Design | MakerBlock

Heat Transfer Vinyl T-Shirts – Without A Vinyl Cutter, Part II

I recently posted my method for making DIY heat transfer vinyl t-shirts without a craft / vinyl cutter. I used the process to make an Avatar: The Last Airbender themed t-shirt, then a set of four Fallout themed t-shirts for the entire family. After that I designed, cut, and ironed several more t-shirts. (You’ll see me refer to ironing the design several times, but each time I ironed the vinyl through a piece of parchment paper, to protect the design from scorching and the iron from being marred by melted plastic)

I learned a few more things along the way and thought I’d share these newb-mistakes and pro-tips.

But first, how about some pictures?!

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Cutting Designs
1. Just be careful and go slow.
Design Size
1. I tend to make designs that are no more than about 6″ wide. This has seemed to be a really good size to show off a cool design, but also fits neatly in the center of an 8.5″x11″ piece of standard printer paper. You could make something a lot larger, but for all of my designs, this has worked out really well.
Preparing Designs
1. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it helps to draw an X and Y axis into your drawing. The purpose of this is to help orient your design at the center of the fabric. After I had cut out the design entirely, I then used the craft knife to cut triangles into the protective layer pointing towards the center of the XY axis center of the design. Then, once this was done I could draw the XY axis lines on the protective layer.
2. I used a yard stick to estimate the center line of the shirt, which I could then align with the XY axis lines on the design itself.
Position Your Design
1. After looking at various other t-shirts, I decided they tended to look best when the top of the design was about 3″ lower than the bottom of the “V” in my v-neck shirts.
2. Once I had the shirt on the ironing board, I also put pieces of masking tape with a pen line on the ironing board to help me position and orient the yard stick repeatedly.
Heat / Press
1. Unlike my first attempt, I made sure to really push hard on the iron. The idea is that you’re not just melting the vinyl adhesive, but actually melting it into the fabric. If your iron isn’t hot enough, you’re not ironing long enough, or you’re not pressing hard enough, it won’t actually melt into the fabric.
2. When you’ve melted it properly, you should see an almost… bubbly texture underneath the protective coating. Then, once the vinyl is cool and you’ve peeled the coating off, the vinyl should look a little rippled since it is taking on the texture of the underlying fabric.
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Iron, Cool, Wait, Inspect Vinyl, then Peel
1. I made this mistake with the arc reactor t-shirt. As I peeled the protective coating off, in one spot the vinyl got pulled up and in another spot it tore the corner off a sharp trapezoid in the design! While it is possible I didn’t have the iron hot enough or press hard enough, I think the most likely explanation is that I didn’t wait long enough for the vinyl to cool – so it was still molten enough to be adhering to both the shirt and protective coating, causing the design to be damaged and torn.
Peeling Direction
1. If your design includes very thin or sharp little pieces (such as the pointy trapezoids in the Iron Man arc reactor), consider changing the direction of the protective coating peeling to avoid peeling towards a sharp point. These little points have so little surface area they can easily stay stuck to the coating and get pulled off the shirt, ruining all your hard work.
Repairing Mistakes
1. The problem with making a mistake with heat transfer vinyl is that if you make a serious mistake to your design or application, you may have ruined a shirt. (I would 100% wear a comfortable shirt even if the design wasn’t perfect.) However, a little mistake doesn’t have to be the end of the world. I made two mistakes on my arc reactor t-shirt, that I was able to fix well enough that they probably wouldn’t be obvious to the casual observer.
  Yellow arrows show where the design pulled up and wrinkled slightly. The red arrows point to where the design tore and was repaired.
2. The design of the arc reactor is about 3″ across, to give you a sense of the scale and size of the mistakes. You can see two slight wrinkles in the vinyl, pointed out by the yellow arrows. The red arrows points to where you can barely make out what appear to be wrinkles – but show where the design was torn and repaired.
3. I didn’t find any really good way to fix the wrinkles, other than to really iron those areas very very hard. It mostly pressed the wrinkles flat and they’re barely noticeable on the shirt. Between the shimmery / reflective quality of the vinyl and uneven way a shirt would hang on a non-rectilinear organic body or form and the size of the wrinkles on the small design, it’s almost imperceptible.
4. The torn design was initially quite heartbreaking. By the time I had worked on this shirt, I had already created five other shirts without any kind of mistake. It just so happened I either incompletely cut the design out (I don’t think so) or was a little impatient as I peeled the design (probably), and tore a pretty big piece off of the end of the right side trapezoid pointed out by the red arrow. I tried to use my craft knife to peel the tip of the trapezoid off the protective coating, but it wasn’t working and I ended up mangling it beyond repair. After stewing a bit, I figured I would simply cut out a new trapezoid piece and iron down over the torn piece. I made sure to cut the new piece very slightly larger (we’re talking probably only 0.5 mm in each direction) and position it carefully over the damaged section, before ironing it down very firmly, waiting for it to cool down all the way, peeling the coating, then ironing it again. Once again, I think the damaged portions wouldn’t be noticeable to most observers.

