Can You Homebrew A Running Shoe?

October 25, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 8 Comments

Unless you spend all your time lounging on the sofa, you probably own at least one pair of shoes. But have you ever thought to make your own to improve some aspect of your life? YouTube channel Answer in Progress set out to do precisely that, but it didn’t quite work out.

When you (well, other people) get into running, it’s tempting to believe a lot of the shoe company hype and just drop hundreds of dollars on the latest ‘super shoe’ and hope that will help you break your target time. But do you actually need to buy into all this, or can you make something yourself? The project aimed to get the 5k time down significantly, at any cost, but primarily by cheating with technology. The team set out to look at the design process, given that there is indeed a fair amount of science to shoe design. Firstly, after a quick run, the main issues with some existing shoes were identified, specifically that there are a lot of pain points; feet hurt from all the impacts, and knees take a real pounding, too. That meant they needed to increase the sole cushioning. They felt that too much energy was wasted with the shoes not promoting forward motion as much as possible; feet tended to bounce upwards so that a rocker sole shape would help. Finally, laces and other upper sole features cause distraction and some comfort issues, so those can be deleted.

A thicker mid-sole allows for a rolled shape

The plan was to make a ‘sock’ shoe style, with an upper in one piece and stretchy enough to slip on without laces. The process started by wrapping the foot in cling film and then a few layers of duct tape to fix the shape. This was split down the top to extract the foot, open out the pattern, and transfer it to some nylon fabric. The outer profile was transferred and cut out with simple hand tools in a fashion that would allow the shape to be reconstructed as it was glued to a sole. It sounds simple, but it’s pretty fiddly work.
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A 3D Printed, Open Source Lathe?

October 23, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 35 Comments

[Chris Borge] has spent the last few years creating some interesting 3D printed tools and recently has updated their 3D printable lathe design to make a few improvements. The idea was to 3D print the outer casing of the lathe in two parts, adding structural parts where needed to bolt on motors and tool holders, and then fill the whole thing with concrete for strength and rigidity.

The printed base is initially held together with two lengths of studding, and a pile of bolts are passed through from below, mating with t-nuts on the top. 2020 extrusion is used for the motor mount. The headstock is held on with four thread rods inserted into coupling nuts in the base. The headstock unit is assembled separately, but similarly; 3D printed outer shell and long lengths of studding and bolts to hold it together. Decent-sized tapered roller bearings make an appearance, as some areas of a machine tool really cannot be skrimped. [Chris] explains that the headstock is separate because this part is most likely to fail, so it is removable, allowing it to be replaced.

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Pac-Man Ghost Helps With Air Quality Sensing

October 21, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 13 Comments

In the past, building construction methods generally didn’t worry much about air quality. There were enough gaps around windows, doors, siding, and flooring that a house could naturally “breathe” and do a decent enough job of making sure the occupants didn’t suffocate. Modern buildings, on the other hand, are extremely concerned with efficiency and go to great lengths to ensure that no air leaks in or out. This can be a problem for occupants though and generally requires some sort of mechanical ventilation, but to be on the safe side and keep an eye on it a CO2 sensor like this unique Pac-Man-inspired monitor can be helpful.

Although there are some ways to approximate indoor air quality with inexpensive sensors, [Tobias] decided on a dedicated CO2 sensor for accuracy and effectiveness, despite its relatively large cost of around $30. An ESP32 handles the data from the sensor and then outputs the results to an array of LEDs hidden inside a ghost modeled after the ones from the classic arcade game Pac-Man. There are 17 WS2812B LEDs in total installed on a custom PCB, with everything held together in the custom 3D printed ghost-shaped case. The LEDs change from green to red as the air quality gets worse, although a few preserve the ghost’s white eyes even as the colors change.

For anyone looking to recreate this project and keep an eye on their own air quality, [Tobias] has made everything from the code, the PCB, and the 3D printer files open source, and has used accessible hardware in the build as well. Although the CO2 sensors can indeed be pricey, there are a few less expensive ways of keeping an eye on indoor air quality. Some of these methods attempt to approximate CO2 levels indirectly, but current consensus is that there’s no real substitute for taking this measurement directly if that’s the metric targeted for your own air quality.

