Bill and Ted’s Excellent Phone Booth Tree Topper

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Phone Booth Tree Topper

“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” custom phone booth:

Bill and Ted phone booth Christmas Tree Topper

“Be excellent to each other” should probably replace the golden rule at this point, and around the holidays there is no better phrase to live by — so much so, we wanted Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted “Theodore” Logan to be our Christmas tree toppers for a few years.

While the most excellent set of Bill and Ted collectible figures exists on the market, the phone booth in the box is made of cardboard and is definitely not bodacious, and wouldn’t be good enough to grace our tree.

Bill and Ted with their cardboard phone booth

Using reference photos from the movies, prop makers who have built their own replica, full- size booths, and the cardboard version, I designed a phone booth to be made from acrylic.

Design was made in Adobe Illustrator.

The acrylic was purchased from Delvie’s Plastics, and it was cut on the laser cutters at Nova Labs, a makerspace in Reston, VA. Weldon SCIGRIP 4 was used as the solvent to assemble the box.

Ring of LED lights for the top of the phone booth

An additional 3D printed component was designed in OnShape, made to hold small “Lilypad” LEDs (these are great as they have a resistor already in the circuit and run on up to 5v making USB power bricks usable).

Inside the phone booth are shadows of Abe Lincoln, Napoleon, and Socrates. These were printed on a Prusa i3 mk3s with a 2 color print in PLA.

Abe Lincoln, Napoleon, and Socrates

STL models for the figures were adapted from the following people, and were combined in Blender:

Links to some of the items used

Here’s a list of the products used that I purchased from Amazon (affiliate links below):

An acrylic phone booth depicting Bill and Ted and their time traveling machine.

And just so I have it handy, here’s the post on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6YOSB5FSm1/

Amazon Echo Dot – DOA?

Amazon Echo Dot – DOA?

Amazon Echo Dot (Generation 2)DOA (Deactivated on Arrival) Echo Dot?

Activation error 12:2:15:10:1

After hearing us extol the virtues of Amazon Alexa, and our small menagerie of Echos and Dots, my in-laws decided to buy three Echo Dot (generation 2) for their house. The drop-in/intercom feature is probably what sold them on it. One night after dinner, and freshly downloaded Alexa app in hand, I started going through the setup process. 1st Dot went just fine.

The 2nd dot simply wouldn’t connect to wifi. I could see the network it was creating and join it, but it wouldn’t accept the password for the house’s wifi. Several attempts, restarts, unplugging, etc, and I gave up and went to the 3rd Dot. That one was activated without issue; at least I knew the problem was with the device at this point.

A few more attempts with Echo Dot #2 finally there was a meaningful error code in the app:

12:2:15:10:1

A quick search and one Redditor suggested that calling Amazon customer support was the solution. I filled out a web form which included my phone number and I got a callback right away.

After explaining my multiple restarts, setting up 2 devices just fine, and giving the code, the rep asked for the device’s serial number. Low and behold it had been reported missing, and Amazon had remotely bricked the device preventing it from being activated. There was an issue with another customer reporting a lost shipment, and some serial numbers getting crossed in their system. A few minutes later and everything was squared away.

Bottom line – if you have trouble activating a new Echo and you get error 12:2:15:10:1, just contact Amazon support (unless you swiped it from someone’s porch – then you’re probably out of luck.)

Molding and casting demo by Reynolds Advanced Materials

Molding and casting demo by Reynolds Advanced Materials

There’s lots of ways to mold a cat.

Cast items on display. Photo by Steven Strasburg.

Jay Mazur, from Reynolds Advanced Materials, stopped by Nova Labs on January 25 to lead a demonstration on various types of mold making materials, applications, and techniques. Hailing from Macungie, PA, Reynolds Advanced Materials is a distributor for Smooth-on, a supplier of many different casting supplies to hobby and industrial markets.

Classrooms A and B at Nova Labs were full for the demonstration.

Classrooms A and B were both full of people interested in learning more about what can be done with urethane, silicone, rubber, epoxy, and more. Some of the materials had pot-life (the time you can work with the material after mixing the various parts together) in the two or three minute range, while others remain workable for much longer. A cast of a large silicone dime in Smoothcast 300Q (Q for “quick” apparently!) even had a dramatic reaction going from clear to opaque in a few seconds, surprising everyone in the room. It was pulled from the mold and passed around the room hardly 30 minutes after being mixed and cast.

Pouring high in a thin stream to reduce bubbles. Product was Mold Star 16 Fast – it has a 6-minute pot life and 30-minute cure.

Jay offered tips for working with various products:

  • The ‘double pour and mix.’ – you start by mixing in one cup, then transfer to another cup to ensure that you can thoroughly stir all the hard-to-reach material at the bottom of the container.
  • For foams, mixing part B a LOT before you combine with part A will help – you can add a lot of air to part B without worrying about the pot life (one flexibile foam he demonstrated only had a pot life of 50 seconds, so pre-mixing really helps).
  • You should also keep some clay on hand, just in case the wall around the part you are casting begins to leak.

