Here’s a bit of a list of fun old or obsolete projects I’ve worked on over the years. I tried to put them in roughly reverse chronological order, so the most recent stuff is near the top of the page
Preparing for my Nephew and Niece to visit, so I’ve got the 3D Printer on the kitchen counter printing a toy! Over on the side is a robot arm that I built a little Arduino based controller and teach pendant.
Final wiring for the 55″ touch screen table! It works really well, although there’s some room for improvement in mounting the display…that’ll be the next project!
The 55″ touch screen display in testing. That’s the max height for the actuator, it’s actually a pretty good angle from sitting on a couch. The mechanism for the lift top is visible behind the table.
4k seamless LED display! Took a few days to assemble, but it was fun to put together… plus we played Mario Kart on it, which was pretty great.
One of my favorite projects at planar so far. This is a 16′ x 4.5′ seamless LED display with touch screen. I got the opportunity to design all the mounting and finishing hardware and extrusion, plus I got to come up with a way to install the protective touch film and tooling to make it easier. Really fun project!
Oh yes…I too had a K40 laser. Such an excellent tool, sadly I blew up the power supply on mine, and now I’m working on a redesign… might upgrade to 100W though.
My old office and whiteboard table, complete with laser and printrbot. It was a great printer to learn on, but I love my Rostock Max V2. So much nicer!
Laser, beverage, 3d printer… I’m ready do some fun stuff!
Never got around to finishing this printer. This was intended to be a DLP based photocuring resin printer. Unfortunately the projector I had just wasn’t curing the resin quickly enough to be practical. Hmmmm… might have to resurrect the project at some point.
Ah the homebuilt CNC machine! It sure functioned occasionally! And it only tripped the breakers in the garage most of the time!
It was an awesomely fun learning experience though. I really got a much better handle on control electronics, stepper motors/driver/programming/etc. and just a good feel for the workflow of running CNC vs 3D Printing. I do miss it, but it just wasn’t the right set up for me.
Well… Gotta’ have a few less than ideal days… The CNC is only slightly on fire
It did produce some really nice finish parts though. This little geared back massage thing was almost entirely cut on the CNC. I think I just drilled holes in the COTS spherical wooden balls.
My brother got me a beer brewing kit one year… naturally that lead to brewing a bit of beer… which then led to needing interesting bottles. These are actually Budweiser Aluminum cans that I polished.
Project Orrery! Sadly this one got badly damaged during a move to a new apartment, so I didn’t end up completing it. Still, it was a lot of fun figuring out the gear ratios for each of the planets.
This is even before I had a CNC… believe it or not, those are all patterns I printed out of Autodesk Inventor, then cut on a scroll saw.
A wooden rocking chair for my nephew. Turned out pretty nicely. I used on off the shelf pattern for the rockers, but the giraffe I just drew up and started cutting.
My wooden geared clock phase. This is a design by Clayton Boyer, that I then drew up in CAD to get a good understanding of it.
Eventually I finished mine. All cut on a mix of scroll saw and table saw. It was a very fun project. Even worked at the end, though temperature and humidity changes could jam it up over time.
My first wooden geared clock, it sadly did not work so well. I could never get the escapement tuned quite right. That said it was just a stepping stone to the next one, which did work!
Just some 3D Modelling of RC bikes. I was really into RC motorcycles for a while and I was even working on my own design of an alternative front suspension RC motorcycle.
This is my alternate front suspension RC motorcycle. It’s based off of a Venom GPV-1 for parts. Custom frame, the only major new parts are a front wheel and steering hub system. I planned to 3D print those with FDM.
Motorcycle racing. Another classically fun hobby. Though expensive. Back then I couldn’t afford to go to many track days, but I treasured every one (even the ones where I crashed).
Ah my old miata. One of the best cars to learn how to race. Unfortunately for this car, I later got sucked into motorcycle racing, so a truck was more practical. Still, for the money, I don’t think you can find a more fun cheap thrill than sprinting a miata down twisty roads or around a track.
Granted… Miata’s do have some practical limitations…
It Rhymes with Hockey 