If you’re building a standalone project with an embedded PC (say, a CNC rig or a MAME cabinet) one of the easiest ways to get instructions to the software is using the PC’s baked-in keyboard interface. But if you don’t want to actually use a keyboard to control the thing, you need some way to convert button presses and/or joystick movements from your custom control panel into signals that look like keyboard input.
Roland DG is a subsidiary of the famous Japanese firm that makes sythesizers, drum machines, and other electronic musical instruments. Since 1983, the DG (“Digital Group”) brand has manufactured business-class plotters, engravers, mills, and other CNC tools. The iModela iM-01 is their first hobby-class product.
We have covered these spherical ice molds before. I have used one, myself, and they work pretty well. A chunk of ice is sandwiched between two halves of a metal mold, and fast conduction of heat away from the ice, through the metal, causes it to melt wherever the mold makes contact. The mold halves slide on rods to maintain their alignment, and gravity does the rest. With a mold that starts at room temperature, it only takes a few minutes to make a nice shiny ice sphere.
Of course the most prominent feature of VCarve Pro is it’s ability to make designs using a v-shaped cutting bit. You can easily generate g-code for sign and texture creation as well as engraving tool paths. The software automatically calculates the depth for the v-shaped bit to give sharp corners and intricate lines. Also, colors can be added to each toolpath to allow customers to preview the finished product.
This year marks my first Maker Holiday Season. As I wrote about in my last column, it’s given me an opportunity to reflect on what the last few months have meant. It’s also opened up a whole new world of possibilities: gifts I can make!
Making is as much about exploring as it is about building. Exploring new ways of problem-solving, understanding how things are made, how machine components fit together. And this week, for me, about exploring new tools.
There are a lot of makers who really like SketchUp’s approach to 3D modeling. Personally, I think it’s a great way to get kids hooked on the idea of designing physical shapes that they may or may not fabricate with the laser cutter or 3D printer. While it may take a bit to get the hang of scale and accuracy, once you have these habits, your designs are repeatable with a variety of CNC tools and many different materials.
By looking about on Thingiverse and in the MAKE Flickr pool, you can see that Sketchup is a fairly popular tool for many of us who like to bring our ideas onto this side of the computer screen. The Make Ideas Real with SketchUp project is looking for examples of things that have been designed with SketchUp and brought into the world. The folks at SketchUp are gathering stories with the Make Ideas Real project about how people are using the program to design the things they make.
