Amazing Flight Of A 3D Printed Rubber Band Powered Ornithopter

August 21, 2013 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

We’re actually going to link to an old post from back in February because we think it’s equally as impressive as the most recent work. This is a 3D printed ornithopter powered by a rubber band (translated). The frame is much like a traditional rubber band plane. The difference is that after winding it up it doesn’t spin a propeller. The flapping of the four plastic membrane wings makes it fly like magic. Seriously, check out the demo below… we almost posted this as “Real or Fake?” feature if we hadn’t seen similar offerings a couple of years back.

The flight lasts a relatively long time when considering the quick winding before launch is all that powered it. But the most recent offerings (translated) from the site include the motorized ornithopter design seen above. It carries a small Lithium cell for continuous flight. These designs have a 3D printed gear system which makes them a bit more complicated, but brings steering and remote control to the party. If you want one of your own they’re working on a small run of kits. We figure it’d be a lot more fun to prototype and print your own. Sure, it’s reinventing the wheel. But it’s a really cool wheel!

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10-drive Microserver Is The Clown Car Of The Computer Case World

July 27, 2013 by Mike Szczys 55 Comments

ten-drive-itx-clown-car

[Coke Effekt] wanted to push his server’s storage limits to a higher level by combining ten 3 TB drives. But he’s not interested in transitioning to a larger case in order to facilitate the extra hardware. It only took a bit of hacking to fit all the storage in a mini-ITX case.

His first step was to make a digital model of his custom drive mount. This uses two 3D printed cages which will each hold five drives mounted vertically. To keep things cool the two cages are bolted to a 140mm fan. The connections to the motherboard also present some issues. He uses a two-port SATA card which plays nicely with port multipliers. Those multiplier boards can be seen on the bottom of the image above. The boards are mounted using another 3D printed bracket. Each breaks out one of the SATA ports into five connections for the drives.

[Thanks Pat]

OTM-02 Is A 3D Printed Wristwatch

April 23, 2013 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

We love looking at roll-your-own wristwatch projects. Getting a project small enough to carry around on your wrist is a real challenge. But we think the OTM-02 wristwatch really hit the form factor right on the mark.

OTM stands for Open source Time Machine. It’s the work of [Hairy Kiwi] and he managed to bring the guts of the watch in at a thickness between 6.5 and 7mm. That includes the LCD, PCB, piezo diaphragm, and the battery. The PCB itself is a four-layer board built on 1mm thick substrate. It’s running an EFM32 (ARM) microcontroller which comes with hardware USB support. The little door sitting open on the side of the 3D printed enclosure provides access to the micro USB connector which can be used to charge the 150 mAh battery inside. That may not sound like much juice, but if you set the display to show minutes only [Hairy] calculates a battery life approaching 175 days. If you just have to have the seconds displayed you can expect about two weeks between charges.

Like the name says, this project is Open Source.

[Thanks Liam]

3d Printed Hexapod Robot

January 30, 2013 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

3d-printed-hexapod

This hexapod was made almost entirely via 3d printing (translated). The parts that you need to supply include a few fasteners to make connections, twelve servo motors, and a method of driving them. As you can see in the video after the break, all those parts come together into a little robot that functions quite well. The only thing that we think is missing are some grippy feet to help prevent slipping.

[Hugo] calls the project Bleuette. It is completely open source, with the cad files and source code available on his Github repository. There is additional information in the wiki page of that repo. This gives us a good look at the electronic design. He’s controlling the legs with an Arduino, but it’s all dependent on his own shield which features a PIC 18F452 to take care of the signals used to drive all of the servo motors. The board also has some peripherals to monitor the current draw and regulate the incoming power.

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Silent HTPC Build Is An Art Piece For The Livingroom

December 17, 2012 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

silent-htpc-build

This sexy beast is [DeFex’s] new silent home theater PC. To give you an idea of scale, that motherboard is a Mini ITX form factor. Mounted below it is the solid state drive which is an SLC version chosen because they tend to last longer than the MLC variety. This distinction comes with a price tag that is $100 more expensive.

But we digress. It’s the custom case that really caught our eye with this build. The frame is made of a huge aluminum heat sink. It measures about 7″ by 10″ and sets the final foot print for the computer. An aluminum puck was added to transmit heat from the processor to the heat sink. Holes were drilled and tapped into the heat sink to accept the brass stand offs which hold the motherboard in place.

The near side of the case is a sheet of acrylic. It connects to the rest of the case using 3D printed brackets at each corner. There is an additional bracket on the bottom to hold the hard drive in place. The sides of the case are filled in with bicycle spokes which also find a home in the corner brackets. Now the hard part will be figuring out which orientation looks the best for displaying his fine craftsmanship.

[via Reddit]

3D Printed Exoskeleton Helps This Little Girl Develop More Normal Body Function

August 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

This 2-year-old girl has a condition called arthrogryposis which causes her not to be able to move her arms. But with a little help, her muscles can be strengthened to achieve more normal use of her limbs. This is not the first time that an exoskeleton has been used, but the advent of 3D printed parts makes the skeleton work much better.

Previous exoskeletons were made of metal and were quite heavy. When you’re talking about a 25 pound child every extra ounce counts. Moving to plastic parts lightened the load. Now the structure can be mounted on her torso, using rubber bands to aid her movement until her muscles are strong enough to do it on their own.

Of course to [Emma] this isn’t an exoskeleton. It’s her set of magic arms.

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3D Printed AR-15 Lower Works

July 26, 2012 by Jesse Congdon 82 Comments

Ar15.com user [HaveBlue] has been working for some time on a 3D printed lower receiver, and now reports that the parts are fully working. Using a Stratasys 3D printer from the 90’s [HaveBlue] managed to spin out a modified version of an already available model from cncguns.com. He strengthened the holes for the takedown lugs, which hold the upper and lower halves of the rifle together. Strengthened the bolt hold lugs, which when the magazine is empty lifts a lever assembly that catches the bolt as it springs back to push another round into the chamber. and added an integral trigger guard AKA the bar that surrounds the trigger.

Legally this print is a veritable gauntlet of state and federal regulations. At least in the US. The lower receiver is the part of the rifle that holds the spring and pins that operate the rifle’s trigger safety and hammer assembly, hold the magazine in place, and mount the buttstock/return spring tube. The other key point about the lower receiver is that it contains the primary traceable identification markings, the serial number. All of the parts that are contained within the lower receiver can be ordered online (this varies state to state). In fact, every single other part of the rifle can be bought and sold freely. The only component of the rifle that can not be ordered online, and requires a background check at a gun store, is the body of the lower receiver (we have to keep saying that this varies state to state). Typically laws allow though for the manufacture of this part without a serial number so long as it is never sold to another individual (again, state laws vary widely).

There is some more info on the build at [HaveBlue]’s website here and here, but it is currently down. This sort of steps up 3D printing past the nerf gun stage, but we have seen shot gun and pistol hacks.