Make Lehigh Valley Make Hardware, Make Software, Make Art

Member Project Spotlight: Frank’s Filament Extruder (WIP) Updated

Frank just sent us another update on his filament extruder. Some progress has been made, and he's almost ready for testing. This is shaping up to be one of the more ambitious projects from one of our members and we're excited to see it in action.

"I am nearing completion of the clutch for the extruder and have completed the adapter to be able to turn the extruder with a variable speed drill.  My thoughts on the clutch are to place hose clamps on each side over top where the slots are cut.  The tighter the clamps the higher the torque until it slips (that is the theory anyway).  If I need more torque applied, I am thinking of a steel can with bolted flanges to tighten down on the plastic coupling.  There is a floating steel rod inside (not shown) that maintains the alignment between the aluminum halves.  The plastic is a PVC pipe union connector with slots cut so clamps can compress the plastic coupling. Progress has been slower than I hoped due to other projects, but I am getting close to being able to conduct the first trials which I plan to do at the space. "

"The clutch assembly is complete and the extruder end has been drilled for a pellet hopper and a small aluminum hopper added.  My plan is for a full-size hopper would set on top of aluminum block.  The only thing I need to do to allow an initial test is to make some nozzles to fit in the "T" connection.  I am going to try to drill some brass plugs with a 1/16" drill as a start.  1/16" (0.0625") may be close to what is required to get a 1.75 mm (0.069") figuring it will swell as it comes out the nozzle."

Donate to our Laser Cutter fundraising campaign!

Hey, fellow makers!

We're trying to raise the last bit of cash we need to purchase a Red Sail X700 Laser Cutter/Engraver for the space and we need your help!  

As of 7/4 we're a little under halfway to our goal. Show your support and help us out, receive some cool stuff for your troubles, and get that warm feeling inside knowing that you helped out a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the community. Just follow the link below to send us a donation via our Indiegogo campaign. Remember, we are a non-profit organization and every little bit will help!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/make-lehigh-valley-laser-cutter--2

Large LED Clock from Recycled Components

Finished Clock

One of the first things I noticed after joining Make Lehigh Valley was that there was no easy way to tell what time it was if you weren't near a computer. After discovering a box of LEDs that had been recently donated to the space, I decided I would fix that problem. The LED clock itself is made of mostly recycled and donated parts. The 7-segment displays are made from laser-cut cardboard and tissue paper as the diffuser. The LEDs were rather unusual in that they were arrays of dies in a rectangular metal package; this lent itself well for the 7-segment arrangement.

Control Board

The control board is about as simple as it gets. The Atmega328 communicates to two MCP23016 16 bit I/O expanders and a Dallas DS1307 real-time clock chip via I2C. Also onboard is a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor. This allows the clock to function like one you would see at a bank. The display cycles through time, temperature and humidity - three seconds each.

Testing the Drive Method

Since the LEDs are actually small arrays, they have a forward voltage of about 7v - I was thinking I would need to multiplex the display and use additional transistors to handle the voltage, but the LEDs were plenty bright enough at 50mA (the output rating of the IO pins on the expander IC) so I was able to use a dual rail power supply to power the LEDs with the IO expander directly (well, with current limiting resistors anyway). The LEDs are connected in a common anode arrangement to the +12v rail of a power supply scavenged from a 10mbps ethernet hub. The logic runs from the 5v rail. When the pins on the IO expander go high (+5v), there is only 5vdc across the LED and so it stays dark. When the pin goes low, it gets the full 12v through 220 ohm resistors, limiting the current to about 22mA.

Hacker’s Phone Charger

This project starts a few months ago when one of our members was putting together a class for a girl scout troop. He was teaching them using adafruit trinkets and needed a fairly powerful 5v supply to power them. His Solution was to use some old rear pci slot mounted USB jacks, similar to the image bellow, connected to the 5v supply line of a PC power supply.

One day at the space someone needed to charge their phone so they plugged it in to the jack connected to the power supply. I liked the idea and decided to take it a bit over the top. I used openscad to create a box to hold all the USB jacks along with binding posts that connect to the +12v, +5v, and +3.3v coming out of the power supply. I printed the top and bottom of the box on the 3d printer. and now have an over-the-top hacker phone charger, raspberry pi and everything else power station. Two of the PCI USB slots had status LEDs on them. I added an attiny85 to blink them around in a cycle as just a fun extra feature.

Without further ado here is the finished product.

Here you can see the lights in action

The arduino code along with the stl and openscad files can be found at my github here https://github.com/jeffminton/usb_strip

Standing Desk Mod

Standing desks have become pretty huge lately. They are said to be a great way to avoid the long hours of sitting that accompanies many jobs. After using one for a few weeks when I was working in Germany I understood the hype and when I got home I had to have one for myself.

The first thing I thought was that I didn't want to just make a tall desk. That would have made it so I was always stuck with a standing desk. Sometimes you need to just sit down. When I looked for pre-made convertible standing desks I found out that they were ridiculously expensive. I knew I needed to make my own desk or modify the one I had.

I racked my brain for a while thinking what to do. I thought of some ideas that would put a new top on my desk that could be lifted but that seemed like a big task. Then I came across an eBay listing for 18 inch stroke linear actuators that run at 24 volts and could lift 600lbs. They were being sold by surpluscenter.com. Each actuator was about $45.

Using 4 linear actuators, a 24V linear power supply, an arduino, a relay board with 8 relays, and a few other components I created a convertible standing desk.

Check out the video below for a tour of the desk.