This week on Maker Update, Maui Makers, slow motion frames, the launch of Maker Share, zip-tie lamps, rocker switch walls, magnetic wristbands, and a cheap way to brand wood. This week’s featured Cool Tool is the MagnoGrip magnetic wristband.

Show Notes

Project of the Week

Slow Dance – A Frame that Slows Down Time
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xercyn/slow-dance-a-frame-that-slows-down-time

SLOMO (Slow Motion) Frame by jollifactory
https://www.instructables.com/id/IKEA-Frame-Hack-SLOMO-Slow-Motion-Frame/

SLOMO Tindie Kit
https://www.tindie.com/products/Nick64/jf-slomo-slow-motion-frame-diy-kit/

TimeFrame – a Time Portal to Put on Your Desk. by cubic-print
https://www.instructables.com/id/TimeFrame-a-Time-Portal-to-Put-on-Your-Desk/

TimeFrame Kit
http://www.cubic-print.com/TimeFrame

News

MakerShare is Live
https://makershare.com/

More Projects

Zip Tie Lampshade by mikeasaurus
https://www.instructables.com/id/Zip-Tie-Lampshade/

Rocker Switch Wall
http://imgur.com/a/pgJrA
http://konkludenz.de/wippschalterwand/

Rocker Switch Holder designs on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?sort=relevant&q=rocker+switch&type=things&subjects=&grades=&standards=&license=&category_id=&dwh=9594a1b474b034

Cool Tools Minute

MagnoGrip on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000WU9LCQ/ctmakerupdate-20

MagnoGrip Review
http://kk.org/cooltools/magnogrip/

Tools/Tips

Laura Kampf Shop Tips #1 // Wood Branding without a Branding Iron
https://youtu.be/3K4J7yn7ga0

Make: Tips of the Week
http://makezine.com/2017/06/16/tips-of-the-week-diy-pocket-notebooks-no-brand-woodburning-and-the-gratitude-loop/
http://makezine.com/2017/06/09/tips-of-the-week-3/

Adafruit 128×64 OLED Bonnet for Raspberry Pi
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3531

Maker Faires

Honolulu Mini Maker Faire Honolulu, Hawaii
Maker Faire Kansas City Kanas City, Missouri

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Transcript

This week on Maker Update, Maui Makers, slow motion frames, the launch of Maker Share, zip-tie lamps, rocker switch walls, magnetic wristbands, and a cheap way to brand wood.

It’s Wednesday, June 21st, I’m Donald Bell and welcome to another Maker Update. I’m back from Vacation. I was in Maui with my family, mostly relaxing, but on Father’s Day they let me take them over to the Maui Makers makerspace.

It’s a nice, big facility out in a little industrial pocket. We got a tour from Laura, who showed us some of the cool 3D printing projects they were getting ready for the Honolulu Maker Faire, including a fidget spinner spinner and this cool puzzle chair. They also had a Polysher machine for smoothing 3D prints with alcohol vapor. If you’re in Maui, you should check them out.

Alright, let’s get back into the swing of things and take a look at some cool, new DIY projects.

This week, let’s talk about slow motion frames. In 2016, Jeff Lieberman launched a Kickstarter product called Slow Dance that makes real life objects appear to move in slow motion. They’re beautifully done and not terribly expensive at $250. That said, it’s hard to look at something like this and not be curious about how it’s done and how to make your own.

The basic idea is that by vibrating a somewhat flexible object at one frequency, and hitting it with a strobe light flashing at another frequency, you get this unreal slow motion effect. The strobe seems intense on video but in real life is barely visible at around 80 flashes per second.

There are two takes I’ve seen on Slow Dance on Instructables. The first is called Time Frame by Cubic Print. It uses an Arduino Nano, a hand wound electromagnet, and warm white LEDs that are slightly inset within the frame. They also sell a kit that gets you everything for around $60 US, including the Arduino. But if I’m being picky, it only vibrates one object at a time, the frame looks cheap, and the LEDs aren’t recessed or diffused.

