3D Printed Variable Area Jet Nozzle

July 14, 2018 by Tom Nardi 8 Comments

If you’ve ever seen the back end of a military jet, you’ve likely seen variable area nozzles. They’re used to adjust the exhaust flow out of the rear of a jet engine during supersonic flight and while the afterburner is engaged. Commercial aircraft, with the exception of the Concorde, don’t need such fancy hardware since a static exhaust nozzle works well enough for the types of flying they’ll be doing. For much the same reasons, RC aircraft don’t need variable area nozzles either, but it doesn’t keep builders from wanting them.

Which brings us to this utterly gorgeous design by [Marco Colucci]. Made up of 23 individual PETG parts, this variable area nozzle is able to reduce its diameter by 50% with just a twist of the rotating collar. When paired with a hobby servo, this mechanism will allow the operator to adjust the nozzle aperture with an extra channel on their RC transmitter. The nozzle hasn’t flown yet, but a test run is being planned with a 40mm Electric Ducted Fan (EDF) motor. But thanks to the parametric design, it shouldn’t be a problem to scale it up to larger motors.

But the big question: does it have an effect on the EDF’s performance? The answer is, of course, no. This doesn’t actually do anything. An EDF motor has no need for this sort of nozzle, and even if you tried to fit this on a scale jet engine, it would melt in seconds from the exhaust temperature. This is purely a decorative item, to give the plane a more accurate scale look. To that end, it looks fantastic and would definitely be impressive on the back of a large scale RC military fighter.

If anything, [Marco] says he expects performance to be worse with the nozzle fitted. Not only is it adding dead weight to the plane, but restricting the air coming out of the back of the fan isn’t going to do anything but reduce thrust. But on the bright side: if it’s flying slower, it will be easier to see how awesome your adjustable nozzles look.

This isn’t the first time somebody’s tried to make an electric RC plane look like it’s packing a proper turbine, but it certainly might be one of the slickest. Only way to top this is to build an actual jet engine for the thing.

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Want A Leak-Proof Camper? Better Fire Up The 3D Printer Now.

March 22, 2018 by James Hobson 32 Comments

Ah, the great outdoors. Rejuvenating air rife with mosquitoes and other nasties, and spending some time hanging out in the woods sleeping in a 3D printed camper. Wait– what was that last one again?

Yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A Canadian team headed by [Randy Janes] of Wave of the Future 3D, printed a camper at [Create Cafe] in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, using high-flow nozzles on one of the largest 3D printers in North America. These layers are 10.3mm thick!!

This trailer is one single printed piece, taking 230 hours — nine and a half days — of straight printing with only a few hangups. Weighing 600lbs and at 13 feet long by six feet wide — approximately 507 cubic feet, this beats the previous record holder for largest single piece indoor print in size by three times over.

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LED Illusion Makes Colorful Water Drops Defy Gravity

March 14, 2018 by Dan Maloney 15 Comments

The 60s and 70s were a great time for kitschy lighting accessories. Lava lamps, strobes, color organs, black light posters — we had it all. One particularly groovy device was an artificial rain display, where a small pump dripped mineral oil over vertical monofilament lines surrounding a small statue, with the whole thing lighted from above in dramatic fashion. If it sounds appalling, it was, and only got worse as the oil got gummy by accumulating dust and debris.

While this levitating water drops display looks somewhat similar, it has nothing to do with that greasy lamp of yore. [isaac879]’s “RGB time fountain” is actually a lot more sophisticated and pretty entrancing to watch. The time fountain idea is simple — drip water from a pump nozzle to a lower receptacle along a path that can be illuminated with flashing LEDs. Synchronizing the flashes to the PWM controlling pump speed can freeze the drops in place, or even make them appear to drip up. [isaac879] took the time fountain idea a step further by experimenting with RGB illumination, and he found that all sorts of neat effects are possible. The video below shows all the coolness, like alternating drops of different colors that look like falling — or rising — paint drops, and drops that merge together to form a new color. And behold, the mysterious antigravity cup that drips up and yet gets filled!

Allowances must be made for videos of projects that use strobes, of course. The effect of this time fountain and similar ones we’ve featured before is hard to capture, but this one still looks great to us.

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Rubies Are A 3D Printer’s Best Friend

November 30, 2017 by Al Williams 56 Comments

Watching a 3D printer work always reminds us of watching a baker decorate a cake. Gooey icing squeezes out of a nozzle and makes interesting shapes and designs. While hot plastic doesn’t taste as good as icing, it does flow easily through the printer’s nozzle. Well… normal plastic, anyway. These days, advanced 3D printers are using filament with wood, metal, carbon fiber, and other additives. These can provide impressive results, but the bits of hard material in them tend to wear down metallic nozzles. If this is your problem and you are tired of replacing nozzles, you should check out the Olsson Ruby Nozzle.

Ruby, in this case, isn’t just a name. The nozzle has a small bit of ruby with a 0.4mm hole in the center — or they have a few other sizes. We suppose diamond would even be better, but ruby is so much more affordable. We haven’t tried these ourselves, but [3D Printing Nerd] has an interesting video review you can see below.

