Tools

Motorcycle brake rotor repair kludge

Motorcycle brake rotor repair kludge

Drilled and tapped for the screw and drilled a clearance hole for the mount bolt.At 20 threads per inch, that would be .050″ per turn. So .01″ would be 1/5 of a turn. Put on a standard six-flat nut for reference. Turn less than one flat would be .050/6 = .0083 inches, a little margin to the spec.

So, to use it, you spin and gradually drop the screw until it just touches at the highest point. Turn to the lowest point, and tighten down. Took less than one flat, so I believe I am in spec!

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan16
Future death machine nose art

Future death machine nose art

I’m pretty sure this TrueType font designed in 1998 by the now-apparently-defunct “Dragon’s Den Type Foundry” was intended for players of Games Workshop’s Warhammer: 40K tabletop wargame. But c’mon, seriously: what project wouldn’t be improved by a little faux-fascist heraldry? Perhaps a flying skull transfixed by a dagger and with lightning shooting from its eyes? […]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan

How-To: Magnify your workbench

William Grill needed a better view of his work surface for project prototyping. Using an inexpensive color video camera, he was able to create a simple display system that shows his work at 12x on his PC monitor. “It’s amazing what detail you can see when you view your solder surface mounted parts at 7-, […]

Continue Reading Gareth Branwyn4

64 synchronizing fireflies

64 synchronizing fireflies. It sounds like a line from some overly-clever children’s book or a Christmas carol. But it was instead a little week-long project for Alex at Tinkerlog. He writes: Last week, I invested some time to solder 64 Firefly boards. Only 2.432 solder joints later, I was ready for some videos. Every firefly […]

Continue Reading Gareth Branwyn6