This week on Maker Update, rolling your own split-flap display, the unholy union of Furby and Alexa, customized fan grilles and a walnut box with a foam core secret. This week’s Cool Tool is the Joe Knows Electronics Resistor Starter Kit.

Show Notes

Project of the Week

Split-Flap Display by scottbez1
https://blog.hackster.io/split-flap-display-nearly-3-years-in-the-making-a73ed43add2d
https://imgur.com/a/0VAMZ
https://github.com/scottbez1/splitflap

Material Highlights

28BYJ-48 5V Stepper Motors + ULN2003 Driver Board for Arduino
http://amzn.to/2FzbchD

CR80 PVC Cards
http://amzn.to/2CKBp9X

Vinyl Letters
http://amzn.to/2GLMmKE

Also see…

Jon-A-Tron’s Split-Flap display
https://www.instructables.com/id/Split-Flap-Display/

More Projects

I turned a Furby into an Amazon Echo by Zach Levine
https://howchoo.com/g/otewzwmwnzb/amazon-echo-furby-using-raspberry-pi-furlexa

How to Disassemble a Furby by Zach Levine
https://howchoo.com/g/njhkzme1n2u/how-to-disassemble-furby

How to detect sound output in Linux and use it to call a program (or drive a motor!) by Zach Levine
https://howchoo.com/g/mmnhmti2zjz/how-to-detect-that-audio-is-currently-being-output-in-linux-and-use-it-to-call-a-program

Cool Tools Minute

Joe Knows Electronics 1/4W Resistor Starter Kit (16 Values, 400 Pieces)
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B06Y5Y76XX/ctmakerupdate-20

Joe Knows Electronics 1/4W 1% 86 Value 860 Piece Resistor Kit
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003UC4FSS/ctmakerupdate-20

Joe Knows Electronics 630V X7R 10% Capacitor Kit (13 Values, 370 Pieces)
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B06Y5FFHN8/ctmakerupdate-20

Joe Knows Electronics 33 Value 645 Piece Capacitor Kit
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B007SVHFXO/ctmakerupdate-20

Joe Knows Electronics Semiconductor Kit (320 Transistors & Diodes)
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00GPZQ5B2/ctmakerupdate-20

Tools/Tips

Customizable Fan Grill Cover by mightynozzle
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2802474

MagPi 67
https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/issues/67/

Walnut Box Made with Utility Knife by MakeSomething
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Lwd4l1Rpo

Project Instructable
https://www.instructables.com/id/Walnut-Box-Made-With-Utility-Knife/

Live Talk With David from MakeSomething
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CEoVsbnyBs

Maker Faires

Phnom Penh Mini Maker Faire
The Big Muddy Mini Maker Faire, Saint Joseph, Missouri

Maker Faire Bay Area Early Bird Tickets on Sale Now
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/maker-faire-bay-area-may-18-19-20-2018-tickets-42720091945

Transcript

This week on Maker Update, rolling your own split-flap display, the unholy union of Furby and Alexa, my search for the perfect resistor pack, customized fan grilles and a walnut box with a foam core secret.

I’m Donald Bell, and welcome to another Maker Update. I hope you’re all doing amazing. I’ve been having a productive week building up my new Power Racer for maker faire bay area. It’s almost rolling, but it’s going to need wait because next week I’m off on vacation. So no show next week, unfortunately, but I’ve got a great show for you today. So let’s get into it, with the project of the week.

Check out this Arduino-driven split-flap display by Scottbez1. Scott has an exhaustive build diary on Imgur that is the culmination of a two and a half year obsession with building a split-flap display from scratch.

Each unit of the display is enclosed in laser-cut MDF and bolts together using a captive nut design.

The gearing is also cut from the same MDF and can hold 40 flaps, allowing for letters, numbers and some special characters.

Each flap is hand cut from the same thin PVC used for ID cards. Scott cut each card in half using a jig and notched the bottom using an ID badge punch.

For the letters, he used adhesive vinyl letters and cut each one in half by hand, which he admits is a pain in the butt.

Finally, to drive them, he’s using a stepper motor for precise control and an infrared sensor to detect the home position of the gear, making it easier to calibrate. The code is all contained in a single Arduino file posted over on Github.

Now, three quick things from this project worth filing in the back of your head. One is the 28byj-48 stepper motor he used. Compared to a NEMA-17, these things are like $5 and you can drive them from just 5 volts.

Second, the PVC ID cards he used are called CR80 PVC. On Amazon I see you can get a pack of 100 for $12. They’re a uniform standard. I feel like there’s something cool you could do there.

And then there’s the vinyl letters. They come in black, red, and white. For around $7 you get multiples of every letter and number you’d need. Those are now on my list.