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Hackaday Links: January 29, 2017

January 29, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

A 3D printer and laser cutter were cited as cause in two deaths. A couple (and two cats) were found dead in their apartment this week. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. Police and the gas company investigated the residence and found no other source of carbon monoxide besides a 3D printer and a laser cutter. Be sure to check out the people who know more about these deaths than the people who actually investigated these deaths in the comments below. In the mean time, get a CO detector. It’s nasty stuff.

At CES ~~last~~ this month, Lulzbot unleashed the MOARstruder. It’s an extruder with a massive, massive, 1.2mm nozzle. [James] from xrobots dot co dot uk just got his hands on the MOARstruder and the initial results are pretty cool. With a 1.2mm nozzle, you can print big parts fast (helpful for [James]’ massive builds), and the parts are stronger. Check out the video for a great hammer vs. printed part test.

We knew this would happen eventually. Pi Blades. Element14 is now offering ‘breakout boards but not quite’ for the full-size Raspberry Pis and Pi HATs. The idea of this product is to package clusters of Pis into an easy-to-use form factor. The Bitscope Blade Quattro, for example, provides power to four Pis. In other news, I own 20% of the world’s supply of vertical SODIMM sockets.

Arbitrary Code Execution On The Nintendo 64. A bit of background is required before going into this. Pokemon Stadium is a game for the N64. It used a Transfer Pak to read the save game data on Pokemon Game Boy cartridges to battle, trade, and organize Pokemon. Additionally, the Pokemon Tower in Pokemon Stadium allows players to play first-gen Game Boy Pokemon games from within an N64 – sort of like the SNES Super Game Boy. By using two Game Boy Pokemon games and two Transfer Paks, arbitrary code can be executed on the N64. Video demo right here. This is really cool, and the next obvious step is a ‘bootloader’ of sorts to allow arbitrary code downloading from controller button presses.

The Travelling Hacker Box is on the move! The original plan for the Travelling Hacker Box was to visit home base for the 2016 Hackaday SuperConference, then depart to foreign lands beginning with Canada, Greenland, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceana, and the other America. After the SuperCon, the box was shipped out to its first recipient in Canada. The box came back. Something with customs. Now, the Travelling Hacker Box is on the move again. The plan is still the same, it’s just delayed a month or two. If you want to check out the future travels of the Travelling Hacker Box, here you go.

Hackaday Links: January 8, 2017

January 8, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

What do you get when mindless automatons with no capacity for reason or logic converse? While you discuss that in the comments, here are two chatbots on Twitch. The highlights? A few hours ago they were doing the cutesy couple, “‘I love you more!’, ‘No, I love you more!'” thing. This was ended by, “Error, cannot connect to server.” Even robot love is not eternal.

3D printer nozzles wear out. Put a few hundred hours on a brass nozzle, and you’re not going to get the same print quality as when you started. This has led to stainless and silly-con carbide nozzles. Now there’s a ruby nozzle. It’s designed by [Anders Olsson], the same guy who’s using an Ultimaker to print neutron shielding. This guy is a nuclear engineer, and he knows his stuff. This is a nozzle designed to not grind contaminants into extruded plastic, and it looks cool, too.

This is the eighth day of the year, but the guild of independent badge makers of DEF CON are already hard at work. AND!XOR is working on the DC25 badge, that promises to be bigger, badder, and more Bender. I’m loving the Hunter S. Bender theme.

Anyone can design a PCB, but how do you panelize multiple PCBs? There’s a lot to consider – routing, mouse bites, and traces for programming the board while still panelized. This is the best solution we’ve seen. It’s a GUI that allows you to organize Gerbers on a panel, rotate them, add routes and cutouts, and generally do everything a board house does. It’s all Open Source and everything is available on GitHub.

[ducksauz] found a very old ‘computer trainer’ on eBay. It’s a DEC H-500, built to explain the basics of digital electronics and semiconductors to a room full of engineering students. It is an exceptionally beautiful piece of equipment with lovely hand-drawn traces and ‘surface mounted’ 7400 chips mounted on the back side.

Kicking The Tires Before You Buy: 3d Printers

February 22, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 103 Comments

So you’re looking to buy your first 3D printer, and your index finger is quivering over that 300 US Dollar printer on Amazon.com. Stop! You’re about to have a bad time. 3D printing has come a long way, but most 3D printers are designed through witchcraft, legends, and tall tales rather than any rigorous engineering process. I would say most 3D printer designs are either just plain bad, or designed by a team of Chinese engineers applying all their ingenuity to cost cutting. There are a few that are well designed, and there is a comparatively higher price tag attached.

I’ll start by going through some of the myths and legends that show up in 3D printers. After that I’ll go through some of the common, mostly gimmick, features that typically hinder your printer’s ability, rather than adding any useful function. Next I’ll go onto the things that will actually make your printer better. Finally, I’ll add some special consideration if you’re a beginner buying your first printer.

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