Giant 3D Printed Lock Helps Teach Picking

August 22, 2018 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

Despite what the media might tell you, picking locks isn’t just for spies and guys wearing balaclavas. Those who pick as a hobby, or even competitively, think of locks as logic puzzles. Each lock is a unique challenge, and defeating it requires patience, dexterity, and perhaps most importantly the experience that comes from regular practice. But where does one start if they want to get into the world of recreational lock picking, also known as locksport?

Many people begin their journey on a practice lock, usually made of clear plastic so you can see its inner-workings. That’s fine for the individual, but what if you’re trying to demonstrate lock picking to a group? [John Biggs] may have the solution for you, assuming you’ve got the time and material. His huge 3D printed cutaway lock, and appropriately sized tools, allow even the folks in the back of the room to see how basic picking techniques work.

A print of this size is nothing to sneeze at; a quick peek on the reference printer here at the Hackaday Chamber of Secrets indicates you’re probably looking at the better part of 20 hours to print everything out. Once printed you’ll likely need to take a file and some sandpaper to all the surfaces to make sure things operate smoothly. It doesn’t appear to be a terribly challenging print all things considered, but we wouldn’t call it a beginner’s project either.

The only non-printed part in this design is the springs, which [John] mentions he hasn’t quite found the solution for yet. They need to be fairly weak or else the lock is too hard to pick, but springs large enough to work with the pins are usually pretty strong. This might be a perfect application for some custom wound springs.

After you’ve mastered the PLA lock, it might be time to make your own picks and see if anyone is giving free lock picking workshops in your area.

Automated Turntable For 3D Scanning

August 21, 2018 by Tom Nardi 16 Comments

Those just starting out in 3D printing often believe that their next major purchase after the printer will be a 3D scanner. If you’re going to get something that can print a three dimensional model, why not get something that can create said models from real-world objects? But the reality is that only a small percentage ever follow through with buying the scanner; primarily because they are notoriously expensive, but also because the scanned models often require a lot of cleanup work to be usable anyway.

While this project by [Travis Antoniello] won’t make it any easier to utilize scanned 3D models, it definitely makes them cheaper to acquire. So at least that’s half the battle. Consisting primarily of a stepper motor, an Arduino, and a EasyDriver controller, this is a project you might be able to assemble from the parts bin. Assuming you’ve got a pretty decent camera in there, anyway…

The general idea is to place a platform on the stepper motor, and have the Arduino rotate it 10 degrees at a time in front of a camera on a tripod. The camera is triggered by an IR LED on one of the Arduino’s digital pins, so that it takes a picture each time the platform rotates. There are configurable values to give the object time to settle down after rotation, and a delay to give the camera time to take the picture and get ready for the next one.

Once all the pictures have been taken, they are loaded into special software to perform what’s known as photogrammetry. By compiling all of the images together, the software is able to generate a fairly accurate 3D image. It might not have the resolution to make a 1:1 copy of a broken part, but it can help shave some modeling time when working with complex objects.

We’ve previously covered the use of photogrammetry to design 3D printed accessories, as well as a slightly different take on an automated turntable a few years ago. The process is still not too common, but the barriers to giving it a try on your own are at least getting lower.

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Texture Trick For 3D Prints From The Stone Age

August 21, 2018 by Tom Nardi 14 Comments

Arguably one of the most difficult aspects of 3D printing is trying to make the finished product look like it wasn’t 3D printed. It can take a lot of time and work to cover up the telltale layer lines (or striations, if you want to get fancy), especially if your 3D printer isn’t perfectly calibrated. While there aren’t many shortcuts to achieve a glass-like finish on 3D printed parts, if your end goal is to make something that looks like stone, [Wekster] has a tip for you.

He demonstrates the technique by building a gorgeous recreation of the main gate from Jurassic Park. The process gives the relatively smooth plastic the gnarled look of rough-hewn stone with very little in the way of manual work. While it’s true there’s no overabundance of projects this stone-look finish will work for, it’s definitely something we’ll be filing away mentally.

So what’s the secret? [Wekster] first coats the 3D printed parts with common wood filler, the sort of stuff available at any hardware store. He then wraps them in clear plastic wrap, allowing the wrap to bunch up rather than trying to pull it taught. For extra detail, he digs into the plastic wrap here and there to create what will appear to be gaps and cracks on the finished piece. The wood filler is then left to dry; a process which normally only takes a few minutes, but now will take considerably longer as the plastic wrap will be keeping the air from it.

Once its hardened and unwrapped, [Wekster] sprays it with a base coat of color, and follows up with a few washings with watered down black and gray paints. This technique is well known to anyone who’s done miniature or model painting; serving to highlight the surface texture and give the finish more depth. With this method, anything that resembles a layer line in the print is long gone, and the surface looks so complex and detailed that at first glance few would believe it’s plastic.

