Testing A Laser Cut Wrench VS A Forged Wrench

August 13, 2022 by Al Williams 30 Comments

It is easy to not think much about common tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. But not for [Torque Test Channel]. The channel does a lot of testing of tools and in the video, below, they test a new wrench that is, oddly enough, laser cut instead of forged like the usual wrench.

You would expect a machined wrench to be weaker than a forged wrench. We were impressed, though, that there is so much difference between wrenches when you start making measurements.

Speaking of measurements, we would like to see more details of the test setups shown both in the video and in some of the video clips included. We did enjoy seeing the examination of the internal grain structure of both wrenches.

Be forewarned. Watching this video is likely going to send you to the computer to buy some new wrenches, especially if you don’t have 30/60 head wrenches.

The real question is why laser cut a wrench? It doesn’t seem like it is actually better than the forged variant. It is more expensive, but the setup costs for forging are higher. Particularly for a tool made in the United States, forging is both expensive and it is difficult to find time on the limited number of large-scale forges left in the country.

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Jigsaw Puzzles Are Defeated

August 4, 2022 by Brian McEvoy 30 Comments

To some folx, puzzles are the ultimate single-player game, but to others, they are like getting a single Tootsie Roll on Halloween. [Shane] of Stuff Made Here must fall into the latter category because he spent the equivalent of 18 work-weeks to make a robot that solves them automatically. Shots have been fired in the war on puzzles.

The goal of this robot is to beat a hybrid idea of two devilish puzzles. The first is all-white which could be solved by taking a piece at random and then checking its compatibility with every unsolved piece. The second is a 5000-piece monster painted white. There is a Moby Dick theme here. Picking up pieces like a human with fingers is out of the question, but pick-and-place machines solved this long ago, and we learn a cool lesson about how shop-air can create negative pressure. Suction. We wonder if anyone ever repurposed canned air to create a vacuum cleaner.

The meat of this video is overcoming hurdles, like a rhomboidal gantry table, helping machine vision see puzzle pieces accurately, and solving a small puzzle. [Shane] explains the solutions with the ear of someone with a technical background but at a high enough level that anyone can learn something. All the moving parts are in place, but the processing power to decode the puzzle is orders of magnitude higher than consumer machines, so that will wait for part two.

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Brass Plaque Honors Brother

August 3, 2022 by Brian McEvoy 10 Comments

Brass plaques are eye-catching because no one makes them on a whim. They are more costly than wood or plastic, and processing them is proportionally difficult. [Becky Stern] picked the medium to honor her brother, who enjoyed coffee, motorcycles, and making things by hand. She made some playing card-sized pieces to adorn his favorite brand of hot bean juice and a large one to hang at his memorial site.

The primary components are a vertical salt water bath, DC power supply, metal to etch, scrap steel approximately the same size, and a water agitator, which in this case is an air pump and diffuser stone. You could stir manually for two hours and binge your shows but trust us and take the easy route. The video doesn’t explicitly call for flexible wires, but [Becky] wisely selected some high-strand hook-up leads, which will cause fewer headaches as stiff copper has a mind of its own, and you don’t want the two sides colliding.

There are a couple of ways to transfer an insulating mask to metal, and we see the ole’ magazine paper method fail in the video, but cutting vinyl works a treat. You may prefer lasers or resin printers, and that’s all right too. Once your mask is sorted, connect the positive lead to the brass and the negative to your steel. Now, it’s into the agitated salt water bath, apply direct current, and allow electricity to immortalize your design.

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photo of the CNC controller, with the PLCC socket for the CPU, surrounded by driver ICs

Old CNC Brain Swapped With An Arduino

July 11, 2022 by Arya Voronova 12 Comments

[Sebastian] and [Stefan Shütz] had a ISEL EP1090 CNC machine at home, sitting unused, and they decided to bring it to life. With pretty good mechanical specs, this CNC looked promising – alas, it was severely constrained by its controller. The built-in CPU’s software was severely outdated, had subpar algorithms for motor driving programmed in, and communication with the CNC was limited because the proprietary ISEL communications protocol that isn’t spoken by other devices.The two brothers removed the CPU from its PLCC socket, and went on to wiring a grbl-fueled Arduino into the controller box.

They reverse-engineered the motor driver connections – those go through a 74HC245 buffer between the original CPU and the drivers. Initially, they put an Arduino inside the control box of the CNC and it fit nicely, but it turned out the Arduino’s CPU would restart every time the spindle spun up – apparently, EMC would rear its head. So, they placed the Arduino out of the box, and used two CAT7 cables to wire up the motor and endstop signals to it.

