Lidar House Looks Good, Looks All Around

December 20, 2020 by Al Williams 10 Comments

A lighthouse beams light out to make itself and its shoreline visible. [Daniel’s] lighthouse has the opposite function, using lasers to map out the area around itself. Using an Arduino and a ToF sensor, the concept is relatively simple. However, connecting to something that rotates 360 degrees is always a challenge.

The lighthouse is inexpensive — about $40 — and small. Small enough, in fact, to mount on top of a robot, which would give you great situational awareness on a robot big enough to support it. You can see the device in action in the video below. Continue reading “Lidar House Looks Good, Looks All Around” →

Remoticon Video: How To 3D Print Onto Fabric With Billie Ruben

December 18, 2020 by Kerry Scharfglass 12 Comments

We’re impressed to see the continued flow of new and interesting ways to utilize 3D printing despite its years in the hacker limelight. At the 2020 Hackaday Remoticon [Billie Ruben] came to us from across the sea to demonstrate how to use 3D printing and fabric, or other flexible materials, to fabricate new and interesting creations. Check out her workshop below, and read on for more detail about what you’ll find.

The workshop is divided into two parts, a hands-on portion where participants execute a fabric print at home on their own printer, and a lecture while the printers whirr away describing ways this technique can be used to produce strong, flexible structures.

The technique described in the hands on portion can be clumsily summarized as “print a few layers, add the flexible material, then resume the printing process”. Of course the actual explanation and discussion of how to know when to insert the material, configure your slicer, and select material is significantly more complex! For the entire process make sure to follow along with [Billie]’s clear instructions in the video.

The lecture portion of the workshop was a whirlwind tour of the ways which embedded materials can be used to enhance your prints. The most glamourous examples might be printing scales, spikes, and other accoutrement for cosplay, but beyond that it has a variety of other uses both practical and fashionable. Embedded fabric can add composite strength to large structural elements, durable flexibility to a living hinge, or a substrate for new kinds of jewelry. [Billie] has deep experience in this realm and she brings it to bear in a comprehensive exposition of the possibilities. We’re looking forward to seeing a flurry of new composite prints!

Fancy Filament Joiner Has Promise, But Ultimately Fails

December 17, 2020 by Lewin Day 29 Comments

[Proper Printing] has been trying to 3D print rims for his car for quite some time. However, the size of the print has led to problems with filament spools running out prior to completion. This led to endless headaches trying to join several smaller lengths of filament in order to make a single larger spool. After his initial attempts by hand failed, a rig was built to try and bring some consistency to the process. (Video, embedded below.)

The rig consists of a heater block intended to melt the ends of two pieces of filament so that they can be fused together. A cheap set of brass calipers was modified with a tube in order to form a guide for the filament, ensuring that it gets bonded neatly without flaring out to a larger size. Fan coolers are then placed either side of the heating area to avoid turning the whole filament into a hot mess.

Unfortunately, the rig simply didn’t work. The initial design simply never got the filament hot enough, with the suspicion being that heat was instead being dumped into the calipers instead of the filament itself. Modifications to reduce this sadly didn’t help, and in the end, more success was had by simply holding a lighter below a length of brass tube.

While the project wasn’t a success, there’s still value in the learning along the way. We can’t see any fundamental reason why such a rig couldn’t be made to work, so if you’ve got ideas on how it could be improved, sound off in the comments. We’ve seen other successful builds using hair straighteners in a relatively simple setup, too.

Continue reading “Fancy Filament Joiner Has Promise, But Ultimately Fails” →

3D Printing With VHS Tape Filament

December 16, 2020 by Bryan Cockfield 53 Comments

If you have a pile of old VHS tapes collecting dust in your attic or basement that you know you’ll never watch again, either because all of those movies are available on DVD or a streaming service, or because you haven’t had a working VCR since 2003, there might be a way of putting them to good use in another way. With the miles of tape available in just a few cassettes, [brtv-z] shows us how to use that tape as filament for a 3D printer.

The first step of the build is to actually create the filament. He uses a purpose-built homemade press to spin several tapes into one filament similar to how cotton or flax is spun into yarn. From there the filament is simply fed into the 3D printer and put to work. The tape filament needs to be heated higher than a standard 3D printer filament so he prints at a much slower rate, but the resulting product is indistinguishable from a normal print except for the color. It has some other interesting properties as well, such as retaining its magnetism from the magnetic tape, and being a little more brittle than PET plastic although it seems to be a little stronger.

