Feb 21

First Welding Project

Posted on by

I have got a flux wire welder and this is my first project:
giraffe

Bananas are just for scale.

I could of re-weld and re-polish all the imperfections, and do some finish, but maybe next time.

My takeaways about the welder. It is not a hand-help 3D printer or a glue gun, even though it spits the wire. You cannot (easily) 3D-print with it. Also, it is much easier to deal with thick material than with a thin one. It makes holes in thin metal sheets and pipes like a woodpecker. Also, you cannot safely weld most of the metal parts you see around because they are either galvanized or stainless of non-ferrous. Bummer!

May 26

Trash Can Repair

Posted on by

I have a fancy dual-bin automated electric trash can.
I almost like it (well, if it would also be Alexa-controlled… sounds like a new project idea…)
Anyways, it has 2 bins – for trash and for recycle.
And it has a fancy trash bag holder. Which has an interesting design but way too flimsy and does not stay in place.
So I decided to reinforce it.
Here is my design:
openscad

And here is the cutout:
Continue reading →

Mar 07

Is there a chance for fast laser engraving?

Posted on by

Laser engraving is pretty cool.
However, it has obstacles.
The biggest obstacle is engineering stubbornness.
Let’s take a look how getting mentally stuck inside the box holds us back.

Laser engraving with common GRBL controller is known to be sloooow.

Some folks claim that STM32 controllers are faster.
So I have got one of those and did a bench test.

Here is the board.

new-grbl

Spoiler: result was unexpected, but you can probably guess that by my bitterness in the introduction.

Continue reading →