Collaborate Disseminate
In his continuing quest to reduce the parts count of a robot as far as possible, [Carl Bugeja] has hit upon an unusual design: robots built of almost nothing but PCBs.
Admittedly, calling these floppy four-legged critters robots is still a bit of a stretch at this point. The video …read more
Continue reading Flexible PCB Robot Flops Around To Get Around
It’s getting ever harder to build a truly unique digital clock. From electronic displays to the flip-dots and flip-cards, everything seems to have been done to death. But this pinball scoring reel clock manages to keep the unique clock ball in play, as it were.
It’s not entirely clear whom to credit with this build, but the article was written by [Lucky]. Nor do they mention which pinball machine gave up its electromechanical scoring display for the build. Our guess would be a machine from the ’60s, before the era of score inflation that required more than the four digits …read more
Continue reading Turn Old Pinball Parts Into A Unique Digital Clock
At this point we’re sure you are aware, but around these parts we don’t deduct points for projects which we can’t immediately see a practical application for. We don’t make it our business to say what is and isn’t worth your time as an individual hacker. If you got a kick out of it, great. Learned something? Even better. If you did both of those things and took the time to document it, well that’s precisely the business we’re in.
So when [Science Toolbar] sent in this project which documents the construction of an exceptionally energy efficient spinning neodymium sphere, …read more
Continue reading Energy Sipping Neodymium Sphere Keeps on Spinning
Finding just the right off-the-shelf part to complete a project is a satisfying experience – buy it, bolt it on, get on with business. Things don’t always work out so easily, though, which often requires the even more satisfying experience of modifying an existing part to do the job. Modifying a stepper motor by drilling a hole down its shaft probably qualifies for the satisfying mod of the year award.
That’s what [Russ] did to make needed improvements to his CNC flat-coil winder, which uses a modified delta-style 3D-printer to roll fine magnet wire out onto adhesive paper to form …read more
Continue reading Stepper Motor Mods Improve CNC Flat Coil Winder
We love a little outside-the-box thinking around here, and anytime we see robots that don’t use wheels and motors to do the moving, we take notice. So when a project touting robotic fish using soft-actuator fins crossed the tip line, we had to take a look.
It turns out that this robofish comes from the fertile mind of [Carl Bugeja], whose PCB motors and flexible actuators have been covered here before. The basic concept of these fish fins is derived from the latter project, which uses coils printed onto both sides of a flexible Kapton substrate. Positioned near a magnet, …read more
Continue reading Flexible PCBs Make The Fins Of This Robotic Fish
You may have asked yourself at one time or another, “Self, what happens when you pass 100 thousand volts through a printed circuit board?” It’s a good question, and [styropyro] put together this fascinating bit of destructive testing to find out.
Luckily, [styropyro] is well-positioned to explore the high-voltage realm. His YouTube stock-in-trade is lasers, ranging from a ridiculously overpowered diode-laser bazooka to a bottle-busting ruby laser. The latter requires high voltage, of course, and his Frankenstein’s lab yielded the necessary components for this destructive diversion. A chopper drives dual automotive ignition coils to step the voltage up to a …read more
Continue reading Perf Board Pyrotechnics Courtesy of a High-Voltage Supply
One of the most amazing technological advances found in this year’s Hackaday Prize is the careful application of copper traces turned into coils. We’ve seen this before for RFID tags and scanners, but we’ve never seen anything like what Carl is doing. He’s building brushless motors on PCBs.
All you need to build a brushless motor is a rotor loaded up with super powerful and very cheap magnets, and a few coils of wire. Now that PCBs are so cheap, the coils of wire are easily taken care of. A 3D printer and some eBay magnets finish off the rest. …read more
Anyone who has ever wound a coil by hand has probably idly wondered “How do they do this with a machine?” at some point in the tedious process. That’s about when your attention wanders and the wire does what physics wants it to do, with the rat’s nest and cursing as a predictable result.
There’s got to be a better way, and [Russ Gries] is on his way to finding it with this proof-of-concept CNC flat coil winder. The video below is a brief overview of what came out of an intensive rapid prototyping session. [Russ] originally thought that moving …read more
Continue reading Delta Printer Morphs into CNC Flat Coil Winder
Since humans first starting playing with electricity, we’ve proven ourselves pretty clever at finding ways to harness that power and turn it into motion. Electric motors of every type move the world, but they are far from the only way to put electricity into motion. When you want continuous rotation, a motor is the way to go. But for simpler on and off applications, where fine control of position is not critical, a solenoid is more like what you need. These electromagnetic devices are found everywhere and they’re next in our series on useful mechanisms.
Electromagnetic actuators exert small amounts of force, but are simple and definitely have their niche. [SeanHodgins] took a design that’s common in flip-dot displays as well as the lightweight RC aircraft world and decided to make his own version. He does a good job of explaining and demonstrating the basic principles behind how one of these actuators works, although the “robotic” application claimed is less clear.
It’s a small, 3D printed lever with an embedded magnet that flips one way or another depending on the direction of current flowing through a nearby coil. Actuators of this design are capable of …read more
Continue reading DIY Magnetic Actuator, Illustrated And Demonstrated