Pete “Raster” Prodoehl shows how to test microswitches with an Arduino Uno.

As referenced in his write-up, Prodoehl needed a way to test microswitches that he’d be using for an exhibit. After all, when something is on display, the last thing you want is to have to replace components. Inspired by how Consumer Reports tests things, he decided to build his own setup with a counter and 3D-printed “pusher.”

What he found was that when you’re testing the life span of a component made to work over and over, your testing components have to also be robust enough to handle the very gradual abuse. It’s an interesting exercise, and something that engineers in manufacturing have to deal with constantly. Getting something to work once or even a times is neat, but getting it to function thousands of times for a test or otherwise takes a different way of thinking!

You can see more about this project on Prodoehl’s page here, and check out the video compilation below for a quick overview.

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Heavy duty coffee makers are good for, well, making coffee. On the other hand, if you were to look at the frame without the preconception of what it can do, you might notice that there is space on top where equipment could be attached, and space on the bottom with a built-in heating pad on which to place an object… in other words, a perfect 3D printer frame!

Tropical Labs realized this, and turned the ordinary household appliance into a delta printer with three steppers for motion and another to feed the printing media. An Arduino Mega serves as the brains of the operation along with a popular RAMPS 1.4 shield.

Frame aside, it’s a neat mechanism, and definitely worth checking out. You can see more about the project on Hackaday.io.

[Yannick], aka [Gigawipf] brings us this (mostly) musical delicacy: a 3D-printed siren that’s driven by a brushless quadcopter motor, and capable of playing (mostly) any music that you’ve got the MIDI score for. This is a fantastic quickie project for any of you out there with a busted quad, or even some spare parts, and a 3D printer. Despite the apparent level of difficulty, this would actually be a great quickie weekend build.

First stop is Thingiverse, for the Mini Air Raid Siren model. Start that printing and get to work on the electronics. For the MIDI-to-ESC (electronic speed controller) conversion, any Arduino with USB support (ATmega32u4 or ARM boards) will work. The important bit is that you can run the MIDI-USB library. All that remains is a MIDI-to-servo pulse conversion and lookup table. Here’s [Yannick]’s file, but we’re guessing that you’ll want to tune your own siren.

How well does it work? See the videos below. Short notes, as well as note-offs, tax the quad motor’s ability to stop the siren rotor immediately. There’s a nice portamento effect as it ramps up between notes as well. You’ll need to pick your repertoire accordingly.

We have a strange affinity for musical sirens, so we’ll readily admit that [Yannick] had us at the word “spinning”. This is an easy project, with a pretty cool result. As far as we know, there’s only one 3D-printed, MIDI-controlled siren in the world, but it shouldn’t be hard to scale the siren model up or down to make different registers and effects. So who’s up for an entire symphony of these things?

After making his first drum with a laser cutter, Ryo Kosaka redesigned it as a 3D-printed structure so more people could build it.

If you’d like to practice playing the drums, but would rather not disturb your family, roommate, neighbors, dog, etc., then an electronic version is probably a good idea. Since you’re reading our blog, making one would be even better!

Although details on how it was interfaced software-wise with the Arduino Uno aren’t included in his log, the drum itself looks quite good. It’s 3D-printed out of several individual pieces, which are glued together using thick paper to help hold everything intact. The sectioned design means that you only need a 120mm x 120mm print area to produce this 8-inch drum pad.

Kosaka also goes into how to set up the piezo sensor for drum use in his write-up, which should be quite useful for this design, or even something derived from it. You can check out the project page for more details as well as Thingiverse for the print files. Additionally, Kosaka recommends this Rockband controller to MIDI Instructable or this one featuring a homemade electronic drum kit.

Build an Arduino-powered, 3D-printed, moon-walking bot with preprogrammed and custom gaits.

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The post 3D Print and Program This Adorable Bipedal Arduino Bot appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

From magic to science, man has long dreamed about being able to manipulate objects from a distance. People have been able to push something using air or even sound waves for a while, but University of Bristol researcher Asier Marzo and colleagues have come up with a 3D-printable device that can not only repel small items, but can also attract them to the source.

It does this using an array of sound transducers arranged in a dome shape at the end of a wand. The acoustic tractor beam is also equipped with an Arduino Nano, a motor controller board, a DC-DC converter, and a LiPo battery, among some other easily accessible components.

Basically, an Arduino will generate 4 half-square signals at 5Vpp 40kHz with different phases. These signals get amplified to 25Vpp by the motor driver and fed into the transducers. A button pad can be used to change the phases so that the particle moves up and down. A battery (7.3V) powers the Arduino and the logic part of the motor driver. A DC-DC converter steps-up the 7.3V to 25V for the motor driver.

Aside from entertaining friends by levitating small pieces of plastic, the DIY tractor beams have many possible use cases, particularly in biological research. However, there are some limitations. Given the challenge of suspending objects more than half the wavelength of sound, the gadget can only trap things around a few millimeters in size.

Marzo and his team have published their project in the journal Applied Physics Letters, and shared step-by-step instructions so you could get started on building your own beam. You can read more on Phys.org as well.

3D-printed appendages are, as one might suspect, generally meant for those that are missing a limb. Moreover, there are many other people that might retain partial functionality of a hand, but could still use assistance.

Youbionic’s beautifully 3D-printed, myoelectric prosthesis is envisioned for either application, capable of being controlled by muscle contraction as if it were a real body part.

As seen in the video below, the Youbionic hand can manipulate many different items, including a small box, a water bottle, and a set of keys. Functionality aside, the movement is extremely fluid and the smooth black finish really makes it look great.

The device is currently equipped with an Arduino Micro, servos, various sensors, a battery pack, and a few switches. Even the breadboard appears to be very neat, though one would suspect the final version will use some sort of PCB.

You can learn more and order yours on Youbionic’s website.