Tag Archives: MECHANICAL

The Even More Useless Machine

Posted by on May 4, 2011 2 comments
the even more useless machine with door closed

Yes, this box does something. No, it's not useful.

So this machine I came up with is useless, but unlike the original “useless machine“, it’s not only useless, it’s not even that clever!  All it does is open a lid on a box when a button is pressed or when the lighting changes around it.  On the other hand, it’s quite inexpensive to make, and it works automatically; so it’s got that going for it.

All you really need to make this is a Glade Sense and Spray unit (see my previous post about taking these apart), some sort of battery holder, and a small box available at a dollar or hobby store.  All this should be under $10.  Here’s a video of the “machine” in action, I’ll discuss how it was made and show an early prototype later in the post:

Even more useless machine fully open

Box is functional here, but not yet finished.

As can be seen from this early prototype shown to the right, there’s really Read more »

Making CAD Drawings Look Better on the Web (and Other GIMP Filter Uses)

Posted by on April 14, 2011 No comments

If you’ve ever tried to put a mechanical drawing that you’ve saved as a .gif or other format on the internet, you’ve probably noticed that the lines don’t generally come out that well.  Depending on your CAD package there is probably some way to fix this with a line weight selection, however, I’m going to focus on how to darken your lines after the fact.

To accomplish this, I used the free GIMP photo editing package and it’s set of filters.  While experimenting with this in GIMP, I also discovered that the “filter” menu in the main window can do some really cool effects as well.

"COVER" mechanical drawing

Before filter

cover after applying "cartoon" filter

After "cartoon" filter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The images above are simple examples of how the “cartoon” filter in GIMP can enhance a mechanical drawing.  In some circumstances, this may be helpful.  If you want to try this yourself, Read more »

Draftsight… Limited 3D capability?

Posted by on March 23, 2011 5 comments

I have used Draftsight at work for several months now alongside my installation of Pro E.  Although I don’t do any “creation” of parts with this package, I generally used to open .dwg files from vendors or colleagues.  It’s done a very good job with the 2D files that I’ve been opening, but today I got send a 3D .dwg file that I assume was made with AutoCAD.  To my surprise, Draftsight opened it up with no problem!

Here are some views that it generated, illustrating that you can pan rotate the image as you please:

Draftsight 3d capability

First view

Read more »

Capacitor Safety for Cameras

Posted by on March 21, 2011 1 comment

Capacitors are fairly common components when it comes to modifying/breaking electrical components.  However, they can be quite dangerous.  According to “repairfaq.org“,

“While accidental contact with capacitors on a 3.3 V logic board isn’t going to result in a shocking experience, this is not true of many common types of equipment including TVs, computer and other monitors, microwave ovens; the switchmode power supplies in some VCRs, laptop computers, camcorder battery chargers; electronic flash and other xenon strobes; laser power supplies, and many other consumer and industrial devices.”

camera partially disassmebled

Disassembled ==> Could be bad...

Most people familiar with electronics should know to be careful around TVs, but what many people wouldn’t think about is the smaller things, especially electronic flash devices.  Quite a bit of power is required to use a flash, and as such, quite a bit is stored in a camera’s capacitor.

I did an article about triggering your camera with an air freshener, which should be Read more »

The Angular Momentum Roller

Posted by on March 7, 2011 17 comments

angular momentum rollerI had a thought a while ago that a device could be built with no external moving parts controlled by conservation of angular momentum.  Angular momentum is the tendency of an object to stay at rest in a circular direction if no other forces act on it.  It’s why a large spinning wheel is hard to stop and why a skater can spin much faster by pulling her arms in.  It’s also why you don’t start spontaneously spinning for no reason.  However, if, say for instance, you had a large wheel that started to spin very fast because of a motor or other reason, your body would have the tendency to rotate in the other direction.  This is the whole premise behind this “vehicle”.

My first experiment with this was a strange and fairly crude object that I called the “angular momentum device”.  Although the science behind it was rather dubious, I had hoped to induce a spin about the center axis by spinning the two wheels on the sides.  In the video, it seems to work, but Read more »