Making A Toothbrush From Scratch, Right Down To The Bristles

Most of us probably get by with a toothbrush costing a couple dollars at most, made of injection-moulded plastic for delicate, tender mouths. Maybe if you’re a real cleantooth, you have a fancy buzzy electric one. We’d wager few are machining their own bespoke toothbrushes from scratch, but if you want some inspiration, [W&M Levsha] is doing just that.

Much of the work will be familiar to die hard machining enthusiasts. There’s careful crafting of the wood handle, involving a stackup of multiple stained and varnished woods – in this case, hornbeam being the paler of the two, and amaranth providing that rich red color. The stem is a stylish stainless steel piece, elegantly bent to a tasteful curve. Finally, the assembly of the brush head alone is worth the watch. It’s custom made – with a steel backing plate and fishing wire bristles custom cut with an automated jig using stepper motors.  We’re suspect fishing wire is not rated for dental use, but the nylon strands are at least in the ballpark of what regular toothbrushes use.

While we probably wouldn’t slide this one betwixt our lips without consulting a dental professional first, it’s a great video for learning about what it takes to make beautiful bespoke objects in the workshop. We’ve seen elegant work from [W&M Levsha] before, too – in the form of a delightfully eclectic cap gun lighter. Video after the break.

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[Joe Grand’s] Toothbrush Plays Music That Doesn’t Suck

It’s not too exciting that [Joe Grand] has a toothbrush that plays music inside your head. That’s actually a trick that the manufacturer pulled off. It’s that [Joe] gave his toothbrush an SD card slot for music that doesn’t suck.

The victim donor hardware for this project is a toothbrush meant for kids called Tooth Tunes. They’ve been around for years, but unless you’re a kid (or a parent of one) you’ve never heard of them. That’s because they generally play the saccharine sounds of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers which make adults choose cavities over dental health. However, we’re inclined to brush the enamel right off of our teeth if we can listen to The Amp Hour, Embedded FM, or the Spark Gap while doing so. Yes, we’re advocating for a bone-conducting, podcasting toothbrush.

[Joe’s] hack starts by cracking open the neck of the brush to cut the wires going to a transducer behind the brushes (his first attempt is ugly but the final process is clean and minimal). This allows him to pull out the guts from the sealed battery compartment in the handle. In true [Grand] fashion he rolled a replacement PCB that fits in the original footprint, adding an SD card and replacing the original microcontroller with an ATtiny85. He goes the extra mile of making this hack a polished work by also designing in an On/Off controller (MAX16054) which delivers the tiny standby current needed to prevent the batteries from going flat in the medicine cabinet.

Check out his video showcasing the hack below. You don’t get an audio demo because you have to press the thing against the bones in your skull to hear it. The OEM meant for this to press against your teeth, but now we want to play with them for our own hacks. Baseball cap headphones via bone conduction? Maybe.

Update: [Joe] wrote in to tell us he published a demonstration of the audio. It uses a metal box as a sounding chamber in place of the bones in our head.

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Build A Light Following Bristlebot As A Way To Teach Science

light-following-bristlebot

[Ben Finio] designed this project as a way to get kids interested in learning about science and engineering. Is it bad that we just want to build one of our own? It’s a light following bristlebot which in itself is quite simple to build and understand. We think the platform has a lot of potential for leading to other things, like learning about microcontrollers and wireless modules to give it wireless control.

Right now it’s basically two bristlebots combined into one package. The screen capture seen above makes it hard to pick out the two toothbrush heads on either side of a battery pack. The chassis of the build is a blue mini-breadboard. The circuit that makes it follow light is the definition of simple. [Ben] uses two MOSFETs to control two vibration motors mounted on the rear corners of the chassis. The gate of each MOSFET is driven by a voltage divider which includes a photoresistor. When light on one is brighter than the other it causes the bot to turn towards to the brighter sensor. When viewing the project log above make sure to click on the tabs to see all of the available info.

This directional control seems quite good. We’ve also seen other versions which shift the weight of the bot to change direction.

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Hacking The International Space Station With A Toothbrush

nasa-iss-toothbrush-hack

[Douglas Adams] will tell you not to forget your towel when it comes to space travel. But NASA may start mandating that astronauts always carry a toothbrush. That’s because when a recent repair on a critical International Space Station component went wrong it was a toothbrush hack that saved the day.

The culprit here is a bolt that wouldn’t re-seat after replacing a power transfer module that routes electricity from solar cells to the station’s electrical systems. About how many times have you had trouble with bolt threads? Now put yourself in a space suit in orbit for eight hours trying to get the thing to work. Yikes!

Just like in the movies there was a team of engineers at the ground center which gathered all the supplies available in the ISS. They figured out that metal shavings in the threaded hole needed to be cleaned out and the area lubed for the bolt. One of the two types of tooth brushes on hand would work for the lube, but needed to be stiffened. There was also a brush for cleaning the threads which was made out of a jumper cable. The images seen above are the step-by-step instructions the team uploaded to the astronauts who reproduced their hacked hardware to complete the repairs.

[Thanks G Mob]

Toothbrush Timer

This toothbrush holder will make sure you’re brushing your pearly whites for an appropriate length of time. The three cups serves as tootbrush storage, and detect when one has been removed. Once you start brushing your teeth the lights on the front and bell in the back count down the process automatically.

The counting sequence starts when a weight sensor in the base detects a change caused by picking up a toothbrush. The ATmega328 — which is programmed with Arduino-style code — then turns on all of the incandescent lamps mounted on the front portion of the base. Each of these are switched with a 2N3904 transistor in order to sink enough current for the bulb. As a two-minute timer decrements, the bulbs are extinguished one by one. But there is also an auditory feedback mechanism. On the back of the base is a small bell. A hammer on a servo strikes the bell every 30 seconds to let you know how you’re doing. The entire thing is driven by an internal Li-ion battery which lasts about three weeks between charges. Don’t miss the demo video found after the break.

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Tired Of The Normal Use For Your Toothbrush? Why Not An Engraving Tool?

Hardware hackers and makers like us may not be well known for our excellent hygiene habits, but after [Dan]’s creation, no one can claim he doesn’t know how to use one! Either out of a total disdain for tooth care, or hopefully, after using one properly for many months, [Dan] decided to turn his electric toothbrush into an engraving tool!

At around $4 and meant for cleaning plaque off teeth, this tool isn’t the most powerful engraver on the block, but is capable of good work on softer material such as acrylic. Be sure to check out the heart that was made with this improvised tool that introduced us to [Dan]’s work.

This is really a clever use of your resources, and the article gives a nice account of how the toothbrush was modified with pictorial directions. Besides it’s use as an engraving tool, this might give someone other ideas for alternate toothbrush uses. For another neat alternate home-item use, why not check out how to repurpose an air freshener as a camera trigger?