Tool Hacks

2923 Articles

Steel Pegboard Makes For A Tidy Charging Station

February 21, 2020 by 25 Comments

Do you have a bunch of electronic devices that all have different styles of chargers and batteries? Of course you do, so does everyone else. While there’s been some headway made towards standardizing on USB (and more recently, USB-C) for charging, there are still plenty of gadgets out there that march to the beat of their own DC adapter. For all those devices, [Tom Barnes] has a tip for making a cheap and easy centralized charging station.

The idea is to get a power strip, ideally one that has a switch on it, and use zip ties to attach it to a piece of pegboard. [Tom] used a nice black steel board which is obviously very strong and shouldn’t be bothered by any potentially high temperatures, but you could get away with the hardware store MDF variety if you had to.

All your chargers, mounted around the periphery of the board with Velcro hook and loop fasteners, have their individual power cords run through to the back of the board where they are nearly routed and zip tied. This is where using the steel pegboard really helped, as it has a lip around the edge that makes a void for all the wires to be run through when hung on the wall. If your particular flavor of pegboard doesn’t have that space behind it, you’d either have to settle for running the wires across the front or build out your own space in the back using a wooden frame.

Even in our high-tech world, no shop is truly complete without pegboard. Whether you’re using it to vertically mount your development boards, or pushing it around on wheels to keep your tools close at hand, there’s no shortage of ways to use this versatile material.

Adding A Digital Readout To A Wood Lathe

February 18, 2020 by 6 Comments

The benefit of living in the modern era is that there are plenty of affordable machine tools on the market for the budding maker. However, to meet lower price points, products often forgo some of the nice-to-have features that make working easier. Of course, if you’ve got the skills to do it yourself, this needn’t be a problem, as [Zach] demonstrates.

[Zach] enjoyed using his wood lathe, but it didn’t come with a digital readout. Thankfully, retrofitting one was an easy, straightforward project. After a little research, a Hall effect sensor was chosen to detect the rotational speed of the lathe. The spindle was thus fitted with several magnets to trigger the sensor, allowing for higher resolution than just using a single device. An Arduino Nano was then used to monitor the output of the Hall effect sensor, displaying the rotational speed on a set of 7-segment displays. The project was then given its own custom PCB, and a nice 3D printed enclosure to fit it to the body of the lathe.

It’s a project that shows how easy it is to add functionality to basic machine tools using maker components. It also serves to demonstrate the value in giving a project a proper enclosure, to enable it to survive in a workshop environment. We’ve seen other hacky DRO mods before, too. Video after the break.

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Cable Operated Blast Door Needs No Power

February 17, 2020 by 34 Comments

Every well-equipped wood shop has a dust collection system, with blast gates at every tool to direct the suction power where you need it. If these gates are hard to reach they can be real pain to operate. [Cosmas Bauer] had this problem with his table saw, and created a convenient cable-operated mechanism.

The dust chute on table saw is on the back end, meaning he needs to walk around it to open it, and then walk back to the front to operate the machine. As we all know, laziness increased efficiency can be an excellent reason for projects. Electronics or pneumatics might get the job done, but [Cosmas] realised that a mechanical system might be simpler and more reliable.  Being a woodworker, he built most of the system out of wood.

The blast door itself is held in the closed position by a piece of elastic tubing. To pull it open, he attached a bicycle cable to the blast door, with the other side attached to a latching mechanism that is the star of the show. It’s a rotating disc, with the end of the cable and operating handle attached on the outer edge. A slot track is cut in the disc, in which a pin on the end of a short arm slides. It has a few sharp corners in the track, which forces the pin to only go around in one direction, and to latch in two possible positions when released. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.

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Electrification Of A Cheap Bead Roller

February 17, 2020 by 9 Comments

We all have old projects which maybe didn’t quite deliver knocking about, sometimes they gather dust for years. They have a use though, in that when you *really* need that part you can lift it from that forgotten project. That’s what [Mustie1] did with a forgotten electric bicycle project, he took its motor and used it to automate his bead roller.

A bead roller is a tool used in the world of automotive bodywork to press a bead — a continuous depression — into a piece of sheet metal. The inexpensive roller he had fitted in a bench vice, and was operated by means of a handle. Unfortunately the size of the tool meant that it was difficult to operate at the same time as rolling a precise bead, so improvement was required.

