Homebrew Tire Inflator Pushes The Limits Of PVC Construction

March 22, 2023 by Dan Maloney 23 Comments

Let’s just clear something up right from the start with this one: there’s literally no reason to build your own tire inflator from scratch, especially when you can buy a perfectly serviceable one for not a lot of money. But that’s missing the point of this build entirely, and thinking that way risks passing up yet another fascinating build from PVC virtuoso [Vang Hà], which would be a shame

The chances are most of you will recall [Vang Hà]’s super-detailed working PVC model excavator, and while we’re tempted to say this simple air pump is a step toward more practical PVC builds, the fact remains that the excavator was a working model with a completely homebrew hydraulic system. As usual, PVC is the favored material, with sheet stock harvested from sections of flattened pipe. Only the simplest of tools are used, with a hand drill standing in for a lathe to make such precision components as the compressor piston. There are some great ideas here, like using Schrader tire valves as the intake and exhaust valves on the pump cylinder. And that’s not to mention the assembly tips, like making a hermetic seal between the metal valves and the PVC manifold by reaming out a hole with a heated drill bit.

We’re not sure how much abuse a plastic compressor like this will stand up to, but then again, we’ve seen some commercially available tire inflators with far, far less robust internals than this one.

Continue reading “Homebrew Tire Inflator Pushes The Limits Of PVC Construction” →

Scratch-Built RC Excavator Is A Model Making Tour De Force

September 16, 2022 by Dan Maloney 20 Comments

Some projects just take your breath away with their level of attention to detail. This scratch-built RC-controlled model excavator is not only breathtaking in its detail, but also amazing for the materials and tools used to create it.

We’ve got to be honest, we’ve been keeping an eye on the progress [Vang Hà] has been making on this build for a few weeks now. The first video below is a full tour of the finished project, which is painstakingly faithful to the original, a Caterpiller 390F tracked excavator. As impressive as that is, though, you’ve got to check out the build process that starts with fabricating the tracks in the second video below. The raw material for most of the model is plain gray PVC pipe, which is sliced and diced into flat sheets, cut into tiny pieces using a jury-rigged table saw, and heat formed to create curved pieces. Check out the full playlist for a bounty of fabrication delights, like tiny hinges and working latches.

We can’t possibly heap enough praise onto [Vang Hà] for his craftsmanship, but that’s not all we love about this one. There are tons of helpful tips here, and plenty of food for thought for more practical builds. We’re thinking about that full set of working hydraulic cylinders that operates the boom, the dipper, and the bucket, as well as the servo-operated hydraulic control valves. All of it is made from scratch, of course, and mostly from PVC. Keep that in mind for a project where electric motors or linear actuators just won’t fill the bill.

If this construction technique seems familiar to you, it could because we featured a toolbox made out of similarly processed PVC pipes back in June.

Continue reading “Scratch-Built RC Excavator Is A Model Making Tour De Force” →

Giant Keyboard Is Just Our Type

August 27, 2022 by Kristina Panos 17 Comments

We like big keyboards and we cannot lie, and we’ve seen some pretty big keyboards over the years. But this one — this one is probably the biggest working board that anyone has ever seen. [RKade] and [Kristine] set out to make the world’s largest keyboard by Guinness standards – and at 16 feet long, you would think they would be a shoe-in for the world record. More on that later.

As you might have figured out, what’s happening here is that each giant key actuates what we hope is a Cherry-brand lever switch that is wired to the pads of a normal-sized keyboard PCB. Once they designed the layout, they determined that there were absolutely no existing commercial containers that, when inverted, would fit the desired dimensions, so they figured out that it would take 350 pieces of cardboard to make 70 5-sided keycaps and got to work.

Aside from the general awesomeness of this thing, we really like the custom buttons, which are mostly made of PVC components, 3D printed parts, and a bungee cord for the return spring.

[RKade] encountered a few problems with the frame build — mostly warped boards and shrunken holes where each of the 70 keys mount. After the thing was all wired up (cleverly, we might add, with Ethernet cable pairs), [RKade] rebuilt the entire frame out of three-layers of particle board.

By the way, Guinness rejected the application, citing that it must be an exact replica of an existing keyboard, and it must be built to commercial/professional standards. They also contradict themselves, returning no search results for biggest keyboard, but offer upon starting a world record application that there is a record-holding keyboard on file after all, and it is 8 ft (2.4 m) long. It’s not the concrete Russian keyboard, which is non-functional, but we wonder if it might be the Razer from CES 2018 that uses Kailh Big Switches.

Once the keyboard was up and running, [RKade] and [Kristine] duke it out over a game of Typing Attack, where the loser has to type all the lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up” on the giant keyboard. Check it out after the break.

