Pranešimai

Old LPG tank makes for a pretty robust grill.

Vaizdas
      We had this old grill that was all in tatters, quite literally. And for whatever reason noone, except for me, wanted to replace it and just kept adding on more scrap metal to keep it together.  I thought enough is enough and I'm not cooking anything on that pile of scrap anymore and started making a new grill.     For my grill I took one of my brother's LPG tanks that he had cleaned and modded to be used as a compressor tank. But that was 4 years ago and not much has happened, besides the rust on the tank because it basically sat forgotten outside the whole time. So I've decided to yoink the tank and turn it into a grill.  LPG tanks in particular have an expiry date, after which they need to be re-inspected but the inspection usually costs almost the same as a new tank so people choose just buy a new tank instead. This means that there's a surplus of old LPG tanks. But the amount isn't huge as the inspection period is 10 years. Since these tanks are made to h

Homemade injection molded silicone heatblock sock leads to some new discoveries along a stinky surprise.

Vaizdas
      I'm using a clone of a E3D V6 hotend on my homemade 3D printer and it's having problems with stability. Part of that instability is caused by part cooling as it seems my hotend is only capable of handling only the slightest breeze, otherwise it can't can't keep up and my PID loop goes wild.  So, inspired by Stefan from the CNC Kitchen YouTube channel, I decided to make my own.      Starting with the model of the block, I took a drawing of the heatblock I found online and made a copy of it in Fusion360. Then I created a new solid by offsetting the surface of the heatblock by 2mm, which is my desired thickness for the silicone sock. Then I cut out parts of the body where the nozzle, the heater and other components had to stick through, along with the holes for the screws. Next, the whole thing was placed in a block and a cavity within the block was created. After that the block was sliced into pieces and screw holes were added to clamp the assembly shut.  Once the

Modding a laptop power brick into a lithium pack charger and some Manhattan style prototyping.

Vaizdas
      I've built a few 4S lithium battery packs but I didn't have a charger. So I decided to make one by modifying a switch-mode power supply. The power supply I used had a special plug on it with three pins. One of them being a sense pin to change the voltage. On this plug an adapter would connect, which would have a resistor in it that would change the voltage on the output. This power supply is nothing special, though. All this wire does is go straight to the REF pin on the TL431 reference IC inside. How do I know that? Because I accidentally blew the TL431 and had to pull the power supply apart to replace it. If you're willing to pull apart a laptop power supply you can add this wire to the TL431 reference and you'll have basically the same thing I have.     Opening them can be a pain. Mike from mikeselectricstuff shared in one of his youtube videos that whacking the weld/glue seam on the power supply will crack the joint and the power supply will come apart. But I&

Old leather SAAB seat makes for a pretty comfy chair.

Vaizdas
    I used to have a SAAB 900SE, which I lost in a car crash. It was the S pecial E dition meaning that it had all the bells and whistles, including the black leather interior, which I kept in the hopes of either selling or using in the future.     Some years later I found myself sitting on the most uncomfortable, raggedy wooden chair ever and decided that it's about time I do something with those SAAB seats.      So I found some material to make a simple and quick frame to hold the seat up at a good height. To find out what height it needed to be I just measured the wooden chair I was using before. The material I found was a 2m piece of 30x50mm pine lumber that I had left over from my shelf build.     I cut the liece of lumber into six pieces, two 40cm long and four 30 long. Then screwed them together into "U" shapes. These made the legs of my chair. I then needed to tie the two "U" pieces together but didn't have any more of that pine lumber, so I scramble

Damaged 3D printer glass bed repaired with 5-minute epoxy!

Vaizdas
     Just recently I had a print tear out a huge chunk of glass out of my print bed. I was printing a cover for my 18650 battery holder and this cover had a large, completely flat surface laying on the glass bed. This is great for surface finish but in my case it stuck too well and took chunks of glass with it when I pulled the print off.  And it had only been two weeks since I made my homemade heated glass bed so I did not feel like throwing it out and making a new one. Fortunately the chunk was not in the middle of the bed but even then I would lose 30-40% of my print area because I would have to avoid the pit caused by the missing glass. But as one wise man said many times - "I'm not havin' it!".     So I hatched a plan to fix the heated bed and to do that I decided to use the cheapest 5-minute epoxy from the grocery store. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Worst case the epoxy just pulls off the glass with the print and I'm left with exactly what

3D printing a new shift knob for my SAAB.

Vaizdas
       The soft plastic outer shell on my shifter knob broke away and was kind of just hanging on there. Shifting gears wasn't too bad but the plastic shell kept moving up and down on the shifter until it fell off completely leaving me with a sharp white plastic piece that was very awkward to hold.      This seems like a common thing with SAABs because my previous one had the same happen to it too at some point because the outer shell was already gone when I bought it. Back then I just wrapped the remaining plastic bit with black felt tape and called it a day. But now I have a 3D printer, so why not print myself a new knob? And that's exactly what I did.     First I measured up the remaining plastic part, onto which the soft plastic shell was attached. Then I whipped up a design in Fusion360 based on those numbers. I didn't really know what shape was best for a shifter so I just eyeballed it. I think it came out ok but could still be improved.     On the top of the knob I i