This week on Maker Update, a mechanical tulip, the E3D print slicer, a LEGO walkie talkie Twitch switch, 3D printing with DiResta, a triaxial clock, Laura Kampf’s swing bike, and turning pixels to gcode.

Show Notes

Project of the Week

Ever Blooming Mechanical Tulip By jiripraus
https://www.instructables.com/id/Ever-Blooming-Mechanical-Tulip/

News

E3D Launches New 3D Printing Slicer
https://makezine.com/2019/02/20/e3d-launches-new-3d-printing-slicer/

More Projects

Making a LEGO Walkie Talkie Twitch Stream Controller by I Like to Make Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCIwpsQrME

Project guide
https://iliketomakestuff.com/how-to-make-a-lego-walkie-talkie-twitch-controller/

DiResta Cast Brass Buckle (3 different ways) by Jimmy DiResta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPK-5GsKG-M

Triaxial Tourbillon Clock Make/Mods by mcmaven
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3415296

Building a Swingbike by Laura Kampf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3S2b1LrULc

Tools/Tips

Cool Tools Podcast: Tommy Honton, Experience Designer
https://kk.org/cooltools/tommy-honton-experience-designer/

Getting Started in Screen Printing by Make Something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpsWewtxXw

High Resolution Screen Printing by Applied Science
https://youtu.be/NS8Q9LUIKA8

3D Printer Becomes 2D Dot Matrix Printer by Matthew Rayfield
https://blog.hackster.io/3d-printer-becomes-2d-dot-matrix-printer-using-web-app-8de2be90b09a

Pixels to Gcode Web App
http://matthewrayfield.com/tools/pixels-to-gcode/

Packing Tape Dispenser by AidanRose
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3422041

New Tutorial – Animating PCBs @adskfusion360
https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/02/18/new-tutorial-animating-pcbs-adskfusion360-adskeagle/

Mohit Bhoite Brass Wire Straightening technique
https://twitter.com/MohitBhoite/status/1099814155803013120

Made a quick video on how to straighten a brass wire into a rod. The end result is slightly under-twisted, but you’ll get the idea.

This is still a new technique to me, so I’ll post my experiences as I learn more/get better at it. pic.twitter.com/1jutNgMyMs

— Mohit Bhoite | मोहित भोईटे (@MohitBhoite) February 24, 2019

How to Straighten A Wire Using A Drill by JohnnyQ90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4-QF-WRFjQ

Gaffer Tape Shootout
https://youtu.be/-Z5cSY52zKQ

Maker Faires

Find your local Faire: http://makerfaire.com/map/

Maker Faire Lille Lille
Greater Lafayette Mini Maker Faire Lafayette, Indiana
The Big Muddy Mini Maker Faire Saint Joseph, Missouri
Maker Faire Cairo Cairo, Giza

Other Events

Plotter People Meetup #2
https://plotterpeople.github.io/

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, a mechanical tulip, the E3D print slicer, a LEGO walkie talkie Twitch switch, 3D printing with DiResta, a triaxial clock, Laura Kampf’s swing bike, and turning pixels to gcode.

Hey, I’m Donald Bell, and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all being awesome and having a good week. I’ve been doing a huge cleanup of my little garage, which isn’t fun, but it will be nice to have some better organization in there. I also want to remind you guys that next week will be the Adafruit edition of the show, over on the Adafruit channel. Be sure to check that out. Now let’s get started with the project of the week.

Check out this mechanical LED tulip on Instructables by Jiri Praus. The project uses brass rod, surface mount Neopixels at the center, even smaller surface mount white LEDs across the petals, a touch sensor, a tiny servo, and an Arduino Nano tucked into a wooden base.

Aside from being a beautiful and unique design, what really puts this project over the top is the incredible documentation. Jiri includes detailed photos, videos, diagrams and animations of how it all goes together. He’s got some good tips on freeform circuits, creating movement with pushrods, soldering brass, and using templates to create multiple, consistent pieces.

It’s an intricate and advanced project to take on, but the payoff is this delicate, one-of-a-kind work of art.

