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8 Articles

We Would Not Want To Be Stormtroopers Right Now

December 24, 2020 by 20 Comments

Humanity is another step closer to a fantasy-accurate lightsaber thanks to Hackaday alumnus [James Hobson] at Hacksmith. Their proto-saber cuts through (cosplay) stormtrooper armor, (foam) walls, and a (legit!) 1/4″ (6.35mm) steel plate. For so many reasons, we want to focus on the blade and handle. (Video, embedded below.)

The blade is a plasma stream designed for glassworking and burns a propane/oxygen mix with almost no residue, but the “blade” stays in a tight cylinder shape. With a custom PCB hosting a mixing controller, the blade extends and retracts like in the movies. The handle is not a technical marvel; it is an artistic wonder and if you want to see some machining eye-candy, check out the first video after the break. The second video demonstrates just how much damage you can do with a 4000° Fahrenheit tube of portable plasma.

You won’t be dueling anyone just yet, since there is no magnetic field shaping the blade like the ones [Lucas] envisioned. Unfortunately, you can’t block anything more substantial than a balloon sword since solid material will pass right through it, but it will suffer a mighty burn in the process. Lightsabers are a fantasy weapon, but the collective passion of nerds have made it as real as ever, and the Guinness folks give credibility to this build.

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This Automated Wire Prep Machine Cuts And Strips The Wire

December 9, 2020 by 23 Comments

We’ve seen a fair number of automated wire cutting builds before, and with good reason: cutting lots of wires by hand is repetitive and carries the risk of injury. What’s common to all these automated wire cutters is a comment asking, “Yeah, but can you make it strip too?” As it turns out, yes you can.

The key to making this automated wire cutter and stripper is [Mr Innovative]’s choice of tooling, and accepting a simple compromise. (Video, embedded below.) Using just about the simplest wire strippers around — the kind with a diamond-shaped opening that adjusts to different wire gauges by how far the jaws are closed — makes it so that the tool can both cut and strip, and adapt to different wire sizes. The wire is fed from a spool to a custom attachment sitting atop a stepper motor, which looks very much like an extruder from a 3D-printer. The wire is fed through a stiff plastic tube into the jaws of the cutter. Choosing between cutting and stripping is a matter of aiming the wire for different areas on the cutter’s jaws, which is done with a hobby servo that bends the guide tube. The throw of the cutter is controlled by a stepper motor — partial closure nicks the insulation, while a full stroke cuts the wire off. The video below shows the build and the finished product in action.

Yes, the insulation bits at the end still need to be pinched off, but it’s a lot better than doing the whole job yourself. [Mr Innovative] has a knack for automating tedious manual tasks like this. Check out his label dispenser, a motor rotor maker, and thread bobbin winder.

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Zen And The Art Of Foam Core

February 10, 2018 by 26 Comments

Some of our pastimes are so deeply meditative that we lose ourselves for hours. Our hands seem to perform every step, and sequence like a pianist might recite her favorite song. If [Eric Strebel]’s voice and videos are any indications, working with foam core can have that effect.

Foam core is a staple of art stores, hobby stores, and office supply stores. It comes in different colors, but the universal trait is a sheet of foam sandwiched between a couple of layers of paper. This composition makes a versatile material which [Eric] demonstrates well in his advanced tutorial making a compound surface and later on a speaker mockup.

After the break, you can catch a couple of beginner tutorials which explain the differences between a slapdash foam core model, and one which will draw appreciation. Proper tools and thoughtful planning might be the biggest takeaways from the first two videos unless you count the Zen narration. The advanced videos, linked above, show some ingenious ways to use foam core like offset scoring, adjustable super-structures, and paper transfers.

Each video is less than ten minutes long, so if you just started your coffee break, you can complete a video right now. Or look at another 2D material turned into amazingness with a papercraft strandbeest, then step up your game with another look at vinyl cutters.
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Cutting Stone With A Diamond Bit Built From Plumbing Parts

September 15, 2017 by 24 Comments

Everyone’s favorite Canadian is at it again. This time, [AVE] needed to cut a large hole in a stone countertop. They making coring bits for this, but a bit this size would cost upwards of $400. Not a problem. [AvE] broke out the tools and built his own stone cutting bit.

Everything starts with a 6″ plastic pipe cap. [AvE] center drilled the cap, then threaded it. A turned down bolt makes a great arbor for this new tool. The edge of the cap was then slotted. [AvE] used a clapped out Bridgeport milling machine, but you could do the same job with a hacksaw or a Dremel tool.

