A Pokemon Silver Cartridge Made Of Pure Silver

September 16, 2022 by Lewin Day 51 Comments

The big problem with Pokemon Silver is that it came in a cartridge made of only-slightly-sparkly grey plastic. [Modified] decided to fix all that, making an all-silver cartridge instead.

The cartridge was first modeled to match the original as closely as possible, and 3D printed for a fit check. From there, a test cartridge was machined out of a block of aluminium to verify everything was correct. It’s a wise step, given the build relies on a 1-kilogram bar of silver worth roughly $750.

With everything checked and double-checked, machining the silver could go ahead. Every scrap of silver that could be saved from the CNC machining was captured in a box so that it could be recycled. Approximately 28 grams of silver was lost during the process. WD40 was used as a coolant during the machining process, as without it, the silver didn’t machine cleanly. The final cart weighed 164 grams.

It’s not a particularly hard project for an experienced CNC operator, but it is an expensive one. Primary expenses are the cost of the silver bar and the Pokemon cart itself, which can be had for around $50 on the usual auction sites.

However, the “heft and shine” of the finished product is unarguably glorious. Imagine handing that over to a friend to plug into their Game Boy! Just don’t forget to ask for it back. If you’re rich enough to do the same thing with Pokemon Gold or Platinum, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

We love a good casemod, and this one reminds us of a brilliant crystal PlayStation 2 from years past.

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Custom Lathe Tool Cuts Complex Oil Grooves

September 8, 2022 by Anne Ogborn 41 Comments

Oil grooves are used to lubricate the inside of a bearing, and can come in many forms — from a single hole that takes a few drops of oil, to helical patterns that distribute it over the entire internal surface. The ideal arrangement is a looping figure eight pattern similar to an oscilloscope Lissajous figure, but cutting these is a nightmare. That is, unless you’ve got the proper tool.

We figure [Machine Mechanic] must need to cut a lot of them, as they spent quite a bit of time perfecting this custom lathe attachment to automate the process. Through an assortment of clever linkages and a rod-turned-crank that was welded together in-situ, the device converts the rotational motion of the lathe into a reciprocating action that moves the cutting tool in and out of the bearing. Incidentally the business end of this gadget started life out as a bolt, before it was turned down and had a piece of tool steel brazed onto the end.

With a little adjustment, it seems like this device could also be used to carve decorative patterns on the outside of the workpiece. But even if this is the only trick it can pull off, we’re still impressed. This is a clever hack for a very specialized machine shop operation that most would assume you’d need a four-axis CNC to pull off.

Lathes seem at first like rather single purpose machines, we’re always pleased to discover strange and wonderful things being done with them, like this seemingly impossible-to-turn piece, and this combo wire EDM and lathe.

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Cut Just About Anything With This Combination Lathe And Wire EDM

July 20, 2022 by Dan Maloney 18 Comments

They say that if you have a lathe, you have every other machine tool too. To some degree, that’s true — you can make almost anything on a lathe, including another lathe, and even parts best made on other machine tools can usually be made on a lathe in a pinch. But after seeing this lathe attachment for a DIY electric discharge machining tool, we might be inclined to see the EDM as the one machine tool to rule them all.

Now, we’ll admit that the job [BAXEDM] built this tool for might be a little contrived. He wanted to make some custom hex inserts for his Swiss Army knife, which seem like they’d have been pretty easy to make from hex bar stock in a conventional lathe. Then again, hardened steel is the kind of material that wire EDM was made for, and there seem to be many use cases for an attachment that can spin a workpiece against an EDM cutting wire.

That was really the trick of this build — spinning a part underwater. To accomplish this, [BAXEDM] built a platform to carry a bearing block that supports a standard ER-25 collet, with a bracket that holds a stepper clear of the water in the EDM cutting tank. There are plenty of 3D printed insulators too, to keep most of the attachment electrically isolated from the EDM current, plus exotic parts like ceramic bearings that won’t corrode under water. There were a ton of other considerations, too; [BAXEDM] goes through the long iterative design process in the video below, as well as taking his new tool for a literal spin starting at about the 27:00 mark.

If you’re intrigued by what EDM can accomplish — and who wouldn’t be? — but you need more background on the process, we’ve got you covered.

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Turning Irregular Shapes

July 16, 2022 by Anne Ogborn 33 Comments

In case you’re not closely following Egyptian Machinist YouTube, you may have missed [Hydraulic House]. It’s gotten even harder to find him since he started posting under[بيت الهيدروليك]. Don’t let the Arabic put you off, he delivers it all in pantomime.

A recent drop is “How To Turn Irregular Shapes On The Lathe“. We’re not sure, but think the part he’s working on is the front suspension of a 3 wheeled auto-rickshaw. The first metal at the center is over 30cm from the bottom. No problem, he just makes a long driven dead center from a bit of scrap material and goes on with his business.

