Custom Hot Wheels- Lickety Split #1.

So finally getting around to posting the build I participated in a month or two ago.  The theme this time was "A Day at the Drags".  Wasn't really planning on joining in on this one, but I got to poking around through some Hot Wheels and had a bit of an epiphany one night while eating at Red Robin with the family.  So follow along with the build that was concieved on a napkin.  Pardon the bbq sauce...



Started out with these two castings, but eventually settled on using the yellow one.





And start cuttin.




So I tried something brand new out with this build. Scratch built wheels.









Don't know why but this stance just does it for me.

Penny Engine! So small you can power it with your BREATH.

A couple of weeks ago I had kind of a wild hair and came up with this little guy.  Flywheel is made out of a penny, and it will run on air from your breath!



It started out as this pile of leftover parts from past Hot Wheels builds.


All of that got turned into these bits.



Gotta have some semi-unique tools to do all that though.  The jewelers saw and pin vice / jewelers drill are lotsa fun to play with.



Getting the rotating assembly put together.



Piston, cylinder, and associated bits.



This type of engine is commonly called a "Wobbler" or an Oscillating Steam Engine, because the entire cylinder wobbles back and forth.  As it does, one of these holes lines up with the hole in the cylinder, letting pressure in to push the piston down.  On the way back up, the other hole lines up and lets the pressure out.



 

 





And of course, some videos of it running.  First one shows me powering it with my lungs and then a longer run with the air compressor.  Second vid was the second time I had ever gotten it to run, using the air compressor on that one.






This was a lot of fun to make.  It was even more fun to watch the band teacher, who you would think has lung capacity to spare, turn red, then purple, then white trying to get it to go!

Also wrote an instructable on this one and entered it into a couple of contests over there.  Check it out here:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Penny-Engine-micro-air-powered-engine/

Mendelmax 2.0 / enable Raptor Hand

Playing around again. Downloaded the Raptor hand from Thingiverse. Got most of the parts printed. I *really* need to get a .5 nozzle, it's taking forever. I think I'll have about 13 hours of print time into all the parts by the time I'm done, but I did make a couple of extra fingers and they are definitely NOT an "easy" print.

I tried doing the entire thing in one set but I had some bed adhesion issues. It was going to take waaayyy too long anyways. The first piece I printed was the palm.



Came out pretty nice. I'm still getting some warping on overhangs but everything else seems decent enough. Still not sure why I'm printing at 174 deg. C though (PLA). Pulled my extruder apart to check the thermistor but nothing seems out of place.

Few more pics of the palm.





Worst of the warping.  Maybe Mr. Flood can chime in and give me some more ideas of what to try here?



I thought this was pretty impressive though. Haven't done much with anything that has a serious overhang but it turned out nice.



And the gauntlet. Notice the two slots where it bridged. A little bit of goo but really it cleaned up nice.







Sure is a teeeeeny little hand. Makes me kinda sad- Don't know what I'd do if I lost the use of one of mine (knock on wood)...

Mendelmax 2.0. Still Chuggin' Away!

Ran several batches of student projects the last couple of weeks...








Decided it was time to figure out why my prints seem to have pretty poor quality. Found a neat little calibration widget to try different settings on, and proceeded to try a BUNCH of different things out...





First and last. I'm almost positive I have a thermistor that is acting wonky on the hot end- supposedly I'm printing PLA at 174 deg. C.



I still think there is room for improvement on the quality of the print, but I'm pretty happy with the results. This is a replacement cone for the cooling fan in the background.



Going to attempt printing an e-nable hand, sort of for fun but maybe for someone that might want to give it a try. We'll see how it turns out!

Santa's Heavy Hauler #4

Here's where the REAL fun begins. Hydraulic rams? Sure, why not.












For the next step I had to break out the wife's sewing machine.



Gotta have a sack for all those toys!



That pretty much finishes this build up.

















And just for fun, here's a short vid of the dump bed in action!



All in all, this was a very fun build. Didn't get to participate fully in the voting- apparently I had too many votes from people that are not in the Hot Wheels community. Meaning people thought I was pulling for votes. I guess I can understand their concern but for me this was really upsetting- I'd like to think I'm not that kind of person. As the French say, C'est la vie. It was lots of fun and I got to try out some new ideas. Live and learn!