Tiny Pinhole Camera

This is a very simple yet effective pinhole camera that I came up with out of necessity. I wanted something small, tripod mountable, and very quick to make and reload. The lid simply snaps on and off without needing complex clip mechanisms, and the exposed film winds into a second reverse mounted film canister to…

3D Printed Halloween Fly Mask

Halloween was approaching, now I’m not one for celebrating american traditions, but I’ve been invited to a few parties so needed to come up with something. Somehow the idea of a blowfly seemed appealing as I’d never seen a mask like that before, and making something with large compound eyes seemed like a blast. The…

Wanhao i3 Z-axis bearing block

Since extending the Z-axis on my wanhao i3 printer I discovered that there was a small amount of ringing toward the middle of the axis when printing at high speeds. To alleviate this I decided to use the feed screw to provide extra support. I did this by putting a small bearing block at the…

WANHAO Duplicator i3 Z-Axis extension

WANHAO Duplicator i3 Z-Axis extension Decided to extend the Z axis on my Wanhao i3 printer as it was wanting to print some rather tall teardrop lampshades. The whole process is very simple and only requires about $40 worth of parts, you will need: 1.5 meters of 60 x 3mm equal mill aluminium angle. This…

Verge-and-folio 3D printable Clock

This mechanical weight clock has been designed with ease of printing and construction in mind. The design uses a minimum of specialized parts, requiring just 2x paper clips, 4x 12mm countersunk head timber screws, some epoxy glue, 4x M20 stuctural nuts and 9x M14 nuts. All other parts are printed. All the gear and mechanical…

3D Printed Direct Current Electric Motor

This basic direct current electric motor has been designed with simplicity and ease of construct in mind, as such there are a minimum of parts and requires no soldering. This makes it an ideal classroom or children’s project.   The project consists of only 3 printed parts, four 2x10mm neodymium magnets, 2 C cell batteries…

Wanhao Duplicator i3 Y-Axis extension

So i went shopping in ALDI a little while ago and ended up coming home with a 3D printer and a bunch of other impulse items. The Cocoon Create 3D printer is actually just a re-badged Wanhao Duplicator i3 which is a very popular entry level printer with a huge online community. However after using…

Chickens and Other Living Stuff

A few spring showers and cooler weather this year meant that the garden picked up nicely, there is still a huge amount of work to do removing the nutgrass lawn and installing an irrigation system for the orchard, but it will happen. Trying to get the belgian d’uccle back into the hutch, she is a fast…

Restoring the Cosmos Valve Amplifier

A few months ago I spotted a very interesting and attractive looking valve amplifier on gumtree that I couldn’t resist. The amplifier was being sold for repair or parts as one of the valves was red-plating leaving one channel dead. This really didn’t phase me as troubleshooting valve gear is pretty straight forward, and red…