Category: DIY, Electronics, Video & Film
May 14
I’ve been eyeing out motorised sliders for some time but I’ve always been put off by the price or complexity. Having built my own 3D printer and getting to know the ins and outs of stepper motors, drivers and the Arduino platform, I started to wonder if I could just build my own…
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Category: 3D Printing, DIY, Electronics
In theory, once you’ve levelled the bed, you should be good to go, however, in practice the bed needs to be re-levelled after almost every print. Bed levelling requires adjusting 4 tiny, hard to reach thumb screws located under the base plate with the aim of adjusting the distance between the extruder tip and bed to be around the thickness of a piece of paper. It’s a complete drag but failure to start a print without a level bed results in either the first layer failing to stick or the extruder getting blocked. Enter auto-levelling…
View PostCategory: 3D Printing, DIY, Electronics
Feb 21
The Hictop Prusa i3 is probably the most satisfying thing I’ve ever assembled. It’s a kit that requires some patience and persistence but it’s not out of reach for most who have the determination. My completed printer produced fair results right off the bat and with a few modifications using freely available designs, it’s now producing consistent, impressive results. It’s not as polished as an expensive commercial offering and lacks an enclosure but the quality is not far off. At £200, it’s a no brainer entrance into the world of 3D printing…
View PostCategory: DIY, Electronics
Jan 13
I picked up the Sunfounder Quadruped Robot Kit a couple of days ago out of frustration more than anything else. I’ve been hitting a few walls lately with the drive system on my Viking battle robot. The differential track steering has proven to be a real drag (pun intended). I needed a distraction so went for something I could tinker with that 1) didn’t use wheels or tracks and 2) had pictured directions of a working design (it’s exhausting building stuff from scratch). The Sunfounder Quadruped is an open source, Arduino based crawling insect that you assemble and programme yourself. It’s a pretty cool, attention grabbing technology demonstration and I’m always looking for something like this to inspire students at school.
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