This week on Maker Update: bikes made weird
the infinite text adventure,
A 3D printed router lifter, the Arduino giga
counting screws and 3D printers for $34.
Hello and welcome back to Maker Update.
I hope you're all doing well and getting inspired with the coming spring weather, wherever you are.
It's still a little cold and snowy here in New York,
but we've got a great show in store for you, so let's get right into it with
The Project of the week.
They always say you never forget how to ride a bicycle.
It's probably because every bicycle in the world controls pretty much the same way:
the front wheel is directly connected to the handlebars and is responsible
for the steering.
And the back wheel is driven by the crank and pedals,
and that's what drives you forward.
But what if you reverse those?
That's exactly what this video by Meanwhile in the Garage wants to answer.
And to do this, he's building a bike
the likes of which have probably never existed before.
He starts off with a mountain bike frame and then strips it
down to its barest essentials.
He then goes on to solve all the problems and getting the power to the front wheel
and steering to the back while keeping the riding position all the same,
with controls in familiar locations.
He could have kept things simpler by allowing
for the driven wheel to be fixed, but he made it a suspended wheel
for the sake of ride comfort,
and then solving all the problems with chain clearance around the swing arm along with it.
The rear wheel is steered from the front handlebars by way of this linkage bar,
and it looks like the bar reverses the steering direction as well.
That might be because of the steering geometry of the rear wheel.
Not that it makes the bike any easier to ride.
But before he takes it out for a test ride,
he takes the whole bike apart again and gives it a fairly professional
looking paint job. Again, just for the sake of experiment,
he could have left it as a bare metal hack job, but instead
the finished bike looks really slick and clean.
Riding this bike, though, is a whole different challenge altogether.
He tested out with his brother and it looks like they eventually start
to get the hang of it.
It still looks like a really unstable bike.
If you're into bike hacks, Check this one out.
More projects!
Nikodem Bartnik has been developing a DIY CNC router kit.
And he’s starting the process of kitting out all the fasteners and hardware
that customers will need to assemble it.
This video isn’t about the router, but about the machine he built
To help him count the screws and other fasteners
So his customers get the right amount in each packet.
The counter works by having a large tumbler
drum for the small parts that then carry screws up to the top
where it drops the screw past the counter sensor.
He experimented with a few different sensors, laser sensors,
rain sensors, and then finally settled on an LED and photo resistor.
There's also some great tips in here for designing the PCB.
Before sending the gerber files off to be manufactured,
He printed the PCB out on paper to make sure all the components
have enough space to fit together comfortably.
Over on Adafruit, I found this infinite text adventure by Jeff Epler.
This is an interactive text adventure game that uses ChatGPT
to create a unique story that responds to user inputs
to create an entirely new adventure with each playthrough.
The project runs on the PyPortal Titano. Any flavor of the PyPortal will do,
but the Titano gets recommended because of the screen size.
There's a prompt that you can modify to create different types
of narrative adventures and even change the language used to tell the story.
As a longtime lover of games like Zork and Planetfall,
This one really speaks to me.
DIY Guy Chris is developing a Bluetooth RGB LED camera light for video and photography.
At the core of this project is a custom PCB with an arranged matrix
of 6 by 7 WS2812 LEDs on one side
and a Bluetooth module and three AA batteries on the back.
Included on the PCB is a slide switch for turning the light off and on,
and a USB-C port for programing.
You can control the color and brightness of the light
using the mobile app on your phone.
If you don't mind the work of doing the soldering yourself,
The materials needed for this is just $15.
And from their YouTube channel,
I learned about this 3D printed router lifter designed by USSA.
This is a meticulously planned and engineered router lifter
for a router table that's mostly all 3D printed.
There's quite a bit of additional hardware needed to make this work.
Like threaded inserts, screws, bearings and more.
And there's also a couple really handy tips to pick up on as well.
Like how to make this split machine screw using a hacksaw
With this 3D printed jig.
You can download all the files
and instructions from USSA's website linked in the video’s description.
Time for some tips and tools.
The Stumpy Nubs Workshop has a great tips video
on working with MDF: when you can use it in projects.
When you should avoid it, and all the other ins and outs
of working with this cheap and versatile material.
He covers the important stuff like how to adequately protect yourself from MDF dust
and anticipating heavier tool wear since MDF is more abrasive than wood.
But the real tip here is his advice for painting MDF.
Using drywall mud and then sanding gives a great surface to prime
which can then be sanded again before painting.
If you've ever struggled with getting good paint finishes on MDF,
check this one out.
Rinoa’s Auspicious Travails has video about these extremely cheap,
sold as-is small 3D printers that you can find on eBay.
These are white labeled 3D printers that are all fairly identical
and were originally intended for educational use.
Sometimes they're missing parts, but these printers can
be had for as cheap as $34 -
cheap enough that you can buy two and hopefully have enough parts
to make one working printer.
If you can deal with the lack of a heated build plate and the small working volume,
these look like they might be great small part printers.
There's a new Arduino board on the scene, the Arduino Giga.
I’m linking to Switch and Lever's review of the board here,
and this might be one of the most feature packed Arduinos ever made.
There's a Cortex M4 microcontroller with a built in real time clock
and 75 digital GPIO pins.
There's an audio jack with a two channel DAC, a 2D graphics accelerator,
as well as a DSI header for camera and display breakout boards.
There's a USB-C port for power and programing, but there's also a
USB-A port for hosting HID peripherals.
If you're looking for a no compromises board for your next project,
check out the Arduino giga.
And speaking of new tools, there's a relatively new
3D printing filament available called Flexible PLA.
This is similar to other flexible filaments like TPU, so you can use it to make parts
that can easily deform and then return to their original shape.
Ideal for cosplayers.
But the real advantage that flexible PLA has over
its TPU counterparts is its ability to be sanded and painted more easily.
Frank from Frankly Builds shows his process for sanding, priming
and then ultimately painting armor pieces for his Iron Man cosplay armor.
For this week's Digi-Key Spotlight,
we've got another prototype project from the Tomorrow Lab crew.
What they're building this week is an ozone sensor.
The goal is to have an easy to read meter that
not only shows the ozone levels in the immediate vicinity,
but also the ambient ozone levels in the surrounding area.
The data is represented on these two large rotating dials that provide an
easy-to-read and visually satisfying display of the ambient air quality.
The entire meter runs off of solar power as well, so there's no need for external power.
The ultimate goal is to have multiple units that can all share their data
with each other, which will inform the city average meter.
All right,
And that is going to do it for this week's show.
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