Digital Taxidermy Spool Recycling concept art.

Spool Tower: Empty Filament Spool Or Base For Miniature Civilizations

December 2, 2022 by Maya Posch 23 Comments

While churning through rolls of FDM filament, there are these empty spools that remain at the end. These can be thrown out with the trash, or be used as a standard base for miniatures, for use with Dungeons & Dragons tabletop gaming or similar, or just as a display piece. The latter is what the blokes over at Digital Taxidermy ran with when they started their first Spool Tower Kickstarter campaign. Now they’re back with Spool Tower 2: The Re-Spoolening.

These are STL bundle packs that should contain all that’s needed to turn an empty filament spool into an art piece, minus of course the painting. To get a free taste of what the experience is like, Digital Taxidermy provides a few free STLs, such as for the Ye Olde Taxidermee Shoppee and the Hab Block from the new crowdfunding campaign.

This effort raises the interesting question of what other standard (plastic) shapes of packaging could conceivably be used in a similar manner. After all, why print the whole thing when half the model could be made from something you’d otherwise just toss into the trash bin?

Thanks to [scat happens] for the tip.

Formula 1 TV Broadcasting In 1:87 Scale

June 18, 2021 by Chris Lott 11 Comments

[Gerrit Braun], co-founder of the [Miniatur Wunderland] model railway and miniature airport attraction in Hamburg, takes his model building seriously. For more than five years, he and his team have been meticulously planning, testing, and building a 1:87 scale of Formula 1’s Monaco Grand Prix. Models at the Wunderland are crafted to the Nth detail and all reasonable efforts, and some unreasonable ones, are taken to achieve true-to-life results. In the video down below, part of Gerrit’s diary of the project, he discusses the issues and solutions to simulating realistic television broadcasts (the video is in German, but it has English language subtitles).

The goal is to model the large billboard-sized monitor screens set up at viewing stands. In real life, these displays are fed with images coming in from cameras located all over the circuit, the majority of which are operated by a cameraman. The miniaturization of cameras has come a long way in recent years — the ESP32-CAM module or the Raspberry Pi cameras, for example. But miniaturizing the pan-and-tilt actions of a cameraman, while perhaps possible, would not be reliable over the long time (these exhibits at Wunderland are permanent and operate almost daily). Instead, the team is able to use software to extract a cropped window from high-resolution video, and moving the position of this cropped window simulates the pointing of the camera. More details are in the video.

The skill and creativity of [Gerrit] and his team is incredible. Other videos on this project cover topics like the sound system, PCB techniques used for the roads, and the eye-popping use of an electric standing desk to lift an entire city block so workers can gain access to the area. Fair warning — these are addictive, and the video below is #76 of an unfinished series. We wrote about Wunderland back in 2016 when [Gerrit] and his twin brother [Frank] teamed with Google Maps to make a street view of their replica cities. Thanks to [Conductiveinsulation] who sent us the tip, saying that the discussion about interconnected triangular PCB tiles on this week’s Podcast #122 reminded him of this for some reason. Have any of our readers visited Miniatur Wunderland before? Let us know in the comments below.

Continue reading “Formula 1 TV Broadcasting In 1:87 Scale” →

Baby C-17 Sends Imaginations Soaring

June 6, 2021 by Roger Cheng 17 Comments

The C-17 Globemaster III is a military cargo jet that can carry what their commercial counterparts can’t, to places those other planes can’t go. The people who keep these planes flying are proud of their capable airlifter, but it’s hard to show them off. Solution: build a scaled-down version more suitable for driving off base for a parade down Main Street and other community events.

While the real thing was built under an expensive and contentious military procurement process, the miniature was built with volunteer labor using castoff materials. The volunteer force included maintenance crew whose job is to know the C-17 inside and out. Combined with fabrication skills that comes with the job, the impressive baby plane faithfully copied many curvatures and details from full-sized originals. (Albeit with some alteration for its cartoony proportions.) Underneath are mechanicals from a retired John Deere Gator utility vehicle. They usually resemble a large golf cart except with a cargo bed and more rugged suspension. Basically they are to golf carts as a C-17 is to a 767. Amusingly, the little plane has its own rear loading ramp, superficially preserving the cargo-carrying capacity of the original Gator chassis.

Interior features continue, though the official picture gallery doesn’t show them. There is a flight deck with control panels and various sights and sounds to keep visitors entertained. Enough details were poured into the exhibit that some people had to ask if the little plane can fly, and the answer is a very definite no. The wings, and the engine pods mounted to them, are only for show carrying The Spirit of Hope, Liberty & Freedom. It is quite a long official name for such a short stubby thing.

We always love to admire impressively put-together miniatures, and not all projects require skill of aircraft mechanics. Like this very approachable miniature forklift project. But there are plenty of other projects whose skills put us in awe, like this remote-control car powered by a miniature V-10 engine.

[via The Museum of Flight]

Mini Flickering Torch Effect Uses Neither Wires Nor Solder

April 15, 2019 by Donald Papp 8 Comments

[ROBAGON] makes miniature, 3D-printable gaming terrain and features like these stone pillars with flickering torch. His model isn’t free to download (though it’s under $2 at the time of writing), but the part that impressed us was his clever way of using electric tea lights to create a flickering torch effect without needing any soldering or wiring whatsoever.

His solution was to make the base of the pillar large enough to fit an electric tea light, which uses a flickering LED to simulate a candle flame. The molded plastic “flame” is removed from the tea light and placed in the torch sconce, while the tea light itself goes into the base. A short segment of clear acrylic rod is used as a light pipe, running from the tea light’s LED to the base of the torch.

It’s a simple, effective, and economical solution that doesn’t require running or soldering a single wire and you can see it work in the brief video embedded below. Now all that’s missing for those Dungeons & Dragons sessions is this custom calculator.

Continue reading “Mini Flickering Torch Effect Uses Neither Wires Nor Solder” →

Rocking Playmobil Wedding

October 4, 2017 by Brian McEvoy 6 Comments

Many of us have put our making/hacking/building skills to use as a favor for our friends and family. [Boris Werner] is no different, he set about creating a music festival stage with Playmobil figures and parts for a couple of friends who were getting married. The miniature performers are 1/24 scale models of the forming family. The bride and groom are on guitar and vocals while junior drums.

Turning children’s toys into a wedding-worthy gift isn’t easy but the level of detail [Boris Werner] used is something we can all learn from. The video after the break does a great job of showing just how many cool synchronized lighting features can be crammed into a tiny stage in the flavor of a real show and often using genuine Playmobil parts. Automation was a mix of MOSFET controlled LEDs for the stage lighting, addressable light rings behind the curtain, a disco ball with a stepper motor and music, all controlled by an Arduino.

Unless you are some kind of Playmobil purist, this is way cooler than anything straight out of the box. This is the first mention of Playmobil on Hackaday but miniatures are hardly a new subject like this similarly scaled space sedan.

Continue reading “Rocking Playmobil Wedding” →