fined For Using EAS Tone In Football Ad

February 7, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 82 Comments

The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a simple parable that teaches children the fatal risk of raising a false alarm. To do so is to risk one’s life when raising the alarm about a real emergency that may go duly ignored.

Today, we rarely fear wolves, and we don’t worry about them eating us, our sheep, or our children. Instead, we worry about bigger threats, like incoming nuclear weapons, tornadoes, and earthquakes. We’ve built systems to warn us of these calamities, and authorities take a very dim view of those who misuse these alarms. Fox did just that in a recent broadcast, using a designated alarm tone for an advert. This quickly drew the attention of the Federal Communication Commission.
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Jupiter’s Moon Io Could Play Host To Life

February 6, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 26 Comments

It was many years ago now when David Bowie asked if there was life on Mars. Since then, we’ve concluded there isn’t, much to everyone’s disappointment. That left scientists the world over to start looking elsewhere for new lifeforms for us to talk to, conquer, or play bridge with. Or perhaps more likely, look at under a microscope.

The latest candidate for hosting nearby life is Jupiter’s moon, Io. Let’s take a look at what makes Io special, and what we might hope to find there.

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Candy Blaster Lets You Shoot PEZ At Your Friends

February 3, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 16 Comments

Nerf Blasters are great fun to play with, but you really shouldn’t eat the foam darts. Conversely, Pez dispensers are fussy and kind of boring, but the candy is a tasty treat. [Soloprototype] has presented us the best of both worlds, in the form of a 3D-printed Pez blaster, with a firm note that this toy is for grown-ups only.

Overall, the design is very similar to the Pez Shooter, a long-discontinued Pez dispenser design. It uses a basic pistol form factor, and accepts a magazine of Pez pellets loaded into the grip. The magazine itself is cut out of a regular Pez dispenser, to avoid reinventing the wheel. Pulling the trigger fires the Pez pellets with spring power, launching candy into the air.

We all love candy propelled at speed, though [Soloprototype] notes that some safety precautions should be observed. To avoid choking risks, it’s not recommended to allow children to play with the toy. Nor should it be fired at the face or mouth. The full list of safety measures is available on the project’s Cults3D page.

The Pez blaster is cool, but we’d love to see more work in this space. The world needs a Twinkie Trebuchet, or a Cadbury Catapult, to say nothing of the Butterfingers Balista. If you can think of other Age of Empires siege weapons that would be ideal for candy delivery, drop them in the comments below. Alternatively, consider the M&M launcher we’ve shared previously!