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The thought of using a 3D printer to fabricate PCBs is tantalizing and the good news is that it’s a reality. This project shows that it’s possible to use a special printer head to apply traces to an extruded substrate. This is similar to the point-to-point 3D printer circuits with one big upgrade. Now the traces [...]

Tags:  ink printer circuit printed-circuit-boards 3d-printer printer-head cnc hacks  

3D printers such as the RepRap and Makerbot turn spools of plastic filament into just about any object imaginable. There’s a problem though: this filament costs about $40 a kilogram, and raw plastic pellets cost about 1/10th of that. Obviously, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The folks at Inventables are throwing $40,000 at [...]

Tags:  plastic-pellets filament inventables cnc hacks  

[taulman] over on Instructables has been working on his own version of a 3D printer. Unlike the usual PLA or ABS filament all the RepRaps and Makerbots use, this printer uses nylon to make parts with very interesting properties. Most extrusion printers are designed to print with ABS (a very hard plastic that melts around 220-230° [...]

Tags:  printer abs nylon 3d-printer interesting-properties filament cnc hacks  

While browsing on one of our regularly visited sites, RobotsDreams, we found this interesting little video. Here, [Sublime] is showing off his 3d printed mini lathe. In the video he mentions that all the files are available for download so you could make one for yourself, but there were unfortunately no links. A quick bit [...]

Tags:  video mini lathe mini-lathe cnc hacks  

Over on the RepRap blog, [Rhys] has been experimenting with molten metal to build circuits with the RepRap. Last June, [Rhys] found a neat alloy made of Tin, Bismuth, and a little bit of Indium that melts at around 130° C, and has just the right properties to be extruded with a standard RepRap setup. [...]

Tags:  circuitry reprap printing rhys molten-metal indium bismuth cnc hacks  

3D printers are very popular right now. We’ve seen them go from an interesting project to multiple commercial entities. Makerbot seems to be the poster child for the commercial side of things, at least they were. Their former COO [Samuel Cervantes] is now in charge of a new company called Solidoodle. Their main product is [...]

Tags:  printer solidoodle project samuel-cervantes commercial-entities 3d-printer poster-child cnc hacks  

Writing for Hackaday isn’t all fun and games; occasionally I need to actually write posts and reply to emails from builders around the globe. Usually, though, I’m knee-deep in a personal project, or just hanging out playing a few video games. Recently I’ve gone off the deep end with Kerbal Space Program, an awesome little [...]

Tags:  video mapping surface personal-project space-program fun-and-games cnc hacks  

[Roy] is getting to the end of his second CNC mill project and finally seeing some results. Here you can see a bear he milled in some floural foam. The project started out as an Arduino-based pen plotter. It move the pen along one axis, and the drawing surface along another, with the third axis [...]

Tags:  mill project cnc roy pen-plotter pleasing-results cnc-mill hacks  

It looks like 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the resin-based 3D printer. The latest comes from [Michael Joyce] and is called the B9Creator.  Like other resin printers, [Michael] used a DLP projector to cure the print one layer at a time. The layer height is on the order of 100 microns [...]

Tags:  dlp-projector michael-joyce microns cnc hacks  

Homecut – CNC Cutting Directory So you have a CNC machine that you use as a hobby, but would like to do some actual work on the side? Or maybe you have an idea you’d like made. Homecut is a map directory where you can maybe hook up with the right person. The Curta Mechanical [...]

Tags:  directory cnc homecut cnc-machine map classic hacks  

Chocolate has got to be one of the worst choices as a printing medium. It’s extremely fussy when it comes to melting point, and even in the right state the flow of the material is not going to play nicely with high-resolution designs. With this in mind, we applaud the progress the student team from [...]

Tags:  printer extrusion chocolate printing-medium melting-point mores cnc hacks  

The people over at Pensa posted an awesome CNC wire bender on their blog. Robotic wire benders are common industrial machine that are very fun to watch. These machines can turn out custom wire-bent parts or sculptures in a matter of seconds. The Pensa team’s “DIWire Bender” might not be as fast as the big boys, [...]

Tags:  pensa bender diwire wire-benders wire-bender cnc-wire cnc hacks  

[CarryTheWhat] put up an Instructable on his endeavours in printing circuit boards for solder free electronics. He managed to print a flashlight where the only non-printed parts are a pair of batteries and a couple of LEDs. The circuit is a weird mix of point to point and Manhattan style circuit construction; after modeling a printed plastic plate, [CarryTheWhat] added [...]

Tags:  carrythewhat circuit printing manhattan instructable manhattan-style circuit-construction cnc hacks  

[Nick] is working on a prototype of a coffee table sand plotter that draws patterns in sand a lot like a zen rock garden. [Nick]‘s zen rock garden uses a magnet to draw a ball bearing across the sand in interesting patterns. The build uses 3D printed gears and laser cut parts to rotate the table around [...]

Tags:  rock zen sand nick zen-rock-garden coffee-table laser-cut cnc hacks  

On the heels of a small stirling engine we featured, an astute Hackaday reader sent in a few awesome builds from HMEM, the home model engine machinist forum. First up is a fantastic looking stirling engine made entirely from scratch. The build is modeled on a Moriya Hot Air Fan, but instead of making a fan [...]

Tags:  engine incredible home fan moriya-hot engine-machinist miniature-engines hackaday cnc hacks  

Some of the very largest – and coolest – CNC machines use supported linear rail for their movement axes. For any home tinkerer trying to reproduce these supported rails, the problem of cost comes up very quick; these rails can run over $100 for just a few feet. [Michael] came up with a great way [...]

Tags:  rail coolest cnc michael linear-rail cnc-machines axes hacks  

It’s hard to be an expert at everything, but this collection of wood joinery techniques will make your next project look like you’ve just finished your degree in mechanical engineering. They’re targeted for use in projects where thin sheets of plywood are CNC cut to make enclosures and parts. [Sean Ragan] mentions that these are [...]

Tags:  sheet joinery enclosure sean-ragan degree-in-mechanical-engineering joinery-techniques wood-joinery cnc hacks  

Former Hackaday contributor [mikeysklar] has been trying to etch a QR code into a sheet of copper. Although his phone can’t read the CuR codes he’s made so far, he’s still made an impressive piece of milled copper. The biggest problem [mikey] ran into is getting Inkscape to generate proper cnc tool paths instead of [...]

Tags:  former hackaday copper cnc-tool qr-code tool-paths cnc hacks  

Hackaday doesn’t always get the entire back story of a build. The usual assumption is that someone decided to build something, and with just a little bit of effort the project makes it into the Hackaday tip line. This doesn’t do justice to the builder, with skills honed after years of practice and experience. A 200-word summary is deceiving, and [...]

Tags:  hackaday adventure doesn word-summary tip-line assumption cnc hacks  

[Gary] sent a few pictures of his latest project our way via Flickr, which we thought a few of you CNC owners might be interested in. He has been working with his CNC machine a lot lately and decided it was about time he built a touch probe for his rig. His initial goal was [...]

Tags:  probe touch cnc gary touch-probe flickr cnc-machine hacks  

The guys over at North Street Labs were bored, so they figured why not go ahead and built a CNC machine just for kicks. While they haven’t put up build details on the CNC just yet, they do have some newly milled business cards to show off just how well the machine works. Part ruler, [...]

