Edge-Lit Ping Pong Paddle Lights Up The Fight

December 13, 2019 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

[George] and his coworkers like to blow off a little lunchtime steam on the company ping pong table. We might do the same, except it’d just be us versus the wall, and most of the exercise would consist of bending over to pick the ball up off the floor. When he found a scrap piece of acrylic out in their shop, [George] got the bright idea to make an edge-lit paddle featuring the company’s logo.

Not only does the paddle look cool, it works pretty well, too, even though it’s heavier and has smooth surfaces compared to a standard paddle. To begin, [George] found a regulation-size paddle outline and imported it into SolidWorks, then designed all the necessary cuts for the LEDs and other electronics. He also designed and printed ergonomic grips to protect the goods.

Continuing the stuff-on-hand theme, [George] used through-hole LEDs and dug into the abundance of battery clips and springs they have lying around for designing prototypes, instead of making it all fancy with SMT LEDs and a rechargeable battery pack. Slip on those sweatbands, because we’re serving up the build video after the break.

We see more ping pong balls than paddles around here, and that’s probably because they make great LED diffusers.

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Simple Acrylic Plates Make Kirlian Photography A Breeze

November 30, 2019 by Dan Maloney 1 Comment

We know, we know – “Kirlian photography” is a term loaded with pseudoscientific baggage. Paranormal researchers have longed claimed that Kirlian photography can explore the mood or emotional state of a subject through the “aura”, an energy field said to surround and emanate from all living things. It’s straight-up nonsense, of course, but that doesn’t detract from the beauty of plasma aficionado [Jay Bowles]’ images produced by capacitive coupling and corona discharge.

Technically, what [Jay] is doing here is not quite Kirlian photography. The classic setup for “electrophotography” is a sandwich of photographic film, a glass plate, and a metal ground plate. An object with a high-voltage, high-frequency power supply attached is placed on top of the sandwich, and the resulting corona discharge exposes the film. [Jay]’s version is a thin chamber made of two pieces of solvent-welded acrylic and filled with water. A bolt between the acrylic panes conducts current from a Tesla coil – perhaps this one that we’ve featured before – into the water. When something is placed on the acrylic, a beautiful purple corona discharge streams out from the object.

It’s an eerie effect, and it’s easy to see how people can see an aura and attribute mystical properties to it. In the end, though, it’s not much different than touching a plasma globe, and just about as safe. Feeling a bit more destructive? Corona discharge is a great way to make art, both in wood and in acrylic.

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Basic Acrylic Bending, No Special Tools Needed

September 16, 2019 by Donald Papp 24 Comments

Acrylic sheets are relatively inexpensive, pretty, and can be heat-shaped very effectively. There are blades and tools made specifically for cutting, heating, and bending acrylic but [Marija] shows that even without them acrylic can be cut and bent with a bit of care and patience.

Acrylic sheets are brittle and crack easily, but a hacksaw is a good way to cut it by hand. After cutting, [Marija] uses a small portable gas stove at its lowest setting to provide gentle heat until the acrylic becomes soft, then it can be formed into different shapes using common shop and household items. It’s a process that requires patience and practice, so she shares some useful tips:

Remove the protective film after cutting, but before heat forming. Otherwise the film will be much harder to remove.
Heating too aggressively will result in bubbles that ruin the acrylic.
Uneven heating will result in a bad bend, or “hot spots” which can result in bubbles as mentioned above.
This heating method naturally softens a wide area, but it’s still possible to get straight and flat bends by using wood forms and letting the acrylic cool before moving it.

[Marija] used this method of heating and bending acrylic to complete an earlier lamp project of hers that we featured in the past. Acrylic might laser-cut beautifully, and there may be inexpensive tools for heating and bending it, but it’s always nice to have some tried and true techniques that don’t require anything special.

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Edge Lit Pendant, Is, Well… Lit

May 7, 2019 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

Acrylic is a great material. It’s not cheap, but it comes in a wide variety of colours and styles and can be used to make some very attractive projects. [Geek Mom Projects] is a big fan, and whipped up some fun pendants for a high school Maker Faire.

[Geek Mom] has long been a fan of edge-lighting, as it’s a great way to make beautiful glowy projects out of acrylic. In this case a fluorescent acrylic is used with white LEDs to generate an eerie green glow, though it’s also noted that the project can be done with clear acrylic and color-shifting LEDs instead for an equally cool look. If you’re filming a low-budget sci-fi film, this could be just what you need.

The pendants made a great project for young makers to learn about LEDs, electronics, and technologies such as lasercutting that were used to produce the parts. With copper tape used instead of soldering and a CR2032 battery used to eliminate the need for a current limiting resistor, it’s a very accessible project that most teens were able to complete without assistance.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen edge-lit pendants, either. Alternatively, if you need your acrylic bent, there’s a tool for that, too.

Get Your Acrylic Bends Just Right

April 23, 2019 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

Acrylic is a popular material. It’s easy to find, attractive, and available in all manner of colors, thicknesses, and grades. Being a thermoplastic, it’s also simple to apply heat and form it in various different ways. If you’re wanting to build parts out of sheet acrylic, you might find a purpose-built bender useful. [DIY Perspective] built just such a tool to get the job done.

Plywood is used as the base of the tool, and several off-the-shelf hinges are used to make the folding apparatus. Stops are cut out of scrap wood to allow the bender to accurately recreate angles of 45, 90, and 135 degrees. Heat is supplied via a nichrome wire, powered by a laptop power supply and a PWM controller. This allows the temperature of the wire to be controlled, to avoid melting or otherwise damaging the acrylic being bent.

If you find yourself routinely working with acrylic, you might find this tool useful to have around the workshop. Vacuum forming may also be relevant to your interests. Video after the break.

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Building An Artisanal Tape Measure

March 27, 2019 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

Some tools are so common, so basic, that we take them for granted. A perfect example is the lowly tape measure. We’ve probably all got a few of these kicking around the lab, and they aren’t exactly the kind of thing you give a lot of thought to when you’re using them. But while most of us might not give our tape measure a second thought, [Ariel Yahni] decided to create an absolutely gorgeous new enclosure for his. Because if you’re going to measure something, why not look good doing it?

A CNC router is used to carve the body of the new tape measure out of a solid block of wood and cut a top plate out of clear acrylic. [Ariel] then used an angle grinder to cut off a small section of steel rod which he secured into a carved pocket in the base using epoxy. Finally, the internals of a commercial tape measure were inserted into this new enclosure, and the acrylic top was screwed down into place.

[Ariel] has made the DXF files for this project public for anyone else who wants to carve out their own heirloom tape measure, though it seems likely the designs will need some tweaking depending on the make and model of donor tape measure. While this might not be the most technically impressive project to run on Hackaday, it’s still a fantastic example of the sort of bespoke designs that are made possible with modern manufacturing methods.

This design reminds us of a similar project to turn a basic Honda key fob into a true conversation piece with the addition of some CNC’d hardwood and aluminum.

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Plastics: Acrylic

January 16, 2019 by Dan Maloney 32 Comments

If anything ends up on the beds of hobbyist-grade laser cutters more often than birch plywood, it’s probably sheets of acrylic. There’s something strangely satisfying about watching a laser beam trace over a sheet of the crystal-clear stuff, vaporizing a hairs-breadth line while it goes, and (hopefully) leaving a flame-polished cut in its wake.

Acrylic, more properly known as poly(methyl methacrylate) or PMMA, is a wonder material that helped win a war before being developed for peacetime use. It has some interesting chemistry and properties that position it well for use in the home shop as everything from simple enclosures to laser-cut parts like gears and sprockets.

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