Make:

[Photo from 4volt.com]

Over the past few months I've been watching the amazing and festive work of Jeremy at 4volt.com. Today's find was a diy laser cut caliper.

Here are plans for a simple caliper, handy to have around the shop for measuring thickness and diameters. Anytime I can build something that helps me build something else I am always pleased.

The plans should be as accurate as your cutter or printer is, I actually used this project as a collaboration for my laser.

Don't have a laser? Then print your own!

If you don't have a laser you can print the PDF and glue the paper down to any flat material and cut it by hand.

[Photo from 4volt.com]
Another clever idea is his geek coins, since laser cut acrylic seems to be the currency of the early adopter realm these days:

He writes in is concise explanation:

...I posted about a coin that I laser engraved and enhanced with some paint, but did not post step by step instructions. With a recent project for Midnight Research Labs, I had a chance to take some more pictures.

I engraved the coin in the regular way and then painted over the whole sheet with a standard acrylic spray-paint.

His technique of bringing out the etching on the acrylic is a handy process. I tried to get my phone's barcode scanner to read the QR chip, but the photo was not clear enough.

The first project I noticed from 4volt was the incredible open source Jansen walker which was posted in the MAKE Flickr pool. Gareth beat me to it, but here is a little more of a great project:

4volt Jansen Walker Beta 1 from a3o Studios on Vimeo.
From the MAKE Flickr pool

The Jansen Walker is based on the work of Theo Jansen who did an excellent Ted Talk. This mechanism is also the basis for the Cajun Crawler.

Gareth mentioned this project and the Strandbeest it is inspired by on MAKE: Talk. Plans for the Jansen walker have been recently updated on the 4volt site.

By keeping an ongoing record of his work, Jeremy is helping his own project development and keeping us a part of his community of making.

Thanks for sharing, Jeremy, keep up the inspiration!