Author Archives: paulwallich

One step forward, multiple steps back.

Posted on August 28, 2015 by paulwallich

The good news: after 7 months I finally got the metal hot-ends for my printrbot metal plus. The bad news: I need a new printrboard. The irrelevant news: I think I’ve discovered a  failure mode for printrbot’s extruder board that … Continue reading →

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Anti-aging technology

Posted on July 30, 2015 by paulwallich

Along with some of my mother’s tool collection, I inherited her complaint that as she got older her arms were getting too short to read things. Even if I wanted to just crank up the type size, there’s a limit … Continue reading →

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Retrobotics

Posted on July 27, 2015 by paulwallich

The 10-year-old has been getting into my old Mindstorms RCX stuff. I wrote an article about back when it was cutting-edge, and it’s been sitting mostly idle ever since. The laptop he’s using (the only one in the house that … Continue reading →

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Beware the clearance tech, my son

Posted on June 12, 2015 by paulwallich

For it will drag you down a rathole. When I saw that tricolor LED strip marked down to seven bucks at the local Radio Shack this winter, I thought, “what the heck, might as well pick it up.” Less that … Continue reading →

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Measure Once…

Posted on May 27, 2015 by paulwallich

This is what happens when you’re trying to design a part to fit something that you don’t have a good model of. These are all the prototypes of the fan duct I made for my printrbot jrv2, starting on the … Continue reading →

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I don’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed

Posted on May 22, 2015 by paulwallich

I got a refurbished  HP laptop off a discount site a couple months ago, so that I could have a machine for doing hacker/maker stuff away from home (we have a macbook, but it’s flakey with arduinos and only runs … Continue reading →

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Switching 3D printing filament: purging versus cleaning?

Posted on May 15, 2015 by paulwallich

Before building a part out of ABS (because it has to be strong but not brittle) on my Metal Plus, I ran the hot end up to 225C and told octoprint to extrude a bunch of filament. I ran it … Continue reading →

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Label Your Filament

Posted on May 11, 2015 by paulwallich

“Yeah, right, you say, I would never forget to do that.” And then you start getting filament that comes unspooled in a bag, on a cheapo unlabeled cardboard spool, in an unlabeled bag in a box with a label on … Continue reading →

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Octocopters are the new normal

Posted on April 23, 2015 by paulwallich

So at this afternoon’s maker meeting at the library, while the kids were soldering LEDs and making very loud reeds out of plastic binder clips, Tim showed off his multicopter, which he uses for HD video and photography. It stands … Continue reading →

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Montpelier Maker meetings

Posted on April 10, 2015 by paulwallich

A bunch of us got together in the library basement as usual. The kids made a bunch of eggbot eggs and a blinking arduino; the grownups talked about projects ranging from fan-based lissajous figures and photonic communication demos to mobile … Continue reading →

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