Monthly Archives: July 2017

3D printing a fidget spinner

This video shows the process of 3D printing and assembling a fidget spinner. I have designed the spinner using Autodesk Inventor. The spinner is slightly asymmetric, making it easy and comfortable to start it. I use a ceramic ball bearing in the centre and normal bearings as weights. I always use Cura to slice my parts before 3D printing. To print in different colors, I manually edit the generated G-code file using Notepad++. Cura automaticly puts a comment in the G-code file at the start of each new layer. I use the search function to find a specific layer and insert a couple commands to lower the printbed and pause the machine so I can change the filament.

The STL files for the spinner is available on Thingiverse here.

DIY FPV goggles

When I wanted to get into FPV a couple of moths ago I bought the Eachine EV800 FPV goggles with built in VTX and battery. I liked the idea that they could be used as goggles, and also as a screen. However, when that arrived I realised that they were very uncomfortable to wear, and I was not able to wear my normal glasses under them as I had intended. Therefore I only used the screen to start with.

I was not completely happy with the screen experience, I still wanted to have googles. Therefore I started to design my own goggle-part. I started with making a four part assembly in SketchUp to snap into the existing mount on the EV800, and also to hold the fresnel-lense in place. I 3D printed the parts, glued them together, and they fit perfectly. Since the shape of the rest of the goggles is very complicated, I thought it would be very time-consuming to design and 3D print everything. Therefore I built the rest of the goggles using cardboard, paper and hot glue. To make it look better and be more comfortable to wear I covered the entire thing in fabric, using more hot glue. I kept the part touching the face as large as possible to make them fit over my glasses. I finished off the design with some 3D printed parts to mount the original head strap from the EV800. I am pretty satisfied with the result. Now the goggles are comfortable, fits over my glasses, and is comfortable to wear. And I can still remove the screen from the goggles is I want.

All STL files for 3D printing are available for download here: DIY_FPV_goggles.zip

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3D printed Spitfire

Here is a short video of a fully 3D printed Spitfire. Design by 3DLabPrint. The plane is printed by a friend of mine, on his Original Prusa MK2 3D printer. It was an interesting experience to build it and test it. Usually, I am not a big fan of scale RC models at all. The plane is a little heavy for my taste, and maybe my setup is a bit underpowered. But it does fly nicely, and it does look very cool in the air when the light shines through the wing, highlighting the 3D printed reinforcement structures.

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