The Open Makers Cube: Have Hack, Will Travel

December 3, 2019 by Tom Nardi 10 Comments

Don’t bother denying it, we know your workbench is a mess. A tangled pile of wires, tools, and half-completed projects is standard decor for any hardware hacker. In fact, if you’ve got a spotless work area, we might even be a bit skeptical about your credentials in this field. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t be interested in some way of keeping the electronic detritus in check, perhaps something like the Open Makers Cube created by [technoez].

This all-in-one hardware hacking station uses DIN rails and 3D-printed mounting hardware to allow the user to attach a wide array of tools, gadgets, and boards to the outside surface where they’re easily accessible. The OpenSCAD design includes mounts for the usual suspects like the Raspberry Pi, Arduino Uno, and general purpose breadboards. Of course, your own custom mounts are just a few lines of code away.

The Cube also includes a lighted magnifying glass on a flexible arm so you can zoom in on what you’re working on, a simple “helping hands” attachment, and provisions for internal USB power. It even features angled feet so the front side of the cube is held at a more comfortable viewing angle. All of which is held together by a lightweight and portable frame built from square aluminum tubing.

We can understand if you’ve got some doubts about the idea of mounting all of your tools and projects to the side of a jaunty little cube. But even if the jury is still out on the mobile workspace concept, one thing is for sure: the Open Makers Cube is easily one of the best documented projects we’ve seen in recent memory. Thanks to NopSCADlib, [technoez] was able to generate an exploded view and Bill of Materials for each sub-assembly of the project. If you’ve ever needed proof that NopSCADlib was worth checking out, this is it.

Copying High Security Keys With OpenSCAD And Light

September 24, 2019 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

The ability to duplicate keys with a 3D printer is certainly nothing new, but so far we’ve only seen the technique used against relatively low hanging fruit. It’s one thing to print a key that will open a $15 Kwikset deadbolt from the hardware store or a TSA-approved “lock” that’s little more than a toy, but a high-security key is another story. The geometry of these keys is far more complex, making them too challenging to duplicate on a consumer-level printer. Or at least, you’d think so.

Inspired by previous printed keys, [Tiernan] wanted to see if the techniques could be refined for use against high security Abloy Protec locks, which are noted for their resistance to traditional physical attacks such as picking. The resulting STLs are, unsurprisingly, beyond the capabilities of your average desktop FDM printer. But with a sub-$300 USD Anycubic Photon DLP printer, it’s now possible to circumvent these highly regarded locks non-destructively.

Of course, these keys are far too intricate to duplicate from a single picture, so you’ll need to have the physical key in hand and decode it manually. [Tiernan] wisely leaves that step of the process out, so anyone looking to use this project will need to have a good working knowledge of the Abloy Protec system. Hopefully this keeps bad actors from doing anything too nefarious with this research.

Once you have the decoded values for the key you want to duplicate, you just need to provide them to the OpenSCAD library [Tiernan] has developed and print the resulting STL on your sufficiently high-resolution printer. Generally speaking, the parts produced by resin-based printing have a high tensile strength but are very brittle, so perhaps not the kind of thing you want to stick in your expensive Abloy lock. That said, there are some “Tough Resin” formulations available now which produce parts that are at least as strong as those made with thermoplastics. So while the printed keys might not be strong enough for daily use, they’ll certainly work in a pinch.

Glia Is Making Open Medical Devices, And You Can Help

August 25, 2019 by Tom Nardi 40 Comments

The Glia project aims to create a suite of free and open-source medical equipment that can be assembled cheaply and easily when and where it’s needed. Even essential tools like stethoscopes and tourniquets can be difficult to acquire in certain parts of the world, especially during times of war or civil unrest. But armed with a 3D printer and the team’s open-source designs, an ad-hoc factory can start producing these lifesaving tools anywhere on the planet.

Glia member [Tarek Loubani] has recently written a blog post discussing the team’s latest release: an otoscope that can be built for as little as $5. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you’ve almost certainly seen one of them in use. The otoscope is used to look inside the ear and can be invaluable in diagnosing illnesses, especially in children. Unfortunately, while this iconic piece of equipment is quite simple on a technical level, professional-quality versions can cost hundreds of dollars.

Now to be fair, you’ll need quite a bit more than just the 3D printed parts to assemble the device. The final product requires some electrical components such as a battery holder, rocker switch, and LED. It also requires a custom lens, though the Glia team has thought ahead here and provided the files for printable jigs that will allow you to cut a larger lens down to the size required by their otoscope. In a situation where you might have to improvise with what you have, that’s a very clever design element.

So far the team is very happy with how the otoscope performs, but they’ve run into a bit of a logistical snag. It turns out that early work on the project was done in the web-based TinkerCAD, which isn’t quite in line with the team’s goals of keeping everything free and open. They’d like some assistance in recreating the STLs in FreeCAD or OpenSCAD so they’re easier to modify down the road. So if you’re a FOSS CAD master and want to earn some positive karma, head over to the GitHub page for the project and put those skills to use.

We’ve previously covered Glia’s work with 3D printed tourniquets to treat gunshot wounds, a project that led to [Tarek] himself being shot by a sniper while attempting to field test the design in Gaza. If that’s not commitment to the principles of open-source hardware, we don’t know what is.

