A flat LiIon battery shown attached inside the gun safe, wired to the original control board

Gun Safe Made Safer With Lithium Battery Upgrade

April 18, 2022 by Arya Voronova 37 Comments

A proper gun safe should be difficult to open, but critically, allow instant access by the authorized party.[Dr. Gerg] got a SnapSafe and discovered that, while it was quite easy to use, it would also lock the owner out easily whenever the batteries would run out. Meant to be used with four AAA batteries and no way to recharge them externally, this could leave you royally screwed in the exact kind of situation where you need the gun safe to open. This, of course, meant that the AAA batteries had to go.

Having torn a few laptop batteries apart previously, [Dr. Gerg] had a small collection of Li-ion cells on hand – cylindrical and pouch cells alike. Swapping the AAA battery holder for one of these was no problem voltage-wise, and testing showed it working without a hitch! However, replacing one non-chargeable battery with another one wasn’t a viable way forward, so he also added charging using an Adafruit LiPo charger board. One 3D printed OpenSCAD-designed bracket later, he fit the board inside the safe’s frame – and then pulled out a USB cable for charging, turning the battery into a backup option and essentially creating an UPS for this safe. Nowadays, the safe sits constantly plugged into a wall socket, and [Dr. Gerg] estimates it should last for a few weeks even in case of USB power loss.

When you read about hacking gun safes, it’s usually because of their poor security, with even biometric models occasionally falling victim to prying fingers. There’s talk about moving the locking features into the guns themselves, but we remain skeptical. “Powering an electronically locked box with internal batteries” is a fun problem, and just recently, we’ve seen it solved in a different way in this intricate voice-activated lockbox.

British Cops Catch Shooter-Printing Villain

September 20, 2019 by Jenny List 84 Comments

It’s a perennial of breathless British tabloid scare reporting that 3D printers will unleash a tide of weapons upon the streets. But perhaps it might actually be time for Brits lock up their children, because London’s Metropolitan Police have announced their first prosecution for 3D printing a handgun. The gun pictured appears to be a Repringer 5-shot .22 revolver, and was found by police during a drugs raid.

The UK has significantly restrictive firearms legislation and shooting incidents are extremely rare in the country, so while this might not raise any eyebrows on the other side of the Atlantic it’s an extremely unusual event for British police. It appears that the builder was not the type of libre firearms enthusiast who has made the news with similar work in the USA, so it has to be assumed that it was printed purely as a means to secure an illegal firearm however rough-and-ready or indeed dangerous it might be.

Stepping aside from the firearm aspect of the story, it should be of concern for any British 3D printer enthusiasts. As we’ve reported over the years with respect to drone incidents they can sometimes throw reason to the wind when faced with unfamiliar technology, indeed we’ve already seen them imagining RepRap parts to be for a firearm. We’d counsel all parties to keep sane heads, and hope that both the sentence for today’s criminal proves to be a suitable deterrent, and that no clueless fool decides to download and print another weapon for the hell of it. As always, we’ll bring you developments as they happen.

Firearm Tech – Are Smart Guns Even Realistic?

August 1, 2016 by Bob Baddeley 304 Comments

At frustratingly regular intervals, the debate around gun control crops up, and every time there is a discussion about smart guns. The general idea is to have a gun that will not fire unless authenticated and authorized. There’s usually a story about a young person who invents a smart controller and another company that is struggling because they just can’t get “Big Guns” to buy into the idea. We aren’t going to focus on the politics; we’re going to look at whether the technology is realistic, and why a lot of the news stories about new tech never pan out.

Let’s start with an example of modern technology creeping into established machines: the car. These are giant hunks of metal with nearly constant explosions, controlled by sophisticated electronics that are getting smarter and more connected every day. Industry is adopting it with alacrity, and the vehicles are getting more efficient and powerful because of it. So why can’t firearms?

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Timelapse Of The 3d Printed Gun Being Printed.

May 16, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 196 Comments

Once the DoD requested the 3d printed gun files be removed from the internet, a couple things happened.

The Streisand Effect went into full force. The file was shared all over and can still be found easily.
I suddenly realized that I was going to be printing a 3d printed gun and doing another article on it even though I had just written an opinion piece about how I don’t care.

I’m not above admitting that it is childish of me. I was told I couldn’t have this thing and suddenly I knew I had to make it. I see it with my kids all the time. Toys can sit in a corner collecting dust for ages, but the second it is in threat of being removed, they have renewed interest, at least for a few minutes.

I figured, if I’m going to be childish about it and print a gun that a) won’t work because I don’t have the right printer, and b) I won’t use anyway because I don’t generally play with guns, I might as well make a fun timelapse video of the more recognizable parts being made.

It initially seemed like it was going to be quick and easy. However, I quickly found that just printing this thing was going to be a time consuming and frustrating task.

1. the scale on the individual files was way off.

I suspect this has something to do with the printer it was designed for. It seemed very close to being 1 inch = 1 mm. Not a completely uncommon problem. Manually resizing got some files to look right, but I found many simply wouldn’t resize.

2. Almost every single item had errors.

If you’ve done 3d printing, you’ve found that a model can have all kinds of issues that will stop it from printing correctly. I found every single item for the gun had errors. I actually learned a lot about how to repair non-manifold items from this exercise, so it was good in the end.

Some items, like the hammer and the hammer springs simply would not print. I ran them through systems to repair them and fix errors. It would say that everything was fixed, but when I tried to “slice” them for printing, the software would crash. This means that my gun is incomplete. It has no hammer. Not really that big of a deal to me.

photo(52) — Note that it is missing the hammer mechanism. More on that later.

trigger spring. Cool design, I might use this idea for something else later

black: initial print with errors. Red: fixed print.

the gopro fell into the printer stopping it from moving the bed correctly. You can see the top two layers are shifted about an inch. The rest of that mess is just support material I was ripping out.

The hammer that refused to print correctly despite repeated repairs.

what the hammer was supposed to look like.

the spring that crashed my slicing program every time I tried to prepare it for a print.

Do I care now?

Nope. I climbed to the top of the fridge and got my cookies. I’m a happy child. The reality is that a zip gun is still cheaper, easier, safer, and more reliable. Here’s an example.

Remote Control Car That Packs Its Own Beretta

March 13, 2013 by Mike Szczys 82 Comments

remote-control-car-packs-a-beretta

We’ve never really thought to ourselves “This RC car is fun, but it really needs more handguns”. And if we did, it certainly would not be a built to undertake with students. But to each his own. [Jerod Michel] is a mathematician working in China. He recently built the project seen above with a group of students. Look closely and you’ll notice that the remote control car includes a remote control Beretta strapped to the side.

He doesn’t have a blog post about the project, but you can find a couple of images and his build instructions after the break. The firearm has a motor attached to the trigger that allows it to be fired by tapping into one of the extra channels on the RC car’s PCB. But you won’t just be firing blindly. The project also includes a video transmitter which can be viewed from an LCD screen mounted on top of the remote control unit. There’s even a laser sight that will show what you’re aiming at.

We wonder what the recoil of the firearm does to this light-weight vehicle?

Build Instructions (.txt file)

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