This week on Maker Update: the solution to boring windows,
a business-by-day saving-throw-by-night table, a terrifying disk flinger,
acme threads, exploding capacitors and the ranking of trashes.
Hello and welcome back to Maker Update.
I'm Tyler Winegarner and I hope you're doing great.
I know I've been talking about it for a while now,
but I think I might be finally done with my motion control camera slider.
It does everything I originally wanted to do
and I hope to have a published write up for it soon.
Except there's more that I want to add to it.
Like maybe a second axis, or a better control box, maybe even a focusing motor.
Enough about that, though.
Let's check out the project of the week.
Quirky homes deserve unique features,
and that's exactly what Simone Giertz has and, what she wants to build.
Simone's house has this loft space that lets in a ton of natural light,
but all that light gets shut out by this trap door.
This feature in her home makes a really happy, but this trap door doesn't.
Her project is
to replace it with a sliding window, but not just any window.
Something that's a bit like a lava lamp or maybe a bit like rain
falling on a forest.
A design that involves oil and water working together,
but staying separate enough so the colors don't mix.
The task here is to create a large but very narrow water tank
to house the liquids and a water pump to move them around.
Simone created several prototypes: small ones, large ones,
and ones that managed to blend the oil and water a little too well.
She even briefly experiment with the idea of using glitter in air,
which had one huge problem.
The glitter just fell too quickly to achieve the desired effect.
Eventually, she built a full sized prototype
just to see if she could make it watertight.
And that's when she realized the scope of the problem.
The water pressure is enough that it caused the plexiglass
to bow outwards, and it was so heavy she couldn't lift it.
And that's when Simone does something I've never really learned how to do.
She walked away from that solution entirely.
She created a design that she could execute in stained glass,
bought a bunch of colored glass and learned to make a stained glass window
instead of stubbornly pursuing an overcomplicated solution,
She remembered the original problem: a sliding glass window feature
that would let in natural light and make her happy
It's often possible to overthink a problem so much that you get completely removed
from your original goal, and I think that's what this project is really about.
Remember the original problem you're trying to solve and solve that!
Don't get so wrapped up in your first solution
that you get frustrated and abandon the thing entirely.
And also take Simone's advice:
If you've never tried to make anything in stained glass, give it a go some time.
It's really, really satisfying
Speaking of overthinking the problem and not walking away from it,
Shane from Stuff Made Here is doing what he does best:
engineering robots to cheat at sports.
This time, he's building an arm-mounted launcher for disc golf.
While a lot of Shane's original idea for the design remained
throughout the project, each iteration revealed a new problem with the design.
The valves
didn't release the air pressure fast enough for the speeds that he wanted
or the speeds that he wanted created enough torque to break his arm.
or that the force on the disc deformed it enough to slip out of the launcher.
Overall, he
went with ten different variations on the design.
It took a surprising level of determination and perseverance
to arrive at his final design, and it's also worth mentioning
that his final design is properly terrifying.
Bob Clagett of I Like to Make Stuff has built a gaming table
that can also work as a small conference or meeting table
for the I Like to Make Stuff offices.
Not only does that mean that the top of the table lifts out
to reveal the gaming surface, complete with addressable LEDs,
but the beam from the overhead projector can also
be reflected downwards to project onto the gaming surface.
Traditionally, this kind
of table would have a large flat screen on the bottom,
but that just seems prone to scratching when you place your miniatures on it,
and especially when you start rolling dice against it. And typical of Bob's builds,
the video is full of great tips like how to work with T-molding
or edge banding and how to make a tough but cheap projection surface.
On Instructables, I found this great guide by AbrarMulla
on how to build this classic looking, rocking chair out of PVC.
This is a super thorough guide that walks you through all the steps
of using your CAD design to get the lengths of each segment of pipe,
creating the paper templates, using sand to heat and bend the pipes evenly.
Adding reinforcement for the pieces that need to be stronger.
Every last detail and the result looks great.
I know I'd be tempted to take the extra step and remove all the PVC markings,
but maybe it's worth leaving them on just to tell the story of how he made it.
On YouTube,
I found this great little video for a 3D printed motorized camera dolly by IV Projects.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking of how to use motors
to move cameras around in this design couldn't be simpler.
A small stepper motor drives a wheel on this pivotable dolly platform.
Then off it goes.
There's a few compromises like the trailing cable.
But if you just need to move a camera
with controllable speeds, this just gets the job done.
Time for some tips and tools.
Quinn from Blondiehacks
has a fantastic video on cutting Acme threads on the lathe.
This is the first part of a video series about making a float lock vise,
which is a sort of a drill press vise that isn't frustrating to use.
I'm just starting to explore the machinist skill tree,
so I find a ton of great little tips in this video.
That are going to help me along,
like using shims to protect your work piece from the chuck marks
or how to properly square up the tool to your work piece.
There's still plenty in this video that goes way over my head,
but I know we can always come back to that when I'm ready.
Chuck Hellebuyck shares this fantastic tip on YouTube on how to get faster,
stronger prints using Cura 4.13.
This version of the slicer features an extra fast printing profile
but it's just reserved for Ultimaker’s own printers.
It turns out, though, that if you create a new Ultimaker printer profile
and modify it with your printer settings, you can use these faster profiles.
Chuck tested it out on his Ender 2 Pro and was able to get 100% infill
prints made in half the time of his regular printing profile.
This might be worth a try if you'd like to get a little more speed
out of your printer.
Over on Tested, Joey Fameli shares his review of the long awaited Panasonic GH6 camera.
Normally, I wouldn't include this kind of review
in this show, but this is a camera that stays fairly affordable
while punching way above its weight. - And its predecessor,
The GH5 has been the camera that plenty of makers use
to shoot their regular content - including myself.
Overall, there's better low light performance, better stabilization,
and it has a faster processor so it can record in some heavier codecs.
Joey touches on all these features and highlights some of the compromises
that come with them.
Last year, Studson Studio created this astonishing
replica of Howl's Moving Castle, largely made out of trash.
Looking back into
his channel, I found this shorter video where he shares how he evaluates
trash deciding which ones he should definitely keep
and which ones he’ll... well, which ones he'll likely also keep.
If you want a glimpse into how to look at the textures and shapes of everyday
objects through a crafter’s eye, check this one out
And finally, not so much of a tip, but just a fun video to watch.
on YouTube, The Slow Mo Guys are torturing capacitors with high voltage and filming
the results at over 180,000 frames per second.
while just about anything filmed in super slow motion can be incredibly gorgeous.
An exploding capacitor produces an extraordinary galaxy of light and fire.
If you've ever accidentally popped one of these in your workbench,
or even if you haven't. Don't miss this one.
For this week's DigiKey Spotlight, check out this
Tech Basics video on thermal management.
If you've ever built a custom computer you know how
critical cooling can be for stability and performance.
But this can affect smaller electronic projects as well.
From cold plates to the humble heat sink there's a ton of different options
available to help keep your project running the way it's supposed to.
This video touches on all of them
all right.
And that is going to do it for this week's show.
Hope you don't mind that the show explored some of the more cerebral aspects
of making and problem solving.
If you enjoyed it,
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As always, huge thanks to the folks who Digikey for
sponsoring the show and to you for watching it.
Take care. We'll see you soon.