While the VHS filament might not be a replacement for all plastic 3D prints, it’s still a great use for something that would likely otherwise head straight to the landfill. There are some other uses for this magnetic tape as well, like if you wanted to build a DIY particle accelerator.

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Creality WiFi Takes On Octoprint

December 13, 2020 by Al Williams 78 Comments

A very common hack to a 3D printer is to connect a Raspberry Pi to your printer and then load Octoprint or a similar program and send your files to the printer via the network. [Teaching Tech] noticed that Creality now has an inexpensive WiFi interface that promises to replace Octoprint and decided to give it a quick review.

You might wonder why you’d want this system when Octoprint exists? Mainly, the value proposition is the price. You can buy the Creality box for about $20. A Raspberry Pi with a similar case would be at least twice that price. In addition, the box integrates with a Thingiverse-like library and does cloud slicing, which is attractive when you have a very small computer connected to your printer.

However, [Teaching Tech] found some issues. The box was pretty picky about connecting to printers and there were many other problems. The 3D model library wasn’t very comprehensive, although that could change if the thing got very popular. Worse, the slicer didn’t really produce stellar results.

We have to admit, an attractive network interface for $20 would be of interest. But it is hard to see how this would be a better value than Octoprint unless you were very short on cash and had no Raspberry Pi surplus laying around. You still need an SD card and a power supply, so those extras are a wash.

On the other hand, if Creality fixes the problems and expands the 3D model library, we’d buy one. But it remains to be seen if either of those things will happen, much less both of them. We do wish [Teaching Tech] had opened the thing up for us. Maybe next time.

Continue reading “Creality WiFi Takes On Octoprint” →

Slick DIY Compound Bow Uses Coiled Springs, Toothbrush Heads

December 12, 2020 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

Compound bows (unlike recurve bows, their more mechanically-simple relatives) use a levering system with pulleys and spring tension to grant the user a mechanical advantage. We’re not exactly sure what to call [Zünder’s] bow design. He shared his unconventional take on a DIY bow that uses coiled springs as well as some other unique features.

Toothbrush heads and 3D printing make an enclosed, bristle-supported arrow rest.

What we really dig about [Zünder]’s design is how easy it is to grasp how it all works. As he demonstrates using the bow, the way the levers, pulleys, and spring tension all work together is very clear. The 3D-printed quiver and arrow rest are nice added touches, and we especially love the use of three toothbrush heads to provide contained support for a nocked arrow. The ring of bristles are sturdy enough to easily support the shaft, and don’t interfere with the arrow’s fletching.

[Zünder] has a photo gallery with a few additional photos and closeups, and you can watch him demonstrate his bow in the video embedded below.

Continue reading “Slick DIY Compound Bow Uses Coiled Springs, Toothbrush Heads” →

A Walking Rover Destined Explore Your Fridge Door

December 10, 2020 by Danie Conradie 7 Comments

It’s usually the simple ideas that sprout bigger ones, and this was the case when we saw [gzumwalt]’s single-motor walking robot crawling up a fridge door with magnets on its feet. (Video, embedded below.)

The walking mechanism consists of an inner foot and two outer feet, connected by three sets of rotating linkages, driven by a single geared motor. The feet move in a leapfrog motion, in small enough steps that the center of mass always stays inside the foot area, which keeps it from tipping over. Besides the previously mentioned ability to crawl around on a vertical magnetic surface, it’s also able to crawl over almost any obstacle shorter than its step length. A larger version should also be able to climb stairs.

As shown, this robot can only travel in a straight line, but this could be solved by adding a disc on the bottom of the inner foot to turn the robot when the outer feet are off the surface. Add some microswitch feelers and an Arduino, and it can autonomously explore your fridge without falling off. Maybe we’ll get around to building it ourselves, but be sure to drop us a tip if you beat us to it!

[gzumwalt] is a master of 3D printed devices like a rigid chain and a domino laying robot. The mechanism for this robot was inspired by one design from [thang010146]’s marvelous video library of mechanisms.