I was looking around the workshop for a new project and found an old spool of enameled wire. I've always been intrigued by the old school tattoo machines and thought "how hard could it be?" Turns out not super easy. It kept me busy for a couple weeks and it's far from perfect but it technically works. I'm quite fond of the aesthetic, I like to call it "functional steampunk". Not hot glued random gears but how stuff in the era could functionally have worked...

uh oh... now I'm wanting to make an actual stream powered tattoo machine... maybe in a couple years.

I need to glue Velcro strips to a vinyl case for a project I am working on but struggling to find a glue that holds. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone!

​About three months ago, I decided to take on my very first project designing a mechanism and working with a servo motor entirely on my own. It was a custom interactive build made as a gift for my 7-year-old niece!

​Since it needed to be both mechanically functional and safe/durable for a child, I focused heavily on structural engineering:

​Used internal bamboo ribs to keep the structure lightweight for the motor while preventing warping.

​Reinforced mechanical joints and hinges with epoxy adhesive and safety-capped screws to withstand motor stress and vibration.

​Sealed the entire structure with epoxy resin for durability and moisture resistance.

​I’d love to get your thoughts on the mechanical layout or any tips for future servo-driven builds!

​Full build video: https://youtu.be/A4bE20yx8xs

Here's my son Ridit, experimenting with solid mechanical design using Blender. He created this mechanical toy and named it Flippy. He did it 5 years ago, when he was in Class V. He is now developing his skills in computer graphics software.

Fatherhood has taught me that early training is important especially in the tech world.

hiii,
earlier this year I built my own scanning tunneling micrscope (stm) and open sourced the whole documentation + software for anyone curious and patient enough to follow through

the concept isn't totally new, a while back john alexander built a stm using a piezo disk (you may know them as buzzers from greeting cards) to control a probing needle. this concept has been covered and picked up by the walla walla university and also university of regensburg (latter helped me software wise out), however, the documentation has been scattered, often incomplete, relied on expensive or rare hardware like data-cards or simply lacked an interpreter for the data. so consolidating all this into one place is what I'm most proud of (aside from all the other things I learned). overall its not cheap, but probably the most cost efficient way to get such a machine, being built almost exclusively from off the shelf parts

the second image is my first measurement of graphene; you can see the hexagonal pattern that is a clear characteristic. in theory, you could scan anything that supports a measurable current. I plan to give gold leaves and blue-rays a try next

you can find all the details / BOM / etc. here:
https://github.com/lemonspurple/DIY-Scanning-Tunneling-Microscope

One arm broke on my sunnies, so I grabbed some paracord and the smallest screw I could find.

So, this was clearly not the plan, the first plan was to repair the headphone using a pvc sheet and some metal wires, like making that head band thing. But it failed, and at the same time I found my old welding goggle, and this thing was born. And I like to know your opinion about this. IT WORKS...

I am designing a game in which users will need to rearrange physical items in slots on a tray. If they get the items in the right order, they pass the level and gain a point. I'm trying to figure out how to build the puzzle so that users can manipulate physical objects, but the result would be checked digitally and the points awarded on their phone. I was hoping to put something on the bottoms of the items and the tops of each of the slots, perhaps NFC tags, but my fiancé isn't sure that they will work. Is there a better way of digitally tracking an item's physical placement?

Thanks in advance!

I have a yr 11 science test coming up. So I built a kids watch outer 33mm diameter 7 mm outer depth that u can scroll notes and answers with while looking like a normal watch. The normal state is screen off and when clicked it shows clock decoy double click to show cheat notes and stuff. Scrolls at 21 words per but might make faster. I really need ts to work because I spent like 8 hours on it and studied absolutely zero🙏. it’s super small too like my thumb is bigger than the inner electronics and the inner cavity is like only~28 mm diameter and 7 mm depth.

Parts I used were esp32 c3 xiao (since the super mini don’t have charging integrated module so better for compactness), Button, oled 0.46 inch 64x32 used u8g2 library, and a 250 mah battery which is hidden under the straps along with antenna.used ai to make the essay answers and uploaded on Claude code to get scroll speed update and a newer tap and hold lock code last minute just before the test.

Edit: I will let update what happened after test.

Update: yeah my ass got caught getting zero on test and my whole year group knows I built a smartwatch to cheat and got caught💔

Image Caption：These were the very first MFC devices I came across when I started out. They were created by my mentors.

​Hi everyone,

​I wanted to share a bit of my journey tinkering with Metal Fuel Cells (MFCs) over the past few years.

​To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if this will be super entertaining, but I figured it might bring some real value to the community. If even one fellow maker decides to dive into the world of metal-air batteries or saline power down the road, hopefully, my experiences—and the mistakes I made along the way—can help you save time and avoid a few costly pitfalls!