At the end of the multi-part demonstration, Jay mixed a product called Alja-Safe and had everyone do a life cast of their thumb. After the 8-minute cure time, the same fast-cure urethane used on the dime was used to create reproductions of each person’s casting. At least a few people said that these would be used to create literal USB thumb drives!

For more info, check out www.reynoldsam.com

Here are some more photos from the class.

This post was written by Andrew Albosta for the Nova Labs blog, and cross-posted here.
iPhone 6 bracket for car

iPhone 6 bracket for car

My wife’s Honda Civic had a small pocket/cubby with a flip down door just below the stereo. On a recent road trip we found the door to be a good platform for an iPhone 6 running Waze, but it kept slipping off of the door. While a folded up napkin did an ok job of keeping it from slipping off, I thought “I can over engineer this!” so I did.

The idea was to make a 3D printed bracket that could be double-stick-taped to the door, allowing it to close as normal, but holding the phone when opened.

We both have Spigen bumper cases for our phones, so measurements were made for that. The design was completed using OnShape (this being my 2nd real thing modeled and 3D printed using the program).

Prototype 1 was much too big and clunky to allow the door to close, and the tolerances were a little tight for the phone even though it “fit.”

Prototype 2 was much smaller (and eliminated the end stops just to see if it would fit), but this still proved too big; the height of the base was too tall, as was the height of the back support.

Prototype 3 reduced the thickness of the walls and floor greatly, and added the end stops back in. The design was no longer symmetrical (like the first prototype) so a quick reflect was used in OnShape to make the second bracket.

The third design ended up working and fitting great. The door closes and the design is less clunky in general.

Download a Zipped .STL of the final prototype here: Spigen_phone_holder_V3.stl

You may also find the file on the OnShape website here.

48″ x 48″ CNC router and VCarve stools

48″ x 48″ CNC router and VCarve stools

Nova Labs recently bought a ShopSabre RC-4 CNC router for the wood shop. A few copies of VCarve are on computers at the makerspace, allowing members to setup their tool path.

Some of the regulars on Wednesday night decided to do a “one-night-build,” or a project we could start and finish in an evening. I started thinking of ideas that we could do on the new tool (mostly so I could learn to use it).

We landed on building some stools downloaded from the open source furniture website OpenDesk. Most designs on the site are setup for 4×8′ sheets of material but we found the Johann Stool from Johann Aussage would fit easily on our half sheets of plywood.

Adobe Illustrator was used to modify the designs for the actual thickness of the plywood we bought, and to eliminate some decoration.

After those design considerations were fixed, we used VCarve to setup the tool path. They have a a makerspace license allowing for people to use the software at home in basically a trial mode, but save the G-code from the properly licensed software at the makerspace.

A .25″ end mill was used for everything, including the holes for pins during assembly.

Final cleanup was done with a 1/8″ roundover router bit on the regular router table. The laser cutter was used to engrave the NovaLabs logo on the top of the seat, and a credit to the designer was etched (vector cutting at fast speed/low power) onto the bottom.

 

 

Vulgar Napkin Holders

Vulgar Napkin Holders

A colleague/friend of mine got her first solo apartment was lamenting that she was needed a bunch of household necessities, including a napkin holder. Since she hadn’t been in a while, I suggested suggested she could make her own at Nova Labs. Annoyed, she told me to make her one; I thought the best gift was one she’d regret asking for…

The first thoughts included some messy clipart faces (think Garbage Pail Kids stickers), but I quickly settled on some nice type and alliteration.

The design for the napkin holder itself was whipped up in Illustrator using a simple tabbed box type design.

Production happened using the laser cutter at Nova Labs.

A less vulgar version was created for a neighbor who commented on Facebook that they wanted one, but would have to wait 10 years before their kids could be exposed to the original!

3D printed GoPro mounts

3D printed GoPro mounts

Prior to a ski trip to Colorado earlier this year, I wanted to augment my box’o’GoPro mounts with a ski pole attachment. I wasn’t wild about the high profile of the official handlebar mount, so I did some searching for something better to 3D print.

Despite watching a bunch of tutorials and giving Fusion360 a shot, I decided I wouldn’t be able to create my own part in the timeframe I had.
Fortunately, there is a large community over at Thingiverse that is good at modeling, and is happy to give away their stuff.

User [madsdyd] had a GoPro 18.5 mm ski pole mount on the site, which would work well with the diameter of my ski pole.

One part cracked a little as the GoPro finger screw was tightened, as the 3D print couldn’t handle the twisting force on the nut itself. I’d say it worked alright, but despited leaving it attached to my ski pole all weekend, I never bothered to break out the GoPro to film with it.