I would guesstimate a 5-foot long and 12″ wide roll of heat transfer vinyl could comfortably make 10-15 good sized designs and as much as 20 if you’re very careful. Let’s say you can only make about 14 designs out of a roll, to be on the conservative side. At about $7 for a basic color roll, this about $0.50 worth of vinyl per shirt. My wife bought me several 2-pack blank v-neck shirts in assorted colors for about $14 per pack. Ignoring the cost of my time (it’s a hobby, remember!) this is only about $7.50 per custom shirt. I think this could make a really cool and inexpensive project for a class, letting all the kids make their own designs (by cutting the vinyl with scissors instead of craft knives, if they’re young) or to create a set of team shirts for a field trip or club.

Not only has this been a very fun and inexpensive hobby, I end up with a great looking custom t-shirt at the end that will probably last years.

I’ve got several more designs I’m working on and look forward to a few more updates.

Heat Transfer Vinyl T-Shirts (Without a Craft Cutter)

Heat Transfer Vinyl T-Shirts – Without A Vinyl Cutter

I’m going to commit the sin of a thousand online recipe websites and give you a bit of backstory before I get to the method. If you don’t like fun, feel free to skip the first few paragraphs.

I recently watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and Avatar: The Legend of Korra with my kids. 1 Both shows were fantastic, but one particular character from A:TLOK was my absolute favorite. Varrick Iknik Blackstone is a fast talking, sometimes erratic, flamboyant industrialist / inventor voiced by John Michael Higgins. Imagine a cross between Tony Stark and Zaphod Beeblebrox.2

Psst… Do the thing!

You can find a few t-shirts out there which feature Varrick’s catchphrase3 and logo for Varrick Global Industries… but they all seem to suffer from at least one flaw. They all appear to depict the logo mirror flipped with the big sail on the right hand side. I think I know why too. An artist under the username of RogerBernstein on DeviantArt posted a very large, high quality version of the Varrick Global Industries logo in 2017, which just so happened to be mirror flipped. His image has the distinction of being one of the first Google Image search results for “Varrick Industries Logo.” I’m thinking people swiped his work, perhaps altered it a little bit, and then slapped it on t-shirts. I mean… just look at this…

This doesn’t look right

Why am I so sure these logos are mirror flipped? I paused TLOK during scenes in Season 2 – 4 when you can see Varrick’s yacht, near a plane, on a plane, on a jacket, and near some jewelry. Now, I’m not even close to the kind of cosplayer / propmaker who has the patience, concentration, or dedication who can recreate their favorites props with meticulous planning, research, measuring, and endless revisions. Even so, I’d at least like my designs to face the same direction as the show. There are lots of other pictures showing this orientation, but this was the easiest one to locate.

The logo is partially visible on the yacht to the right side of the image

Anyhow, with the help of GIMP, Inkscape, the pause button, and my trusty laser printer, I created my own design for the Varrick Global Industries logo – ready to put on a t-shirt.