For tapping into these signals, they took the 74HC245 out of its socket, and made an interposer from two small protoboards and some pin headers – letting them connect to the STEP and DIR lines without soldering wires into the original PCB. There’s extensive documentation, GRBL settings, and more pictures in their GitHub repo, too – in case you have a similar CNC and would like to learn about upgrading its controller board!

After this remake, the CNC starts up without hassles. Now, the brothers shall CNC on! Often, making an old CNC machine work is indeed that easy, and old controller retrofits have been a staple of ours. You can indeed use an Arduino, one of the various pre-made controller boards like Gerbil or TinyG, or even a Raspberry Pi – whatever helps you bridge the divide between you and a piece of desktop machinery you ought to start tinkering with.

Masking Tape Pen Plotter Gets An Upgrade

July 10, 2022 by Chris Lott 20 Comments

[Mr Innovative] decided to make his version of a small pen plotter (video after the break) to make labels on masking tape. The result is an impressive compact machine that is remotely controlled using your smartphone. The plotter is constructed using several different techniques, a piece of plywood as the base, a 3D printed bracket for the motors and pen carriage, and a routed acrylic plate that holds the lead screw and linear rail assembly. The whole thing is controlled by an Arduino Nano mounted on a custom motor driver carrier board.

The inspiration for this build came from a project by [michimartini] aka [Molten Cheese Bear] that we covered a few months ago. [Mr Innovative] went for belt vs direct drive and no local screen. It also appears to plot a little bit faster, but that might be due to differences in the ink pens used. An Android app called TextToCNC converts label text into G-Code, and the Grbl Controller app sends those commands to the plotter.

We like continued iterations of open source projects and look forward to seeing what the next generations look like. Thanks to [keithfromcanada] for submitting this tip.

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New Gear Saves Old Printer

July 5, 2022 by Jenny List 18 Comments

As the digital photographic revolution took off, and everyone bought a shiny new film-less camera, there was a brief fad for photo printers. The idea was you’d have the same prints you’d always had from film, but the media for these printers would invariably cost a fortune so consumers moved on pretty quickly.

Now the pop up in second-hand stores and the like, which is how [Amen] acquired a Canon Selphy 740. It didn’t work, and on investigation it was found that a particularly tiny plastic gear had failed. Most people would have tossed the printer in the trash, but they instead opted to CNC-machine a new gear. It’s not everyday you tackle a job this small, so it makes for an interesting tale.

While the first instinct might be to reach reach for a CAD package, [Amen] instead wrote a script to create the raw GCode. The machining is done with a 0.2 mm bit ground to the desired profile. The result: a gear that gets the printer working again. It’s a dye-sublimation printer that leaves a negative image in the cartridge, allowing negative prints to be made with a bit of cartridge rewinding. And for those who might have ended up with a Selphy of their own, there’s a further post about using cheaper aftermarket cartridges.

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A Passive Automatic CNC Tool Changer

June 25, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 18 Comments

[Marius Hornberger] has been busy hacking his “Hammer” CNC router again, and now it sports a much desired feature — an automatic tool-changer. Having wanted one for a while, [Marius] was unhappy sacrificing a big chunk of useable bed area just to park the tool-changer magazine. An obvious solution would be to have the magazine retract away from the bed, outside of the working area. Sadly, the CNC controller had only enough spare outputs to drive the pneumatic tool changer (mounted on the spindle) leaving none spare to control the magazine assembly. So, there was only one obvious route to take, use some simple spring-loaded mechanics to move the magazine into tool-picking range with the Y axis motion instead.

Obviously, the whole thing is CNC machined on the machine itself, taking only a couple of iterations and smidge of table-saw action to get everything to fit well and operate smoothly without binding or colliding with the moving gantry. A cunning pair of levers on each end of the magazine allow it to move much further than the advancing gantry, swinging it quickly into position when the Y axis is at the extreme of its travel, and retracting away when the gantry moves back. Another nice addition to the build was a tool depth sensor (AKA: a switch) mounted off to one side, which allows the machine to find the bottom of each tool, if it is not known, so the Z axis can compensate. When combined with the automatically retracting dust shoe, this is a definitely a CNC build we’d love to see in a shop near us!

We’ve had a fair few CNC hacks over the years, including tool changers, like this one, but 3D printers can use some tool changer love too!

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