Tags:  business machine cnc north-street cnc-machine business-cards ruler Hackerspaces  

[Bob Berg] emailed in to request that we take a look at his website. We did, and we liked what we saw! [Bob] has done a couple CNC mill conversions and documented the process quite thoroughly. The first one listed on his site is a Sieg x-3, seen above. [Bob] explains that the first thing [...]

Tags:  website look cnc bob bob-berg bob-bob conversions hacks  

After years of work, [Junior Veloso] is finally getting his 3D printer project out to the public. Unlike the Makerbots and repraps we usually see, [Junior]‘s printer uses light-curing resin and a DLP projector to build objects with incredibly fine detail. One highlight of [Junior]‘s project is the development of low-cost resins. Normally, light curing resins are [...]

Tags:  junior printer dlp dlp-projector fine-detail resins cnc hacks  

Skills are all that’s needed to solve a problem. Take this four-wheeled robot as an example. [Michal Zalewski] wanted it to be omnidirectional but wasn’t very satisfied with the concept of mecanum wheels and the like. So he designed a chassis with wheels at each corner that can pivot as one to change orientation. The [...]

Tags:  mecanum robot problem wheeled-robot mecanum-wheels omnidirectional cnc hacks  

Long ago, before servo motors and linear actuators were common, clever mechanical devices were what engineers used to produce the needed motion for their processes. The CNC-cut Geneva Drive may not be fit for industrial use, but this type of device has been used in everything from film projectors to rotating assembly tables. The constant [...]

Tags:  geneva-drive linear-actuators little-geneva cnc hacks  

[Joshendy] wanted to get a better look at the cutting head on his CNC mill when it was running. The problem is that the rotating blades throw up a lot of junk which you don’t want flying around the shop so they’re usually surrounded with a shroud connected to a shopvac. He just milled is [...]

Tags:  dust mill cnc cnc-mill shopvac shroud hacks  

This 3D-printed model of the Tower Bridge is only 200 micrometers long. To put that into perspective, the distance between the towers is the width of a human hair. This model is the product of research at the additive manufacturing department of the Vienna University of Technology The models were fabricated much like normal stereolithography – a [...]

Tags:  printing nanoscale model width-of-a-human-hair vienna-university 3d-printing cnc hacks  

[Christian] is learning to use the metal milling tools at what we assume is his local Hackerspace. We love this about the communal spaces, they provide so many opportunities to delve into new fields. He embarked on a voyage that included visits to most of the machinery in the shop as he build his own [...]

Tags:  milling metal carabiner christian metal-milling milling-tools cnc hacks  

[Long Haired Hacker] has undertaken a high-resolution 3D printer build. He got his hands on some motors to drive the build platform but it doesn’t have a built-in encoder. He knows that optical encoder wheels can have problems due to dirt and grim as well as ambient light so he set out to find a [...]

Tags:  encoder haired long optical-encoder resolution-3d high-resolution cnc hacks  

If you’ve never felt at home with a piping bag in your hands this chocolate extruder will come to your rescue. It can replace the plastic extruder head on your 3D printer (RepRap, Makerbot, most 3-axis CNC machines, etc.), letting you turn your digital creations into decadent reality. The head uses a progressive cavity pump to feed the [...]

Tags:  extruder head chocolate progressive-cavity-pump plastic-extruder axis-cnc cnc hacks  

[Matt Bell] sends a shout-out to Hackaday by creating a light-painting of our logo with his string plotter. He starts off by setting up a pair of stepper motors which each have a spool to wind and unwind a string. The plotter is made by suspending a stylus between these two strings. In this case, [...]

Tags:  light string plotter matt-bell light-painting stepper-motors cnc hacks  

We haven’t heard much about 3D printing using stainless steel as the medium, but that’s exactly what’s going on with the lugs used to assemble this bicycle frame. They’re manufactured using LaserCusing, which is a brand name for parts produced using Selective Laser Melting. The video after the break gives you an overview of what [...]

Tags:  custom haven bike bicycle-frame selective-laser custom-bike cnc hacks  

[Adrian Bowyer] just posted his progress with multicolored printing to the RepRap blog. The new developments are a continuation of [Adrian]‘s experiments with a mixer extruder that squirts four different colored filaments out of the same nozzle. [Myles Corbett] took this idea and ran with it producing the two-color print seen above. To squirt two different colored [...]

Tags:  multicolor way reprap adrian myles-corbett adrian-bowyer extruder filaments cnc hacks  

This bicycle frame jig is cut from MDF. It’s the latest in a growing trend that we love to see: the increasing availability of manufacturing techniques for the common hacker. This is a Kickstarter project, and alas it appears the designs are not available for you to cut your own. But we love the potential [...]

Tags:  bicycle jig frame frame-jig bicycle-frame mdf cnc hacks  

While loading a 3D model into a CNC program and letting a machine go to town on a piece of stock is awesome, there’s a lot to be said about the artistry, craftsmanship and tactile feedback of carving a project by hand. [Amit Zoran] and [Joe Paradiso] created a nice bridge between these two approaches [...]

Tags:  fabrication handheld cnc joe-paradiso amit-zoran cnc-fabrication cnc-program hacks  

It’s no secret that the 3D printer community is extremely fragmented. With three models of RepRaps, three printer kits from Makerbot, and hundreds of ‘printers of the week,’ it’s extremely frustrating for beginners to wrap their heads around the pros and cons of each machine. The software for these printers is segmented nearly as much [...]

Tags:  printer secret Software printer-software software-tutorials pros-and-cons cnc hacks  

Light painting is a technique where a shape is drawn with a light source while a camera is taking a very long exposure shot of it. To do this well by hand would take a lot of skill, so I naturally decided to make my “light art” with a CNC router. Using this technique, the [...]

Tags:  painting light cnc light-painting light-art cnc-router hacks  

What would you do if you wanted to demonstrate a linear bearing system? If you’re like [Bart] the obvious solution is building a tiny little 3D printer. [Bart]‘s Quantum ORD Bot is constructed out of a previous project of his, the MakerSlide linear bearing system. The idea of a printer made out of MakerSlide materials came from [...]

Tags:  3d-printer bearing-system previous-project cnc hacks  

After a few months of eager waiting, [Brook Drumm] has finally released the files for his paradigm-shifting 3D printer, the Printrbot. If you didn’t order one of these during the Kickstarter, you can now print your own set of parts. [Brook] gave his Printrbot to the world last November with the promise of being extremely cheap, extremely [...]

Tags:  printrbot waiting brook kickstarter drumm last-november cnc hacks  

What does dry ice, ethonal, wax beads, and a blender have in common? It was the first attempts at making media for this wax 3D printer that [Andreas] has been building up. Wanting to produce 3D printed objects out of metal, and finding that direct metal laser sintering machines were still out of reach of [...]

Tags:  ice metal wax andreas d-print direct-metal-laser-sintering metal-laser dry-ice cnc hacks  

For most of the past year, [Joel] has been working on converting a manual mill to a CNC mill with the addition of a computer, brackets and stepper motors. He’s put an amazing amount of effort into his project, and the result is awesome and much less expensive than buying and shipping an old Bridgeport mill. [...]

Tags:  converting mill cnc joel bridgeport old-bridgeport bridgeport-mill stepper-motors hacks  

If you’re like us, you’ve been infatuated with the small RC helicopter you picked up on Amazon up until the point where it careened off a wall and broke its blades. Now that you’re wondering about what to do with that small pile of plastic, metal, and electronics, why not print some helicopter blades on [...]