He first considered using a cordless drill, but then remembered the electric bicycle project. Its geared motor had come from an electric wheelchair and certainly possessed the right speed, but he needed a suitable sprocket. This was supplied from a scrap engine-assisted bicycle that he’d acquired, and proved to be perfect for the job. The final automated roller used the trigger controller from a cordless drill mounted in a foot switch, and the roller mounted on a stand repurposed from a piece of gym equipment. The result is a useful, and above all controllable, tool that can run a perfect bead in any shape desired on a piece of sheet metal.

Surprisingly this is the first bead roller we’ve featured here, but sheet metal work is a constant in hardware hacker projects. Read our guide to sheet metal bending, for a start.

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DIY Dispenser Places Solder Paste Without The Mess

February 16, 2020 by 17 Comments

When doing surface-mount assembly you can certainly use a soldering iron in the traditional way, but it’s far more convenient to cover the pads with solder paste, place the components, and bake the board in a reflow oven. If you’re lucky enough to have a precut stencil this can be done in one go, otherwise a tiny blob of paste must be laboriously placed on each pad by hand. [Kevarek] has made this a bit easier by designing a low-cost handheld solder paste dispenser.

The unit takes the form of a handheld 3D printed wand containing a geared motor and a threaded shaft, that engages with a syringe full of paste clamped onto its end. There’s a control box powered by an STM32 microcontroller that not only allows adjustment of flow rate, but provides advanced features such as performing a slight retraction at the end of dispensing to avoid excess paste. There’s a push-button on the wand for control, as well as a set on the control box to adjust its parameters.

If you’ve ever handled solder paste, you’ll know it can be a uniquely annoying and finicky substance. Either it’s too stiff and clumps together, or too runny and spreads out. No doubt some readers are lucky enough to always have fresh paste of the highest quality to hand, but too often a hackerspace will have a tub of grey goop with uncertain provenance. We like this tool, and while it won’t make up for poor quality or badly stored paste, at least it’ll make applying paste a breeze.

We’ve covered paste dispensers quite a few times in the past, but you might also wish to read our in-depth guide to the subject.

Making Your Own Maple Syrup Just Got A Little Easier

February 16, 2020 by 23 Comments

[ctstarkdesigns] had fond memories of collecting maple syrup as a child. At the same time, he also remembered the work involved: from lugging buckets around on an unstable snow mobile to accidentally burning the mixture and making all the effort for naught. So he set out to make things a little easier this time around by building his own evaporator.

The build starts as many do, with a surplus 44-gallon drum. With an off-the-shelf kit, and some cutting and welding, it’s readily repurposed into a stove capable of burning wood in a roaring fire. From there, it’s a simple matter of making a few further incisions to install warming trays, used to hold the takings from the maple trees. There, the mixture can be boiled down into the tasty, delicious substance that goes so perfectly on pancakes.

The build has the dual benefits of both easing the boiling process and keeping the user warm while doing so. Already, the rig has proven itself as an adept heater, and we’re sure it will only prove more popular once it’s producing sweet maple syrup en mass. If that’s not enough, consider building an entirely automated system in your back yard!

A Nifty Tool For Separating Magnets

February 15, 2020 by 3 Comments

Neodymium magnets are fun to play with, largely thanks to their incredibly strong magnetic field. This also gives them plenty of applications where other magnets won’t cut the mustard. This very strength is also a drawback, making them difficult to work with and posing a danger to squishy human bodies. To help ease the task, [RandomCitizen4] developed a handy magnet separator tool.

The tool is similar in design to a pair of scissors, with two blades that are slid together when the handles are squeezed. The design is subtly different, however, with plastic blades that slide in between the gaps of a pair of magnets stuck together, pushing them apart. With just three parts to be 3D printed, a handful of fasteners and a rubber band, the tool is easy to build, too.

As someone who has spent significant time sliding magnets apart on the edge of a desk, wearing away the skin on my hands in the process, this tool would certainly come in handy. It might also be useful if you find yourself experimenting with magswitches or similar. Video after the break.

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