Cyberbrick #4

[I interrupted this series. I was rambling away about my little nerd amusements when I got a negative comment. That’s not a big deal. Anyone who’s done anything on the internet (or in life) has gotten negative comments. But for some reason, probably because I’ve been sick half the year, I just… disengaged. What can I say? It’s my blog, I can ghost it if I want.

As a counterpoint, I got several positive comments, which is both normal* and appreciated. (*No kidding, in a world that’s practically tearing itself apart, my small audience has been the nicest sweetest most supportive group anyone could imagine. Over years and years of posting about all sorts of shit, I’ve gotten less negativity than I’d hear on a random trip to Walmart. For that I thank y’all!)

Anyway, it dawned on me that “even if it is boring, it interests me”. I mean for God’s sake my wife watches TV shows about people cooking. Like, lots of them. I like to eat food, I’m not interested in watching food be made that I can’t eat (or even smell). Stuff that bores one person is riveting to another and that’s a good thing. Thank goodness we live in a world of options where us free people can always change the channel!

So, here goes with the rest of my nerdy little project…]

(Starting right after Cyberbrick #3.) After the TPU adventure I loaded some simple PLA and went back to using the AMS Lite. This was the same material as the pre-TPU components, just a different color. In this case PLA Yellow.

This group of parts required more “support”. The support settings were pre-programmed into the project. They instructed the slicer in what to do. My job was to pry the supports off with small needle nose pliers; a task which was oddly satisfying.

I also printed a second “plate” that would become the handheld remote. I stuck with yellow.

These are the printed parts that became the remote (a few parts of the remote are black PLA).

I geek out about variations in material even as I don’t care too much about color. One tiny bit of the project involves lenses for little LED “headlights”. The lenses are clear translucent PETG. I made a mistake and bought a whole spool of clear PETG. I already had a partial spool. Whoops. The lenses are about the size of a dime and now I’ve got a ton of leftover filament. The lenses are installed on the end of a black PLA “light bar”.

The first part of the actual build was a surprisingly complex set of reduction gears and a little motor. I made two, one for left and one for right. The forklift steers like a bulldozer.

Very quickly the forklift came together.

The lift itself has just one tiny motor, but it has a “gear and pulley” mechanical advantage system. This is pretty similar to how certain real forklifts function. Notice that I kept everything corralled in a box and had to resort to a magnifying lens. (Having a separate motor means it can be controlled separately from the remote. This is all dirt simple, but it’s another place you could plug in a cable incorrectly.)

I’ll stop here before I wear out my welcome. I’ll do the controller in the next post.