Tags:  amazon point helicopter helicopter-blades rc-helicopter cnc hacks  

The folks at MakerBot Industries are introducing their new 3D printer at CES this week. It’s called the MakerBot Replicator and features dual heads for 2-color prints and a huge build envelope for huge objects From [Bre Pettis]‘ introduction video (available after the break), the build area is about 9x6x6 inches, compared to the about four-inch cube-sized [...]

Tags:  print makerbot replicator dual-heads color-prints inch-cube cnc hacks  

If you’ve ever wanted to build an awesome tabletop game or model train layout scenery, you probably couldn’t do better than printing Minecraft worlds on a RepRap. This guide comes courtesy of [Nudel] who figured out how to use Mineways with his RepRap. While [Nudel]‘s landscape print doesn’t have the full color of something from Shapeways, he only spent $3 [...]

Tags:  printing reprap minecraft model-train-layout tabletop-game nudel cnc hacks  

Want some fancy ice for your next cocktail party? You can try to find spherical ice-cube trays but you won’t get the kind of results seen here. It turns out the trick to this isn’t how you freeze the water, it’s how you melt the ice. [Brendan O'Connor] started this project after seeing an ice [...]

Tags:  ice craft milling brendan-oconnor cocktail-party o-connor molds cnc hacks  

[Johnie] built himself a CNC woodburner powered by the sun. Like the solar 3D printer we saw last summer, [Johnie]‘s build uses a giant Fresnel lens to focus sunlight onto a piece of wood. To get some control out of his build, a 2-axis bed was made from scrounged and junked parts. The lens in [...]

Tags:  lens woodburner cnc johnie giant-fresnel-lens 3d-printer hacks  

[Ed] is pretty old school. He loves the functionality of old industrial shop tools that have their own dedicated systems. With huge candy-like buttons, who wouldn’t? [Ed] decided to replicate this aesthetic by building a MAME controller for his Mach3 controlled router. [Ed] had a bunch of MAME buttons and joysticks sitting around from a forgotten [...]

Tags:  mameing mame router cnc-router dedicated-systems mach3 cnc hacks  

When Danish musicians Vinyl Terror and Horror visited [Daniel] and his CNC router at EMS in Sweden, things were sure to get interesting. The band uses heavily modified record players and modified vinyl records to produce strange soundscapes. During their time at EMS, Vinyl Terror and Horror were able to produce some strange vinyl that [...]

Tags:  terror vinyl horror daniel sweden danish-musicians music-concrete cnc-router cnc hacks  

If you’ve gone to the trouble of building your own CNC mill we know you’re always on the lookout for things to use it for. [Boris Landoni] wrote in with just the thing for the holiday season; a set of lighted acrylic Christmas ornaments. One of the interesting properties of acrylic is how it reacts [...]

Tags:  lighted christmas trouble boris-landoni interesting-properties cnc-mill holiday-season cnc hacks  

Here’s a laser cutting technique that makes thin plywood bendable. By cutting away elongated diamond shapes from the material, a lattice of strips connected minimally by alternating tabs is left over. The wood is then bendable, and it must be somewhat durable since the idea came from a product that uses the technique as a [...]

Tags:  laser plywood technique diamond-shapes lattice cnc hacks  

[Johan von Konow] wanted to make something special as a wedding gift to his wife. He decided a pair of interlocking miniature rings would be the perfect keepsake. He started his search for a way to mill the wooden rings from a solid piece of wood, and documented his journey for our enjoyment. This project [...]

Tags:  something wedding milling johan-von-konow wooden-rings keepsake wedding-gift cnc hacks  

If you happen to do a lot of SMD work, a pick and place machine is an incredible time saver. The problem is that most automated pick and place solutions are well outside of the “small outfit” price range, let alone the budget of a hobbyist. We have seen some great DIY pick and place [...]

Tags:  machine lot openpnp pick-and-place-machine time-saver hobbyist cnc hacks  

Most of the time, CNC machines are used for very precise and exacting. There is another way that allows for a more “hands on” approach to routers and mills that allows for a lot more creativity and freedom. The touchCNC these guys whipped up allows anyone to finger paint with a friggin router. From the forum [...]

Tags:  finger router extreme finger-painting routers creativity cnc hacks  

[Entropia] is just putting the final touches on his bar-top MAME cabinet (translated). The project started out as a 3D model to get the case dimensions just right. An old laptop is being, so the enclosure was designed to fit the bare LCD assembly and hide the rest of the computer. [Entropia] had access to [...]

Tags:  cabinet mame entropia mame-cabinet old-laptop case-dimensions cnc hacks  

3D printers are awesome, but boy are they frustrating. If you’ve built a RepRap Mendel, Prusa or Huxely, you know there’s nothing quite like trying to get a washer off of a threaded rod without disassembling the entire machine. This frustration in part sourcing, assembling and correctly aligning a printer is where printers like the [...]

Tags:  printer boy reprap 3d-printer prusa cnc hacks  

[Euphy] just posted and Instructable of his Polargraph drawing machine that’s able to draw huge images slower than molasses in November. The plotter only uses two stepper motors to control the position of the pen and can be made nearly entirely from salvaged parts – [Euphy] built his for just about £150. The Polargraph uses [...]

Tags:  plotter euphy pen pen-plotter stepper-motors slower-than-molasses cnc hacks  

[Jamie Mantzel] figured out his own way of 3D printing large objects without fear of warping. First a bit of background information. When using a 3D extrusion printer like the RepRap or Makerbot, prints that span a large area tend to warp. That’s because these printers lay down one thin layer of plastic at a [...]

Tags:  fear way technique jamie-mantzel 3d-extrusion 3d-prints reprap cnc hacks  

[Andy's] 3D printer build uses lasers to create objects from goo. The Stereolithographic process uses resin that is cured by UV light to create the finished product. A single laser mounted to a CNC gantry is able to precisely target a point on the surface of the resin to begin the printing process. As the [...]

Tags:  printer stereolithographic process andy printing-process gantry uv-light cnc hacks  

We think this is an intriguing take on half-tone art. It’s a CNC machine that uses an Arduino and two stepper motors to draw on a paper-covered drum. But you’re not just going to set it and forget it. To simplify the device, the Z-axis is not mechanized, but requires the dexterous opposing digit of a [...]

Tags:  half-tone take cnc cnc-machine arduino stepper-motors hacks  

Like just about everyone else out there, [Adam] thinks that CNC machines are pretty cool – so cool that he decided to build one of his own from scratch. The CNC machine was constructed mostly out of MDF and scrap wood, with drawer slides used for smooth gantry movement. An off-brand rotary tool was used [...]

Tags:  tad mill cnc adam cnc-mill cnc-machines cnc-machine hacks  

Like many makers, [Chris] has a Panavise Jr. on his workbench that he uses for just about everything. The tiny vise is great for all sorts of tasks, and is often considered an indispensable tool. The only problem with the vise is the amount of time it takes to open and close the thing. [Chris] [...]

Tags:  panavise winder vise chris indispensable-tool workbench cnc hacks  

[Jon] has been developing a slick little RC robot in bits and pieces over the last year or so, which can constructed by anyone with access to a 3D printer. Servos and electronics aside, the entire thing can be put together in short order using the plans he posted on Thingiverse. The robot makes use [...]

