roller

5 Articles

3D Printed Stamp Rollers

November 13, 2023 by 3 Comments

If you have an artistic bent, you might have seen self-inking stamp rollers. These are like rotary rubber stamps that leave a pattern as you roll across a page. [Becky] wanted a larger custom roller and turned to 3D printing to make it happen. The first prototype used a modified Sharpie. However, she soon moved to an unmodified acrylic marker that had a rectangular tip.

A Tinkercad design produces a cap that fits the marker and a wheel that contains the desired pattern. Text works well, although you can easily do a custom pattern, too, of course.

Continue reading “3D Printed Stamp Rollers” →

Mechanisms: Bearings

February 14, 2018 by 49 Comments

They lie at the heart of every fidget spinner and in every motor that runs our lives, from the steppers in a 3D printer to the hundreds in every car engine. They can be as simple as a lubricated bushing or as complicated as the roller bearing in a car axle. Bearings are at work every day for us, directing forces and reducing friction, and understanding them is important to getting stuff done with rotating mechanisms.

Continue reading “Mechanisms: Bearings” →

Let There Be Automated Blinds!

December 4, 2017 by 13 Comments

More than once a maker has wanted a thing, only to find it more economical to build it themselves. When your domicile has massive windows, closing what can feel like a mile of blinds becomes a trial every afternoon — or every time you sit down for a movie. [Kyle Stewart-Frantz] had enough of that and automated his blinds.

After taking down and dismantling his existing roller blinds, he rebuilt it using 1-1/4 in EMT conduit for the blinds’ roll to mount a  12V electric shade kit within — the key part: the motor is remote controlled. Fitting it inside the conduit takes a bit of hacking and smashing if you don’t want to or can’t 3D print specific parts. Reattaching the roller blind also takes a fair bit of precision lest they unroll crooked every time. He advises a quick test and fit to the window before moving on to calibrating and linking all your blinds to one remote — unless you want a different headache.

Now, to get Alexa to do your bidding.

Continue reading “Let There Be Automated Blinds!” →

“The Alarm Clock Ate My Duvet Cover, That’s Why I’m Late!”

August 3, 2017 by 23 Comments

Some people just won’t wake up. Alarm clocks don’t cut it, flashing lights won’t work, loud music just becomes the soundtrack of an impenetrable dream. Maybe an alarm clock that rudely yanks the covers off the bed will do the trick.

Or not, but [1up Living] decided to give it a go. His mechanism is brutally simple — a large barrel under the foot of the bed around which the warm, cozy bedclothes can wind. An alarm clock is rigged with a switch on the bell to tell an Arduino to wind the drum and expose your sleeping form to the harsh, cold world. To be honest, the fact that this is powered by a 2000-lb winch that would have little trouble dismembering anyone who got caught up in the works is a bit scary. But we understand that the project is not meant to be a practical solution to oversleeping; if it were, [1up Living] might be better off using the winch to pull the bottom sheet to disgorge the sleeper from the bed entirely.

Something gentler to suit your oversleeping needs might be this Neopixel sunrise clock to coax you out of bed naturally.

Continue reading ““The Alarm Clock Ate My Duvet Cover, That’s Why I’m Late!”” →

DIY Roll Bender Keeps It Simple And Sturdy

January 31, 2017 by 28 Comments

If you’ve ever tried to bend a metal pipe or bar over your knee, you’ll know that even lightweight stock requires quite a bit of force. And the force needs to be properly directed, lest the smooth bend you seek become a kink or a crease. When your hands and knees no longer fill the bill, try [MakeItExtreme]’s sturdy and simple roll bender.

As we watched the video below, we had a little déjà vu — hadn’t the [MakeItExtreme] crew built a roll bender for their shop before? Turns out they had, but in reviewing that video, we can see why they gave it a second shot. This build is a model of simplicity compared to the previous. With a frame fabricated from just a few pieces of steel I-beam, this version is far more approachable than its big brother and just about as capable. The three forming rollers ride in stout pillow blocks and can be repositioned for different bending radii. A 2-ton hydraulic bottle jack provides the force needed to direct the stock through the rollers, which are manually powered. In a nice touch, the incomplete tool was used to create the rim of the large-diameter handwheel for the drive roller.

The tools keep piling up at [MakeItExtreme]’s open air workshop — we even get a glimpse of their heavy-lift electromagnet that we recently featured. As always, we love the fit and finish on these builds, and watching the time-lapse videos is like a condensed class in metalworking.

Continue reading “DIY Roll Bender Keeps It Simple And Sturdy” →