The secret sauce is industrial diamonds. That’s right, this is a diamond cutting bit. [AvE] ordered 20 grams of 20-25 mesh industrial diamonds. “Mesh” defines the size of the individual diamonds — in this case around 50 microns and up.  Now, how to bind diamond and plastic? Plumber’s transition cement didn’t work – the diamonds and coating just peeled off like a sunburn. The solution turned out to be JB-Weld. A liberal coating of JB-Weld on the face of the tool, a sprinkling of industrial diamonds, and the pipe cap was ready to cut.

The cutting operation was slow, steady, and lots of cooling water. [AvE] made it most of the way through his countertop before having to refurbish his bit.

[AvE] usually is a man of many words, as can be seen in this post about his EDM machine. This time though, he gave us the silent treatment — an entire video with no words, set to classical music. It’s great seeing YouTubers step outside their comfort zone and trying something new.

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Wooden Puzzle Book Will Twist And Dazzle Your Brain

October 20, 2016 by 22 Comments

In what might be one of the coolest applications of laser cutting, joinery, puzzles, writing, and bookbinding, [Brady Whitney] has created the Codex Silenda — a literal puzzle book of magnificent proportions.

[Whitney] had originally conceived the idea of the Codex for his senior thesis research project at Iowa State University, and the result is something for almost everyone. On each of the Codex’s five pages lies a mechanical puzzle that must be solved to progress to the next, while an accompanying text weaves a story as you do so. These intricate pages were designed in SolidWorks and painstakingly assembled from laser cut wood. Breaking the fourth wall of storytelling by engaging the reader directly in uncovering the book’s mysteries is a unique feat, and it looks gorgeous to boot.

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Retrotechtacular: Cut All The Cables In This Speedy Teleco Switch Upgrade

February 9, 2016 by 62 Comments

In this short but intense classic of corporate cinematography, we get to watch as the Pacific Bell central office in Glendale, California is converted to electronic switching in a 47-second frenzy of cable cutting in 1984.

In the 1970s and 1980s, conversion of telephone central office (CO) switch gear from older technologies such as crossbar (XBar) switches or step-by-step (SxS) gear to electronic switching systems (ESS) was proceeding apace. Early versions of ESS were rolling out as early as the 1950s, but telcos were conservative entities that were slow to adopt change and even slower to make changes that might result in service outages. So when the time finally came for the 35,000 line Glendale CO to cutover from their aging SxS gear to ESS, Pacific Bell retained Western Electric for their “Speedy Cutover Service.”

Designed to reduce the network outage time to a minimum, cuts like these were intricately planned and rehearsed. Prep teams of technicians marked the cables to be cut and positioned them for easy access by the cutters. For this cut, scaffolding was assembled to support two tiers of cutters. It looks like the tall guys got the upper deck, and the shorter techs – with hard hats – worked under them.

At 11PM on this cut night, an emergency coordinator verified that no emergency calls were in progress, and the cut began. In an intense burst of activity, each of the 54 technicians cut about 20 cables. Smiles widened as the cut accelerated, and sparks actually flew at the 35.7 second mark. When done, each tech turned around and knelt down so the supervisors knew when everyone was done. At least one tech couldn’t help but whoop it up when the cut was done. Who could blame him? It must have been a blast.

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Type4me Is A Hardware Clipboard For Your Digital Copy And Paste Needs

January 14, 2013 by 41 Comments

type4me-hardware-clipboard

It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again we find ourselves wanting for a more extensible cut and paste experience. Most notably we’ve searched for something that makes is very easy to keep multiple things in the clipboard and paste them as needed. Although we’ve tried several software offerings nothing really made it up to grade, but this hardware clipboard looks very promising. [Luca Dentella] calls it Type4me as it functions as a USB keyboard.

The PIC 18F14K50 enumerates as a USB keyboard, allowing it to send characters anywhere the cursor is located. It sends whatever string is stored inside, with an optional return character at the end. In addition to its keyboard properties it also establishes a serial connection, which allows you to push new strings to the device. This setup does require you to do copy or type your strings into a serial terminal, along with one of four special commands which are parsed by the microcontroller. One of these commands allows you to save the string to EEPROM so that it will be persistent through a power cycle.

The pasting back to the computer takes a mere push of the button. We’ve embedded the video demo after the break. It’s in Italian but there are English subtitles. Near the end [Luca] shows off the device as a macro button for gaming.

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