Tags:  track robot ease jon 3d-printer anyone-with-access servos cnc hacks  

[Paul Rea] decided it was finally time to get rid his CD and DVD library by ripping the data onto a hard drive. He has a rather extensive collection of discs and didn’t relish the thought of ripping them one at a time. So he set to work building his own automatic CD ripper/duplicator. Right [...]

Tags:  automated ripper time paul-rea automatic-cd cd-ripper duplicator cnc hacks  

[Paul] a.k.a. [VoidFraction] put up the source and documentation for his sculptures made with laser cut polygons. For computing his triangles, [Paul] developed LcAgl, an algorithm that transforms a 3D model into the AutoCAD file needed to cut a whole bunch of triangles and connectors. This file was shot over to a laser cutter and [...]

Tags:  playstation file laser paul laser-cutter 3d-model triangles cnc hacks  

Behold, another RepRap springs into existence! Well, springs might not be the best choice of words, it took a while and there were many bumps in the road. But [NBitWonder's] self-built RepRap is now finished and you can read his 14-part build log to see all that went into the process. We checked in on [...]

Tags:  close part reprap saga choice-of-words best-choice cnc hacks  

Do you think it’s not really possible to get amazing resolution from extruder-based 3D printers? You’re wrong, and this post about the attainable quality of prints on the Ultimaker proves it. The Yoda bust seen above was printed with a layer thickness of 0.02mm. This is a hack in itself because this process actually used [...]

Tags:  quality faq ultimaker attainable-quality quality-faq layer-thickness cnc hacks  

[Chris] recently got himself a nice web cam for documenting his Makerbot builds, and much like [Dino], he was looking for a way to get a bird’s-eye view of the action while keeping the camera nice and steady. While [Dino] ventured off to the hardware store, [Chris] tried a few different options that included tape, [...]

Tags:  camera-boom eye-view hardware-store cnc hacks  

[peter] send in a reprappable laser cutter that he’s been working on. Even though he’s still having some problems with the accuracy of the beam over the entire square meter bed, it’s still an amazing build. The build started off with a bunch of t-slot aluminum extrusions. After taking delivery of an absurdly large package [...]

Tags:  laser peter cutter aluminum-extrusions laser-cutter square-meter cnc hacks  

[Mark] wrote in to share a little creation that he is calling the first solar-powered 3D printer in existence. While we can’t say that we totally agree with him on that title, we will give him the benefit of the doubt that this is the first solar-powered RepRap we have seen thus far. You might [...]

Tags:  power reprap creation mark benefit-of-the-doubt 3d-printer cnc hacks  

[Jason] was messing around with CNC machines and came up with his own halftone CNC picture that might be an improvement over previous attempts we’ve seen. [Jason] was inspired by this Hack a Day post that converted a image halftone like the default Photoshop plugin or the rasterbator. The results were very nice, but once [...]

Tags:  halftone picture cnc jason cnc-machines rasterbator hack hacks  

Well, if we ever need something huge built on a RepRap, now we know who to call. [Jim] over at Grass Roots Engineering wrote in to share a large 3D print he just finished, which was extruded by an equally impressive home-built 3D printer. The part he built consists of a bunch of hollow green tubing [...]

Tags:  printer something diy jim grass-roots 3d-print reprap cnc hacks  

[Tom] sent in a gigantic 3-axis router that he pieced together during a 2 week-long work experience placement. Looking at this picture showing a 12-inch ruler on the work area, we realized that this may be the largest CNC router we’ve seen on Hack A Day. [Tom]‘s employer gave him some obsolete axes, so piecing [...]

Tags:  router work cnc tom 12-inch-ruler axis-router work-experience-placement hacks  

Sometimes, not all our builds work out the way we hoped. That’s what happened to [Rob] and his attempt at a Delta robot that does stereo lithography. A Delta robot is capable of very fast and precise movements, so [Rob] slapped a laser module on the end of the arms. After putting some UV curing [...]

Tags:  printer robot delta rob stereo-lithography robot-3d precise-movements cnc hacks  

As with most writers for [HAD], I enjoy doing projects as much as I like writing about them. As a mechanical Engineer that writes for a blog mostly about electronics, a CNC router seemed like something I needed in my garage. Building a router like this requires a bit of expertise in both electronics and [...]

Tags:  router call cnc cnc-router mechanical-engineer doing-projects hacks  

[Ben Krasnow] is working on  a project that uses an extremely expensive specialty mirror. He needed to cut curves into it, taking care not to chip or shatter the material. He’s found a reliable way of doing this with a CNC mill and is sharing his methods. The material he’s working with is a cold [...]

Tags:  material glass milling ben-krasnow krasnow cnc-mill curves cnc hacks  

[Arthur Sacek] has really got something with the 3D Mill he built entirely from LEGO pieces. As you can see, it uses NXT parts to control the cutter head along three axes. The drill bit that acts as the mill’s cutting head is not a LEGO part, but that’s [Arthur's] only transgression. The demo sculpture [...]

Tags:  lego head mill d-mill arthur arthur-sacek lego-pieces cutter-head drill-bit cnc hacks  

[Ben Grosser] built an interactive painting robot that’s pretty far removed from the LED and Arduino builds we usually see. The robot is adapted from one of the many CNC routers we’ve featured over the years. The control system is written in Python and uses genetic algorithms and a microphone to decide what to paint [...]

Tags:  artist robot robotic ben-grosser cnc-routers genetic-algorithms cnc hacks  

We have seen quite a few automated Etch-a-Sketch machines in our time, but when [Jason] wrote in to share his take on the subject, it came with a nice bribe attached. We are vain. It’s not something we are proud of, but when it comes to seeing the Hack a Day logo drawn out by a [...]

Tags:  sketch day hack jason bribe tribute cnc hacks  

Hey everybody, [Nbitwonder] is building his own RepRap 3D printer. What’s special about that? Well, not much and and lot all at the same time. The art of building a self-replicating 3d printer still has a lot to do with luck and forum-crawling to make all of the decisions that go into this complicated project. [...]

Tags:  printer lot reprap decisions cnc hacks  

There’s a new 3d printer on the block, and hot damn is it fast! Hailing from the Netherlands, the Ultimaker 3D Printer has finally hit US shores, and aims to give the MakerBot a run for its money. The Ultimaker was designed by Utrecht Fab Lab manager [Siert Wijnia] along with two frequent lab patrons, [...]

Tags:  incredibly lab ultimaker d-printer the-netherlands utrecht lab-patrons fab-lab 3d-printer cnc hacks  

[Tinkerer] bought a small cupboard from an antique store to fit nicely into his kitchen decor. After getting it home, he realized that some of the cubbyholes had originally housed drawers. The originals were long gone but this provided an opportunity for him to make the replacements seen above. The first design approach that popped [...]

Tags:  script laser parametric laser-cutter cubbyholes tinkerer cnc hacks  

[Metalfusion], built himself a nice looking CNC machine and has been experimenting with some out of the box uses for his new tool. One novel use he is particularly fond of is creating pictures with his machine (Google Translation). While you might imagine that he is simply using the CNC as an engraver, literally drawing images [...]

Tags:  machine creating cnc cnc-machine engraver google hacks  

[Nullset] uses inkjet printer technology for his 3D printing needs. We usually think of hot-plastic printing like the RepRap or Makerbot when we hear about rapid prototyping, but this setup uses a liquid bonding agent to turn powder into a solid structure. Standard inkjet cartridges can be used to precisely place the bonding agent, but [...]