Continue reading “Giant Keyboard Is Just Our Type” →

72 DIY Musical Instruments Played In 7 Minutes

June 17, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 9 Comments

Humans have been making musical instruments from whatever items are close at hand for thousands of years, and we aren’t showing any signs of slowing down yet, least of all artist [Nicolas Bras] and collaborator [Sandrine Morais.] They have been designing and constructing quite a number of DIY instruments over the years, with this demo video highlighting a whopping 72 of them in the space of just seven minutes!

Clearly, [Nicolas] is one of those people who can play literally anything, and shows his skills off very well indeed if you ask us. Particularly fine sounding is the pilchards tin guitar found at 2:52 in the video, and the electric pipe beat box at 2:10 is also pretty fun.

Pretty much all the usual methods for producing sounds mechanically are covered, namely air resonating within a shaped enclosure (flutes, and such), string vibrations which might be sensed electrically (guitars, zithers, etc) and percussive instruments which vibrate an enclosed air mass (like the udu) or vibrate other things (like plates or bars). Looking over the YouTube channel, we can’t think of much they haven’t tried to make music with!

If all this sounds familiar, well, we covered [Nicolas] that time he was traveling for a gig and his instrument collection got lost in transit.

Continue reading “72 DIY Musical Instruments Played In 7 Minutes” →

PVC Pipe Transformed Into Handy Tool Box

June 15, 2022 by Tom Nardi 18 Comments

Would you believe the multi-tiered toolbox pictured here started its life as a piece of bog standard PVC pipe? It certainly wouldn’t be our first choice of building material, but as shown in the video after the break, it only takes a heat source and something suitably flat to convert a piece of PVC pipe into a versatile sheet material.

Unrolling the PVC pipe and getting it flat is covered in the first minute of the video, while the rest of the run time is dedicated to building the tool box. Each and every piece you see here, except for the screws and lid hinges, is carefully cut from the PVC sheet. Though we suspect a few more chunks of pipe went into this build than the video would have you believe.

Would we build such an elaborate box if we had to cut each piece of the thing out by hand? Probably not. But then, we can’t deny the final results here are pretty impressive. Incidentally, if you thought those hinges on the top looked a lot like links removed from a watch band…you’d be correct.

Admittedly we’re a bit late covering this one, and under normal circumstances we might have let it slip by given the several million views it’s amassed over the last year. But the central theme of reusing a common material to build something unexpected is solid Hackaday territory, and aligns closely with this year’s Hackaday Prize challenges.

Continue reading “PVC Pipe Transformed Into Handy Tool Box” →

We All Live In A PVC Submarine

December 11, 2021 by Al Williams 11 Comments

We doubt you could really live in [Pena’s] PVC submarine, but now the song’s stuck in our head anyway. Although the post is in Portuguese, you can get a pretty good idea of how it works, and translation software is better than ever. Transcending the language barrier, there are videos of just about every step of the construction. We didn’t, however, find a video of the vehicle in the water.

The plumber’s delight has modified motors for thrusters, and a camera as well. Epoxy potting keeps things waterproof. We’ve seen candle wax used for the same purpose in other builds.

Continue reading “We All Live In A PVC Submarine” →

Nicolas Bras and his homemade musical instruments

Hacked Set Of Instruments Saves Musician’s Gigs

October 8, 2021 by Dan Maloney 19 Comments

Most of the horror stories you hear about air travel seem to center around luggage. Airlines do an admirable job of getting people safely to their destinations, but checked baggage is a bit of a crapshoot — it could be there when you land, it could end up taking the scenic route, or it could just plain disappear. That’s bad enough when it contains your clothes, but when it contains your livelihood? Talk about stress!

This was the position musician [Nicolas Bras] found himself in after a recent trip. [Nicolas] was heading for a gig, but thanks to Brussels Airlines, his collection of musical instruments went somewhere else. There was nothing he could do to salvage that evening’s gig, but he needed to think about later engagements. Thankfully, [Nicolas] specializes in DIY musical instruments, made mostly with PVC tubes and salvaged parts from commercial instruments, so the solution to his problem was completely in his hands.

Fair warning to musical instrument aficionados — harvest the neck from a broken ukelele is pretty gruesome stuff. Attached to a piece of pallet wood and equipped with piezo pickups, the neck became part of a bizarre yet fascinating hybrid string instrument. A selection of improvised wind instruments came next, made from PVC pipes and sounding equally amazing; we especially liked the bass chromojara, sort of a flute with a didgeridoo sound to it. The bicycle pump beatbox was genius too, and really showed that music is less about the fanciness of your gear and more about the desire — and talent — to make it with whatever comes to hand.

Here’s hoping that [Nicolas] is eventually reunited with his gear, but hats off to him in the meantime for hacking up replacements. And if he looks familiar, that’s because we’ve seen some of his work before, like his sympathetic nail violin and “Popcorn” played on PVC pipes.

Continue reading “Hacked Set Of Instruments Saves Musician’s Gigs” →