Recently Roy and I set out to build set out to build a better headphone amplifier for our higher end Sennheiser headphones. A headphone amp simply boosts the power to the headphones a bit, this results in better sound on the bigger headphones. The design is built around a know design over at Diy Audio Projects. It is a Class A amplifier with a 12AU7 tube. We ended up puting a spin on the project and added a PCM2704 USB DAC (sound card). Sweet glowing tube action pictures are below.

Populating the board

Fully Populated

All soldered up.

Back of Amp

Front of Amp

Amplifier board hung.

Blown apart

Amp Running

I have a badger-hair shaving brush that I’d like to keep for a while. I’ve read that the brush will last longer if it’s allowed to hang and dry versus being left sitting in the lather bowl. After looking around for a hanging stand I decided to make my own, that works for brushing to so you don’t have to keep thinking if brushing vs combing is the best way to go. My first model took over 6 hours to print at 60mm/sec.

 It turns out I made the model quite a bit larger than necessary. After placing the brush and the razor on the stand, all the extra unused space is really evident.

I decided to see how much time and material I could save on my next model so I tried to use circles and ellipses to minimize the printed area while still leaving enough structure. The new model has a hanger for the razor and a slot with drain holes for the extra razor blades.

This model printed much faster, it only took around two and a half hours at 60mm/sec.

The stand works well enough, but I’m not happy with how tall and light it is, it’s too easy to knock over early in the morning.

For the next iteration, I’m going to flare out the base a bit to prevent tipping and may increase the amount of material towards the bottom of the model. The blade storage slot needs to be deeper as well.

We have a banner stand that is starting to fail at work. The plastic collar is starting to crack. Rather than simply replacing the whole stand, I figured I could make a quick replacement clamp. 10 minutes later thanks to TinkerCAD we have our replacement part model.

Once the stand was disassembled, I  switched out and replaced the collar. It’s a bit brighter than the stock part, but the stand is repaired!

Once I saw how easy it was to create models in TinkerCad, I decided to get caught up with some of our other needs. This is a replacement clip for a hanging banner.

The original clip slides into a channel, the replacement slid right in!

Mid-South Makers’ First Annual 24 hour Make-In

The Make-In will be 24 hours of concentrated space-based making from 12 noon on Saturday, March 17 until 12 noon on Sunday March 18.

• Start and/or finish the projects you’ve been putting off.
• Inspire, and be inspired by, other makers’ projects and progress.
• Stay 24 hours, or drop by as you can.
• Use the space as a maker with other makers.
• All members are invited.

More info on our wiki

I’ve been wanting to print some of the geared items on Thingiverse for a while. With Valentines day coming up it seemed like an excellent opportunity to try out the Screwless Heart Gears by Thingiverse user Emmett. After reading the assembly instructions the heart came together quite nicely with the help of a hot air gun to help let the printed pins slide in easily.

Completed!

The heart has been assembled and rotated

A view from the top

I found it easier to assemble the larger gears first. It allowed me to better align and mesh the smaller gears.

Working my way down

The top 2 lobes of the heart

The assembly process begins!

Printing one of the 8 gears