10 Minute Make, a crappy ts100 case!

The fabulous TS100 soldering iron (I posted a review of it here) comes well packed in a cardboard box which would be fine as a case apart from the foam inside is cut to hold the body and the tip/element separately. I've been meaning to make or print or CNC a slick case for it that would hold the iron as a complete unit, but it's one of those jobs I never seem to get around to. 

Randomly this week my father in law gave me an old tool (a small spirit level) that was in this sort of glasses case with a nice rusty patina! I also today had to take the ts100 out with me to a space I am borrowing for the boat building project (more on that soon!) and so I quickly mashed up the old foam shapes from the original packaging into the metal case! I'm filing this in the "I'll replace this with something better made at some point" pile... I bet its still in this case in 5 years :)

10 minute make, Filament reel stand!

So whenever I swap to use a big reel of filament (2.3kg ones) I always end up concocting an elaborate balancing of stuff to hold it on! I've been known to have 2 piles of books with a piece of threaded bar balanced across them before now. The other day I was about to scrap some small stands I'd made that could hold a 25mm dowel between them I'd originally made as a jig to help fibreglass onto a tube. I quickly realised with a larger base and a shorter piece of dowel it would fulfill my filament holding needs. I just use a slightly undersize "o" ring on the dowel to stop the reel from drifting along and off the stand. Perfect!

10 minute make; 'To Do' Peg!

Quick 10 minute make today, made magnet mount laser etched "To Do" peg! Pretty straightforward in that I found a wooden peg , chucked it in the tiny Neje laser etcher and etched it! 

Then after etching it, just a blob of superglue and a 3mm neodymium magnet and we are done! I'm considering a whole Kanban washing line system next :) 

10 minute make; Laser-cut Polygon Box

A few of us at the Ffiws Makerspace have been talking and exploring the idea of laser-cut boxes and packaging for small products. Last night in a quiet 10 minutes I had a play with an online resource called templatemaker.nl which is an online generator that allows a user to put in some dimensions for a MASSIVE range of box types and it generates a file to download (it will create .pdf, .SVG or .dxf files). 

So I designed this little polygon box and downloaded an SVG file to open in Inkscape as I knew it would need a little editing for laser cutting. Basically, the file looks like the preview in the image above, you have a red outer line that needs cutting and some blue dashed lines that indicate the fold lines. If you wanted to print this onto cardstock and cut it out it would work well but I removed the blue dashed lines in Inkscape and changes the outer red line to a black 0.0254mm line so that it would cut on the laser. 

After cutting I used a ruler and a point to score the fold lines into the design and assembled it with some PVA glue (it would have been easier with Pritt stick probably for this thin card but it's all I had)!

The results are good, and I imagine if you cut a load and sat for an hour assembling them you would get quicker and more accurate in assembly. Of course, you could also use the lasercutter to add your logo or business details to the box design or personalise for a gift etc. Fun little 10 minute make for sure. 

10 minute make; Alpine Butterfly Knot

Knot tying is a great skill to practice and makes a superb #10MinuteMake. This knot "the Alpine Butterfly" is of interest to me as I use it to tie loops in lines to attach parachutes too for rocketry. It's a good knot mechanically as it can be loaded on the loop and on either side. It can be tied into the middle of a line and also can be used to isolate a damaged piece of line or rope by tying the damaged section into the loop. Really handy! I found this copyleft license-free image that shows how to tie them. 

10 minute make; Magnetic Feet

Last week I was using the variable power supply I built some time ago. It's a great and useful little build that replaced a small trimming resistor on the DC-DC LM296 based board with a 10 turn resistor to increase the resolution. It's stood for ages on top of my old lab supply with a couple of small magnets stuck to the machine screws in the frame and the case of the larger supply. It's stopped it getting knocked off a little but becomes detached easily and I have been meaning to attach the magnets to it in a better way. 

So I quickly knocked up a magnet housing/foot in FreeCAD and chucked a couple on the 3d printer. A quick blob of superglue later and the two magnets pressed in and voila! It now stays in place pretty well just on the two feet, however, I might whip up another pair when I get another spare 10 minutes!