Open-Source, 3D Printed Trackpad

October 21, 2024 by Bryan Cockfield 22 Comments

Touchpads, or trackpads, have been around since the 1980s. Today, you can often find them in laptops and notebook computers as pointing devices. With no moving parts, a trackpad are easy to integrate into the body of a portable computer. they’re much smaller than the traditional mouse. Until the advent of multitouch and gestures over the past two decades, though, they were generally poor substitutes for an actual mouse. These days, trackpads have enough features that some users prefer them even on their desktop computers. If you’re that type of person and don’t want to shell out a big pile of money for an Apple, Logitech, or other off-the-shelf trackpad you can always build your own.

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Solve: An ESP32-Based Equation Solving Calculator

October 15, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 10 Comments

We’re suckers for good-looking old-school calculators, so this interesting numerical equation-solving calculator by [Peter Balch] caught our attention. Based around the ESP32-WROOM-32 module and an LCD, the build is quite straightforward from an electronics point of view, with the main work being on the software side of things.

A custom keyboard was constructed on Veroboard using a handful of tactile switches arranged in a charlieplexing array to minimize the number of IO pins consumed. For the display, an off-the-shelf 240×320 ILI9341-based module hooked up by SPI was used. A single lithium cell was used for the power supply, connected to a USB

You don’t need much to make a usable keyboard.

charger module, but you could just as easily substitute a 3 x AA battery box. The case was designed in DesignSpark mechanical and 3D printed. It’s unclear what keyboard version they settled on; there are options for one with keycaps and one without. Regardless, a 3D-printed frame sits atop the keyboard circuit, with the graphics printed on photo paper and a protective coversheet on top. Continue reading “Solve: An ESP32-Based Equation Solving Calculator” →

3D Printed Hydrofoil Goes From Model Scale To Human Scale With Flight Controller

October 6, 2024 by Danie Conradie 5 Comments

Hydrofoils have been around for several decades, but watching a craft slice through the water with almost no wake never get old. In the videos after the break, [rctestflight] showcases his ambitious project: transforming a standup paddleboard into a rideable hydrofoil with active stabilization.

Unlike conventional electric hydrofoil boards that depend on rider skill for balance, [rctestflight] aims to create a self-stabilizing system. He began by designing a small-scale model, complete with servo-controlled ailerons and elevators, dual motors for differential thrust, and a dRehmFlight flight controller. A pair of sonar sensors help the flight controller maintain constant height above the water. The wings are completely 3D printed, with integrated hinges for flight control surfaces slots for wiring and control components. It’s better suited for 3D printing than RC aircraft since it’s significantly less sensitive to weight, allowing for more structural reinforcement. The small scale tests were very successful and allowed [rctestflight] to determine that he didn’t need the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

The full-sized version features a scaled up wing, larger servos and motors attached to an 11-foot standup paddleboard — minus its rear end — mounted on commercially available e-foil booms. A foam battery box stores a hefty LiFePO4 battery, while the electronics from the smaller version are repurposed here. Despite only catching glimpses of this larger setup in action at the end of the video, it promises an excitingly smooth lake ride we would certainly like to experience.

We’ve seen several 3D printed hydrofoils around here, but this promised to be the largest successful attempt. Don’t fail us [Daniel].

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See The “Pause-and-Attach” Technique For 3D Printing In Action

October 5, 2024 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

[3DPrintBunny] is someone who continually explores new techniques and designs in 3D printing, and her latest is one she calls “pause-and-attach”, which she demonstrates by printing a vase design with elements of the design splayed out onto the print bed.

The splayed-out elements get peeled up and attached to the print during a pause.

At a key point, the print is paused and one peels up the extended bits, manually attaching them to sockets on the main body of the print. Then the print resumes and seals everything in. The result is something that appears to defy the usual 3D printer constraints, as you can see here.

Pausing a 3D print to insert hardware (like nuts or magnets) is one thing, but we can’t recall seeing anything quite like this approach. It’s a little bit reminiscent of printing foldable structures to avoid supports in that it prints all of its own self-connecting elements, but at the same time it’s very different.

We’ve seen [3DPrintBunny]’s innovative approaches before with intentional stringing used as a design element and like the rest of her work, it’s both highly visual and definitely it’s own thing. You can see the whole process in a video she posted to social media, embedded below.

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