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Ideas, news & tutorials for makers and hackers – Arduino/Raspberry Pi, 3D printing, robotics, laser cutting, and more

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May Newsletter

Chris Garrett

How to Use Tinkercad to Make a Custom Gift – a Personalized 3D Printed Maze Puzzle

Finished 3d printed maze

In this beginner-friendly 3d cad tutorial, we are going to create a personalized maze puzzle in Tinkercad, ready for 3d printing! The post How to Use Tinkercad to Make a Custom Gift – a Personalized 3D Printed Maze Puzzle appeared first on Maker Hacks.

Raspberry Pi Remote Access – 3 Ways to Make Your Raspberry Pi Accessible Outside Your Network

raspberry pi remote accessRaspberry Pi remote access can be tricky. What can you do? How can you make it easy for you to remote access, but difficult for the bad guys? The post Raspberry Pi Remote Access – 3 Ways to Make Your Raspberry Pi Accessible Outside Your Network appeared first on Maker Hacks. (See previous article about installing Octoprint on your Raspberry Pi here)

Meshmixer Tutorial – Using Meshmixer to Delete and Edit Parts of an Existing .STL

meshmixer sphere brushUsing Meshmixer takes your 3D printing superpowers to the next level. Find an existing STL file, modify it, delete parts, and then export for 3D printing – See how easy it can be in this tutorial and video! The post Meshmixer Tutorial – Using Meshmixer to Delete and Edit Parts of an Existing .STL appeared first on Maker Hacks.

ESP32 Arduino – First Look

ESP32The ESP32 is the newest* super powered IoT/Arduino board you are going to want in your arsenal. I have long been a fan of the ESP8266, especially the cheap Chinese NodeMCU boards, so when I saw the faster, more capable ESP32 had Arduino compatibility, I had to give it a try! * Yeah, it’s been […] The post ESP32 Arduino – First Look appeared first on Maker Hacks.

 

How to Use Tinkercad to Make a Custom Gift – a Personalized 3D Printed Maze Puzzle

Chris Garrett

2017-05-04 22.02.31
3d printed maze, created with Tinkercad

Want to 3D print a gift for family and friends that they would actually like to receive? In this beginner-friendly 3d cad tutorial, we are going to create a maze puzzle, personalized with a name, word, etc, in Tinkercad, ready for 3d printing! [Read more…]

Raspberry Pi Remote Access – 3 Ways to Make Your Raspberry Pi Accessible Outside Your Network

Chris Garrett

raspberry pi remote access

Raspberry Pi remote access can be tricky. On the one hand you want to monitor your project while away from your network, but on the other hand you don’t want other people to find it easy to do the same. Hackers, for example.

By far the most popular question I got after I shared my Octopi tutorial was about how to gain remote access, from work or school.

What can you do? How can you make it easy for you, but difficult for bad guys?

There are three options that I have employed (even on the Pi Zero W!), each have pros and cons. Let’s take a look so you can choose the approach that will work best for you … [Read more…]

Meshmixer Tutorial – Using Meshmixer to Delete and Edit Parts of an Existing .STL

Chris Garrett

MeshmixerUsing Meshmixer takes your 3D printing superpowers to the next level. Sometimes you can find an existing STL file to download that is almost what you need, but the simple modification tools of Simplify 3D or other slicers don’t cut it. That is where Meshmixer comes in, it can load, modify and even delete parts of existing STL models, quickly and easily, and then export for 3D printing!

Let’s look how simple it can be in this quick video and tutorial!

Get Meshmixer

You can get Meshmixer from Autodesk for Windows and Mac (sorry Linux!) here. Once downloaded, install, then open up. It needs surprisingly few resources for simple objects, but obviously the more power your system has the better.

Import Your STL

When you start Meshmixer it will ask if you want to import a file or import pre-made objects, go ahead and import your STL file.

Orient Your Object

I like to make my object stand up in the correct orientation, so I go to the Edit button, and select Transform, then I rotate so it is the correct way up. You can pull on the various axis points, or just type 90 in the Rotate X box in the inspector.

meshmixer-orientation

Cutting Up Your STL

We are going to use the Meshmixer Plane Cut make a lateral cut, splitting the top from the bottom. Again, in Edit/Transform, choose Plane Cut, then drag the arrows until only the part you need is visible. Once you are happy you can accept (choose the defaults to begin with then play with the options).

