EEVBlog #555: The 555 kit review

555 kit review

Over at EEVblog, the (simply wonderful!) Electronics Engineering Video blog, Dave Jones has posted episode #555 — about our “Three Fives” discrete 555 timer kit.  It’s an hour-long video, in which he builds the kit on camera, and more importantly walks through the the equivalent schematic to explain (and show) how it works, right down to probing the circuit with a scope. If you’re interested in how analog electronic circuits work, you’ll likely find it to be an excellent use of an hour, even if you’ve already built the kit yourself.

The Winch Cutting Jig

WinchCutter 5

In our recent article, The Making of the WaterColorBot, we walked through the manufacturing process of the WaterColorBot, in which we make use of a number of specialized jigs, with varying levels of complexity.  We also left a teaser:

“The winch is also assembled from laser-cut wooden parts. The lower part has the shaft collar that mounts to the motor shaft, and the upper part has two halves that disassemble for cord management. It turns out that the winding-drum part of the winch needs to be quite round and concentric with the motor shaft for smooth operation– smoother than we can get with the laser. We solve this with our very-most-complicated assembly jig….”

And here it is.
Continue reading The Winch Cutting Jig

Cool Tools: Drill Press Plus by Vanda-Lay

Drill Press Plus 8

While in the course of a recent project, we ended up needing a machine to perform a particular operation. The operation was one that falls squarely into the (rather narrow) set of things that you would expect a “Dremel drill press” to be ideal for. And so (1) we got one, (2) found that it wasn’t very good and then (3) found an excellent alternative: The Drill Press Plus by Vanda-Lay Industries.

Continue reading Cool Tools: Drill Press Plus by Vanda-Lay

Decorating Christmas Ornaments with the Eggbot

ornaments

Despite what you might guess from the name, our Egg-Bot kit is not just for eggs.  In fact, it turns out to be a pretty freaking amazing machine for decorating and personalizing your own Christmas ornaments!

Today we’re releasing the “Eggbot Holiday Super Pak” — a set of Eggbot-ready holiday ornament designs to give you a head start.  The set includes the designs above and many more.  It’s free, available for download as part of our EggBot Example set (on our GitHub releases page), and will be periodically updated as we add more designs.

Read on for some additional tips and tricks for using ornaments in the Eggbot!

Continue reading Decorating Christmas Ornaments with the Eggbot

LED Pez Menorah 2013

Joyce sent us this picture of her 2013 Lord of the Rings Pez dispenser LED menorah.

I thought I’d share my new menorah hack with you all. Friends even started asking about “this year’s theme” so I guess it’s now an official tradition.

She incorporated our new multi-colored LED Menorah kit into this one. You can find our previous LED Pez dispenser menorah posts here and here.