Next winter…

Engraved cube Kickstarter backer gifts

Engraved cube Kickstarter backer gifts

Backer Gifts

The Nova Labs Kickstarter campaign ended successfully back in early 2015. One of the higher backer levels was for the backers’ name on a wall in the space, but we also planned on sending them a plaque.

I didn’t expect that someone would put 4 mounting standoffs on their wall, so I thought that something more like a paperweight for the backer’s desk or bookcase would be better.

The Cube

At the fall 2015 Adobe MAX conference, a booth for Universal Laser allowed attendees to make wooden stamp blocks using Adobe’s Creative Cloud Shared Libraries to get files from workstations to the folks running the laser. As the exhibition floor was shutting down they were handing out the remaining cubes, so I grabbed a few of the blanks to play with at home. I thought the 2″ cubes could be a good format for the backer reward.

Not wanting to settle on the first material idea I had, I also ordered a clear acrylic cube to test on.

In the end the acrylic seemed way too ‘corporate gift’ looking, with the birch wood being way warmer, especially after giving the final pieces a coat of tung oil.

Setup and production

The key to engraving these easily was setting up a row of seven 2″ squares that were lightly cut into a sacrificial material. The blocks were then put on these lines ensuring accurate placement of each faces’ design.

Fortunately the position of “home” doesn’t change as you adjust the Z-height (you need to do the light guide cut with the laser focused on the paper or foamcore, and then drop the bed down to accommodate the height of the block.)

Masking tape was used to reduce the discoloration of the wood due to smoke from the engrave, but I’m not sure if it was worth the time needed to remove all of the tiny counters of the text, vs sanding with a belt or disk sander.

As it was, the wood cubes were still sanded down after removing the tape. They were eventually finished with tung oil after doing a few tests with other finishes such as varnish and shellac.

Laser cut chairs and tables

Laser cut chairs and tables

A while ago I came across this cool program for designing chairs and other furniture – Sketchchair. While you could easily scale the chairs (or other furniture) to be human sized, I tested it by making some dollhouse sized items.

My first foray into the program netted me a clunky gaming rocket chair:

Laser cut 'gaming chair' model made from hardboard.
Laser cut ‘gaming chair’ model made from hardboard.

My second pass was actually a model downloaded from the website, which has a good number of community submitted designs, but adjusted to the size I wanted and material thickness I had available:

Model chair laser cut out of thin acrylic.
Model chair laser cut out of thin acrylic.

The third model I made was a sweet 80s inspired table.

Laser cut acrylic table model
Laser cut acrylic table model

Screenshot of 3D view of the table in the SketchChair program.
3D view of the table in the SketchChair program.

The software will also run a simulation to see if the chair will be stable when someone sits on it.

Screenshot of a simulation of a human sitting on the chair.
Simulation of a human sitting on the chair.

 

Renaming files in Mac OS with Automator

Automator window with settings for renaming filesI needed to do some renaming of files in Mac OS – the files had forward slashes in the name but this was giving Dropbox and subsequently Windows some problems as that character isn’t allowed on Windows.

I found a quick Automator workflow that I was able to setup as a Service, so it is available by right-clicking on a file and selecting “Services” then selecting the name of the action I saved.

Thanks to the user [richarddas] over at Stack Overflow for sharing his knowledge there:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1662995/automator-script-to-rename-files-on-mac-os-x

 

The workflow:

I’ve set up a service called “Rename Items…” that can be run by selecting any item (or batch of items) in the Finder, right clicking, and then selecting Services > Rename Items…

This is useful as it will provide a small popup window when you perform the action, where you can choose whatever settings you want (for example, you can make the sequence sequential, replace text, add text, etc.)

In order to create something similar for yourself:

  1. launch Automator
  2. when prompted, choose the “Service” template.
  3. drag and drop the Rename Finder Items action to the workflow area on the right (you can find this action easily by typing ‘rename’ into the search bar in the upper left of Automator)
  4. you will be asked whether you want this service to duplicate files when they are renamed (preserving the originals) or just work on the files themselves (if you do this, your actions will not be undo-able)
  5. configure the action to whatever you want the default prompt to be (“Add Date or Time”, “Add Text”, “Change Case”, etc.) I have selected “Make Sequential” as my default, but you can do whichever you prefer.
  6. At the bottom of the action bubble, there are 3 small buttons (Results, Options, Description). Choose Options, and then tick the box that says “Show this action when the workflow runs”)
  7. Lastly, at the top of the Automator window, you must configure two dropdowns that specify what this Service will be active for. Set this to: “Service receives FILES OR FOLDERS in FINDER.APP”
  8. Save and you’re done. Select any file in the Finder now, and under the Services menu you will find your new service (under whatever name you gave when saving, eg. “Rename Items…”) Whenever you run this service, you will get a popup window that allows you to configure your renaming pattern.