Kate Reed: The Creative Process In Action

December 21, 2015 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Kate Reed is an artist. Kate Reed also builds hand-driven wheelchair accessories that work with any wheelchair. Wait, what? These things don’t have to be separate skills. We’re living in the age of artisanal creation and Kate is a perfect example that you need to embody all skills. She’s an artist who follows a creative idea from inception through to implementation. Check out her talk on the Creative Process in Action from the Hackaday SuperConference, then jump past the break for some more details on what she’s been building and how she build her diverse set of skills.

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$20 Sip-and-Puff Mouse From E-Cig And 3D Printing

December 21, 2015 by Al Williams 23 Comments

At Hackaday, we think the highest form of hacking is hacking for good. Sure, it’s fun to build robots and gadgets, and universal remotes. But it is even better to create things that make people’s lives better. In that spirit, we enjoyed seeing the Assistive Tech Challenge over on Thingiverse that ended last month. The winner was [0_o] who used 3D printing and an Arduino to produce a mouth-operated mouse for under $20.

Instructions on Thingiverse can be spotty, but [0_o] did an excellent job of laying out what you need to buy and how to assemble it. One of the most interesting parts of the build is the blow sensor. [0_o] tore apart a $5 electronic cigarette and used the sensor within. The mouthpiece is moved like a joystick to actuate the cursor, and the user blows into it for the mouse clicks. Perhaps not a true sip-and-puff system but it made us wonder what other uses you might find for these sensors.

You can see a video about the mouse after the break. These kinds of projects have the power to make someone’s life better and what could be better than that?

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3D Printed Hydraulics

December 20, 2015 by Al Williams 37 Comments

[Robert MacCurdy] at MIT wants to change how people think about hydraulics. Using fluid can be very useful in systems like robots, but it is often the case that the tubing that carries hydraulic fluid is not an integrated part of the overall design. [MacCurdy] and his colleagues have modified a 3D printer to allow it directly include hydraulic components as it prints.

The idea is simple. The team started with a printer that uses a liquid ink that is UV cured to produce solid layers. The printer has the ability to use multiple liquids, and [MacCurdy] uses hydraulic fluid (that does not UV cure) as one of the print materials. Just as you can use a 3D printer to build structures within other structures, printing the hydraulics allows for complex closed systems that use the UV-cured resin as mechanical parts that can transfer pressure to and from the hydraulic system.

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Printing Objects Directly From Fallout 4

December 20, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 40 Comments

Fallout 4 was released about a month ago, and although we don’t have a ‘took an arrow to the knee’ meme like Bethesda’s last game, there are ample opportunities for cosplay and printing out deathclaws and mirelurks on a 3D printer. How do you turn files hidden away in a game’s folders into a real, printed object? It’s actually pretty easy and [Angus] is here to tell you how.

The files for Fallout enemies and items can be readily accessed with the Bethesda Archive Extractor, although this won’t give you files that a 3D printer can understand. You’ll get a .NIF file, and NifSkope can convert the files found in the Fallout archives to an .OBJ file any 3D modeling program can understand. The next step from there is taking the .OBJ file into Meshmixer and fixing everything with Netfabb. After that, it’s off to the printer.

[Angus] printed his model of a Deathclaw in ABS in multiple parts, gluing them together with a little bit of acetone. This didn’t go exactly as planned; there were some contaminants in the ABS that turned into a white film on the black ABS. This was ultimately fixed with XTC-3D, the 3D print coating everyone is experimenting with.

The finished product is a solid yellow but completely smooth 3D model of one of the toughest enemies in Fallout 4. The only thing left to do is paint the model. The best way to proceed at this point is probably doing what model builders have been doing for decades – an airbrush, and hundreds of tiny bottles of paint. [Angus] is opening up his YouTube comments for suggestions, and if you have a better idea he’s looking for some help.
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3D Printing And Book Binding

December 19, 2015 by James Hobson 7 Comments

How exactly do you use 3D printing to assist in the extremely tedious and difficult art of leather book binding? It’s pretty simple actually — by 3D printing the title you want to emboss!

[Luc Volders] is a hobbyist book binder. He’s also recently gotten into 3D printing, by building his own Prusa I2, and even now, he’s working on building a Delta printer. Typically to do a relief or embossed title on a leather-bound book requires a lot of time — and it’s pretty easy to mess up.

He’s done book covers with relief before, by painstakingly carving each letter out with a knife, then gluing leather onto the cover, pressing it into the indent left by carving. It’s not easy. Continue reading “3D Printing And Book Binding” →

Mains Powered 3D Printer Heated Beds

December 16, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 160 Comments

Converting mains voltage down to 12 or 24VDC to drive a heating element makes no sense. To get 120 watts at 12 volts requires thick wires that can handle 10 amps, whereas at 120V, tiny 1A wires will do. If you’ve ever felt the MOSFET that switches your heated bed on and off, you know it’s working hard to pass that much current. [Makertum] is of the opinion this is a dumb idea. He’s creating a 110 / 230 V, mains-powered heated bed.

Creating a PCB heat bed isn’t an art – it’s a science. There are equations and variables to calculate, possibly some empirical measurements by measuring the resistance of a trace, but Ohm’s Law is a law for a reason. If you do things right, you can make a PCB heat bed perfectly suited for the task. You can even design in safety features like overcurrent protection and fuses. It can’t be that hard. After all, your house is full of devices that are plugged into the wall.

However, there’s a reason we use 12V and 24V heated beds – they give us, at the very least, the illusion of safety. Therefore, [Makertum] is looking for a few comments from specialists and people who know what they’re doing.

Although a mains powered heated bed sounds scary for a hobbyist-built 3D printer, there are a number of positives to the design. It would heat up faster, thin down a few parts, and significantly reduce the overall cost of the printer by not requiring another 100 Watts delivered from a 12V power supply. It’s a great idea if it doesn’t burn down the house. Anyone want to help?

Toilet Automatically Flushes For Your Bathroom Trained Kitty

December 16, 2015 by James Hobson 20 Comments

So you’ve successfully taught your cats to use your toilet, just like little furry humans. Congratulations! But you can’t quite teach the cat to pull the flush lever? You might want to automate it for them instead! (Editor’s note, 2019. Link seems to be dead. Try the Wayback Machine.)

[Joycelin & Dan] are in the final stages of teaching their cats to use the toilet. Unfortunately they had a snowboarding trip coming up, and were worried about the cats losing progress when they couldn’t flush the toilet for them. Rather than have a bit of a setback in their toilet training, they improvised — and automated the toilet.

There are commercial solutions available, but they cost several hundred dollars. You could strap a geared motor to the side of your toilet with a stick screwed to it like this guy did, but who wants to pay for the water bill of flushing your toilet every few minutes??

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