Tags:  bonding printing inkjet rapid-prototyping nullset plastic-printing cnc hacks  

[TBJ] is building what he calls a junkbox 3D printer. You can probably guess that he’s trying to salvage most of the parts for the device, and after pulling a stepper motor from an old printer he was in need of a way to control it. What he came up with is a stepper driver [...]

Tags:  printer driver stepper stepper-driver junkbox tbj cnc hacks  

[Cody Sumter] and [Jason Boggess] are students at the MIT Media Lab, and they just came up with Minecraft.Print(), an attempt to create a bridge between Minecraft and the real world via 3D Printers. The print is first prepared by placing obsidian, diamond, gold, and iron blocks on opposite corners of the model in Minecraft. [...]

Tags:  design print minecraft d-printers jason-boggess gold-and-iron diamond-gold boggess cnc hacks  

We’re always amazed at what people can come up with using Lego parts, but this hack certainly pushes the limits. Originally conceived as a 3D printer, this plotter is still an impressive proof-of-concept. Ironically, this “3D printer” was build with the hope of winning a Makerbot 3D printer, so be sure to vote for it [...]

Tags:  impressive-proof 3d-printer proof-of-concept cnc hacks  

Flapjacks taste infinitely better when they’re machine-made. Well, that’s true for [Mexican Viking] who built an automatic pancake maker to the delight of his family. Obviously, the building material of choice is Lego. The machine consists of a base with two linear gears on either side. A gantry is held high above this base, travelling [...]

Tags:  pancake cnc-pdbu base pancake-batter-dispenser pancake-maker gantry cnc hacks  

The team at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories needed a footstool. Obviously not content with buying one, they came across the idea of building a 555 footstool. After finding some dimension drawings of the 555 timer IC, the team scaled everything up 30 times. While a normal DIP-8 555 is around 0.4 inches long, the footstool [...]

Tags:  team footstool gigantic timer-ic mad-scientist cnc hacks  

[Markus Kayser] built an amazing solar powered SLS printer, but instead of using lasers and powdered plastics his machine uses the power of the sun to heat sand into complex shapes. [Markus]‘ printer uses the same concept as his earlier solar cutter – burning things with a magnifying glass. Interestingly, the printer isn’t controlled with [...]

Tags:  printer selective sand markus markus-kayser power-of-the-sun sintering kayser cnc hacks  

Pick and place machines are marvels of modern technology. They the can lift, orient, align and drop tiny electronic components onto a circuit board that is headed for the reflow oven. On an industrial scale they move so fast it’s a blur in front of your eyes, and they use imaging to ensure proper placement. [...]

Tags:  machine pick technology pick-and-place-machine reflow-oven marvels cnc hacks  

The plotter featured above was, according to the author, made almost entirely of salvaged parts. In addition to what he had accumulated, only $20 in parts was needed to complete this build. Pretty good considering the thousands of dollars that a new plotter goes for. Control of all axes is accomplished using unipolar stepper motors.  [...]

Tags:  spare plotter axis stepper-motors axes cnc hacks  

The Gado project is part of the Johns Hopkins University Center for African Studies. It has been tasked with archiving documents having to do with the East Baltimore Oral Histories Project. In short, they’ve got a pile of old pictures and documents that they want digitized but are not easily run through a page-fed scanner [...]

Tags:  automated pile project east-baltimore johns-hopkins-university johns-hopkins-university-center oral-histories cnc hacks  

Tripod CNC Machining Setup:   Here’s a strange “tripod” device using the EMC software package generally used for CNC machining.  In this case it looks like something that (when scaled up) might control a sky-cam-like device that one would see at football games. The Off-Grid Container House:   Project to make an off-grid container house.  [...]

Tags:  tripod machining cnc emc-software sky-cam hackaday hackaday links  

Although some may have heard of a machine like this, the CNC tripod remains an unknown machine to many in the engineering word.  This particular machine is set up as a plotter, drawing incredibly straight lines, shapes, and letters. The machine appears to have 6 servo motors, 3 working as pairs.  This would simplify control [...]

Tags:  machine tripod cnc straight-lines plotter pairs hacks  

[Rich] was having quite a bit of fun with his newly-acquired laser cutter, but was not impressed by the stock aiming laser that came with it. The problem with the built-in laser is that it did not actually follow the cutting laser’s path – instead, it has to be calibrated for a fixed focal length. [...]

Tags:  laser crosshair cutter rich laser-cutter fixed-focal-length bit-of-fun cnc hacks  

[Richard Sum] came up with a great looking 3D printer and put his project up as a campaign on IndieGoGo. [Richard]‘s ‘SUMPOD’ is based off the reprap like a lot of other 3D printers, but the SUMPOD has a look of professionalism to it; the printer looks like something that would come from a factory. [...]

Tags:  printer factory sumpod richard richard-sum professionalism printers reprap cnc hacks  

[Dennis] recently invested some money in the Tormach Tooling System for his CNC’d Sieg SX3 mill in order to make his tool changes easier. While the kit allows him to easily account for height offsets while changing tools, he has no quick, reliable means of locating the spindle in relation to his workpiece. Tired of [...]

Tags:  touch diy cnc dennis touch-probe offsets spindle hacks  

Summer has hit, and with it a bunch of crazy people going to crazy festivals and (often) burning crazy sculptures to crazy music! In that vein [Matthew Goodman] recently got involved in the burning flipside community down in Texas for his first big effigy build.  The project called for a gigantic archway flanked by two [...]

Tags:  matthew-goodman crazy-music crazy-people cnc hacks  

Before I decided to build my own CNC machine I had seen a few bolt together machines on the internet, usually constructed using 80/20 aluminum extrusion. My write up describes my attempt at a completely DIY bolt together machine made from 25mm aluminum SHS, 50mm shelving brackets and lots and lots of gutter bolts. Building [...]

Tags:  bolt diy cnc aluminum-extrusion shelving-brackets cnc-machine hacks  

[Jonathan Ward] came up with the MTM Snap, a snap-together pcb mill as part of the Machines That Make group at MIT. We covered [Jonathan]‘s previous work made out of half-inch plywood, but the new iteration of his PCB includes a clever snap-together mechanism instead of screws and bolts. Although the MTM Snap looks a [...]

Tags:  pcb mtm mill jonathan jonathan-ward inch-plywood screws-and-bolts cnc hacks  

[Nirav] found that he rarely printed anything useful with his RepRap, so to shake things up, he decided he needed to work on a project that didn’t involve printing yet more RepRap parts. The goal of his project was to create working replicas of house keys by simply using the code imprinted at the factory. [...]

Tags:  reprap keygen project replicas real-world cnc hacks  

[Darrell Taylor] wanted to add a CNC control pendant to his mill but didn’t want to foot the bill which can often run several hundred dollars. These pendants are basically a physical remote control that operates the CNC software that controls the machine. Since he was already using a Linux box running EMC2, it wasn’t [...]

Tags:  control mill cnc darrell-taylor cnc-control linux-box hacks  

[Patrick McCabe] enjoys the challenge of playing chess against the computer but he wasn’t satisfied with the flat experience of on-screen gaming. No problem, he just built his own gantry-style chess robot that he can play against. Don’t be confused, he still doesn’t have to touch the pieces, but instead uses the dedicated control board [...]