Basics
1. Creating a design with “heat transfer vinyl” is reasonably straight forward. The heat transfer vinyl is a thin sheet of vinyl stuck to a sheet of clear plastic with a mild adhesive. You cut away what you don’t want, leaving the mirror of your design still stuck to the clear plastic, turn it over on a piece of fabric, and melt / fuse the design onto the fabric with heat.
2. With access to a craft cutter ($250 – $1,000) and a heat press ($100 – $300), you could automate a lot of cutting work (but you’d still have to manually pull the excess vinyl out of the design) and have really fine control over the heat (if that was important to you), but none of that is actually necessary. While these things might be helpful if you creating designs all the time, you don’t really need much more than some heat transfer vinyl and stuff you already have (a way to cut it, an iron, and some fabric).
Materials
1. Heat transfer vinyl.
  1. Also known / marketed as “HTV,” you’ll probably want to look for “stretch” or “stretchable” heat transfer vinyl if you intend to putting it on wearables like a t-shirt or similar. If you’re not putting it on a wearable, you could probably get away with non-stretchable HTV.
  2. As this was my first such attempt, I went with some relatively cheap stuff that was only $9 for 5-6 feet worth of material. I bought two rolls – one was a blue-purple metallic “chameleon” and the other was a dark silver-gray reflective. Under normal indoor light conditions both look fantastic. In brighter light they’ll look… well… brilliant.
  3. Pro Tip: If your HTV came in a roll and packed in a box, consider keeping the box. I normally discard boxes, but this way I can stack the rolls easily without having them roll away.
2. Craft knife & Cutting Mat. You may not be using a vinyl cutter, but you’ll still need a cutter. If your design was very simple or you wanted to live dangerously and freehand it, you could probably get away with just using scissors. We have an old medium size (12″ x 18″) cutting (possibly self-healing?!) mat which works well for most of our purposes. These days they’re relatively cheap and definitely worth springing for a 2′ x 3′ model.
3. Printer paper or Sharpie. I created my design on the computer and printed it out (mirror flipped), then taped it to the HTV, then taped that down on the cutting mat. If you wanted to just freehand your designs, you could just freehand the design directly on the HTV first.
4. Tape. Masking or blue painter’s tape. The HTV arrived rolled up pretty tightly, so it definitely wanted to roll up while I was working. The tape kept everything down and in place while I worked.
5. Iron. The HTV I purchased recommended applying heat for 5-15 seconds at 300 – 330 °F. Our iron doesn’t list the temperatures – just the settings for different materials. I ended up using the “Wool” setting based upon 30 seconds worth of internet research and going to Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article suggested wool, silk, and polyester would all result in about 300 °F temperatures. While I can’t vouch for the actual temperatures, the wool setting worked really well for me.
6. Ironing Board. I suppose an ironing board isn’t strictly necessary. But, it sure was nice to have a big, flat, soft, narrow surface to lay my shirt on in order to iron it flat. You could probably get away with putting down a blanket on a board or some sheets on top of some cardboard or a table. However, if you already own an iron, chances are you’ve got access to an ironing board.
7. Parchment Paper. I used parchment paper because it’s cheap, plentiful, and non-stick. It’s also slightly translucent, which makes it great for making sure everything is positioned properly and visually seeing when the design is starting to melt into place. I’m sure there are lots of other nonstick options, but this worked well enough that it would definitely be my go-to in the future.
8. Optional:
  1. Yardstick. This is helpful in finding the center line for the t-shirt when you’re ready to apply the design. It’s helpful, but not necessary. Since you’re just using it as a straight edge, you could make do with just a long piece of straight cardboard.
  2. Specialty Tools. You can buy specialty tools for “weeding” heat transfer vinyl, special tools for centering designs on shirts, and special heat pressers to apply vinyl. For a few shirts now and then, I don’t think any of these are necessary.
Process.
1. A Note On Double-Checking. As the old saying goes, measure twice and cut once. While there are very few “mission critical” steps to this process, there are a few points where it makes a lot of sense to spend the time to legitimately completely check and then double-check something.
  1. Double-Check the Vinyl. Depending upon the type of HTV you get, it might have two or three layers.
    1. Two Layers. If it is two layers, there will be a thick clear/clear-ish protective plastic coating and the vinyl. The side of the vinyl facing the protective coating is the part that will appear on the outside of your fabric and the side without the protective coating is the part that will melt and adhere to your fabric.
    2. Three Layers. When there three layers, the vinyl will be sandwiched between the thick clear protective plastic coating and (at least in my case) a blue film on the back. Again, the side of the vinyl facing the protective coating is the part that will appear on the outside of your fabric and the side with the thin film is the part that will melt and adhere to your fabric.
  2. I would recommend checking your HTV by cutting a thin corner off and peeling it to see how many layers you have. I was alerted to this two/three layer issue by reading a lot of reviews. My chameleon blue-purple vinyl had three layers and the dark gray reflective only had two. You could probably remove it before you started cutting out your design, but you’ll definitely need to remove the film layer before ironing.
  3. Pro-Tip: I would also recommend labeling the box your HTV is in with “two-layer” or “three-layer” to help yourself remember which kind you have when you come back to make a new design next time.
2. Double-Check the Design.
  1. For most applications, you’ll want to mirror-flip your design. You can do this in the graphics design program of your choice, probably using some printer settings.
  2. Pro-Tips:
    1. If you’re trying to create a vinyl pattern from some photograph, magazine page, or similar, you might want to photocopy it and then trace the design onto the back of sheet it’s printed on using a lightbox.
    2. Unless you’re creating a multi-layer process, consider making your entire design two-tone black and white. When it comes time to cut out your design, this will make it a lot easier for you to remember which parts should be cut away and removed.
    3. You’ll be removing lots of areas from the vinyl in a later step. There’s no harm to your design if you “over-cut” into these areas. Overcutting allows you to ensure you’re definitely separating sections of the design from the parts that will be discarded. I would recommend actually drawing in these “over-cut” spots into the design, either as part of the design process or manually with a pen after the design has been printed out.
    4. I like to add the word “reversed” to the design, so I’ll remember to actually mirror flip it.
