Quarantine Clock Answers the Important Question

For many people, these last few weeks have been quite an adjustment. When the normal routine of work or school is suddenly removed, it’s not unusual for your internal clock to get knocked out of alignment. It might have started with struggling to figure out if it was time for …read more

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Take This Cylindrical Coupler Design For A Spin

We’re not exactly sure what kind of shenanigans [Conrad Brindle] gets himself into, but apparently it often requires cylindrical couplings to attach 3D printed parts to each other. He found himself designing and redesigning this type of connector so often that he decided to just make a parametric version of …read more

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Human-Powered Laser Gun Makes Battery-Free Target Practice

[Dirk] shared a fascinating project of his that consists of several different parts coming together in a satisfying whole. It’s all about wanting to do target practice, indoors, using a simple red laser dot instead of any sort of projectile. While it’s possible to practice by flashing a red laser …read more

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Getting Your Morning Mix Exactly Right, Every Time

In historical times, before the pandemic, most people had to commute to work in the mornings, and breakfast often ended up being a bit rushed. [Elite Worm] is very serious about getting his breakfast mix exactly right, and o shave a bit of time off the prep, he built a …read more

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This Camera Captures Piezo Inkjet Micro-Drops for DIY Microfluidics

In microfluidics, there are “drop on demand” instruments to precisely deposit extremely small volumes (pico- or nano-liters) of fluid. These devices are prohibitively expensive, so [Kyle] set out to design a system using hobbyist-level parts for under $1000. As part of this, he has a fascinating use case for a …read more

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Don’t Let your PLA Filament Hang Loose with this 3D-Printed Surfboard

People always tend to push the boundaries of what is doable with a 3D printer.  This is also true for [AndrewW1977] when he decided to 3D print a full-sized functional surfboard.

With just over nine full days of printing time, 95 individual pieces, and using 3.1 kg of PLA (not …read more

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The Evolution of a 3D Printed Off-Road R/C Car

For about as long as hackers and makers have been using desktop 3D printers, there have been critics that say the plastic parts they produce aren’t good for much else than toys and decorative pieces. They claim that printed parts are far too fragile to be of any practical use, …read more

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The CLUE Tracker Points You To a Target, using CircuitPython

[Jay Doscher] shares a quick GPS project he designed and completed over a weekend. The device is called the CLUE Tracker and has simple goals: it shows a user their current location, but also provides a compass heading and distance to a target point. The idea is a little like …read more

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Autonomous 3D Rover With Tank Tracks Rules The Fields. Almost

Scope creep is a real pain in the real world, but for projects of passion it can have some interesting consequences. [rctestflight] was playing around with 3D printed rover gearboxes, which morphed into a 3D printed tank build.

[rctestflight]’s previous autonomous rover project had problems with the cheap geared …read more

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Fail of the Week: In CAD, Remember to Model the Environment

What’s wrong with the above picture? Failure can be an excellent teacher, and [J. Peterson] reminds us all of this when he says to remember to model the environment when designing things in CAD. He contrasts a failure with a success to demonstrate what that means.

The failure was a …read more

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