Nova Labs

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Phone Booth Tree Topper

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Phone Booth Tree Topper

Andrew

“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/

Molding and casting demo by Reynolds Advanced Materials

Molding and casting demo by Reynolds Advanced Materials

Andrew

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

Prepping the Alja-Safe alginate before each student was able to mold their thumb.
Molding a thumb in Alja-Safe.
6-8 minutes later, each participant could remove his or her thumb
Thumbs ready to be filled.
Round 1 complete, mixing round 2. The pot life of the Smoothcast 300Q was no more than 70 seconds, so Jay had to pour fast.
Red tinted Smoothcast 300Q for the thumbs. Photo by Brian Jacoby
Waiting for the thumbs to cure.
Comparison of the copy to the real deal.
A thumb in SC300Q.

Here are some more photos from the class.

Jay Mazur pouring the first item
A casting made of Dustin Hoffman’s face. The first layer was SC325 with flesh color added. Foam iT!5 was used as a backfill material, and was tinted blue at the request of someone inthe class. The skin-toned first layer was too thin to be opaque.
Showing the difference between resins being degassed in a vacuum chamber vs. not.
Large silicone mold of a dime.
The finished dime mold, including color. Product was SC300Q and Red Devil Cast Magic powder.
Testing Body Double Fast, a skin-safe silicone made to capture fine detail.
The details captured in Body Double Fast silicone.
Resin with bronze dust. Product was Cold Cast SC Onyx Fast with Bronze powder.
A resin with bronze dust in it and lightly polished. Product was Cold Cast SC Onyx Fast with Bronze powder.
2 castings of a hand and forearm.
2 part silicone mold.
2 part mold for a model car.

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

Andrew

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.

All of the prototypes from the first at the top to the final at the bottom. The red ones were poorly printed copies of the final.
First, second, and third prototypes.
Screenshot of the third and final design as seen in OnShape.

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.”

Two copies of the first prototype of phone holder.
First prototype in action. The phone fit, but was a bit tight.

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.

Second prototype of the phone holder. This print was OK at best, with a first layer that didn’t stick well to the bed.
Second prototype profile view. The base didn’t stick well to the bed during printing.
Prototype 2 being tested.

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.

I tried printing the final pieces twice in ABS on a 3D printer that recently had a hotend nozzle clog… They didn’t turn out too well even after modifying the settings.
First mediocre print of the third and final design.
Left and right sides of the final phone holders. These printed better than the red ones as I switched to another printer.
Final phone holders. These printed better than the red ones as I switched to another printer.
The left side of the final phone holder.

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

Double-stick foam tape was used to attach the brackets to the door.
The phone leans back slightly since the door doesn’t open ‘flat’ – this helps keep it leaning against the dash and should be secure. I don’t think a Civic has enough acceleration to have it fall down.
Double-stick foam tape was used to attach the brackets to the door.

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

Andrew

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.

Starting to work through the setup in VCarve.

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.

3D representation of the toolpath from VCarve

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

Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/4″ plywood.
Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/3″ plywood.

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.

Johann Stool partially assembled (using nails instead of 1/4″ dowels to hold the sides on).
Top and bottom of the finished Johann Stools.
Nova Labs logo laser engraved on the stool tops.
Vector etching (light cut) on the bottom of the stools with a shout-out to the designer.
Finished and assembled Johann Stools with Nova Labs logo.

 

 

Vulgar Napkin Holders

Vulgar Napkin Holders

Andrew

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. Font is Avenir Next Ultra Light
Edge view of the napkin holder

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.

Cutting the first napkin holder on Mongo, Nova Labs’ 100w CO2 laser cutter.
Before pulling the parts out of the laser cutter.
Parts after a light sanding on the downdraft sanding table.

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!

Family friendly napkin holder.
Family friendly napkin holder.

3D printed GoPro mounts

3D printed GoPro mounts

Andrew

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.

The two pieces after 3D printing.
GoPro attached to the ski pole.
Side’ish/back-side of the mount.
The nut-side of the GoPro mount.

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

Andrew

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

Cubes in the Laser Cut software
Test cube and production cubes waiting for engraving (note the numbers on each face so I could keep track of order and “this end up” orientation).
First pass on the production run.

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.

Finished engraving.
Tape off of the wood cube, but still on the acrylic.

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.

Finished wood and acrylic cubes.

Laser cut chairs and tables

Laser cut chairs and tables

Andrew

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.

 

Sign for the laser cutter room

Sign for the laser cutter room

Andrew

The sign before lifting it from the laser. The stencil font kept was perfect for this type of sign.

In a shared space like Nova Labs, it is important to leave things better than you found them (you should read the listserv thread this past week about the router table being left messy).

The laser room suffers its fair share of mess, so I made a reminder sign for the wall above the workstation.

If it reminds even a few people to vacuum up their little dot cutout debris or gets them to put back the key, I guess it will be worth it.

All of the letters left over after lifting up the sign.
People always forget to lift up the honeycomb bed and clean up their little circle cutouts.

 

Wood milling demo (video)

Wood milling demo (video)

Andrew

A big log needs a big saw

On January 16, 2016, Nova Labs members were treated to a wood milling demonstration at Belle Grey Farm in Upperville, VA. The 51HP diesel powered, hydraulically controlled portable saw mill ran through the wood with ease.

Members were shown how entire trees were rough cut down to boards. The boards were then put into a solar kiln to dry for at least several months and sometimes as much as several years. Once dried the boards make it to the shop where they are used to make equestrian jumps.

Photos and source video clips courtesy of Fred Briggs. Video by me for the Nova Labs Facebook page.