    5. Since most anything I’ll be creating will fit on a t-shirt, I like to make my designs fit into a standard 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper. I created a template to do this which has several guidelines and a border 1/4″ all the way around the sheet to make sure the design can be printed within the printer’s margins.
3. Apply the Design. As suggested above, you could cut out your design with scissors or perhaps even built it out of scraps of vinyl. If you wanted to create lettering or follow a very precise pattern, I’d definitely suggest designing on a computer, printing it out (reversed), then taping the design to the vinyl so it doesn’t shift as you cut it, and taping the vinyl to the cutting mat so that doesn’t shift as you cut.
4. Cut the Design.
  1. I used a craft knife and went slow, using steady medium-hard pressure to cut out the design. When I wasn’t sure I had cleanly cut all the way through the vinyl, I went back and cut that area again. Having done this a few more times since I started the blog post, I can say that I didn’t need to cut this hard – and could have used a medium pressure. More than this and the clear plastic layer gets cut or scored. This isn’t a problem, but it doesn’t lay flat quite as well any more.
  2. As you cut, be mindful of the areas you’ll be removing that you can “over-cut” into and those areas of your design where you won’t want any knicks and cuts.
  3. I made a point of “over-cutting” the critical pieces, especially at corners, because I did not want to chance the vinyl tearing as I removed the excess pieces. A single section tearing or stretching would basically ruin the entire design and require starting over.
  4. I had to be sure I was cutting through the printer paper and cleanly through the vinyl, even at the risk of gouging the protective layer. I was very surprised the protective layer held up as well as it did. It was clearly scored where I had cut into it, but except for some very small parts, I never cut all the way through it.
  5. Once your design is cut out, use scissors to cut the entire area out of the vinyl roll. I like leaving a 1/4″ allowance everywhere just so I know the scissors aren’t going to affect my design.
  6. Pro-Tip: Before you start cutting, it might help to take a moment to plan out your cuts, draw in the areas for “over-cutting,” and even to make sure to darken in those areas that will be getting cut out to help keep things clear while you’re cutting.
5. “Weed” the Vinyl.
  1. “Weeding” the vinyl is the process of pulling out all the vinyl pieces you’ve cut out that aren’t part of the design. While there are lots of cheap weeding tool options for sale online for $5-10, I just used the point of my craft blade to pick these little pieces out. I suppose it might help to have tweezers, a pushpin, a paperclip, or a toothpick, but the craft knife worked perfectly for me.
  2. I’d recommend going slowly, especially at corners, and making sure the parts getting removed are fully cut free from the design elements that are staying.
6. Iron Fabric. Definitely take the time to iron your fabric flat. It would be a shame to discover a wrinkle on the underside of your t-shirt because the design was warped only after the vinyl was fused to the fabric.
7. Orient the Vinyl.
  1. Once my pattern is cut and weeded, it’s ready to be placed on the t-shirt. You can buy patterns, templates, and devices for centering a design on a t-shirt, but these seem unnecessary if you’re willing to simply be careful. Heck, even if you had these specialty tools, you’d still need to be careful.
  2. I made sure my t-shirt was flat and centered on the ironing board, there were no wrinkles in the fabric, the amount of the shirt hanging on the left and right sides were about equal, and then used a yardstick to estimate the center line of the shirt running from the tag down.
  3. I put the design about four inches down from the neck in my shirt after looking at the designs on other t-shirts I had purchased.
  4. If you chose to cut out your design so there was a little extra room all the way around it, the empty clear protective plastic layer will still be “tacky” and help keep the design in place.
  5. Pro-Tips:
    1. It wouldn’t hurt to double-check that you’ve got the exposed vinyl side facing the fabric. You definitely don’t want it melting against the parchment paper or your iron.
    2. One of the nice things about printing the design with guide marks and registration marks was that it made it a little easier to orient the design neatly on the shirt. I printed a second copy of the design, then placed it on the shirt – then put the vinyl design down on the shirt underneath the paper.
    3. Before you place the vinyl on the fabric, take a moment to double check there are no stray pieces of weeded / discard vinyl stuck to the protective layer. They’ll be impossible to remove once you’ve started ironing.
8. Cover with Parchment Paper.
  1. My design was only about a 6″ diameter circle, so I only needed a piece of parchment paper slightly larger than this. Since the parchment paper isn’t really consumed by this process, I went ahead and got a big square of it so I can reuse it on other shirts.
  2. The parchment paper I’m using is slightly translucent, which made it easy to ensure the design hadn’t shifted and so I could make a few last second adjustments.
9. Iron The Vinyl.
  1. Obviously, read and follow the directions for your specific heat transfer vinyl. The vinyl I purchased recommended 300 – 330 °F for 5 to 15 seconds. I don’t have a fancy iron, so I heated the iron to the “wool” setting (estimated to be 300 °F) and ran the iron over the parchment paper, pressing firmly, in a small circular pattern for about 15 seconds in each area. I kept the iron moving so as not to scorch any part of the design, the shirt, or the parchment paper.
  2. Pro-Tips:
    1. It never hurts to do a few test pieces. I tried ironing both kinds of HTV onto an old undershirt to make sure the heat settings worked, I understood which sides needed to face against the fabric, how I would remove the backing once it had been ironed, and how it all worked.
    2. Having now done this a few times since I started the blog post, I would recommend putting something rigid or semi-rigid under the shirt. The first time I ironed the design, it looked great – but came out slightly wrinkly in the wash. I re-ironed it using really heavy pressure and the same shirt has held up in the wash ever since.
10. Remove Backing.
  1. The instructions for my vinyl told me to “hot peel” the backing. I took this to mean that I should carefully remove the clear protective coating from the heat fused vinyl. There were a few small spots where it looked like the vinyl wanted to come up a little bit, but the backing came up cleanly everywhere.
11. Cover and Iron Again.
  1. Since there were a few small spots where it looked like the vinyl might have come up slightly as I was removing the backing, I put the parchment paper back down and ran the iron around the entire design for about 5 seconds in each spot.
12. Don’t Wash for 24 Hours.
  1. My instructions say to wait 24 hours before washing the garment. I spent a while on this design, so I wasn’t about to chance it by throwing the shirt in the wash.
13. Iron Again (Optional).
  1. After I washed the first shirt I made, the design appeared to have buckled slightly. After a second ironing, it has stood up to repeated washings without a problem.

