Author: Chris Braunston

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Back to work

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a happy new year.


Right, that’s Christmas over with, back to work!



Project one of the year, Jewelry / trinket boxes. Cut from 3mm acrylic of various colours with engraving if required. Currently only available via eBay – eBay.co.uk.

Project two – productising (I do hate that word) our range for Braunston Ltd. This should include awards, plaques and signs as well as paper and board cutting. I will post a link to their website when it is up and running.


Project three – working out what projects four and above should be.


Should be a good year. 🙂

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More Toys!

Ok, I am getting a bit carried away now! I am going to start thinking I am Santa Clause or Geppetto in a bit. Last one is a glider based on a Spitfire from 2.6mm balsa wood with a 5mm clear acrylic nose and 3mm dowel pins holding it together – no glue this time. As it has a 350mm wingspan I can see this one trashing quite a bit of the house on christmas day! I apologise to my wife in advance. Flight was about 15ft before it was stopped by a digital printing press. Oops. I will stick the plans on thingiverse when I get a chance.



Edit: Thingiverse link – http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14928
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Toys

Today I have been making last minute christmas presents for my sons including this train. It is 3mm ply with narrow dowel for the axels and fixing pins. It will be waxed and polished tomorrow ready for christmas. When I have finished it I will put the plans on thingiverse.





Edit: Finished the train and carriages.

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Elephants!



We do a lot of work for braunston.ltd.uk and they are offering products we make as part of a promotion in January. They are giving away elephant kits with all orders over £30 and a chance to win a big wooden version on their facebook page.


We may start retailing the kits when the offer finishes and will keep you updated.

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Stepper Motors



We have been messing about with a ChipKit and stepper motors from floppy drives and it has been very interesting. Only problem is we cannot find a project for them. The torque generated is very low so they cant really do any work. The best idea so far has been to stick a Christmas decoration on top but that seems a little, er, unimaginative! Any suggestions would be great.


If you are interested you may want to have a look at these resources:
http://www.stepperworld.com/Tutorials/pgUnipolarTutorial.htm
http://www.rapidonline.com/pdf/82-0192.pdf – for home built motor controllers
http://www.horrorseek.com/home/halloween/wolfstone/Motors/stpint_StepperMotorIntro.html
http://www.solarbotics.net/library/pieces/parts_mech_steppers.html






We built an ugly as sin home built motor controller shield with a  L293 chip which works ok but gets really hot after a while. If we find a project for this we may utilise something a little more elegant. Either that or a bunch of equally poorly soldered transistors!