This week on Maker Update, woodworking for Sith lords, Simone’s dog takes a selfie, wings of steel, a wiper motor coffee grinder, and Russian crowbars.

++Show Notes [Maker Update #204]++

-=Project of the Week=-

Star Wars Inspired Entertainment Center by I Like To Make Stuff
https://youtu.be/VxoV90loo4A

-=More projects=-

I built my dog a selfie booth so she can take photos of herself by Simone Giertz
https://youtu.be/rvG6V_BXsTE

Animatronic Cosplay Wing Mechanics By Honus
https://www.instructables.com/Animatronic-Cosplay-Wing-Mechanics/

Laura Kampf Makes a Coffee Grinder from Shop Junk
https://youtu.be/-jrI5EC0n7k

-=Tips & Tools=-

Top 10 3D Printable Tools Every Maker Should, Like, Make by Zack Freedman
https://youtu.be/1kG1D-e284A

$80 Solid Titanium Crowbar From Russia
https://kk.org/cooltools/80-solid-titanium-crowbar-from-russia/

Meshmixer | Getting Started by Billie Ruben
https://youtu.be/BcPfXa5f3oU

FastLED Basics Episode 1 – Getting started
https://youtu.be/4Ut4UK7612M

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Folding Rulers!
https://www.tested.com/art/makers/916517-adam-savages-favorite-tools-folding-rulers/

Adam Savage’s Favorite Tools: Angle Finder!
https://www.tested.com/art/makers/916338-adam-savages-favorite-tools-angle-finder/

Digital Angle Finder Review
https://youtu.be/Atsn0rel7ZA

PIXIE – Chainable 5*7 Micro-LED Displays
https://www.tindie.com/products/connornishijima/pixie-chainable-dual-57-micro-led-displays/

-=Digi-Key Spotlight=-

Micro:bit v1.5 vs v2
https://youtu.be/B3MzHWb6kjg

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, woodworking for sith lords, Simone’s dog takes a selfie, wings of steel, a wiper motor coffee grinder, and Russian crowbars.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome back to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all hanging in there, staying motivated but also finding time to take it easy. That’s my hope for you. Lots to talk about this week, so let’s get started with the project of the week.

You gotta check out Bob Clagett’s Star Wars-inspired server rack and entertainment center. This is a piece of furniture that Bob absolutely doesn’t need. But when you have the space and the motivation to build a multimedia cabinet that looks like it was ripped out of the Death Star, you build the cabinet.

Most of this design is just inexpensive MDF that’s been glued and screwed together. To get the look right, it comes down to the finish, and all the finishing touches.

Some of these finishing touches are Bob’s own design — like the edge-lit acrylic star map, or the large, colored acrylic interface panels with 3D printed trim.

Some of the other details, though, come by way of Brian Thompson from The Smugglers Room YouTube channel. Halfway through this 30 minute video you get a great interview with Brian on how he designs and reproduces these Star Wars-style modeling greeblies.

If you’re new to the idea of greeblies, they’re a creative mashup of random parts meant to achieve the look of something vaguely futuristic and technical, but at the same time, unrecognizable. There’s a real art to it, and Brian shares some of his favorite techniques for getting it right.

When you put it all together, the end result is just plain rad. Probably not how my wife would prefer me to decorate our house — but for a game room or home office it’s the perfect antidote for Ikea overload.

Now for more projects. You may have caught this one already but I have to mention Simone Giertz’s selfie booth for her dog. This is a fully automated, dog-sized photo booth that dispenses dog treats and snaps a photo with the press of a paw.

I think it’s a really fun idea, and maybe there’s a cat treat version you could do for cats too.

Simone’s video was sponsored by Lego, so naturally she made hers from Lego and used their Mindstorm system for all the interaction and motors. Those kits are pretty pricey though, and I see no reason why you couldn’t pull this same thing off with any number of inexpensive solutions.

Personally, I’d probably go with a Raspberry Pi Zero, since you could integrate the camera and there are so many Pi photo booth projects already out there to borrow from.

Still, it’s an adorable video, and the design has that perfectly quirky Simone touch.

For something that is completely custom made, check out this motorized costume wing mechanism made by Honus on Instructables.

This is one of those designs that makes you marvel at the power of linkages. A single continuous rotation servo turns a lead screw that unfurls all four wing joints. It makes a hideous sound and it’s not too quick, but mechanically it’s beautiful and the simplified design allows it to be lightweight and low profile.

Laura Kampf has a new video out showing how she was able to update this antique coffee grinder with a new hopper and motorized control.

It’s a great look into what a tasteful stockpiling of scavenged materials looks like. Laura’s able to put an old wiper motor to use, some gear chain, some old sprockets, some aluminum flats and plywood. Some hand lettering and a badass nameplate push it over the top.

This is what I wish every item on Etsy looked like. It’s funky, practical, and completely unique.

Now for some tips and tools. Zack Freedman keeps cranking out great videos. One of his latest is this rundown of 10 3D printable tools every maker should have. Some of them are silly, like the Adafruit Feather fingerboard, but there’s a ton of great, practical designs in here worth knowing about, including the screw sorting jig, and the mother of all Dremel bit storage racks.

On the Cool Tools channel, Sean Michael Ragan talks about Russian titanium crowbars. Super strong, but super lightweight compared to a traditional steel crowbar. You can pick them up on eBay, and one will probably last your whole life.

There were a couple of introductory videos I enjoyed this week. One is an intro to Meshmixer by Billie Ruben. She has a number of videos on Meshmixer now, which is a great, free tool for sculpting and repairing 3D designs.

I also like this intro to the Arduino FastLED library by Scott Marley. This is the same maker who used the FastLED library to create LED matrix patterns across the irregular shape of a mask. It’s one of the most impressive libraries for Arduino LED projects and I’m glad to have a way in to learn more about it.

On Tested, Adam Savage is recommending tools left and right these days. In one video he goes over some of his favorite vintage and new folding rulers, some of which include a modest angle finder.

But when your angle-finding needs are more demanding, Adam has a separate video demonstrating a classic, inexpensive angle finder. These are more of an angle transfer, since it’s not really clear what the angle measurement is.

There’s an updated version of these you can get with a digital readout. I did a cool tools review on them a few years back, and I still use them — they’ve held up. I’ll include a link in the show notes.

Finally, on Tindie I came across these chainable micro LED displays from Lixie Labs. These can be driven from an Arduino or Raspberry Pi or ESP8266 or 32. They only need 2 pins. They refresh super fast, and the documentation for them looks really good. I love unique displays and these definitely hit the sweet spot.

For this week’s Digi-Key spotlight, check out their new video comparing the micro:bit v1.5 to the v2 due out in November. Last week I mentioned some of the key differences — the microphone and speaker — but there are some other useful specs to know about. You get double the Flash, a dramatic bump in RAM from 16k to 128, an updated Bluetooth spec, and a logo that can be used as a capacitive touch pin. Check out the video for even more details.

And that does it for this week’s show, be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up or leave a comment. Get on the Maker Update email list if you like. A big thanks to my patrons on Patreon and to Digi-Key electronics for being so supportive and making this all possible. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next week.