All fixable problems, but then check out this other design by Jollifactory. This one uses a somewhat more attractive IKEA frame and a custom inner box of diffused acrylic that conceals the lights and the electromagnet. There’s a $43 kit for this that doesn’t include the frame or the Nano.

I’m tempted to make one of these, but I’m also curious to see where this goes. Right now we’re sort of in the knock-off stage, but I’m confident we’ll see these scaled up and scaled down. I’m a little surprised no one’s done a version with an infinity mirror behind it yet. So get on it.

And now for news. This week, Maker Media, the team behind Maker Faire and Make Magazine officially launched the beta of MakerShare.com. This is a site for Makers to create profiles for themselves and share their projects and stories with each other.

They tried something like this before with their site MakerSpace.com, though I like this better and the focus is more on telling the story of you and your projects, and less about the step-by-step. It’s worth a look.

I have a few more projects to mention. Instructables employee Mikeasaurus has a great writeup on making your own colorful zip tie lamp.

This inexpensive project essentially involves hacking an existing lamp by replacing the shade material with steel mesh and using zip ties to both attach the mesh to the shade frame, and decorate the mesh with colorful layers. Mike admits that attaching the zip ties is time consuming, even for a small lamp, but the result looks surprisingly cool.

Also my friend Andrew Cavette sent me this project by Silvan Reiser. It’s a wall of 3,000 illuminated rocker switches that you can turn on and off. The switches are all mounted in a CNC carved sheet of plywood. To get a good price on the switches, Silvan ordered a batch on Ali Baba for around $120 and was even able to get the manufacturer to make them without the usual on/off logos. The result is really cool, though deceptively tricky to get everything to fit straight and secure.

Have you ever held screws or nails in your mouth as a way to keep them nearby while working on a project? This week for my tool review I’m going to show you a better solution. This is the MagnoGrip, it’s a $14 magnetic wristband available on Amazon. I found it on the Cool Tools blog. And if you pick one up using the link in the description you help to support my videos and the Cool Tools Blog.

This is a low-tech but useful tool. It just velcros around your wrist and includes embedded magnets to hold whatever odds and ends you need to have handy. The magnets aren’t super strong, but just strong enough to hold a handful of nails or screws. I imagine if the were much stronger it might actually be a liability.

It’s a durable design, made from thick 1680 ballistic polyester. So having screws and nails rub against it over and over shouldn’t be a problem. The inside that touches your wrist has this nice, breathable padding.

The original Cool Tools review of this comes from Sue Bettenhausen, who recommended it for nails and pins, putting together her son’s bike, hanging pictures, or shortening pants. I also see several Amazon reviews from people using these while doing car repairs to prevent bolts from falling into the engine.

The wristband comes in a few colors, but red seems like it provides the best contrast so screws and nails don’t just blend in.

By picking one up using the link below you help to support these videos and the Cool Tools blog and podcast. And you can see thousands of reader-recommended tools just like this at cool-tools.org.

I have a few other tips I found recently. This one’s now over a week old but I have to mention Laura Kampf’s video on using inexpensive Ammonium Chloride to stamp or stencil a design to wood, and then applying heat with a heat gun to burn it in.

Also, I got to catch up on a few weeks of Gareth Branwyn’s tip roundups on Make. There’s a great one from FarmCraft101 on keeping your paint brush from drying out when you need to take a break, by grabbing the brush turning your glove inside out over it. Also a tip from Make: reader BruceJ on using a bit of soft eggshell-style foam for organizing tiny screws and nuts during a project.

I saw that Adafruit has a new, $23 Pi bonnet that looks great on a Pi Zero. It has a 1.3” OLED screen and a little joystick and buttons. It might be fun for a little interactive Processing sketch, or maybe a control interface for a larger project.

Maker Faires! This week we have Honolulu and Kansas City. There’s a Power Racing series in Kansas City, and I’m excited to see some new car designs.

And that’s it for this week’s show. Thanks to everyone who gave me 3D printer advice after last week’s show. I’ll let you know what I end up doing. As always be sure to subscribe and like and comment. And if that magnetic wrist strap looks like something you’ll use, picking one up using the link here helps to support the show. Alright? Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next week.