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Heat Transfer Vinyl T-Shirts (Without a Craft Cutter)

I’m going to reference these shows and their contents a lot. I don’t own their intellectual property, they do, I just wanted to make a fun t-shirt for myself. [↩]
Those who know, know. [↩]
Do the thing! [↩]

Cephalopod Robot Friend Progress

Well, it’s here! Today is the start of #CephalopodWeek on ScienceFriday! There’s a little progress to report on my, tentatively named, CuttleBot. I’ll post a picture first, then get to describing the progress so far.

In the prior post I listed some of my sources of inspiration. Another such source is the work of Sean Charlesworth and his awesome Octopod, Gowanus Monster, and newly published Scuttleship. ((If you like his work, be sure and check out his Etsy shop!))

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Since I need special connectors for the articulated/articulating tentacles and I wasn’t able to edit the files in OpenSCAD, I wasn’t able to use Sean’s STL files. However, I really like the aesthetic of his designs1 and how they really evoke the form of an octopus or cuttlefish. Here’s a mock up I used to help me visualize what a full-scale Scuttlefish head might look like with the tentacles I designed.

Scuttlefish with placeholders for tentacles

Unfortunately, the Scuttlefish head and body parts are just a tad too large for my small printer’s build volume. However, even if I were using a larger printer, I would still not want such a large robot as I’m hoping for this to be a shoulder-mounted companion.

Thus, I began work creating an OpenSCAD cephalopod cuttlefish head inspired by Sean’s work.

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Now that I had a design, I set the printer to work over night. This design is mostly to see if the various parts for the tentacles would work with this head. Since I want to put some LED’s in the eyes and possibly the mouth, I’ll need to hollow it out later.

The print took a little over an hour for the head.

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How about a video of it working?

I’m very happy with the progress so far. If I can shrink down the tentacle mechanisms, I can add more tentacles for more interesting emoting and animations. The video just shows the results of me yanking the fishing line running through the CuttleBot’s head.

Here’s a few more sketches of how I am planning on putting it all together.

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I might add some fabric frills / fins, instead of printed ones. I was also contemplating letting the top “shell” of the CuttleBot be formed from 3D printed spines with a fabric or thin plastic sheeting covering. This might help reduce weight or allow for internal lights to shine through the body.

Companion Robots: Building Robot Friends

Cephalopod Steampunk?! [↩]

PCB Design with KiCAD

ATTiny Breakout v002
ATTiny Breakout v004

It is pretty incredible that you can find a written or1 video tutorial on virtually any topic to learn anything. Today, I’m particularly thankful to Shawn Hymel, Sparkfun, and Digi-Key for putting together their Intro to KiCAD video series on printed circuit board design.