[Wekster] also used wood filler during the finishing process for his Fallout 4 “Thirst Zapper” replica. In the past we’ve shown how you can smooth out 3D printed parts with epoxy and taken a very scientific look at using UV resin as a conformal coating, but maybe it’s time we give wood filler a shot.

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A Tiny Steering Wheel You Can Print

August 17, 2018 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

Racing games are a great way to test drive that Ferrari you can’t quite afford yet, and the quality of simulations has greatly improved in the last 30 or so years. While there are all manner of high-quality steering wheels to connect to your PC or home console, many gamers still choose to play using a typical controller, using the thumbstick for steering. What if there was something in between?

What we have here is a tiny steering wheel you can print for an Xbox One controller, that mounts to the controller frame and turns rotational motion into vaguely linear horizontal motion on the thumbstick. It does come with some pitfalls, namely blocking a button or two and it also obscures some of the D-pad. However, for those of you driving in automatic mode without using the buttons to shift gears, this could be a fun device to experiment with. Files to print your own are available on Thingiverse.

It’s a neat hack, and there’s plenty of room to take the idea further and personalise it to suit your own tastes. While you’re there, why stop at steering? You could make your own custom buttons, too!

[via Gizmodo, thanks to Itay for the tip!]

Leather Working With A 3D Printer

August 14, 2018 by Al Williams 22 Comments

No, you can’t print in leather — at least not yet. But [Make Everything] has a tutorial about how to produce a custom leather embossing jig with a 3D printer. From a 3D printing point of view, this isn’t very hard to do and you might want to skip over the first six minutes of the video if you’ve done 3D printing before.

The real action is when he has the 3D print completed. He glues the stamp down to some wood and then fits the assembly to a vise that he’ll use as a press. After wetting the leather, the wood and 3D printed assembly sandwiches the piece and the vise applies pressure for ten minutes. He did make the leather a bit oversized to make alignment more forgiving. After the embossing is complete, he trims it out.

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Underwater VR Offers Zero Gravity On A Budget

August 12, 2018 by Tom Nardi 9 Comments

Someday Elon Musk might manage to pack enough of us lowly serfs into one of his super rockets that we can actually afford a ticket to space, but until then our options for experiencing weightlessness are pretty limited. Even if you’ll settle for a ride on one of the so-called “Vomit Comet” reduced-gravity planes, you’ll have to surrender a decent chunk of change, and as the name implies, potentially your lunch as well. Is there no recourse for the hacker that wants to get a taste of the astronaut experience without a NASA-sized budget?

Well, if you’re willing to get wet, [spiritplumber] might have the answer for you. Using a few 3D printed components he’s designed, it’s possible to use Google Cardboard compatible virtual reality software from the comfort of your own pool. With Cardboard providing the visuals and the water keeping you buoyant, the end result is something not entirely unlike weightlessly flying around virtual environments.

To construct his underwater VR headset, [spiritplumber] uses a number of off-the-shelf products. The main “Cardboard” headset itself is the common plastic style that you can probably find in the clearance section of whatever Big Box retailer is convenient for you, and the waterproof bag that holds the phone can be obtained cheaply online. You’ll also need a pair of swimmers goggles to keep water from rudely interrupting your wide-eyed wonderment. As for the custom printed parts, a frame keeps the waterproof bag from pressing against the screen while submerged, and a large spacer is required to get the phone at the appropriate distance from the operator’s eyes.

To put his creation to the test, [spiritplumber] loads up a VR rendition of NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, where astronauts experience a near-weightless environment underwater. All that’s left to complete the experience is a DIY scuba regulator so you can stay submerged. Though at that point we wouldn’t be surprised if a passerby confuses your DIY space simulator for an elaborate suicide attempt.

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Ease Rover Development With These Self-Contained Track Units

August 10, 2018 by Donald Papp 2 Comments

Tracked drive systems are great, but implementation isn’t always easy. That’s what [nahueltaibo] found every time he tried to use open sourced track designs for his own rovers. The problem is that a tracked drive system is normally closely integrated with a vehicle’s chassis, mixing and matching between designs is impractical because the tracks and treads aren’t easily separated from the rest of the vehicle.

To solve this, [nahueltaibo] designed a modular, 3D printable rover track system. It contains both a motor driver and a common DC gearmotor in order to make a standalone unit that can be more easily integrated into other designs. These self-contained rover tracks don’t even have a particular “inside” or “outside”; they can be mounted on a vehicle’s left or right without any need to mirror the design. The original CAD design is shared from Fusion 360, but can also be downloaded from Thingiverse. A bit more detail is available from [nahueltaibo]’s blog, where he urges anyone who tries the design or finds it useful to share a photo or two.

3D printed tank tracks — including this one — often use a piece of filament as a hinge between track segments and sometimes slightly melted on the ends to act as a kind of rivet, which is itself a pretty good hack.