this week on Maker Update, an Apple Watch that keeps on ticking,
Quieter coffee, better living through peg boards,
celestial movement, adjusting hinges
and a better stand for soldering work.
Hello and welcome back to Maker update.
I'm Tyler Winegarner
and I'm back with you again and I hope you're having a great week.
I've been having a great time learning the ins and outs of resin printing
and I've been making good progress
and I hope you're into whatever you've got going on, too.
We've got a great show for you, so let's not waste any time in
checking out the project of the week.
Most of us have, at one point or another, looked at an antique and thought
“I could probably modernize the function of this while keeping the antique esthetic.”
But how many of us have gone in the opposite direction? Taking a very modern design,
but going backwards with its function.
That's what NanoRobotGeek is doing with their hacked Apple Watch.
Taking the ultra modern design, But gutting the innards
and replacing them with a mechanical watch movement
and their journey through the process is a ton of fun to watch.
Most of the movement already fits into the body
of the Apple Watch, But that doesn't mean this is a one and done.
He had to make his own mounting as well as his own custom
stem and the interface with the existing crown.
It's a ton of fun to watch this micro machinist
build unfold on a tiny scale.
Also, I love this tip of using a laser to engraved designs in layout fluid.
There's also a bit of cheeky right-to-repair attitude to this.
The design of the Apple Watch may be lovely,
but because of the limited lifespan of lithium batteries,
they're pretty much all destined for the landfill.
This retrofit ensures the watch can keep
on keeping time for many years to come.
I heard a long time ago that every now and again,
you should make something that you'll use every single day.
And I think that's what's going on here.
More importantly, it's salvaging something that would otherwise
be destined for obsolescence, and gives it new life.
And I think that's really beautiful.
More projects.
Matt Perillo wants to make his mornings a little more pleasant for his household,
and that means silencing his coffee grinder.
Yes, having fresh ground coffee is one of the best parts
of any morning routine, but the noise? Not so much.
Especially if you live with someone who would rather sleep through it.
He experiments with wrapping it in towels,
but eventually landed on this plywood box lined with sound deadening foam.
the enclosure gives it an overall 20 DB reduction.
That may not sound like much, but remember that
the decibel scale is logarithmic.
More importantly, Matt's partner’s sleep remains undisturbed.
And delicious coffee was had.
I call that an absolute win.
On Instructables, I found this planetary visualizer called the Grand Planet Spinner
by illusion Manager.
It's not quite an orrery
Since it doesn't update the position of all the planets in real time,
but rather sweeps through, collects all the planets, and then sweeps back
and places each of them in their orbital position relative to one another.
Arguably less complex, but considering that it’s
able to do all of this with just a single motor, a stepper driver
and a web connected ESP-32,
it's a pretty remarkable project.
Their guide includes all the laser cutting files, assembly instructions,
and some surprisingly sourceable materials.
There's also a wiring diagram and soldering guide
and everything else you need to build your own.
We've got a good collection of tips this week.
First up is an exploration on organization by Chris Borge.
Chris has long admired IKEA's take on Pegboard.
Since it offers mounting for a more diverse range of accessories,
but it only comes in a handful of sizes.
Laser cutters to the rescue.
He's also able to design knockouts for critical parts of the shop,
like power outlets and other details like this iPad mount.
It's a wide eyed examination of shop organization,
at how as well as a look at how adding new tools
contributes to your problem solving repertoire.
Norm from Tested has a video
about his new favorite soldering stand, The OmniFixo Stand.
This is a sort of best parts approach to the traditional helping
hand solder helper and the gooseneck stands.
This is an elevated metal plate with a set of spring loaded
clips that attach magnetically.
The clips don't have alligator teeth,
so they won't bite into your wires and damage the insulation.
They also pivot to allow a decent range of movement.
As a bonus feature, the clips are also conductive,
so you can do your continuity tests right from the solder stand.
At $60, it's not super cheap, but not a huge investment either.
From Veritasium,
I was blown away by this video about maze-solving robot competitions.
I know that you can brute force most mazes
by putting your right hand on the wall And never letting go of it.
It won't be the most efficient path,
But it will get you out.
These robots are a little more complex.
Using computer vision and machine learning to solve the maze.
And they're blindingly fast.
This video explores a few different algorithmic approaches to maze solving,
solving, and it's just plain fun to watch.
More pragmatically, I've got a video from Kitchens by Savina
on how to adjust the hinges in your cabinets.
You might not realize that most cabinet hinges
allow you to adjust its position in three different dimensions.
So if you have one that's closing a little unevenly,
this can help you understand how to make the right adjustments.
There's also tons of great tips about different driver bits,
hinge styles and more.
For this week's Digi-Key Spotlight,
Becky Stern has the latest in her electronics series.
And this one, she shows you how to transfer a breadboard prototype
to a soldered circuit board.
If you have doubles of all your components and you're moving to a solder type
breadboard, this might be an easy task.
But if you're not,
Becky has all the advice you need to proceed with confidence.
How to capture a good reference circuit, how to make good solder joints,
and how to double check all of your connections.
All right.
And that is going to do it for this week's show.
I hope you had a great time with it.
If you did, let us know about it down in the comments.
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As always, great big thanks to
did you for making this show possible and to you for watching.
Take care. We'll see you soon.