This series took me from knowing nothing at all about PCB layout and design to ordering my very first board through OSHPark. My first design isn’t anything amazing – it was basically a breakout board for an ATTiny85 to make it easier to build small projects.

My first ATTiny hacked tap light was a mess. I soldered wires directly to the microcontroller making it a real pain to update. ((I ask you – is this the work of a sane man?)) I soon realized my mistake and soldered an 8-pin socket in its place so I could reprogram the chip easily.

This is the alternative to a custom PCB – a rat’s nest of wires soldered to a chip

Mercifully, Shawn’s tutorial series got me up and running very quickly. This post is not meant to be a tutorial for KiCAD, but more like a “lab notebook” for the workflow to create a board. If you haven’t built a board yet, go check out Shawn’s series and follow along in KiCAD. If you are a novice like me, you might find these notes helpful:

Eeschema

If you launch Eeschema separately from KiCAD, you can save different versions of a schematic. Keeping old versions of design files is hugely helpful to me and if you launch KiCAD directly, the option to save different file names and versions is not available!
The keyboard shortcuts in Eeschema are great. With just a few, it’s possible to really get around quickly.
- “Shift-A” and left click to place parts
- “M” to move parts
- “R” to rotate parts
It is necessary to add “PWR_FLAG” to both the power and ground lines.
Double check your connections work by clicking on the bug icon.
Assign the parts you intend to use to match up with the symbols using the “Assign PCB footprints” icon.
Save your work and “Generate netlist” to have something the Pcbnew will be able to work with.

Pcbnew

First configure the Design Rules by going to Setup -> Design Rules. Shawn pulled these KiCAD Design Rules from the OSHPark.com website. KiCAD has apparently changed a little since the version used on the OSHPark website, but the settings are easy enough to identify and change.
- Net Classes Editor
  - Clearance: 0.01. Track Width: 0.01. Via Dia: 0.03. Via Drill: 0.015. uVia Dia: 0.03. uVia Drill: 0.015. Diff Pair Width: default. Diff Pair Gap: default.
  Global Design Rules
  - Minimum track width: 0.006. Minimum via diameter: 0.027. Minimum via drill: 0.013Custom Track Widths: Track 1: 0.03
Read netlist” to bring your design over from Eeschema.
Placing parts and drawing lines gets a lot easier when you fine tune the Grid. I started with 5.00 mils at first, then smaller figures to place smaller parts and features.
Once the parts are arranged in Pcbnew, connect the ground and power lines using 30 mil traces and everything else using 10 mil traces.
Create the outline for the board cutout by clicking on “Edge.Cuts” and drawing with the “Add graphic lines” tool. Starting with my second board, I began cutting the corners off, so that they were a little nicer to hold and
Label things on the “F.SilkS” and “B.SilkS” layers using the “Add text”‘ button. Since my boards are so small, I wanted the text to be a fair bit smaller than the default settings. I edited the text settings by going to Setup -> Text and Drawings.
- Copper text thickness: 0.007. Text height: 0.035. Text width: 0.035.
Create a copper pour with Place -> Zone, then choose “F.Cu”2 and “GND”.3 and draw a box around your board. Then repeat for the “B.Cu” and “GND.”

Again, I’m a total newbie at circuit design. If I got something wildly wrong, please let me know. :)

More frequently these days [↩]
Front copper [↩]
Ground, natch [↩]

Maker Faire 2018 – 3D Printing for Home Improvement

If you’re here checking out my site after my presentation, you can check out all the slides from my presentation above. If you’d like more information about the individual things in the slides, I posted an update for most of them over on Hackaday. If you’ve still got some questions, feel free to leave a comment below, hit me up on twitter, email me directly.

OpenSCAD Intermediates: How to Make Complex Organic Shapes

OpenSCAD tutorials for the MakerBot blog. In that OpenSCAD tutorial series I covered the basics of the OpenSCAD interface, how to make 2D forms, how to make some basic 3D forms, how to position those forms in 3D space, the different ways to combine forms, how to create mashups of one or more existing STL’s and OpenSCAD forms, how to use modules to reuse your code to make your life easier, how to extrude flat 2D forms into 3D forms, and how to fix design problems. One of the last tutorials was on how to make organic looking shapes using OpenSCAD.1 However, I have a few design tricks left to share. A little over 18 months ago I left off the series suggesting as new topics.2 There’s one particular “trick” I am using a lot as I work on designing a printable parametric prosthetic. This trick is somewhat easier to explain using pictures. Suppose you wanted to make a shape that looked something like a “jack,” but you wanted it to have curved surfaces at the center. Let’s see what happens when we try to use the “hull()” command. Do do this, we’ll make a sphere at the center and put eight more spheres around it. The code for this example is basically irrelevant, but I’ll provide it anyhow.

sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);

There’s a much easier way to create the 8 “orbiting” spheres, but that’s another post unto itself. :) Here’s what the above code will create:

Nine little spheres (I named one of them Pluto!)