Continue reading “Glia Is Making Open Medical Devices, And You Can Help” →

Try NopSCADlib For Your Next OpenSCAD Project

June 15, 2019 by Brian Boucheron 16 Comments

Most readers of this site are familiar by now with the OpenSCAD 3D modeling software, where you can write code to create 3D models. You may have even used OpenSCAD to output some STL files for your 3D printer. But for years now, [nophead] has been pushing OpenSCAD further than most, creating some complex utility and parts libraries to help with modeling, and a suite of Python scripts that generate printable STLs, laser-ready DXFs, bills of material, and human-readable assembly instructions complete with PNG imagery of exploded-view sub-assemblies.

Recently [nophead] tidied all of this OpenSCAD infrastructure up and released it on GitHub as NopSCADlib. You can find out more by browsing through the example projects and README file in the repository, and by reading the announcement blog post on the HydraRaptor blog. Some functionality highlights include:

a large parts library full of motors, buttons, smooth rod, et cetera
many utility functions to help with chamfers, fillets, precision holes, sub-assemblies, and BOM generation
Python scripts to automate the output of STLs, DXFs, and BOMs
automatic creation of documentation from Markdown embedded in your OpenSCAD files
automatic rendering of exploded subassemblies

All that’s missing is a nice Makefile to tie it all together! Try it out for your next project if you – like us – get giddy at the thought of putting your 3D projects into version control before “compiling” them into the real world.

We’ve discussed some complex OpenSCAD before: Mastering OpenSCAD Workflow, and An OpenSCAD Mini-ITX Computer Case.

Volkswagen Tools Turned To The Space Age

March 21, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 36 Comments

The Volkswagen Beetle, and yes the bus and the sexiest car ever made, are cars meant for the people. You can pull the engine out with a strong friend, and you can fix anything in an old Volkswagen. VW realized this, because in the 1950s and ’60s, they came up with plans for tools designed to tear apart an old VW, and these tools were meant to be manufactured in a local shop. That really turns that right to repair on its head, doesn’t it?

While working on his van, [Justin Miller] came across a reference to one of these tools meant to be made at home. The VW 681 is a seal puller, designed to be manufactured out of bar stock. It’s an old design, but now we have interesting tools like 3D printers and parametric CAD programs. Instead of making one of these DIY seal pullers with a grinder, [Justin] brought this tool from the space age into the modern age. He took the design, modelled it in OpenSCAD, and printed it out.

The VW reference book that lists this tool is Workshop Equipment for Local Manufacture, and for this seal puller, it gives perfectly dimensioned drawings that are easily modelled with a few lines of code. The only real trouble is filing down the pointy bit of the puller, but a bit of boolean operations fixed that problem. After 15 minutes of printing and a few hours finding the right documentation and writing fifteen lines of code, [justin] had a plastic VW 681 in his hands. Yes, it was probably a waste of time as a regular seal puller could have done the job, but it’s an excellent example of what can happen when manufacturers support their local repairman.

OpenSCAD Gives You Parametric Boxes

March 11, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 39 Comments

OpenSCAD is one of the most powerful 3d modeling applications around. Its beauty is in its simplicity; if you need a box, you can just write the code for a box. If you need some bit of plastic to keep your 3D printer running, you can just write the code for that bit of plastic. Like all programming languages, OpenSCAD is only really powerful if you have a huge back-catalog of various components ready for reuse. That’s where [Mark]’s library for hinged boxes comes in handy. Every type of box you would ever want to create, from boxes with covers, magnet closures, or cases for your glasses is easily accessible with just a few lines of code.

The work presented here is an OpenSCAD script to generate two-piece hinged boxes, with rounded corners, a lid, interlocking rims, and optional snap fit, magnet, or screw closures. As you would expect from OpenSCAD, everything in this script is parametric. You can change any measurement or simply delete entire sections of the box.

The included examples consist of a small mini-Altoids tin-sized ‘Bee Box’ with a snap-fit lid. All of the relevant dimensions of the snap-fit lid are variables. Other examples include an eyeglass case and a box for small parts storage that interlock. If you have a few rolls of filament, a lot of time on your hands, and want to organize your workbench, you could do worse than checking out a few of these OpenSCAD boxes.

When Unfolding An STL In Software, Math Isn’t The Tricky Part

December 27, 2018 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

Some time ago, [Trammell Hudson] took a shot at creating a tool that unfolds 3D models in STL format and outputs a color-coded 2D pattern that can be cut out using a laser cutter. With a little bending and gluing, the 3D model can be re-created out of paper or cardboard.

There are of course other and more full-featured tools for unfolding 3D models: Pepakura is used by many, but is not free and is Windows only. There is also a Blender extension called Paper Model that exists to export 3D shapes as paper models.

What’s interesting about [Trammell]’s project are the things he discovered while making it. The process of unfolding an STL may be conceptually simple, but the actual implementation is a bit tricky in ways that have little to do with number crunching.

For example, in a logical sense it doesn’t matter much where the software chooses to start the unfolding process, but in practice some start points yield much tighter groups of shapes that are easier to work with. Also, his software doesn’t optimize folding patterns, so sometimes the software will split a shape along a perfectly logical (but non-intuitive to a human) line and it can be difficult to figure out which pieces are supposed to attach where. The software remains in beta, but those who are interested can find it hosted on GitHub. It turns out that it’s actually quite challenging to turn a 3D model into an unfolded shape that still carries visual cues or resemblances to the original. Adding things like glue tabs in sensible places isn’t trivial, either.

Tools to unfold 3D models feature prominently in the prop-making world, and it’s only one of the several reasons an economical desktop cutter might be a useful addition to one’s workshop.