Tags:  robot chess cnc don patrick-mccabe playing-chess-against-the-computer chess-against-the-computer hacks  

Psst…wanna buy a laser cutter, but not ready to sell your internal organs? Nortd Labs’ Lasersaur project aims to create an open source large-format laser cutter/engraver that undercuts (har har!) the cost of commercial models by an order of magnitude. A Lasersaur built strictly using componentry from the globally-available bill of materials will set you back [...]

Tags:  laser lasersaur cutter laser-cutter commercial-models internal-organs cnc hacks  

Looking for more ways to enhance his 3D printer, [JJ] decided to make it wireless. He got his hands on some $10 Bluetooth modules and figured this would be just the thing to make the link with his laptop. They came as surface mount modules, so the first thing he had to do was develop [...]

Tags:  thing printer work 3d-printer printer-work surface-mount cnc hacks  

While we normally don’t make it a habit to feature Kickstarter projects, we couldn’t pass this one up. [Barton Dring] from BuildLog.net is putting together a project called MakerSlide that we’re sure will interest many of you out there. Through his various CNC builds, he has found that one of the more expensive and frustrating [...]

Tags:  bearing linear source barton-dring bearing-system dring cnc news  

It’s honestly sad that Valve has not released any official Portal-related items to the masses, as a market for them clearly exists. As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”, and [Jamie] needed a Weighted Companion Cube in the worst way. Actually he constructed his Companion Cube in order to test out some [...]

Tags:  companion weighted cube jamie necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention mother-of-invention incinerator cnc hacks  

[Juan Jose Chong] put together a set of videos and a PDF guide to milling printed circuit boards. You’ll find the pair of videos, totaling about twenty-two minutes, embedded after the break. In them, [Jaun] details the techniques used by the IEEE chapter at Texas Tech University to mill PCBs instead of using the traditional method [...]

Tags:  pcb milling tutorial juan-jose-chong printed-circuit-boards texas-tech-university pdf-guide cnc hacks  

Have a bunch of time on your hands, and about $2,500 sitting around? Why not settle in and build yourself a laser cutter? That’s exactly what Buildlog forum member [r691175002] did, and he told us about it in our comments just a few moments ago. Laser cutters can be pretty cost prohibitive depending on what [...]

Tags:  laser cash cutter laser-cutters laser-cutter few-moments cnc hacks  

[Csshop] is setting a new bar for building an inexpensive CNC mill. Not only did he complete his build at a very low cost, but it seems to work quite well too. Check out the video after the break to see the device cut out thin wood parts for a toy plane. The majority of [...]

Tags:  junk mill cnc toy-plane thin-wood hardware-store hacks  

The team at [blablabLAB] have been hard at work on their latest project, which they unleashed on the streets of Barcelona in the La Rambla pedestrian mall. Their art installation allows you to pose in the middle of the mall and receive a plastic statue of yourself as a souvenir. Not unlike the “Fabricate Yourself” [...]

Tags:  mall souvenir installation art barcelona art-installation pedestrian-mall la-rambla cnc hacks  

[Reinventing Science] needed a project that he could use to test out his skills on a new CNC routing machine he recently acquire. He settled on building a PC case using easily obtained materials. What he ended up with is the clean-looking case seen above that was machined from materials you can pick up at [...]

Tags:  case router cnc building-a-pc pc-case hacks  

[Caled] shows us how to build a tilt and pivot camera base. One of these can be quite handy for taking precisely aligned images that can later be stitched together into panoramic, or even spherical images. We have grand visions of being able to produce something along the lines of these stunning interactive images with [...]

Tags:  spherical-images grand-visions interactive-images cnc hacks  

Having never been any good with an Etch-a-Sketch, [Ben] decided it was time to tame the children’s toy that had taunted him for so long. He received one in a gift exchange a few years back and hung onto it, recently digging it out again to fit it with some CNC components. Using his RepRap, [...]

Tags:  sketch good cnc ben cnc-components etch-a-sketch gift-exchange hacks  

Grab that stack of old optical drives you have in the corner and get to work building this laser engraver. [Groover] is taking a no-nonsense approach to the build and we think it is just simple enough to be accessible to a very wide audience. The physical assembly uses sleds from two optical drives. These [...]

Tags:  bench-top laser engraver laser-engraver physical-assembly nonsense-approach cnc hacks  

This looks very much like a violin but it sounds very much like someone abusing a family of cats. [Ranjit] came with the idea of building a violin using laser cut parts. It doesn’t follow the normal curved shape we’re used to seeing with string instruments. This is because the parts were all cut from [...]

Tags:  noise laser-cut violin curved-shape noise-maker cnc hacks  

As a kid, [Wes] always dreamed of building a full-size, functional R2-D2 droid from Star Wars. While most youthful aspirations such as this fall to the wayside amid adult responsibilities and commitments, he did not allow his dreams to disappear along with his childhood. He began his droid-building journey armed only with his dreams and [...]

Tags:  cnc-built childhood life wes r2-d2-droid youthful-aspirations r2-d2 cnc hacks  

3D printing of Kinect-mapped models seems to be all the rage lately. [Nirav] caught the bug and has developed software which allows him to join in the fun. Frustrated by the lack of documentation and source code for the Fabricate Yourself project, he set out to create his own open-source process for scanning people and [...]

Tags:  printing kinect-mapped chilling all-the-rage source-code drinks cnc hacks  

[Windell] developed an Inkscape extension called Hershey Text that helps you process fonts into vector representations. If you’ve tried to 3D print, plot, or mill text in the past you may have run across the problem of generating vector paths that deal with the outline and fill of the text appropriately. The problem stems from [...]

Tags:  inkscape vector text vector-representations engraving-fonts vector-paths cnc hacks  

This 5-axis CNC router could soon be an open source tool. [Mike Calvino] built it for the School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas. It can be used as a router or as a plasma cutter/welder. Now he’s trying to raise some money that will underwrite his time and effort to develop and release instructions, design [...]

Tags:  router source cnc mike-calvino axis-cnc-router open-source-tool plasma-cutter hacks  

There never seems to be a lull in the stream of new and novel hacks that people create around Microsoft’s Kinect. One of the more recent uses for the device comes from [Interactive Fabrication] and allows you to fabricate yourself, in a manner of speaking. The process uses the Kinect to create a 3D model [...]

Tags:  carbonite kinect encase 3d-model lull cnc hacks  

[svofski] sent us this pick and place robot (Google translation) that he found , and it’s quite unique. The majority of the components that make up this pick and place have been recycled from old computer equipment. The X-axis motion is accomplished using old printer parts, while an old CD-ROM drive was gutted to provide motion [...]

Tags:  pick-and-place-robot axis-motion cd-rom-drive cnc hacks  

We’re not saying it’s a simple project, but the build methods that [Alan Sawula] used for this DIY pick and place are probably the easiest we’ve seen yet. As this is just a CNC machine, the methods he used would also work quite well for mills or other machines. Instead of using precision rods for [...]

Tags:  pick diy project alan-sawula precision-rods cnc-machine cnc hacks  

This set of white RepRap parts were created in molds, instead of being printed by another RepRap. [Mark A. Ganter] of the University of Washington admits that this breaks the idea of a 3D printer that is self-replicating. But the molds – which were created by tweaking Prusa Mendel parts to be mold friendly – [...]

Tags:  mendel prusa reprap mark-a.-ganter 3d-printer ganter cnc hacks  

“Kick the tyres & light the fires” is a blog by [Ruscool Electronics] that is focused on building a cockpit simulator from scratch, and while the blog is loaded with all sorts of nifty information, reader [Brian] pointed out one entry which explains how to make back-lit control panels out of acrylic sheet, and a [...]

