256.makerslocal.orgMakers Local 256 – Huntsville's Community Makerspace

Skip to content You are using an outdated browser (IE 8 or before). For a better user experience, we recommend upgrading your browser today or installing Google Chrome Frame Makers Local 256 Huntsville's Community Makerspace Primary Navigation Menu Menu About Us Donate Member Donations Wiki Camera Stats Contact Us MakerBaker Phone: 256-368-MAKE Email: contact@makerslocal Location: 414 Stevens Ave. Huntsville, AL 35801 Mailing Address: PO BOX 2234 Huntsville, AL 35804 Live Chat: Slack Announcement Email List: lists.makerslocal.org Search Search Upcoming Events Site Info Register Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS WordPress.org Makers create reactive LED display at the DayLIT event. Click if you like blinking lights! ctag reinforces a table during clean-up day. Check out the other improvements! Members and non-members alike gather to make paper flowers for Wedding Week. Learn more... Makers Local 256 is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit of like-minded individuals who have created a hackerspace located in Huntsville, AL. Public Night: Tuesdays 6p - 10p A Weighted Storage Cube from Portal 2! [Part 1: Finished Results] 2019-02-03 By: Thomas Slusser On: February 3, 2019 Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at Makers Local 256 for their assistance and support throughout making this. I could not have accomplished this project without all of the wonderful people I met in HSV. As someone from out of town and only in HSV for the summer, I felt incredibly welcomed by everyone at the shop. Secondly, a huge amount of appreciation is in order to Reddit’s /u/fetchbeer ! He built the original version of this cube and was kind enough to post the plans to make it as well, which I used extensively in making my own slightly-modified version. His original post is available here . Without further ado, here’s some photos of the completed project! The Weighted Storage Cube is 20″ wide and tall, and approximately 2/3 the scale of what is displayed in Portal. My particular cube weighs about 60lbs with all the computer hardware mounted inside – my biggest modification over fetchbeer’s design was the addition of an internal cube which contains all of my home-networking equipment and a few hard drives I set up as a Plex media server. I plan on doing a complete write-up of my build process which will happen in stages. Unfortunately, I’m still taking classes as I finish up my degree so they might be spread apart over several weeks. The entire cube took me about 5 months to complete, working a few nights a week and weekends during an internship I had. It’s made up mostly of 1/2″ MDF and 3/4″ board, primed, painted, and protective-enameled for the occasional bump or scratch. My eventual goal is to put a piece of glass on top with an etched Aperture logo, but my first attempt failed miserably, so I’m trying to source a second piece of glass. The Aperture logo decals are mounted on 1/4″ MDF with a 1/8″ rounded edge which was easily accomplished with a router. The logos themselves were cut on a vinyl cutter and transferred to the 6″ round mounts, which have a set of four magnets inset on the backs. This means the mounts are removable – I plan on making a set with pink vinyl hearts, so it can double as a Companion Cube. The lights mounted inside are remote-controlled RGB LED strips, so lots of different colors can be chosen! Unlike /u/fetchbeer ‘s cube which had a large bottom hole to mount the lights, mine doubles as a media server so I wanted to use the bottom hole to mount a PC fan. This means the top of the cube had to be removable to mount anything on the interior. What makes my design different from fetchbeer’s is also the inclusion of an interior sub-box to contain various computer hardware. The original design had the LED strips mounted on a small cube on the interior, leaving no space for equipment. I mounted my LED strips on laser-cut panels approximately 1.75″ inches away from the plexiglass used in the cube “windows”. The interior of the box is a bit of a mess, but it contains a power strip, my Netgear router, a modem, a Rock64 single-board computer (a bit beefier than a Raspberry Pi) acting as a share point/Plex server, and 8TB of HDDs mounted in a RAID array. A 120mm PC fan is mounted to a special holder at the bottom and is controlled by the Rock64 to dump waste heat from when the HDDs are spun up or LEDs are on high. That’s all for now – I’ll begin writing up the whole build process at a later date, but feel free to forward me any questions you may want answered now and I’ll do my best to answer! The value of iterations 2018-07-02 By: thematthewknot On: July 2, 2018 In my house I have a pair of doors that I would like to leave open for good airflow, however I own a cat. Both rooms have things I don’t want the cat messing with. This started a very simple project that served as a lesson in iterations. I had a simple idea “just need something to hold the door a couple inches open” So in stead of really planning it out, i rushed off took measurements of the door, and the door frame and figured I’ll just wing it, and so armed with these measurements I fired up Fusion 360 and tossed together the first version of this device, and sent it to the 3D printer. Rather sure that i wasn’t going to nail this first time out I stopped the print about a quarter of the way though no reason to use filament for a rough draft. The first one I had the measurements right but it didn’t take into regard the fact that once you open the door those two faces(door and door frame) are no longer parallel so it actually didn’t even come close to working. It hit squarely on the outside of the door frame. On to number two, I eye balled it still very sure this was going to be a quick fix and I didn’t need to waste time planning this out it’s a glorified doorstop nothing complicated what else could I possibly be overlooking? So I tossed a good bit of offset in there again just winged a guess. Still not enough offset. Not to be beat by a door I went back and modified it yet again, try three. This was closer to what I was looking for, but I mistakenly had it’s 3d print infill too high so it took a good deal longer to get far enough though to stop and test. Still not fitting great but getting there, the front angled face that engages with the door frame is not right, and the eyelet to open it is too small. Try four, getting there the angle between the door and door frame is still not right but we’re certainly well on our way. Fifth try, starting to wonder if the airflow and or cat is worth this kind of time and effort. It prints and give it a shot, well the angle still isn’t right so I tweak the angle a bit more. Decide this is close enough to print a full one. So try six and sure this has to be it, so I print the full thing. Try seven, change the eyelet to be teardrop shaped to accurately reflect the feeling of being out smarted by a door. But I’m confident I have the angle dialed in after a half dozen previous attempts to print this one in full. And it’s good… but not great. The little raised bit i added on the inside of the door doesn’t have the leverage needed to unlock it so having to slide hand though the door. The big kicker happened at this point, i still didn’t have that angle down between the door/door frame. At this point I had three choices. 1) I could leave it and spend a life scraping up my hand getting though the door. 2) I could break out a geometry book, compass, paper, rulers, dice, lucky rabbits foot and figure out for sure what that angle is. 3) Do what I though about doing before step one which I didn’t do because “it won’t be worth the trouble”, model the entire door/door frame/hinge in fusion360 and let that do the math for me. So I did just that, I only needed to take two more measurements then i started with, the length of the door and the width of the door frame. I then created a joint at the hinge and just like that the door was swinging. I then pretty much star...