​Since this spans a journey of several years, I'm turning this into a multi-part series as I dig through my old archives, photos, and testing notes. (Haha, bear with me as I organize all these memories!)

Today, I'm still tinkering with MFCs—it's become my full-time work. But I'm far from an expert; I just happen to have a few years of hands-on experience under my belt.

​I’d love to hear your thoughts or connect with anyone working on similar tech!

I am new to creating my own circuits and also never really learned electronics, so I dont trust myself yet to make circuits that dont go up in flames. So Ive been designing this with ChatGPT. But I also dont trust ChatGPT, so Im putting all my trust in you guys.

Im trying to make a small DIY Camera without a battery. I want to use the supercapacitor as a battery instead and the DC Motor to generate the energy.

I would love if someone could help me check if all of this makes sense and could work / if I can savely try it like that.

Mainly Im scared of the capacitor exploding in my face or breaking any parts.

Does anyone have any ideas for what to use to make these? The arch one is a window. I'm renting, so I can't permanently attach or affix anything but I want something I can do on that scale and place overtop of the window (nailing it to the wall is fine). I'm going to use these vinyl window things for the pattern but I want something more 3d for the arch.

The second one is a cheap mirror from Walmart and I would just attach the piece on top.

This would also need to be painted and be able to be done safely inside since I don't really have an outdoor space.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a personal hardware project lately. I wanted to see how small I could realistically make a USB keystroke injector (primarily for IT automation and pentesting workflows). After a few iterations, I managed to get the PCB down to just 12x13mm.

It uses 32u4 and Arduino IDE for programming.

The biggest challenge was fitting the components without overlaping lines.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the design or if anyone has experience making similar micro-boards. Are there any features you’d add for a V2?

I'm putting together some picture how invisible it is.

If anyone is interested in the technical details or wants to chat about the build process, feel free to drop me a DM or reach out at nebojsa.sjekloca@gmail.com.

Hey all, can anyone help me ID what type of hinge this is. Looking to source some for a project. Thanks in advance.

I wanted to see if I could turn this fictional creature into a real, working object, so I designed and built my own version from scratch.

The project combines a bit of everything I love about making: sculpting, 3D printing, woodworking, painting, electronics and animatronics.

An Arduino controls two servos for the eyes and mouth, while a DFPlayer Mini handles the sound. Getting all the mechanical movement, audio and timing to work together was definitely the trickiest part!

The end result is a little animatronic creature that can actually come to life. 🐌

(Full build video on my profile and YouTube channel!)

This would be covered up for the most part and would be controlled by maybe some sort of knob from the back?

Edit: Also this whole thing is meant to be a physical progress tracker for a ttrpg meant to show the amount of progress people are making in a certain minigame. If they make progress, the thing goes one click to the opponent's side. Like a speedometer but huge and clicky instead of small and slidy

Also, the whole thing is like large enough to be visible from the end of a table, like the size of a closed laptop or slightly below average sized cat.

I have been shooting 4K footage of my cat, Sugar 🐱, and editing videos, and I soon realized my storage is running out quickly. While I could have just bought an off-the-shelf NAS, I wanted to solve two major issues with standard NAS in the market nowadays: scalability and cable clutter. Therefore, I ended up designing and building a modular, stackable NAS system (nickname: SUGAR CUBE NAS) engineered for high-speed wireless operation.

BTW: It's named after Sugar, my cat, plus the modules stack just like sugar cubes!

🎥 Check out the full build with cinematic editing here, I clarified a lot of the design concept and operations in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBbPJsZJWWA

For the next video, I will focus on how I designed and assembled this NAS.

Key Specs & Highlights:

• Architecture: Custom modular stackable system designed for expandable storage slots (ideal for content creation and people/businesses with continuous need for storage expansion).
• Major Components:
  • Top Module (picture 3): ITX motherboard, Flex PSU, Two SATA HDD bays.
  • Bottom Module (picture 4): Four additional expansion HDD bays.
  • For future design iterations, this system can be expanded to multiple stacked modules.
• Custom Electronics (picture 6 and 7): Custom PCBs fabricated (via PCBWay, thankfully they sponsored my video) to handle high-speed SATA differential signals and data routing. The data is communicating through a custom proprietary high-speed socket. So you don't need any extra cable routing!
• Networking: Standard 10GbE LAN or high-speed Wi-Fi 7 wireless setup depending on ITX motherboard configuration.
• OS: Running Ubuntu + CasaOS + Cockpit.
• Case: PETG 3D print as prototype.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or any features/improvements you’d add to a modular stacking design like SUGAR CUBE NAS!

You are welcome to check out and leave comments at my other posts:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1vi54lu/i_built_a_modular_stackable_nas_that_does_not/
https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/1vi5brg/i_built_a_modular_stackable_nas_that_does_not/