This week on Maker Update, an automatic dice spinner, a desktop CT scanner, what taggers can teach us about permanent markers, and powering your Raspberry Pi from lithium iron phosphate. This week’s Cool Tool is the Krink K-70 Permanent Ink Marker.

Show Notes

Projects

Automatic Dice Roller by Ruiz Bros.
https://learn.adafruit.com/automatic-dice-roller/overview

DESKTOP CT AND 3D SCANNER WITH ARDUINO by jbumstead
https://www.instructables.com/id/Desktop-CT-and-3D-Scanner-With-Arduino/

See also: Ben Krasnow’s CT Scanner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF3V-GHiJ78

Agisoft Photoscan Software
http://www.agisoft.com/

Cool Tools Minute

Krink K-70 Permanent Ink Marker
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003IDFPZG/ctmakerupdate-20

Tools/Tips

LiFePO4 Powered Pi Kit
https://www.tindie.com/products/xorbit/lifepo4weredpi/

AltCTRL GDC Showcase
http://www.gdconf.com/news/games-youll-play-gdc-2018s-alt-ctrl-gdc-showcase/

Maker Faires

San Antonio Mini Maker Faire San Antonio, Texas
Lafayette Mini Maker Faire Lafayette, Louisiana
Lynchburg Mini Maker Faire Lynchburg, Virginia

Also:
2018 Midwest RepRap Festival 3/23-25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-midwest-reprap-festival-registration-38591937524

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, an automatic dice spinner, a desktop CT scanner, what taggers can teach us about permanent markers, and powering your Raspberry Pi from lithium iron phosphate.

I’m Donald Bell and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope everyone’s doing well. Things are cooking over here. I finally have all 4 wheels rolling on my new electric go kart for Maker Faire Bay Area. I still need to figure out how to steer the thing, but it’s coming along.

It’s a quick show this week, but I think you’ll like it. Let’s get started with the project of the week.

Over on Adafruit, the Ruiz Brothers have a guide on making this motorized dice roller.

Using a 3D printed base, a DC toy motor, a ball bearing, an Arcade button, 9v battery, and an inexpensive plastic snow globe dome, a press of the button whips the enclosed dice around for a randomized roll.

Not only is this a fun element to add to your board games, but Noe and Pedro also designed this to be completely portable, running on battery power. Even cooler, the design includes a simple jack allowing it to be operated by the kind of remote triggers common to assistive technology.

Another thing I love about this project, aside from the predictably amazing 3D printed enclosure design by the Ruiz brothers, is that this is a code-free project. To me, I think that can make it a little less intimidating.

The electronics of the project center around a $10 power management board that perfectly connects the battery, motor, arcade button, and a small power switch.

As an alternative, though, the Ruiz Bros. include a breadboard diagram showing how to achieve a similar result without the board, wiring the different elements directly, and placing a diode in front of the motor to drop the voltage down. This will shave $10 off the build cost, but going with the board makes things tidier to wire up.

A great, fun project overall, and a cool one to bust out and explain at game night.

Another project I have to mention from this past week is this desktop CT scanner by Jon Bumstead on Instructables.

This project uses an Arduino-triggered DSLR to shoot a series of photos of any small object placed in this light-tight box. Inside the box is some LED strip to light the subject and a stepper motor-controlled turntable.

Now, depending on what you’re going for you can either use the setup for an X-Ray free CT scan of semi-transparent objects, such as flowers or vegetables. Or, you can set it up as a 3D image scanner, which seems a little more practical.

Once the images are captured in a sequence, you can then offload them into a program like Matlab or Photoscan, which looks particularly cool.

This is one of those projects that’s way out of my comfort zone and my budget, but I just love that stuff like this is out there and that makers like Jon pour so much time and enthusiasm into documenting it. Be sure to check it out, especially for those photos.

It’s time for a Cool Tool review. This week, I’m going to show you the tagger’s alternative to the Sharpie, the Krink K-70 permanent marker. I got this for $8 on Amazon, and if you’re curious to try one out, the Amazon link in the description helps support my videos and the Cool Tools blog.

If you haven’t heard of the brand Krink, they’re New York-based boutique brand of graffiti art supplies. And if you can get past whatever negative feelings you may have around graffiti, their catalog of paint pens and ink markers, and spray paint is fascinating.

And I have to say, more than any group I know, graffiti artists are very particular about their permanent markers and demanding about how well they mark up multiple surfaces. And if Krink has built a reputation with them, I had to try one out.

So here’s the Krink K-70. It’s roughly the size of a standard sharpie — maybe a little thicker, with an aluminum barrel. It is an ink-based, not paint-based pen. But like a paint pen, you can press down on the nib to get it saturated.

The ink in here is a permanent, alcohol based ink that is very permanent and has wet, glossy look on surfaces like metal or plastic.

And one of the hidden, cool features of this pen that a lot of people miss is that the nib is double sided, with a round tip on one side and a chisel tip on the other. The chisel is great for making either wide, squared off lines, or thin lines using the edge.

The removable nib also means you can easily customize the tip — chopping it flat or flaring it out. Just make sure you’re wearing gloves for any of this, or your hands will be stained for weeks.

Now, I’m not enough of a marker snob to say if this pen is better than a Sharpie in any meaningful way. But I can tell you that I enjoy using it and I’ll admit that it gives me a small thrill to mark up my projects with the same prized tool some kid is using to tag up a utility box.

That’s the Krink K-70. It’s the street artist’s take on the permanent marker. You can pick one up using the link in the description and you can see thousands of reader recommended tools like this at Cool-Tools.org.

I have just a couple more tips to share with you. The first is this Raspberry Pi accessory designed by Silicognition that provides power to a Raspberry Pi using a long-lasting lithium iron phosphate battery cell, also known as a LiFePO4 cell.

Compared to regular Lithium Ion packs, LiFePO4 cells are less fragile and less volatile and provide more consistent power output. This accessory board, which is available on Tindie for $35, is a neat solution for outdoor or installed Raspberry Pi projects that need a backup or UPS to stay running.

Also, while you’re watching this, I’m over at the 2018 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco checking out their DIY gaming showcase called ALT CTRL. It’s full of weird, one-off games with an emphasis on one-of-a-kind controllers. With any luck, I’ll report back on what I find, either in next week’s video or a separate video this week.

Maker Faires! We’ve got three this week, including San Antonio, Texas; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Lynchburg, Virginia. Also, this weekend is the Midwest RepRap Festival in Goshen Indiana. If any of those are nearby, go check it out.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, like this video or leave a comment. Sign the email list if you’re not already on it. Get yourself a Krink marker. And if you’re feeling particularly appreciative, you can buy me a coffee using the buy me a coffee link down here. That feels great! Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you next week.