I have simplified the electronics for the paper car. My new design takes advantage of the WS2812B RGB LED which is easier to assemble because it reduces the component count from four down to one part. I also realized that while assembling the circuitry directly in copper foil is fun; it takes greater than an…
I am re-visiting the paper car design in an attempt to make it more user friendly. Specifically I want to be able to guarantee that I can successfully complete a workshop with children as young as 10. While the initial car design was great as a one on one project it is difficult to build…
I decided to make a small PCB milling machine so that I could panellize the PCB boards I design. This is also an experiment in making a 3 axis CNC machine using a laser cutter. The preliminary work consists of defining a cutting pattern for tongue and groove joints that provide a tight friction fit…
I was trolling the web and came across a great deal on LM6U linear bearings ($0.50). I also managed to find six Nema 17 stepper motors for $20 delivered. So what am I going to do with these parts? I have decided to design a simple linear actuator to learn more about designing robotic machines.…
I wanted to connect a Nema17 stepper motor to a 5/16″ lead screw. Traditionally you would just go out and buy an aluminum coupler but there are issues with doing that. Finding a supplier for a coupler with a metric hole size on one end and an imperial hole on the other is not easy.…
After the Maker Faire in September I set out to simplify my paper car design. Well simple is relative. I re-designed elements of the car to provide an easier to assemble, more robust design. The simplifications are designed to make it easier to use the car. I did this by pre-building as much of the…
I needed an easy to build circuit board that was kid friendly so I designed a simple paper circuit. The design consists of laser cut paper templates that are wired up using copper foil tape. I decided to start off with a few basic electronic elements including batteries, resistors, LEDs and switches. I could have…
The goal of today’s lesson is to show you how to transfer an arbitrary design into Tinkercad so that it can be 3D printed. The first difficult you need to deal with is scaling your design so that it will be small enough to print quickly but big enough to provide some detail. Albrecht Durer…
I finally received the PCBs and plastic to put together my final design. If you have been following; this is my second version of the programmer and it is a much better design than my first attempt. Assembly takes about 15 minutes including soldering all the components. All of the connections are part of the…
Building on the car project I have taken the pager motor and its paper supports and turned it into a linear actuator. So what is a linear actuator? Motors provide rotary motion that may not be useful in certain application. The ability to convert rotary motion into linear motion can be quite handy so I…