Finally, for another take on a DIY split-flap display, check out Jon-A-Tron’s version from 2016 which uses manual arcade button control and has a cool little animation loop. I’ll include links for all of these projects in the show notes.

I have another project to share. Over on Howchoo, Zach Levine shows off how he used a Pi Zero W board to put Alexa into a Furby.

Zach does a great job explaining the crazy way the Furby is animated entirely from a single DC motor. He shows how using the Pi Zero, a Speaker Phat bonnet for sound output, USB mic for input, and an Adafruit motor driver breakout to trigger the motor, he was able to turn this creepy thing into an animatronic Alexa.

Three great contributions Zach makes here — one is the code required to force Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service to work with the Speaker Phat bonnet. Another is an entire separate guide on how to disassemble a Furby. Because you just never know when that skill will come in handy.

And the last, is a separate guide on how to make a Raspberry Pi trigger a motor in response to audio input. Now that’s a useful hack to know.

It’s time for another Cool Tool review. This time we’re taking a look at this resistor starter kit from Joe Knows Electronics. It’s just $8 on Amazon, it’s one of the best quality resistor variety packs I’ve found. And by using the Amazon link in the description to pick one up you’re helping to support my videos and the Cool Tools blog.

Resistors are a fundamental part of every electronics project. Paradoxically, they’re both incredibly cheap and expensive. Because without fail, the specific resistor value you need for a project is the one you don’t have. And if you don’t have a place to pick them up locally, you’re stuck paying $5 shipping for $ 0.25 cents worth of resistors.

This variety pack from Joe Knows electronics includes 400 ¼ watt, 5% precision resistors — exactly what you’d want for most breadboard and Arduino projects.

You get 16 values, from 10 ohms up to 1 megaohm, all separately bagged and labeled. And if you have them out of the bag and get the values mixed up, there’s a chart on the inside lid of the box to help you decipher the color codes.

Now, this is not the cheapest or most complete resistor kit out there. I’ve been buying up a bunch of different kits in my quest for the ideal option and I’ve found that there are three main problems with most kits.

The first is organization. Often you’ll have to pull everything out to get at the value you need. With the Joe Knows kit, you can flip through them like a card catalog.

Second is color. Most of these other kits use blue resistors, which I personally find harder to read the value on. The old school beige color on the Joe Knows kit is easier to read.

Finally, there’s the stiffness of the lead. Aside from the Joe Knows kit, the resistors from every other kit I bought have these wimpy, weak leads that are so soft you can barely get them into a breadboard.

If you’re dropping these into a through-hole circuit board, who cares? But when you’re prototyping, you need to be able to push these leads into Arduino headers and breadboards without them turning to jello.

The leads on the Joe Knows pack could be even stiffer for my taste, but they’re noticeably better than any other one I tried.

So that’s the Joe Knows Resistor Starter Kit. I liked it so much I also bought the 860 piece kit they make, which has better precision and more values. But if I’m being picky I prefer the classic beige of the cheaper starter pack, even if they’re less precise.

I’m sold on this brand though, and I’ll also include links in the description to their capacitor kit and transistor kit, in case you’re at a point where you need to stock up.

And remember, you can find thousands of reader recommended tools like these at Cool-Tools.org.

I have a few more tips to share this week. Over on Thingiverse, I’m digging on this collection of 3D printed grilles for PC fans made by Mighty Nozzle. There are a ton of different sizes and styles you can download, as well as an OpenSCAD file you can customize on your own.

MagiPi 67 is out and free to download. The feature section in this issue is retro computer emulation.

And David Picciuto from the MakeSomething channel has this great video on cutting up foam core and walnut veneer to make what by all appearances looks like a hand carved wooden box. I’m talking with David about this technique live on YouTube at 10am pacific today, so check it out live if you can and join in the chat. I’ll also include a link here so you can watch it later.

Maker Faires! We’ve got two this weekend including Phnom Penh Cambodia and Saint Joseph, Missouri.

I also want to let you know that early bird tickets for Maker Faire Bay Area are now for sale. And look who they’ve got on the ticket page! I’ve never felt so much love from a company who fired me, but I’m glad to have it, and you can bet I’ll be there. It’s happening May 19th and 20th, so get your discount tickets now and come say hello.

And that does it for this week’s show. Be sure to subscribe, leave me a thumbs up or leave me a comment. Get on the email list. Pick up a pack of resistors if you can use them. And if you really got something out of this show and want to give something back to me, you can Buy me a Coffee using the Buy Me a Coffee link right down here. That feels great.

And remember I’m off next week, so maybe hunt down an old episode if you need a fix, but I’ll be back the week after. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you soon.