Now, let’s use the “hull()” command to wrap around these spheres.

hull()
{
sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10);
)

That code will make this:

Nine spheres to... a box? — Nine spheres to… a box?

The result looks nothing like a jack! It looks more like a box with rounded edges. The limitation with the “hull()” command3 is that it connects all the outside points from the various shapes. The result is more like what the objects would look like if you covered them in plastic wrap – but not what they would look like if you tried to use shrink wrap.4 However, our goal is to get a jack. How should we go about this? The same way we eat an elephant.5 6 We need to use “hull()” multiple times7 to connect the central sphere to the eight surrounding spheres.

hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,0,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,0]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,90]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,180]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }
hull() { sphere(r=10);
rotate([0,180,270]) translate([100,100,100*pow(2,0.5)/1.5]) sphere(r=10); }

The result would look like:

By breaking the overall design into pieces, you can use the “hull()” command to connect pieces of the design to one another in a seemingly organic fashion. Here’s a set of pictures of my most recent work that uses these design tricks.

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Full list here:
[↩]
These are, in no particular order:
- How to sketch an object with OpenSCAD
- How to easily make regular solids – other than cubes and cylinders, like hexagons, pentagons, octagons, etc
- How to easily make symmetrical solids
- How to easily make irregular, but symmetrical solids
[↩]
I almost typed “problem,” but in this case it probably is just a feature [↩]
That’s the best analogy I can come up with [↩]
One bite at a time. [↩]
It’s such a damn shame when a cool domain name is taken – and there’s nothing there. Such as eatanelephant.com [↩]
8 times [↩]

How to Make Awesome Cardboard Paper Mache Anything

A few weeks ago a friend of mine had a “bad movie night” where he was showing the film1 “Sharknado.” Inspired by the theme for the party, I decided I had to wear a shark hat for the event. After making my hat, my daughter requested a monkey hat. This was not a request I could refuse.

I took pictures of the process to show you how you can make your own. I haven’t ever tried to make paper mache hats before, so this was not only a lot of fun – but a great learning experience. While I own the really great paper mache monster books by Dan Reeder, I only used them for inspiration and tried out a few new things on my own.

Even though I used this process to make hats, the directions here could easily be adapted to making anything out of paper mache.

Step 1: Gather Materials and Tools

All the things you need to make your own awesome paper mache anything

Here’s what you need to get started:

Cardboard Boxes. Cardboard forms the “skeleton” of the structure. It’s cheap, ubiquitous, sturdy, and easy to cut and form.
Masking Tape. Once the cardboard has been cut, liberal use of masking tape will keep your creation together until it can be covered with paper mache.
Scissors and Utility Knife. Scissors can be very helpful in cutting cardboard or paper. While scissors can be helpful, and appropriate for kids, I find a utility knife gets the job done faster.
Measuring Tape. If you’re not making a hat (or other apparel or armor) you won’t need this. But it is helpful when making measurements. ((In a pinch, you could just use a piece of yarn or string to mark lengths, and then put the yarn on the cardboard for reference.))
Plastic Wrap. Whether you’re working with gluey paper or paint, the process is messy. I would recommend covering the work surface with plastic wrap. I happened to have a really large plastic bag, which I taped directly to the table.
Glue. I just used a big bottle of Elmer’s white glue from the hardware store, but I’m pretty sure wood glue would have worked as well, if not better. It’s also more versatile and sturdy.
Plastic Tray. The next time you get take-out or have a plastic liner from inside some packaging, save it. It makes a great wide tray for mixing water and glue or when your project is dry, it is also great for mixing paints.
Paper Grocery Bags. The “twist” with this process is that I used torn up grocery bags, rather than the traditional newspaper. It turned out this was a really good idea for a number of reasons. Paper bags are a cheap and plentiful material. When thoroughly wet strips of paper bags are easy to place, mold and shape. However, the most important features of paper bags is that they hold glue and water really well and then dry quickly into a sturdy hard shell. In fact, they form such a sturdy surface that I only had to do a single layer of paper mache around the entire hat. This means that you can quickly put down a single layer of paper bag strips all over your cardboard form, wait a few hours for it to dry, and then get to work finishing the project.
Paper or Newspaper. While grocery bags work really well to cover your cardboard form, they can leave some small gaps where they overlap. When I found gaps in the project, I simply used a few thin strips of the newsprint style paper to cover the holes and smooth out spots on the rough paper bag layer.
Cup of Water and Paintbrushes. An old mug is best and pile of cheap dollar store brushes is probably fine.
Paints. I prefer acrylic paints. They are cheap, can be diluted with water, easy to mix, they stay wet long enough for you to blend, but not so long that you have to wait days for it to dry. They also clean up well with water.

