XY plotter pr0n
Riley Porter’s sweet plotter is built out of Contraptor beams and lasercut panels, and uses a custom stepper controller called TinyG that he created with maker Alden Hart. Next: can haz CNC?
Toolbox
Make it Anywhere, Part 2: Mobile Lab Substrate
Steve Roberts, the “high-tech nomad,” shows you how he built his mobile lab and makerspace.
RedBlueCNC: A modular CNC
MAKE subscriber Nick Santillan of Vancouver, BC, an ID student at the Emily Carr University of Art & Design, created this CNC for his thesis project. I decided to tackle on making CNC machine by allowing people to be more experimental with them to progress CNC technology from the bottom-up. The end result is a […]
Deluxe dead-drop spike in solid stainless steel
For those who aren’t up on their tradecraft, a “dead drop” is a place where spies or other clandestine-y folks drop off items for later retrieval by other agents. A “dead drop spike” is a particularly ingenious little container devised for the purpose. Basically, it’s a hollow metal spike, with a threaded watertight closure at the top. You put your top-secret microfilm or whatever inside the spike, take it to your dead drop, and stomp it into the ground with your foot. Then you cover it up with a rock or a piece of trash or whatever. The lid has a pull-loop built into it, so that when your contact comes by later to clear the drop, he or she can grab the spike by the loop and yank it out of the ground again.
Make: Time & Space: Win a Dymo LabelManager!
Recently Dymo sent me one of the label makers to review. The LabelManager 260P is a handheld unit that tries its hardest to include as many options as it can. First, let’s talk about the unit’s core function of printing labels. You can choose between three font styles: Basic (sans serif), Serif, and Fun, which […]
Make it Anywhere With a Mobile Lab
Steve Roberts, the “high-tech nomad,” shows you how he built his mobile lab and makerspace.
BrickLink is like Craigslist for Legos
Have you ever seen any of the amazing custom Lego work proliferating on the internet these days and wondered, “Where did they get exactly the bricks they needed to build that thing?” Sourcing parts can be especially difficult if your model, like Flickr user Legohaulic’s Great White Nautilus, shown above, includes lots of unusual elements. As far as I know, there is, as yet, no site or service in the world that will let you upload a list of Lego elements, in exactly the colors and quantities you want, and then price, pack, and ship you an order containing exactly those elements. It seems like a great idea, but the logistical problems of making that happen are enormous. BrickLink, however, is the next-best thing. Thousands of private Lego resellers from around the world have shops there selling kits, manuals, and individual elements indexed by official Lego catalog number. If you’re sourcing parts for a particular model, you still have to do some manual legwork running down the particular combination of BrickLink sellers that optimize price, availability, seller location, seller minimum order values, and so forth for the items on your list, but it’s still an incredible resource.