Category Archives: Curated

Parts You Should know: A Universe Of Useful Injection Molded Standoffs

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I remember the first time I built a computer. My sister and I had our last fight about who would get to use the family computer, it was time I had one of my own. I knew a little bit, and I knew I wasn’t going to be one of those plebs that overpaid for a Gateway in its cow box. So I outsourced. One of the computer literate parents in my Scout Troop very kindly agreed to put together a list of components for me. I spent my Christmas money, birthday money, and a small mountain of money I …read more

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A Machine Shop in A Toolbox: Just Add Time

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You don’t need any fancy tools. A CNC machine is nice. A 3D printer can help. Laser cutters are just great. However, when it comes to actually making something, none of this is exactly necessary. With a basic set of hand tools and a few simple power tools, most of which can be picked up for a pittance, many things of surprising complexity, precision, and quality can be made.

A while back I was working on a ring light for my 3D printer. I already had a collection of LEDs, as all hackers are weak for a five-dollar assortment box. …read more

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Tripping Out: A Field Guide to Circuit Protection

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My introduction to circuit protection came at the tender age of eight. Being a curious lad with an inventive – and apparently self-destructive – bent, I decided to make my mother a lamp. I put a hose clamp around the base of a small light bulb, stripped the insulation off an old extension cord, and jammed both ends of the wires under the clamp. When I plugged my invention into an outlet in the den, I saw the insulation flash off the cord just before the whole house went dark. Somehow the circuit breaker on the branch circuit failed and …read more

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The Little Things I Didn’t Know About Small DC Motors

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We’ve all taken apart a small toy and pulled out one of those little can motors. “With this! I can do anything!” we proclaim as we hold it aloft. Ten minutes later, after we’ve made it spin a few times, it goes into the drawer never to be seen again.

It always seems like they are in everything but getting them to function usefully in a project is a fool’s errand. What the heck are they for? Where do people learn the black magic needed to make them function? It’s easy enough to pull out the specification sheet for them. …read more

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The Healthy Maker: Tackling Vapors, Fumes And Heavy Metals

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Fearless makers are conquering ever more fields of engineering and science, finding out that curiosity and common sense is all it takes to tackle any DIY project. Great things can be accomplished, and nothing is rocket science. Except for rocket science of course, and we’re not afraid of that either. Soldering, welding, 3D printing, and the fine art of laminating composites are skills that cannot be unlearned once mastered. Unfortunately, neither can the long-term damage caused by fumes, toxic gasses and heavy metals. Take a moment, read the material safety datasheets, and incorporate the following, simple practices and gears into …read more

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Grinding Gears: Figuring Out The Ratio

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Practically any combination of motor and gearbox can be mathematically arranged to fit all sorts of problems. You could lift a crane with a pager motor, it just might take a few hundred years. However, figuring out exactly what ratio you need can feel bit backwards the first time you have to do it.

A gear is nothing more than a clever way to make two circles rotate in concert with each other as if they were perfectly joined at their circumferences. Rather than relying on the friction between two rotating disks in contact, the designer instead relies on the …read more

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3D Printering: Aramid and Carbon Fiber Infused ABS

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Last week, we had a look at a carbon-infused PETG filament. This week, I’d like to show you two composites based on a more common thermoplastic in 3D printing: ABS. Among a whole lot of other engineering plastics, the french company Nanovia manufactures Kevlar-like aramid-fiber-infused and carbon-fiber-infused ABS 3D printing filaments. These materials promise tougher parts with less warping while being just as easy to print as regular ABS. Let’s check them out!

Lucky enough to obtain a huge pack of samples from Nanovia’s endless list of highly exotic filaments (Thanks Jacques!), I was able to run a few test …read more

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From Project To Kit: Bringing It All Together

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This is the fourth article in a series examining the process of turning an electronic project into a marketable kit.We’ve looked at learning about the environment in which your kit will compete, how to turn a one-off project into a costed and repeatable unit, and how to write instructions for your kits that will make your customers come back for more. In this article we will draw all the threads together as we think about packing kits for sale before bringing them to market.

If you had made it this far in your journey from project to kit, you would …read more

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The Turing Tapes

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The recent movie “The Imitation Game” gave [Alan Turing] some well-deserved fame among non-computer types (although the historical accuracy of that movie is poor, at best; there have been several comparisons between the movie and reality). However, for people in the computer industry, Turing was famous for more than just helping to crack Enigma. His theoretical work on computing led to the Turing machine, which is still an important concept for reasoning about computers in a mathematical way. He also laid the foundation for the stored program computer that we take for granted today.

What’s a Turing Machine?

A Turing …read more

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History Of The Diode

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The history of the diode is a fun one as it’s rife with accidental discoveries, sometimes having to wait decades for a use for what was found. Two examples of that are our first two topics: thermionic emission and semiconductor diodes. So let’s dive in.

Vacuum Tubes/Thermionic Diodes

Our first accidental discovery was of thermionic emission, which many years later lead to the vacuum tube. Thermionic emission is basically heating a metal, or a coated metal, causing the emission of electrons from its surface.

In 1873 Frederick Guthrie had charged his electroscope positively and then brought a piece of white-hot …read more

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