Tags:  blog buttons backlit brian cockpit-simulator acrylic-sheet fires cnc hacks  

[Tim's] been busy moving his pick-and-place build toward completion. We looked in on the first version of the vacuum head back in October. Since then he’s ditched the camera enclosure which allows for more light and better mounting. The tip has been replaced by one from a pair of vacuum tweezers, and the whole thing [...]

Tags:  vacuum update open tim vacuum-tweezers vacuum-head camera-enclosure cnc hacks  

[Steve] wanted a dock for his Droid phone but couldn’t bear to put cheap-looking parts in his nice BMW. He decided to build his own in order to satisfy his functional and stylistic needs. His main goal was to have a dock with no wires showing, but it also needed to be removable and have [...]

Tags:  droid dock cnc steve docking-system main-goal transportation hacks  

What do you get when you mix a simple X/Y plotter, a Flyback transformer, and an unhealthy disregard for safety? Possibly the worlds most dangerous jumbo Etch a Sketch! [Kalboon] started off by making an imprecise X/Y movement device, similar to a CNC machine setup, but with less emphasis on precision. This rig is powered [...]

Tags:  etch sketch high flyback-transformer cnc-machine high-voltage cnc hacks  

Here’s a mounting system that adds mechanical tilt control to the iPhone. It uses two servo motors to rotate along the X and Y axes. An analog joystick is used along with an Arduino to control the movement of the apparatus. As you can see in the video after the break, this works quite well [...]

Tags:  motion tilt iphone analog-joystick tilt-control motion-controller cnc hacks  

The AutoFrost CNC cake decorator is the result of a student project a Olin College of Engineering. [Tara Krishnan] and her classmates designed and built the hardware, as well as a Python interface that is used for drawing the design you want printed in frosting. The X and Y axes are controlled by stepper motors, [...]

Tags:  decorator cake cnc tara-krishnan python-interface autofrost olin-college-of-engineering hacks  

[Howard Matthews] never throws anything away, and because of it he was able to build this CNC mill using parts that he already had on hand. He pulled stepper motors out of broken stage light, precision rod and bearings from old dot matrix printers, and other various bits from his junk bin. We’ve seen [Howie's] [...]

Tags:  cobbling mill cnc howie howard-matthews dot-matrix-printers stage-light cnc-mill hacks  

[Ian] wrote in to tell us about the Guerilla Guide to CNC Machining and Resin Casting. He came across it in the reference links to another project and says he wish he knew about it a long time ago. We took a look and there’s a mountain of useful information in the guide, which is [...]

Tags:  guerilla-guide resin long-time cnc hacks  

This is an inkjet print head made using a RepRap. The manufacturing process is both simple and ingenious. It uses a vibrating piezo buzzer to pump printing liquid through a tiny nozzle. The red disc seen above is exactly the same diameter as the piezo that resides behind it. There is a hole offset from [...]

Tags:  print inkjet head piezo-buzzer tiny-nozzle 3d-printer cnc hacks  

This 3D printer build is a thing of beauty. It prints in ABS plastic on quite a large base. The platform provides all of the X and Y movement, making the gantry stationary except for the Z axis. it is possible to print parts up to about 15″x15″ by 13″ high. The gray hose snaking [...]

Tags:  thing printer reprap 3d-printer thing-of-beauty gantry cnc hacks  

Okay, it’s more like the 23 days but who’s counting? [Kliment] is giving the gift of self-replication this holiday season by uploading one new printable part a day. If you follow along and print each one you’ll have a Prusa Mendel by Christmas (this started on 12/2 so you’ll need to catch up). The Prusa [...]

Tags:  prusa gift holiday kliment self-replication mendel cnc hacks  

[Mike Rankin] built a small CNC machine using some PC parts. He repurposed two optical drives and a floppy drive to create the plotter seen drawing the Hackaday logo above. The X and Y axes use the stepper motor controlled read heads from two optical drives. The Z axis is built using the read head [...]

Tags:  machine drive cnc mike-rankin stepper-motor optical-drives hacks  

[Stephen Eaton] created an enclosure and shared his process in a pair of blog post. We thought is was amusing that he remarks on how rarely his projects get the to point that you’d want to make an enclosure for them. We’ve certainly got a lot of bare-PCB creations lying around. But when it does [...]

Tags:  project way enclosure stephen-eaton eaton cnc hacks  

This is a vacuum tweezers head for an open source pick-and-place. Those are the machines that professional printed circuit board manufacturers use to populate a circuit board with components before heading to the reflow oven. [Drmn4ea] built it with at-home rapid manufacturing in mind. The black orb on the left is a webcam for optical [...]

Tags:  board circuit source printed-circuit-board-manufacturers vacuum-tweezers circuit-board-manufacturers cnc hacks  

This laser engraver was built using printer parts, a CD-ROM carriage, and some homebrew electronic boards. The laser diode is a 1-Watt model similar to what we saw used as a weak laser cutter back in August. When the width of the material changes the focus of the laser is affected so the diode was [...]

Tags:  laser engraver watt laser-engraver laser-diode watt-laser cnc hacks  

This art piece makes drawings based on sound. [Mario Marchese], who is responsible for those illusion props back in february, built this little guy out of a bunch of junk he had lying around. It features four microphones that listen to ambient sound and feed the signal through some LM386 audio power amplifiers. The output is [...]

Tags:  small sound cnc mario-marchese audio-power-amplifiers art-piece hacks  

[Owen] contacted us to show us his site dedicated to his CO2 laser cutter build. He spent about 2 years and roughly $15,000 putting it together, so this is not small build. The laser and optics alone were $9,000. This site isn’t necessarily meant to be a template to build your own, but he shares [...]

Tags:  laser cutter site owen c02-laser laser-cutter optics cnc hacks  

[Bart] figured out how to use his laser cutter as a 3D printer. We’ve checked in on his open source laser cutter in the past and we’re happy to see he’s now done with the build. But rather than stop there he took it a step further. For less than $200 he built an extruder [...]

Tags:  printer laser cutter bart laser-cutter 3d-printer extruder cnc hacks  

[Gavilan Steinman] just printed and assembled his own RepRap machine and filmed the process. This isn’t news but we found it very interesting to watch. He started with a RepStrap, a rapid-prototyping 3D printer that as built by hand instead of printed by a similar machine. This is the seminal step in the self-replicating process. [...]

Tags:  printer reprap repstrap rapid-prototyping 3d-printer steinman cnc hacks  

The old saying, “garbage in, garbage out” may need to be re-evaluated. Students at Victoria University of Wellington are developing a machine that recycles old milk jugs, extruding an HDPE plastic filament that can then be fed into a MakerBot for 3D printing. The process involves grinding the plastic into small pieces, then pressing these through a heater [...]

Tags:  garbage milk makerbot milk-jugs victoria-university filament cnc hacks  

Imagine if you will for a moment, you’re printing along on your Makerbot clone and all of a sudden your PTFE hot end melts, what are you going to do now? One solution is to mill your own all metal end from a bolt with some careful drilling. Or you could follow [Peter Jansen] who [...]

Tags:  end makerbot metal peter-jansen bolt clone cnc hacks  

[Reza Naima] has been using an Arduino as the center of his CNC setup for quite some time now. It handles three stepper motors, limiting switches, e-stop, and spindle control. The sketch he’s using allows him to stream g-code to the popular prototyping platform, freeing him from needing a dedicated PC. It’s worked so well [...]

