Advent Calendar 2022

It is already December 1st, and time for a new Advent Calendar. This year the design includes birch plywood with PMMA, SK6812 RGBW LEDs running with a Raspberry Pi Pico board, building a small village.

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Eyeglasses Case created with CNC and Laser Cutter

In many cases I prefer wood as material: it has a warm feeling and with its texture it makes things unique and special. For some time I was thinking about creating a wooden case for eyeglasses as a gift. And here is a first version of it:

Oak Wood case for Eyeglasses
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DIY Split-Flap Display

Split-flap displays are electromechanical display devices, which were common in airports or railway stations a few years ago.Unfortunately, most of them are gone and replaced by LED displays. Why not create a DIY version of it?

2×10 Split-Flap Display
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Advent Calendar for 2021

Switzerland got a snow cover, with more snow coming the next days. December started, and so did the Advent season. Similar to last year, we wanted to create a special advent calendar, which is then is given to families in the neighborhood who deserve it, because they did so much for our community this year.

Last year it was a special house created mostly with a laser cutter. This year I took advantage of having a desktop CNC down in the basement. The result is a ‘tree’ filled with small boxes made of oak wood:

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Adding RGBW Wings and Enclosure to a Debug Probe

I’m using debug probes on a daily base. They have to be functional, and I value functionality over aesthetics. For cost reasons many debug probe vendors either only provide a bare PCB without enclosure, or the enclosure is made of simple plastic enclosure.

That’s OK. But when I received my NXP MCU-Link Pro debug probe, I wanted to add an enclosure for it: Not only to add protection,but to have it look cool too :-).

MCU-Link Pro Enclosure
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Round MetaClockClock

It has been a while since my last MetaClockClock, and with the continued shortage of electronics on the market I had no chance to order new parts. But I still had some remaining parts, and with the modular design of the ’round’ clocks I was able to build up another one, but this time with even less than the usual minimum of 24 clocks:

So if you are up to build a MetaClockClock with less clocks, this might be the way for you.

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Optimized Vinyl Cutting G-Code Tool Path with DXF2GCODE

G-Code (or RS-274) is a widely used protocol for CNC machines. I have added vinyl cutting capabilities to the Shapeoko desktop CNC recently (see DIY Vinyl Cutting Drag Knife for Desktop CNC), however cutting vinyl with a drag knife is whole different story compared cutting materials like wood or aluminum. As with many other things, it is about handling all corner cases properly.

Expected and not expected results cutting vinyl
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DIY Vinyl Cutting Drag Knife for Desktop CNC

A desktop CNC is a great addition to any 3D printer or laser cutter. I consider them ‘the trinity’ for any maker garage. While a desktop CNC is great for wood and some metals like aluminum or brass, it would be great to extend the infrastructure with something more: vinyl cutting. And with this the idea to have cool sticker on my laptop lid:

CNC cut-out design on laptop lid
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