Mini Camera Crane For Your Workbench

October 5, 2021 by Danie Conradie 10 Comments

If you’ve ever tried to document a project on your workbench with photos or videos, you know the challenge of constantly moving tripods to get the right shot. [Mechanistic] is familiar with this frustration, so he built a small desktop camera crane.

Heavily inspired by [Ivan Miranda]’s large camera crane, this build scales it down and mainly uses 3D printed parts. The arm of the crane can pivot along two axes around the base, uses a parallel bar mechanism to keep the camera orientation constant through its vertical range of motion. The camera mount itself allows an additional 3 degrees of freedom to capture any angle and can mount a DSLR or smartphone. To offset the weight of the camera, an adjustable counterweight is added to the rear of the arm. Every axis of rotation can be locked using thumbscrews.

We can certainly see a crane like this being useful on our workbench for more than just camera work. You could create attachments for holding lights, displays, multimeters, or some helping hands. For some tips on creating an engaging project video check out [Lewin Day]’s excellent video on the subject.

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How Good Are The Head(amame) 3D Printed Headphones?

September 27, 2021 by Lewin Day 25 Comments

3D printing lets the average maker tackle building anything their heart desires, really, and many have taken to using the technology for audio projects. Printable speaker and headphone designs abound. The Head(amame) headphones from [Vector Finesse] are a design that combines 3D printed parts with hi-fi grade components to create a high-end listening experience. [Angus] of Maker’s Muse decided to try printing a set at home and has shared his thoughts on the hardware.

Printing the parts has to be done carefully, with things like the infill settings crucial to the eventual sound quality of the final product. Using a properly equipped slicer like CURA is key to getting the parts printed properly so the finer settings can be appropriately controlled. The recommendation is to print the pieces in PETG, which [Angus] notes can be difficult to work with, and several prints were required to get all the parts made correctly.

Assembly is straightforward enough with kits available with all the fasteners and electronic parts included. Subjectively, [Angus] found the sound quality to be impressive, with plenty of full bass and clearly defined highs. Overall, it’s a positive review in the areas of comfort and sound quality.

Detractors will note that the kit of parts costs over $100 USD alone, and that after hours of work and printing, the user is left with a set of headphones made out of obviously 3D-printed parts. It seems destined to be a product aimed at the 3D printing fanbase. If you want a set of headphones you can customise endlessly in form and color, these are ideal. If you prefer the fit and finish of a consumer-grade product, they may not be for you.

It’s a good look at a design sure to appeal to a wide set of makers out there. We’ve seen 3D printing put to good use in this realm before, too. Video after the break.

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3D Printed Rocket’s Features Are Out Of This World

September 22, 2021 by Donald Papp 13 Comments

We’re delighted to see the progress on [Foaly]’s 3D-printed Cortex 2 rocket, and the latest build log is full of beautiful pictures and design details. Not only is this rocket jam-packed with an efficiency of electronics and smart design, but it almost seems out to single-handedly prove that 3D-printing is far from the novelty some think it is.

Electronics and wires packing the fuselage of a model rocket — Cable management and component layout is far from a trivial task in a rocket like this.

There is so much going on in the Cortex 2 that it simply wouldn’t be possible to do everything it does without the ability to make one’s own parts exactly to specification. In fact, there is so much going on that cable management is its own challenge.

Everything in the build log is interesting, but the design of the parachute system is of particular note. [Foaly]’s original Cortex rocket met it’s end when the parachute failed to deploy, and Cortex 2 is determined to avoid that fate if it can. For the parachute and any cords and anchors, a careful layout maximizes the chances of a successful deployment without anything tangling, but there are some extra features as well. The panel covering the parachute is mounted with the help of four magnets, which are mounted with opposing polarities. This provides an initial repulsing force when the door is unlocked by a servo, which should help wind immediately rush in to the opening to blow the panel away. The recovery system even has its own dedicated microcontroller and can operate autonomously; even if software for everything else crashes, the parachute will still get deployed. Locking connectors for all cables also ensure that acceleration forces don’t dislodge any contacts.

Everything about the rocket looks great, and the amount of work that has gone into the software is particularly evident. The main controller even has an interactive pre-flight checklist, which is a fantastic feature.

The last time we saw the Cortex 2 it was still only about half built, and we can’t wait to see how it performs. Rocketry is a field that has benefited greatly from things like 3D printing, the availability of highly-integrated electronics, and even such things as a rocket design workbench for FreeCAD. Better tools enable better work, after all.

3D Printed Synth Kit Shares Product Design Insights

September 4, 2021 by Donald Papp 1 Comment

We’ve always been delighted with the thoughtful and detailed write-ups that accompany each of [Tommy]’s synth products, and the background of his newest instrument, the Scout, is no exception. The Scout is specifically designed to be beginner-friendly, hackable, and uses 3D printed parts and components as much as possible. But there is much more to effectively using 3D printing as a production method than simply churning out parts. Everything needed to be carefully designed and tested, including the 3D printed battery holder, which we happen to think is a great idea.

3d printed battery holder, showing inserted spring contacts — 3D printed battery holder, with spring contacts inserted by hand.

