Make: Online: Toolbox Archives

Toolbox Archive: Toolbox

November 20, 2009

Free LED Cookbook from TI

By way of Andrew Q Righter of HacDC comes word of this free PDF from Texas Instruments, a 41-page "cookbook" of circuit designs and application notes for TI's LED-related components. [Thanks, Andrew!]

LED Reference Design Cookbook [PDF]

Cross multi-tool

Dutch designer Michiel Cornelissen sells these cruciform screwdrivers, which are laser-sintered stainless steel. There's a flat-blade, a Phillips head, and an IKEA-sized hex bit. [via Dude Craft]

November 16, 2009

PDFs of MAKE magazine projects and primers

Did you know that we offer PDFs of some of the popular projects and primers that have appeared in MAKE magazine? You can always subscribe to the Digital Edition of MAKE or buy a single back issue with the project you're interested in, or you can just download the specific PDF you're looking for. Each download is $1.99.

Here's a list of all the PDFs we currently offer:

The Night Lighter 36 Spud Gun: (Volume 03, page 108)
The Brain Machine: (Volume 10, page 88)
Cigar Box Guitar: (Volume 04, page 77)
Compressed Air Rocket: (Volume 15, page 102)
Wind Power Generator: (Volume 05, page 90)
Kitchen Floor Vacuum Former: (Volume 11, page 106)
Primer: Working With Carbon Fiber: (Volume 09, page 164)
Primer: Printed Circuit Boards: (Volume 02, page 164)
Primer: Welding (Volume 03, page 158)
Primer: Moldmaking (Volume 08, page 160)

November 13, 2009

Transparent solderless breadboard

Recently I've been helping a friend's 11-year-old daughter get started in electronics. The use of a solderless breadboard was counterintuitive to her until I gave her one of these clear-cased versions, available through Solarbotics. As she puts it, "you can see where the metal is."

November 12, 2009

Introducing O'Reilly Answers

I love "lazyweb" sites, Q&A sites, and other crowdsourced resources that deal in instant-gratification content. I especially like them when the signal-to-noise ratio is high; when a lot of really smart, inspired people come together to share their expertise.

As of a few weeks ago, O'Reilly now has its own such site, O'Reilly Answers, a place where O'Reilly authors, editors, conference speakers and goers, readers, i.e. the O'Reilly community, can share knowledge and ideas. Some have asked: how is this any different from StackOverflow? StackOverflow is about programming. O'Reilly Answers is about anything its community of users wants it to be about. The site's tagline is: "Clever Hacks. Creative Ideas. Innovative Solutions." If that's what it turns out to be about, it'll definitely be a place where you'll want to hang.

O'Reilly Answers

November 11, 2009

Fist sledgehammer

Spotted in the online portfolio of design firm Martus & Silvio, of Grand Rapids. It's a sculpture, technically, entitled "Early Tools," but I'd have a hard time not using it at least once, Office Space style, on something that really made me angry. [via Dude Craft]

November 10, 2009

CupCake CNC build part 2: Unboxing

I purchased my CupCake CNC Deluxe Kit from MakerBot Industries. This machine is from batch #8, and it's serial #000305. Future batches may be slightly different, so don't use this as an exact guide for making your own CupCake CNC. Here's what MakerBot Industries says about this version of the kit:

This kit has everything you need to build a MakerBot CNC and get started in DIY digital fabrication. Not only have we included all of the parts you need to build a CupCake CNC, but we've also included all the tools that you'll need to put it together and have the build go smoothly.

What exactly is included in the $950 deluxe kit?

The laser-cut parts to assemble a CupCake CNC machine.
3 x NEMA 17 motors to drive your machine
The nuts, bolts, and various hardware to assemble it.
The belts and pulleys for it to move things around.
All the bearings to make your machine nice and smooth.
The highest quality precision ground shafts for the X and Y axes we could find.
Pre-assembled 3rd generation electronics to drive it better, faster, and stronger.
Magnetized, detachable build platform to make removing your finished prints easier.
Pinch-wheel Plastruder to make things in plastic.
1lb of natural ABS to get you started printing in 3D.
USB2TTL cable to talk to it
cat5e cables to wire things up
Standard ATX power supply
Tools kit with all the hex keys, wrenches, and other bits you need to construct it.
Full 5lbs of ABS plastic so you can print your heart out (in addition to the 1lb of ABS)
Extra acrylic build surface, and a spare build platform
SD card to buffer your prints

You can also save some money by purchasing the Basic CupCake CNC Kit for $750. Check out the link for more information about what is, and isn't, included in the basic kit. Then again, you could always build your own from scratch since it's totally open source.