Tags:  arduino stream cnc pc.-it stepper-motors prototyping-platform naima hacks  

This is a redesigned x-axis for [Peter Jansen's] selective laser sintering rig. We looked in on his SLS project last month and since then he’s been refining the design. The new component uses a rack and pinion system, relying on some Kapton tape to reduce friction for a nice smooth slide. One stepper motor powers [...]

Tags:  laser hardboard cnc peter-jansen kapton-tape selective-laser hacks  

From the horse’s mouth, “In this lithography experiment light creates free radicals from phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide which induce polymerization of 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate.” Or for those without a Chemical Engineering degree, light from a (high resolution) projector interacts with a special liquid, producing a hard polymer on the surface. A platform within the liquid is lowered, taking [...]

Tags:  printing horse liquid degree-light free-radicals engineering-degree cnc hacks  

[Peter's] been hard at work designing an affordable Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printing platform. We first saw his work on this back in April when he was working mostly with acrylic. Now he’s moved on to a design that relies on hardboard which has resulted in a build that comes it at around $20 [...]

Tags:  selective laser sintering peter selective-laser 3d-printing hardboard cnc hacks  

Satisfy your need to view some quality machining by looking through this Stirling engine worklog. We’ve seen these engines used a few other times in creating electricity from solar energy, powering a car, and even built from aluminum cans. [David Morrow] built this rendition to push the limits of his machining skills. We’d say he [...]

Tags:  horizontal engine machining david-morrow stirling aluminum-cans stirling-engine cnc hacks  

This final project at MIT turned out quite nice. It is a CNC mill that cost under $100 to make. The tolerances are pretty tight as you can see in the pictures of the PCBs he has milled. He shows that he can even mill mild steel. It is a pretty brief writeup, but you [...]

Tags:  project mill cnc cnc-mill mild-steel writeup hacks  

[Webca] has made a 3D printed MakerBot with his MakerBot. Using five pounds of plastic, the design replaces all of the plywood used to create a regular MakerBot. This complements the existing designs for the 3D printed extruders, dinos, and other parts already on Thingiverse. An interesting mile marker in the history of 3D printing. [...]

Tags:  webca makerbot plastic d-printed mile-marker plywood cnc hacks  

PartKAM is a Flash-based CAM production package created by [Jack Qiao]. There are a ton of computer aided manufacturing suites out there, this one is simple and requires nothing more than having your browser open. We played with it for a few moments and found it useful but still a bit buggy. Most notably, it lacks a ‘undo’ [...]

Tags:  online partkam cam jackqiao few-moments buggy cnc hacks  

Paintball as a large format printer? That’s exactly what facade printer is. A paintball gun was mounted with two controllable axes of movement. A computer reads in the image data and prints it out by shooting paintballs to form a dot-matrix display. There’s a couple of wins here, the paintball paint can be washed off, [...]

Tags:  printer paintball graffitti dot-matrix-display large-format-printer paintball-paint cnc hacks  

This table-top extruder was modeled after the Makerbot. Instead of laser-cut wood this is built from acrylic, uses salvaged rods from laser printers, some inexpensive stepper motors, and a homemade extruder. All said and done, [Peter Jansen] figures this build came in somewhere around $200-300. It may not look as nice, but at half the [...]

Tags:  extruder makerbot clone peter-jansen stepper-motors laser-printers cnc hacks  

Working with easy replication in mind, [Peter] is building a 3D laser printer. The majority of the machine is made from laser-cut acrylic held together by parts that are inexpensive and available at your local hardware store. In the end this will lay down a layer of powder, use a laser to fuse the powder [...]

Tags:  printer laser powder peter laser-cut hardware-store laser-printer cnc hacks  

Get a quick fix of CNC for the day with this plotter. [Francisco Dulanto] grabbed the cartridge carriage from an old inkjet printer and turned it into a gantry by mounting it on two drawer sliders. The optical head assembly from a cd-rom provides the Z-axis movement with the whole thing controlled by three RepRap [...]

Tags:  fix plotter cnc francisco-dulanto axis-movement drawer-sliders optical-head hacks  

Lacking the patience to do it by hand, GeekPhysical built a CNC machine to decorate Easter eggs. We do mean eggs from chickens used to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter, not hidden nuggets in technology used to amuse geeks. The results seen in their video (after the break) are quite impressive considering that the [...]

Tags:  egg easter cnc christian hidden-nuggets egg-decorating easter-eggs hacks  

[Keith] built this aluminum-plate heated build stage for his MakerBot 3D printer. We just saw a different MakerBot heated build stage yesterday that relied on glass as the printing surface. Keith’s design is similar to the aluminum RepRap bed but scaled down for the MakerBot. He had a piece of aluminum machined the to correct [...]

Tags:  bed aluminum makerbot keith aluminum-plate 3d-printer printing-surface cnc hacks  

This heated build stage seeks to make 3D printing with the MakerBot a little easier. When hot ABS or PLA meet the cold, cruel world they have a tendency to warp. This was concern for [Devlin Thyne] when he was developing our Hackaday badges. What you see above is 10 Ohm nichrome embedded in clear [...]

Tags:  stage makerbot heated cold-cruel-world thyne ohm cnc hacks  

[Fedeortiz12] and his team are nearing completion of their CNC mill (english translation). They set out to build a standalone machine that takes G-code in the RS274/NGC format from an SD card and machines parts accordingly. At the heart of the system is an ARM LPC2148 controller with a character LCD and control pad for [...]

Tags:  arm-based mill cnc standalone-machine character-lcd control-pad hacks  

[Ben's] father was a metalworker and the combination of being around metal fabrication for most of his life and getting a couple of art degrees brought together a satisfying combination of hacking skills. Above you can see a Graffiti Machine that he built, which we’ll look at in-depth after the break.. This isn’t the first [...]

Tags:  machine combination graffiti ben art-degrees metal-fabrication cnc hacks  

This beautifully crafted grinder would make any machining enthusiast salivate.It features a fixture for holding your work at any angle or orientation to the grinding wheel but the slotted bed also allows for other attachments to be used. Two of the examples shown in this highly detailed (machine porn) writeup include sharpening bits and light [...]

Tags:  thing precision grinder precision-grinder grinding-wheel thing-of-beauty cnc hacks  

If you think there’s never enough computerized numerical control in your life perhaps the pizza plotter should be your next project. This is a large 2-axis machine that shoots pressurized sauce onto a pizza crust. It’s a food-grade RepStrap and appears to use a garden sprayer as a reservoir. They learned [...]

Tags:  print pizza control computerized-numerical-control own-pizza pizza-crust cnc hacks  

[Bart] built a giant laser etcher from scratch. One of his first test engravings included the Hackaday skull-and-wrenches on a polished granite floor tile (we love it when people do that). He used an XMOS controller and Mach3 CNC software to handle the device. With just two axes to worry about this seem like an [...]

Tags:  laser engraver etcher bart laser-etcher laser-engraver granite-floor cnc hacks  

We’ll ask it again, why aren’t we building our own printers? We’re building 3d printers, CNC mills, and hacking the ink cartridges on commercial printers. What does it really take to build say a 300 dpi black and white printer? Something that lets you clean and service the print head rather than throwing it out [...]

Tags:  aren building cnc commercial-printers 300-dpi black-and-white-printer HackIt