By no means is this the only cool video. We liked his video on a remote pumped hydraulic jack and one on making your own hydraulic valves.

If you’re into machinist-y things, don’t miss him. Every video is full of pretty nifty tricks, sometimes made with a zany disregard of some basics like “maybe better to have done the welding before mounting in the lathe”, turning with a cutoff tool (I think), and occasionally letting go of the chuck key. It’s definitely ‘oh, get on with it’ machine shop work.

We love videos from professionals in the developing world making with relatively simple tools. Often hobby hackers are in the same position, milling with a lathe and some patience instead of a giant Okuma. Not long ago we posted this article about making helical parts , with the same ‘imagination and skill beats more machinery any day’ vibe.

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Watch A Complete Reflector Telescope Machined From A Single Block Of Glass

April 21, 2022 by Dan Maloney 16 Comments

If this is the easy part of making a complete reflector telescope from a single piece of glass, we can’t wait to get a load of the hard part!

A little backstory may be in order for those who don’t follow [Jeroen Vleggaar]’s Huygens Optics channel on YouTube. A few months ago, he released a video discussing monolithic telescopes, where all the reflective and refractive surfaces are ground into a single thick block of glass. Fellow optical engineer [Rik ter Horst] had built a few tiny monolithic Schmidt-Cassegrain reflectors for use in cube sats, so [Jeroen] decided to build a scaled-up version himself.

The build starts with a 45 mm thick block of crown glass, from which a 50 mm cylinder is bored with a diamond hole saw. The faces of the blank are then ground into complex curves to reflect incoming light, first off the parabolic rear surface and then onto the hyperbolic secondary mirror ground into the center of the front face. A final passage through a refracting surface in the center of the rear face completes the photons’ journey through the block of glass, squeezing a 275 mm focal length into a compact package.

All this, of course, vastly understates the work required to pull it off. Between the calculations needed to figure out the surface shapes in the first place to the steps taken to machine a famously unforgiving material like glass, every step is fraught with peril. And because the design is monolithic, any mistakes mean starting all over again. Check out the video below and marvel at the skills needed to get results like this.

What strikes us most about [Jeroen]’s videos is the mix of high-tech and age-old methods and materials used in making optics, which we’ve seen him put to use to make everything from tiny Tesla valves to variable-surface mirrors.

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Bring Precision To The Woodshop With An Electronic Router Lift

April 20, 2022 by Dan Maloney 13 Comments

One of the knocks that woodworkers get from the metalworking crowd is that their chosen material is a bit… compliant. Measurements only need to be within a 1/16th of an inch or so, or about a millimeter, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on. And if you’re off a bit? No worries, that’s what sandpaper is for.

This electronic router lift is intended to close the precision gap and make woodworking a bit less subjective. [GavinL]’s build instructions are clearly aimed at woodworkers who haven’t dabbled in the world of Arduinos and stepper motors, and he does an admirable job of addressing the hesitancy this group might feel when tackling such a build. Luckily, a lot of the mechanical side of this project can be addressed with a commercially available router lift, which attaches to a table-mounted plunge router and allows fine adjustment of the cutting tool’s height from above the table.

What’s left is to add a NEMA 23 stepper to drive the router lift, plus an Arduino to control it. [GavinL] came up with some nice features, like a rapid jog control, a fine adjustment encoder, and the ability to send the tool all the way up or all the way down quickly. Another really nice touch is the contact sensor, which is a pair of magnetic probes that attach temporarily to the tool and a height gauge to indicate touch-off. Check the video below to see it all in action.

One quibble we have with [GavinL]’s setup is the amount of dust that the stepper will be subjected to. He might need to switch out to a dustproof stepper sooner rather than later. Even so, we think he did a great job bridging the gap between mechatronics and woodworking — something that [Matthias Wandel] has been doing great work on, too.

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Fancy Wire Loop Game Is A Beauty In Brass

March 30, 2022 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

The simple wire-loop game is often built as a fun project to teach students about electronics. [W&M Levsha] built their own version, showing off their fine crafting and machining skills and branding it as a sobriety test with the playful name “Breathalyzer.”

The mechanics of the game are quite simple. The player must guide a metal ring around the puzzle without touching it. A buzzer and light is used to indicate to the player when they’ve failed, with the project powered from a small lithium-polymer pouch cell charged via a USB port.

Where this build really shines is in the presentation, with [W&M Levsha] showing they really have what it takes to do great work in brass. Rather than a simple bent wire, we’re instead treated to a delicately-formed beam of rectangular cross-section hewn out of a single piece of metal. It’s paired with a nicely-crafted wand with a knurled handle.

We’ve seen similar displays of their exquisite craft before, too – such as with a bespoke toothbrush and a powder-powered lighter. Video after the break.

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