Meshmixer Plane Cut

Painting Selections in Meshmixer

If there are elements of the object you wish to remove then you can paint the selection using the Sphere Brush or Lasso. Hit the Select button, set the size of your brush, then paint the area you wish to select. Once selected you can hit your backspace key on your keyboard to delete the part.

meshmixer sphere brush

Exporting Your STL

Once you are happy with your newly modified object, go to the File menu and hit Export. Select Binary STL as your output format, and choose where you want to save it. Done! You have taken an existing STL model and modified it to your own needs!

Export Mesh

How to Install and Set Up Octopi for Remote Raspberry Pi 3D Printer Control with Octoprint

Chris Garrett

OctoPrint / OctopiOctopi is a fantastic system for running your 3D printers remotely, using a Raspberry Pi, including built in webcam and time lapse features. Installing Octoprint need not be a chore on Mac or Windows. Follow this guide to see how quick and easy it can be to get up and running with your Octopi powered 3d printing! [Read more…]

Creality CR-10 3d printer review – Large format, quality output, at a low price!

Chris Garrett

Creality CR-10 3d printerCreality CR-10 3d printer. A large format, budget, Chinese, almost pre-built machine for all your large model 3d printing needs.

The name will either mean nothing to you, or you will have a mixture of impressions from the 3d printing community.

Creality is certainly a weird name, but one that has people talking. So what is this CR-10? And, more importantly, why would you be interested?

Let’s find out in this Creality CR-10 first impressions review … [Read more…]

Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless first boot issues

Chris Garrett

B728F946-5FEC-45D3-81E4-B7960D8176ECSo there I am. Happy as a little boy on Christmas morning. I just got my Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless in the mail! WHOOT!!!!  I’m about to start work on my dream bot that will cost hardly anything but be a ton of fun. Two hours in, and there I sat at my desk frustrated, inventing new expletives and debating smashing it with a hammer or asking for a refund. Getting the Zero W to boot up on a new image was, well, not working. It seems I made some easy to make but critical errors.

First I used PiBakery for the image. Now most of the time this is the best tool to make a image. It is awesome software, it sets up SSH, wireless, VNC all in the image so you can insert the SD card and power up and automatically the pi is Running with SSH, VNC and hooked up to local wireless. Great right? Well in this case no. The Zero Wireless is new enough that it needs to have the latest and greatest image. So that did not work for me. The image that PiBakery uses is not the very latest unfortunately (Even after updating PiBakery). And that is why it was not booting, UGH! I just want to get tinkering in building stuff. What does one do? Below is a few things you should look for and how to solve them, so you can get up and running.

  1. I know this has been said a million times but check that your power source has enough power (amperage) to run the pi. If not that may be your issue. The tell tale sign of this is the rainbow square on your screen and nothing happens with the pi.
  2. If you have made a image like I did using PiBakery you can still make it work using another pi. If you have the image already written to the SD card. Put it into the other Pi and boot up. It will do its setup sequence and set you up. Once that is done in terminal or the command line type in “sudo apt-get update” and let it do its thing, next type “sudo apt-get upgrade” and this will install all the needed components to get this to work with the Zero W. Shut down the old pi, swap the SD card to the Zero W and you should be good to go!
  3. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of item 2 in this list just go to https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ and download Noobs or Raspbian and use that image. It will boot up no problem. I used https://etcher.io/ to write the image to the SD card with no issues and a quick easy boot up. I really wish I did this to start with.

In the end it was a struggle that did not have to take place if I just went to the RaspberryPi.org site and downloaded a image. Sometimes trying to take shortcuts and getting a image tailored to set things up for you and configure wireless ends up taking more time. I am not saying don’t use these tools. I am saying use them with caution and understand that with new hardware comes new issues. Sticking to the old standard ways can really be the less frustrating route to take some times.

Now go enjoy your new Zero wireless! I am just installing it into my Trilobot and will start on setting up a WiFi hotspot to remotely controll it. Wish me luck and keep an eye out here at Maker Hacks for the final build and instructions on it in a little while.

Ben