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…
Author: commons
Paper Car 2014
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…
CNC Cube
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…
Linear Actuator Stepper
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…
Designing a lead screw coupler
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…
Paper Car Parts
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…
Childs Play
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…
Divide and Conquer Minecraft
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…
AVR MKII programmer with Pogo pins
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…
Paper Linear Actuator
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.…