Let the unboxing begin:

The first thing I found was a nice letter from the MakerBot team and a couple of postcards. I'm going to keep these filed away in a safe place. Maybe one day I'll be on the Antiques Roadshow and the host will let out a delighted *gasp* when I whip out my original, signed MakerBot Industries letter. Hey, you never know?!

Read full story

November 6, 2009

CupCake CNC build, part 1: Introduction & background

Having just arrived home from a quick trip to the hardware store, I was pleasantly surprised to see a large, unmarked, cardboard box sitting on my front steps. This isn't an uncommon event, since I am constantly checking out cool products and projects for the Maker Shed, however this box was a bit larger than normal.

Oh wow, it's the CupCake CNC kit from MakerBot Industries! I'd ordered it weeks earlier and had completely forgotten about it. (The truth is out: I have an atrocious memory, sad but true.)

And so the adventure begins! I'm going to document my "out of box experience" with a MakerBot. How many posts will the series be? I'm not sure since I've never built one. How often will I post about the build? Again, not sure, but I'll try to do at least one a week, maybe more, it all depends on how much free time I have between all my other maker-ly projects.

A little background: My CNC experiences

I've been tinkering with CNC for about 10 years, and consider myself an enthusiast, not an expert. I do own a few CNC mills, routers, and lathes. I have retrofitted old mills, and even build one from scratch. Pictured above is my mobile CNC machine, dubbed the "MobileC." I stuffed all the components into a mobile tool cart so I could bring it to hackerspaces, workshops, and events, all in the hopes of helping out fellow makers.

Read full story

November 2, 2009

Bandsaw beautification

The first time I saw a circuit board where the board designer had broken through the boundaries of a grid pattern and made traces that curved playfully and made decorative shapes, it was a revelation. You can make a PCB any damn shape you please! (So long as it takes into account the component shapes, circuit design requirements, and doesn't get too confusing.) Too often we get stuck in rigid modes of thinking about the world. I love it when people tweak those tunnel realities a little. This painted saw, spotted on Dinosaurs and Robots, is a perfect example. I've seen a few shop tools maybe painted a non-factory-issued color, or with some bumper stickers and tool company logos, etc. on them, but have never seen one tricked-out painted just for fun and aesthetic pleasure. Why not? This saw was done by custom guitar painter Sarah Ryan, for Creston Lea's bandsaw.

Okay, here's one reason not to paint your shop tools. It apparently attracts snakes! (See story on the link.)

Creston Lea's Bandsaw Painted by Sarah Ryan

October 30, 2009

Lie-Nielsen chain-drive shoulder vise

There are vises, and there are vises. And there are those of us for whom vises are also vices. For we few ~~obsessives~~ cognoscenti, the price of this beautifully-designed chain-drive shoulder vise package may not be unreasonable. For the mechanically inclined, a remake would be totally do-able, and Lie-Nielsen is to be credited for not keeping any secrets about how it all goes together. The installation instructions (.pdf) contain all you'd need to know to cobble together one of your own.

October 28, 2009

Toolboxes: now and then

Flickr toolbox refurbisher extraordinaire "txinkman" got ahold of this awesome Black & Decker box and had no idea what it originally held. He posted a query on Toolmonger and soon found out: a valve seat grinding set. About the box itself, he writes:

Just for giggles, I shot it next to my orbital sander's box. Somehow I think we've lost some packaging elan over the years.

Boy, howdy.

txinkman's photostream

October 26, 2009

MicroRAX modular beams

Looks like the small-scale aluminum t-slot world his heating up! Previously I've recommended 80/20 for small projects that needed sturdy, precise framing structures to hold up a microcontroller and some sensors, but those can be difficult to find in small sizes. Now we've got MicroRAX from Twintec, and Mini-T by Maker Beam on the way soon. Both are a 10mm square stock with a variety of connectors, joints, and hardware. They are aimed at makers, with direct sales, and small kits of common parts.

MicroRAX are available for purchase now, and you can contact them for free samples if you'd like to play around with some. I spoke with Chris Burrows from Twintec and he said they're ready for an onslaught of sample orders, so bring it on!

I'm excited to see that they've uploaded CAD files for two of their parts to Thingiverse, so you can plan your project in 3D. Head here to download them. Hopefully they'll add CAD files for all of their parts soon.

