Automated Wire Cutter And Stripper

January 3, 2009 by Eliot 13 Comments

witecutter

Kit builder oomlout—we’ve featured their servo bot—needed to produce a lot of precut wires. After cutting and stripping more than their fair share, they decided to apply some heavy engineering to make things easier. They constructed a machine to do the job for them. It has three main components: a servo driven wire feeder to measure the length, a two servo wire stripper that uses an exacto blade, and finally a wire cutter made from snips and a drill motor. The machine is controlled using an Arduino. They’ve published all the plans and code to Thingiverse incase anyone else wants to build a similar machine for their own kit shop. A video of the machine is embedded below.

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Steam Powered Spud Gun

December 29, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1469285450334085432&ei=9EhZSd_XIJHEqQK6mO2rDQ&q=steam+powered+potato+pistol]

[robbtoberfest] put together this cool looking steam powered spud pistol. Made from household materials, like a lighter and some copper pipe, this spud gun builds pressure in its little bitty boiler to expel the projectiles. It seems as though he’s using a cork to supply a seal, so why bother with potatos? At roughly 2 minutes between shots, its not the quickest, but it sure is cool. Good job [robbtoberfest].

Working With VFDs

December 25, 2008 by Eliot 12 Comments

vfd

We love old display technology, like Nixie tubes, but they’re often difficult to work with because they require higher voltages than digital logic. Vacuum florescent displays (VFD) fall into this category. While not necessarily “old”, they are becoming far less common than LCDs. The main benefit of a VFD is that it actually produces light directly; it doesn’t require a backlight. You’ll find these displays on various players and appliances: CD, DVD, VCR, microwaves, stoves, car headunits, and others.

[Sprite_tm] had written off some VFDs, but recently revisited them with renewed interest. He started by testing what sort of voltage would be required to drive the display. It took 3V for the filament plus 15V to drive the grids. There are VFD controller chips available, but he wanted to get this working with what he had on hand. He had experience with older 40xx series logic, which can be powered by much higher voltages than 5V 74xx. His final schematic has three 4094 serial to parallel chips with an ATtiny2313 controller. A 5V power supply is dropped to 3V with diodes to drive the filament while a boost converter brings it up to 15V for the 4094s that switch the segments. While the code is specific to this display, it would be a great place to start your own project.

RepRap Motherboard

December 24, 2008 by Eliot 11 Comments

reprapmb-1

When the RepRap team found themselves pushing the limits of the Arduino, they started looking for alternatives. They found it in the ATMega644P. It has four times the memory and four times the RAM compared to the ATMega168 used in the standard Arduino. It also has 32 I/O pins. They ported the Arduino software to the microcontroller and started producing Sanguino boards. Now that the base design is nailed down, they’ve begun expanding it to their specific purpose. Pictured above is a prototype RepRap motherboard. While the Sanguino is barebones, this board has onboard connectors for all of the RepRap’s motors, so you can just plug it in. It is also designed to support the future Generation 3 electronics. Probably the most interesting feature is the SD card slot. The goal is to eventually have a board that can run the RepRap without a host computer if necessary; it will manufacture designs directly from the flash card.

Giant LED Lamp

December 24, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

led

[guyfrom7up] must really really love LEDs. When he needed some lighting, which would obviously be LED powered, he chose to actually build a giant LED. Well, he didn’t actually build a giant functional LED, but rather an LED shaped diffuser for some high powered LEDs. He takes us through the process of first creating a wooden model, using that to create a mold, then forming the final diffuser. The final product is very well done, and instantly identifiable by any geek.

[thanks Brian]

Geeky Tree Ornaments

December 23, 2008 by Jason Rollette 6 Comments

tree-ornaments3

Geekware.ca has some ideas for geeky tree ornaments. This is a great way to add some personality to your holidays as well as recycle some of that electronic junk you have laying around. From RAM stars to floppy disk ornaments there are certainly some quirky ideas here. They would make great last minute gifts for someone who can appreciate your nerdiness. GeekAlerts also has a couple interesting ideas too.

Laser Cut Pumps

December 23, 2008 by Eliot 9 Comments

[vimeo 2607149]

As the video above shows, [Zach Hoeken] is continuing to improve on his peristaltic pump design. The moving parts in peristaltic pumps never contact the fluid being moved. Instead, they interact with the outside of the tubing that’s carrying the liquid. In [Zach]’s design, multiple skate bearings roll across the outside of the silicon tubing, squeezing the liquid through. You can get a better idea of how this works by watching the first video. The newer version appears to be pumping much better. We’re not sure if that’s because of faster motors or from switching to two bearings instead of three. This definitely looks like a good choice if you’re planning on building your own cocktail robot. You can find the plans on Thingiverse.