[Tommy] also spends some time explaining how he decided which features and design elements to include and which to leave out, contrasting the Scout with his POLY555 synth. Since the Scout is designed to be affordable and beginner-friendly, too many features can in fact be a drawback. Component costs go up, assembly becomes less straightforward, and more complex parts means additional failure points when 3D printing.

[Tommy] opted to keep the Scout tightly focused, but since it’s entirely open-sourced with a hackable design, adding features is made as easy as can be. [Tommy] designed the PCB in KiCad and used OpenSCAD for everything else. The Scout uses the ATmega328, and can be easily modified using the Arduino IDE.

STL files can be downloaded here and all source files are on the project’s GitHub repository, which also contains detailed assembly and modification guides. Watch it in action in the video, embedded below.

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Small Footprint Scara Laser Engraver Has Massive Build Area

August 31, 2021 by Danie Conradie 22 Comments

One of the limitations of the conventional Cartesian CNC platforms is that the working area will usually be smaller than its footprint. SCARA arms are one of the options to get around this, as demonstrated by [How To Mechatronics], with his SCARA laser engraver.

This robot arm is modified from the original build we featured a while back, which had a gripper mounted. It uses mainly standard 3D printer components with 3D printed frame parts. The arms lengths are sized to fold over the base and take up little table horizontal space when not in use. It can work in a large semi-circular area around itself, and if a proper locating and homing method is implemented, it can be moved around and engrave a large area section by section.

One of the challenges of SCARA arms is rigidity. As the cantilevered arm extends, it tends to lean over under its weight. In [How To Mechatronics]’s case, it showed up as skewed engravings, which he managed to mitigate to some degree in the Marlin firmware.

Another possible solution is to reduce the weight of the arms by moving the motors to the base, as was done with the Pybot or dual-arm SCARA printers like the RepRap Morgan.

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Casting Silicone Parts With 3D-Printed Inserts For Stiffness

August 17, 2021 by Donald Papp 8 Comments

Prolific maker [Jan Mrázek] shared his process for casting soft silicone parts that nevertheless have some added stiffness, which he accomplished by embedding porous, 3D-printed “ribs” into the pieces during the casting process. The 3D-printed inserts act as a sort of skeleton, and as a result, the parts have a soft silicone surface but gain structure and rigidity that simply wouldn’t be obtained if the part were cast entirely in silicone. The nice thing is that no new materials or tools were needed; [Jan] 3D printed both the molds for the parts as well as the structural inserts. It’s always nice when one can use the same tool and materials to accomplish different functions.

The parts [Jan] is making are interesting, as well. He observed that the process of swapping resin in his printer’s build tank was an unpleasant experience for a number of reasons, chief among them being that resin is sticky and messy, and the shape of the build tank doesn’t make pouring resin from it a clean job.

His solution was to design a pour spout that could be pressed onto the build tank, and some specially-designed squeegees to allow scraping the tank clean with ease. Silicone is the ideal material for the parts because it turns out that sticky resin beads nicely on silicone’s surface. Anywhere else, resin tends to spread out and form a sticky mess, but on silicone resin it forms tidy drops and is much easier to clean up.

It’s a technique worth keeping in mind, because one never knows when it could come in handy. Fabricating soft robots for example tends to involve silicone casting and clever techniques. See [Jan]’s parts in action in the video, embedded below.

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Practical Print Makes IPad A Magnificent Eye Piece

August 11, 2021 by Ryan Flowers 9 Comments

Be it the ever shrinking size of components, the miniscule size of the printing on such pieces, or the steady march of time that makes visits to the optometrist an annual ritual, many of us could use some assistance when things start getting fuzzy at the workbench. Arm-mounted LED magnifying lenses can be a handy helper. Zooming in on a macro photo on a smartphone is also a common option that we’ve used many times.

[Timo Birnschein] started down a similar path when he realized that his iPad Pro comes with an app called simply “Magnifier”. A 12” iPad isn’t exactly the most convenient device to hold while trying to solder small parts, so he spent some time designing and 3D printing a specialty iPad stand that he calls a “Quick and Dirty High Performance EE Microscope.” We call it a magnificent tool hack!

Rotating the iPad diagonally so that the camera is closest to the subject leaves plenty of room to work and makes great use of the available screen space. [Timo] reports that at 50% magnification the 12” screen makes even 0603 SMD parts easy to read. Now he rejoices to have more to do with his iPad than watching YouTube and reading Hackaday- although we don’t know why you couldn’t do both.

The STL files have been released on Thingverse for your experimentation. [Timo] notes that he’d like to add an LED ring to brighten things up, and a fume extractor to protect the delicate lens on the iPad. We have to wonder if some plastic wrap over the lens might produce the same effect at almost no cost. Whatever [Timo] decides to do, we’re sure it’ll be brilliant.

If you don’t have an iPad and a 3D printer, you might enjoy an earlier post that shows how you can use your phone as a microscope. If Lego and Raspberry Pi are your go-to parts, you can set your sights on this Lego/Pi/Arduino microscope.

Do you have your own preferred solution for seeing yourself through a hazy situation? Be sure to write it up, and then drop it in the Tip Line!