[via HackedGadgets]

More:
Q & A with MakerBeam @ Evil Mad Science Laboratories

Electricity-free table saw

Well, I'm convinced. This quiet and electricity-free table saw, the Jointmaker Pro R2 by Bridge City Tool Works has a small bead of drool forming on my lip, not even halfway through the demo video. [via Core77]

Graffiti marker disguised as cigarette

I recently ordered some refillable paint pens from Art Primo, and this was in the box as a freebie. It's the exact size, shape, and color as a cigarette, and among a dozen real cigarettes in a pack it'd likely pass any search completely unnoticed. It took me a minute to figure out its nefarious purpose: If you get caught in the vicinity of a fresh tag, after all, it's best not to be found with a marker on your person. They're manufactured by Germany's On The Run, but you won't find them on their website. The one I got was gold; the silver ones below were photographed by Flickr user $30,000.

How-To: Compressed air system for haunt props

Good tutorial on putting together a pneumatic power system for "home imagineering," as as the folks at Phantasmechanics call it. We've blogged their stuff a couple times before.

More:

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 23, 2009

A better way to slice a pumpkin

Subscriber Michael Williams wrote in with this clever modification of the traditional pumpkin incision. He explains the logic:

For years now I've been unhappy with the choices for cutting open a pumpkin for Halloween. If you cut the top off in the traditional manner, you end up with singed hand hairs (at best) when attempting to place/light a candle. If you cut the bottom off, you can get the candle in OK but you're stuck picking up nearly the whole pumpkin each time and it never sits quite right. This year is different - I've found the perfect pumpkin cut!

Thanks Michael!

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 22, 2009

Automatic image index-maker software

matt_mets_things_in_my_kitchen (Custom).jpg

Our own Matt Mets put me onto this program called Montage from the open-source ImageMagick suite. Shown above is Matt's image "Things in my kitchen," and here is the command line to Montage that produced it:

montage +frame +shadow +label -tile 10x8 -borderwidth 1 -background white -bordercolor white -geometry 200x133 *.jpg stuff.jpg

As you can see, Montage takes all the work out of combining a bunch of individual images into an array of images, dealing automatically with all the resizing, cropping, arranging, and/or labeling headaches automatically.

Below is my own experiment with the software, "A visual guide to necklines," which I made because I never have any idea how to describe women's clothes.

Montage arrayed the images, added drop shadows, and labeled them based on their file names automatically. The only real work involved was tracking down the images online and saving them as appropriately-named files, but it wouldn't be hard to write a script to do that, either. Then one could conceivably go from a typed list of nouns to a complete visual index of those nouns completely automatically.

From BoobTube to SmartTube

Tired of reading all of those racist, anti-Semitic, gross, nasty, hateful, and just plain dirt-dumb stupid comments on YouTube? Now you can make everyone as smart as a rocket scientist, or at least as smart as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and prankster, juggler, painter, bongo player, and lock-picker), namely Richard Feynman.

FeynTube is a Greasemonkey script that replaces all YouTube comments when quotes from Feynman. You can switch off FeynTube simply by switching off the Greasemonkey icon at the bottom of your browser.

The FeynTube page describes how to install both Greasemonkey and the FeynTube script. [Thanks, Blake!]

More:
Richard Feynman Video
Feynman and ants
Cross-Stitch Your Favorite Physicist
Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures

October 19, 2009

Bildr: componentized, crowdsourced DIY how-tos

What Bildr is attempting to do is very admirable. It makes good sense. It will be glorious, if it happens. Something similar has been talked about in tech DIY circles for years. The idea is to create a visual Web-based library of componentized instruction sets, "building blocks," for doing various hardware and software constructions. Put a bunch of these components together, and you have all of the instructions you need to execute a multi-part project. It's extraordinarily ambitious, but when you look at other crowdsourced creations, such as Instructables and Wikipedia, it just seems so doable. But to make it happen, it'll need LOTS of love, care, sweat-equity, money, and people power. Let's hope it happens, 'cause... how cool would such a resource be?

October 15, 2009

How-To: PVC pipe vacuum dust separator

Instructables user neorazz has posted a tutorial on how to build a dust separator attachment for your shop vac. It is described as "cyclonic," which it may or may not actually be (see the comments), but it does, apparently, work quite well at separating out the heavier bits of flotsam (which end up in the bucket) from the actual dust (which goes on to the vacuum).