Small machines, built on the bench.
3D printing, electronics and common parts, turned into things that move, light up and draw. Every build, the dead ends included, is in my notebook.
Latest from my notebook
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Bean There Dug That, part 3: a hopper that sorts gems from lentils, and a real scoop
Each crew's hopper is now designed: a bin in front of the console with a grate inside. The bucket dumps lentils and gems together. The lentils fall through the grate and slide back into the pit, and the gems stay on…
Bean There Dug That, part 1: a digging game for four
A new project: a table-top digging game for four players. Each player sits at a corner and drives a little servo excavator with two joysticks, and all four dig in one shared pit of lentils for red and blue glass…
Raccoon Soaker, part 5: built and wired
Version 4 of the soaker's enclosure is printed, assembled and wired. The camera, the mini PIR, the relay and the valve all work inside the real box. Along the way, the PIR bezel didn't fit the PIR, the valve got no…
Bench: exploding the model
Bench's 3D view can now pull a model apart. A model can be split into sub-assemblies (the electronics sled, the valve, the rail mount), and an Explode slider spreads them out so you can see how it goes together. Each…
Raccoon Soaker, part 4: the enclosure, version four
I printed version 3 of the soaker's outdoor box and learned what was wrong with it by holding it. Version 4 answers each problem: the inside is now a sled you build at the bench and slide in, there's a basement for…
Measuring a valve: four wrong models and one good drawing
I drew the Raccoon Soaker's solenoid valve four times, and each time the model had something wrong. What finally fixed it wasn't better measuring. It was a measuring sheet: a draw.io drawing of the model with every…
Projects
All machines →
Experiments
Bring-ups and test rigs →
Asteroid Test
WorkingA tiny Spacecavator-style digger on a Nextion screen: steer through rock and collect gems with a joystick, zoom with a knob.
Servo Tester
WorkingFind a hobby servo's real end points and centre: a PCA9685 driver, three knobs and a display, all run by an ESP32.
Stepper Test
WorkingA 28BYJ-48 stepper driven through the PCA9685 and a ULN2003: milestone one of the pen plotter.
Bench
Every machine here starts in Bench, our own workbench app. One project file gives you the breadboard, schematic, perfboard, 3D model and the firmware sketch, with a live circuit solver and one-click flashing to a real ESP32.
