Category: Tech

3D Printed Candle Mold – Burn 2020

I’m saying goodbye to 2020 by burning a 2020 candle made with a 3D printed mold. This project is part of a collab with my friends 8 Bits and a Byte, Make It And Fake It, Hannah Makes, Ian Charnas, and Natasha from Technochic! Be sure to watch the dramatic supercut:

I embedded a handmade ornament inside made from sheet metal. The little dumpster fire is revealed as the candle burns. I was inspired by PyroPet candles.

I had the idea that I should be able to 3D print a mold for liquid wax to make this candle. See, the melting temperature of the wax (~60 degrees C) is way lower than that of the PLA filament (~185 degrees C). I had made soy wax candles in the past, so I pulled out my candle making supplies and did some research online.

Soy wax is much too soft to use for casting– it won’t pick up fine details or hold its shape after demolding. My research suggested beeswax and paraffin are more suited to molding into freestanding pillar candles, but that beeswax is notoriously sticky, making it more difficult to remove from molds. So I chose to start my experiments with paraffin wax.

Supplies

For this candle, you will need:

For the brass ornament embedded in the candle (optional), you will need:

To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.

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LED Cylon Scooter – 80s Larson Scanner

This project is a very 80s upgrade to a very 80s scooter– I’m putting an LED strip in the grill of my boyfriend Smokey’s Honda Elite to create a larson scanner animation effect while teaching him how to solder.

Supplies

For this project I used a strip of WS2812b LED strip, also known as NeoPixels. I chose the densest variety to pack as many LEDs in as possible for a nice smooth animation effect.

To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.

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Easy LED Circuit

Today I’m going to show you how to create a simple yet customizable LED and battery circuit that’s perfect for putting inside your next project. This is a great first soldering project! Follow along with the video to practice your technique.

The most basic LED circuit can be made by sandwiching the legs around a coincell battery. This is also a good way to identify the positive and negative legs of the LED since it will only light up one way. That’s because LEDs are diodes, which allow electricity to flow one way, but not the other. The positive side of the battery should be touching the positive, usually longer, leg of the LED.

Put a little tape on it, and you can enjoy the glow for about a day before it gradually dies out. This is a hacky way to add LEDs to projects that only need to work for a short time, like costumes and props.

If you want to create a durable circuit, it’s time to bust out that soldering iron. In addition to your LEDs, you’ll also need resistors, some wire, some heat shrink tubing, a three-cell battery holder, either triple-A or double-A, and a switch, if your battery holder doesn’t have one already.

Supplies:

For this project, you will need:

To keep up with what I’m working on, follow me on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and subscribe to my newsletter. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you make using my affiliate links.

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GH5s Studio Setup – My Camera Gear 2020

Here’s a comprehensive list of the gear I use to capture and edit my DIY projects, tutorials, and videos. My tool selection is optimized for my photography and videography practice and has been built up and refined over a long time. I maintain the advice that the best camera is the one you have access to, and you can get really far using just your phone these days.

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Slack Status Updater

This project helps make your day a little easier if you’re a remote worker using Slack. I’ll show you how to build it using an ESP8266 wifi board. Don’t miss the video above for the overview.

Whether you’re new to using Slack or you’ve just been using it a lot more lately, you’ll understand the importance of setting your Slack status. It lets your colleagues know if you’re available to chat, in a meeting, out sick, etc.

Forget to set it when you leave your desk, and you may get interrupted by somebody who thinks you’re available. I thought it would help me remember to have a physical device on my desk that can set my Slack status for me. This project is a collaboration with Brian Lough, who’s an ESP whiz and author of many Arduino API libraries including this new one for Slack. You might remember my YouTube subscriber counter, which was also written using one of Brian’s API libraries.

If you’re new to Arduino, try my free Arduino class first.

Supplies:

For this project, you will need:

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Hunter Cat Card Skimmer Detector Review

Today I’m reviewing Hunter Cat, a business-card sized circuit designed to root out magnetic card skimmers. Thieves use skimmers to collect your bank card information, most commonly at ATMs and gas stations.

Dip the Hunter Cat into a magstripe payment device and it will tell you with some small LEDs whether it’s safe to dip your bank card.

It works by detecting the number of magnetic stripe heads inside the reader. Too many and the Hunter Cat will tell you it’s suspicious.

I keep my Hunter Cat in the dash compartment on my scooter, since I’m most likely to need it when I’m getting gas, but if I were traveling, I’d carry it with me to identify safe ATMs.

Hunter Cat is a collaboration between Mexican hardware company Electronic Cats and security researcher Salvador Mendoza.

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My Rooftop Ham Radio Antenna

I recently put a ham radio antenna on my roof, so I could get better signal inside my apartment, which isn’t on a high floor.

As an ultra beginner without a lot of investment in the hobby, it was perfectly acceptable to have to climb onto the roof to get any signal on my portable radio’s antenna. But the benefit of this larger, roof-mounted antenna is that now we can leave the radio on all the time and listen to it inside, which leads to more opportunistic connections and overall more time spent enjoying.

What follows outlines the process we used. I have previously written a guide about getting started in ham radio, in case you’re interested.

The antenna I got is a VHF/UHF antenna that mounts on top of a pole. My friend David, my boyfriend Smokey, and I put up one of these on David’s roof and on our own roof, and the two had different mounting situations. At David’s place, we used a mounting kit with metal straps and special brackets to hold the pole to a chimney. At our place, there was an unused analog TV antenna pole that we planned to repurpose.

Important note about safety: if you don’t know what you’re doing, consult someone who does (and who knows your local regulations, too). Putting an antenna on your roof brings the risk of a lightning strike which, if not properly grounded, can cause fire and other damage, as well as loss of life. I’m not an electrician or an expert.

Everything I used to connect to my Baofeng UV-5R radio:

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3D Printed Dust Port Adapter

Here’s a quick guide to making a 3D printed adapter to connect your power tools to your shop vac if they’re not naturally compatible.

For this example, I’ll be using my Ryobi planer and sander and my Festool shop vac hose, but these general instructions should work for any two tubes that are close to the same size as each other.

For this project, you will need:

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Meow Meow Mini: First Look

Today I want to introduce you to a new board, the Meow Meow Mini. It’s basically a capacitive touch keyboard, which makes it easy to turn any almost anything into a controller for games and other apps.

Meow Meow is created by my friends at Electronic Cats, a Mexican open source hardware company headquartered in Aguascalientes.

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