Category Archives: cordless drill motor

My DIY BB-8: Problems, Solutions, Lessons Learned

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Imagine trying to make a ball-shaped robot that rolls in any direction but with a head that stays on. When I saw the BB-8 droid doing just that in the first Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, it was an interesting engineering challenge that I couldn’t resist. All the details for how I made it would fill a book, so here are the highlights: the problems I ran into, how I solved them and what I learned.

The Design Criteria: Portable and Inexpensive

I had two design criteria in mind. The first was to keep it low-cost. Some spend $1000 …read more

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Safely Remove Drill Chuck; Receive Motor, Gearbox, and Clutch

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There’s a treasure trove of usefulness inside of an electric drill. [Steven Dufresne], Hackaday writer and the mad scientist behind Rimstar.org, kindly documented how to safely and reliably remove the chuck from a drill motor. You may think this is easy, but once in a while you’ll come across a drill determined to hold onto all its bits. We certainly were entertained by the lengths [Steven] went to in the video below to get a Black and Decker to give up its chuck.

An understanding of how the chuck and gearbox are connected, combined with the right tools and a …read more

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