It’s time for some news. There’s a new 3D model slicer out called Pathio. It’s available as a free beta for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

At first glance, it seems like it’s targeting advanced users looking for better resolution, custom scripting options, and the ability to create gcode files where different elements can be grouped for different print settings. If it sounds like something you’d be into, go check it out.

More projects! Bob Clagett from I Like to Make Stuff made this wireless hotkey controller shaped like a LEGO walkie talkie.

The heart of the project is an Adafruit Bluefruit board acting as a Bluetooth HID keyboard. Bob wires up three buttons to the board which he defines in the code as the hotkeys he needs for his Twitch video stream control.

The project is also a clever use of embedded magnets to add a removable cover. This way he can easily access the board or recharge the battery when he needs to.

Bob’s friend Jimmy DiResta has a surprising project up on his YouTube channel. Using a 3D printed model, he shows how to cast a metal belt buckle. He makes one out of melted brass bullet casings — empty ones — and the other from melted aluminum computer parts.

On Thingiverse, Steve McGowan has this gorgeous design for a three axis, 3D printed tourbillon clock. The design features over 50 parts, some of which need to be attached with screws and ball bearings that are listed in the included bill of materials. If you’re into clocks or gears or just beautiful, challenging projects, put this one on your todo list.

You also have to check out Laura Kampf’s video on how she made this nearly unrideable swing bike.

By chopping out the steering section from a scrap bike, she’s able to add a hinge to a bike frame that allows the front and back wheel to swing out of alignment. It’s a crazy build, and it makes anyone riding it look drunk, but it’s a great video to see all the techniques Laura uses for chopping and welding the bikes together.

I found some useful tips and tools this week. First, the Cool Tools podcast has a great episode up with experience designer Tommy Honton. He’s a maker worth knowing about and he has some useful tips to share.

David Picciuto from Make Something has a great video up on getting started with screen printing, how it works, and what you need. It’s a fun process to understand, and fun to watch even if you don’t think it’s something for you.

Similarly, on Applied Science, Ben Krasnow runs through his setup for high resolution screen printing, with more emphasis on printing with epoxy paints that stick to metal, glass, and circuit boards.

For another take on old school printing, on Hackster, Jeremy S. Cook pointed me to this project by Matthew Rayfield that turns any 3D printer into a dot matrix printer.

The secret sauce is a web app Matthew created that turns any image file into a dithered dot matrix gcode file you can send straight to your printer. You’ll have to find a way to attach a pen to your print head, but even rubber bands seem to work.

What’s especially cool is that the web app includes an option to create multicolor prints where you can select colors from the original image to separate out, and the gcode will include a pause statement that allows you to swap out the pen color. So cool.

One practical little project I printed out this week is this packing tape dispenser by AidanRose. I’m sure there are a bunch of designs like this out there, but I liked how this one includes a nice wide spot to hold the end of the tape and this unique cutout here that lets you come at it with a pair of scissors.

The Ruiz brothers have a new Fusion 360 tutorial on how to take circuit board designs and animate them to spin around using the Joints feature.

One of my favorite tips this week is this one from Mohit Bhoite, showing how straighten and stiffen brass wire by slowly twisting it in a drill chuck. As Mohit points out, the technique isn’t new, and he links to a video by JohnnyQ90 where he learned about it. I tried it this week with steel wire, and it works really well. Definitely give it a try.

Finally, on the Cool Tools channel, I’ve got video up comparing 4 different brands of gaffer tape. It’s an 8-minute gaffer tape geek out, but the takeaway is that there’s a distinct difference between some brands.

Maker Faires! This weekend we have Lille, France; Lafayette, Indiana; Saint Joseph, Missouri; and Cairo in Egypt. If one’s near you, be sure to go check it out.

Also, the second Plotter People meetup has been announced. It takes place march 13th at Github headquarters in San Francisco. I went to the first one, and it was a lot of fun.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a thumbs up, or leave a comment. Remember that next week’s show will be the monthly one-off I do on the Adafruit channel. And really, the best way to keeps tabs on this show is to subscribe to the Maker Update email newsletter, which delivers all the links to your inbox automatically. A huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon. You’re the best. Alright? Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next week.