Step 2: Create Cardboard Form

The process I used to create the cardboard forms for the hats was pretty quick and easy. I measured the circumference of my daughter’s head and then the distance from her ears to the top of her head. Using these measurements, I cut out a strip of cardboard as tall as the distance from her ears to the top of her head and as wide as the circumference of her head – with a little extra to allow for overlap.

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In the pictures above you can see the strip of cardboard cut out and then taped into a cylinder with the masking tape.

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Cut strips into the cardboard cylinder, fold them down, and add enough masking tape to mold it into a hat-shape.

Step 3: Add Embellishments

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A paper mache hat is way more interesting with some kind of embellishment, like ears, shark fins, wings, or whatever else. Here I cut ear shapes out of cardboard, curved them slightly, taped them to hold the curve, and then taped them to the hat. When I made the shark hat, I cut a long slit into the hat through the tape and inserted the shark fin through the underside of the hat. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of tape.

Step 4: Prepare the Work Surface, Paper Strips, and Glue Mixture

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Cover the work surface with plastic sheeting. I used a big plastic bag from a helium balloon order from my daughter’s birthday. However, a big garbage bag or plastic wrap would also work well. Paper bags from the grocery store work really well – but there are too thick in places. Tear off the handles and pull the paper bag apart at the seams. You’ll probably need to discard some of the sections where the the paper bag is too thick to use.

Add some glue (I used about a tablespoon) and warm water (about a half cup or so) to the plastic pan. It should look like milk or heavy cream once you’ve mixed it up.

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Completely soak the strips of paper bag in the glue mixture. They should be completely soaked all the way through until they’re nearly translucent. Unlike paper mache with thin pieces of newspaper, you won’t need to put layers and layers of paper on the form – just one layer where the pieces overlap a little should work fine. The excess glue from the strips of paper will soak into the cardboard and help make the entire structure sturdy.

Step 5: Set Model to Dry, Patch Holes with Paper

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Since the cardboard helps soak up the water, the entire structure should dry relatively quickly. I put the shark hat outside in the sun for a few hours and it was ready for painting. Once the hat is dry (or dry enough), you’ll probably notice some holes and gaps from the paper bag strips. Tear up some newsprint paper, soak those in the gluey mixture, and cover and smooth out any defects. Once these pieces dry, the project will be ready to paint!

Step 6: Paint to Suit

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The great thing about acrylic paints is that they are so easy to work with. They dry really quickly, so you can paint one side of the model, work on the other side, and then come back to the first side to add details. In any case, just paint the project to suit and you’re done!

Each hat went together really quickly. I put the cardboard form together in about 15 minutes, covered it with the gluey paper bag strips over maybe 30 minutes, let it dry for several hours, and then paint it over the course of maybe an hour.

If you make your own paper mache hat (or other sculpture), let me know in the comments!

And I use the word “film” loosely here [↩]

Mechanical Movements and Design Inspirations

I’ve been working on a few different mechanical projects for a while now. On the one hand, I’m severely limited by my complete and utter lack of mechanical engineering knowledge. On the other hand, I’ve got a 3D printer so I can always arrive at a decent approximation through enough trial and error.

Of course, it’s not like it would kill me to actually learn something about the basics of mechanical engineering. With a bit of googling, I found a page named, “Kinematic Models for Design” which links to a large number of historical texts relating to mechanical engineering – including works from Charles Babbage and Leonardo da Vinci. I found two to be particularly useful – Mechanisms for Intermittent Motion, by John Bickford, 1972, and Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements, by Henry Brown, 1871.

Last, but not least, I want to mention that a friend of mine, Rob Gisebert, told me about the website 507movements.com which is an online repository of the various movements from Brown’s book. Even more interesting, many of these complex movements are are accompanied by animated versions of the drawings in the book.

New Google Groups to Discusss 3D Design Marketplaces

Looking towards the 3D future... — Looking towards the 3D future…

If you read this blog, I think you would be interested in joining a new Google Group for discussing emerging 3D design marketplaces.1 It was started a few days ago by the illustrious 3D designer and artist Emmett Lalish to start a dialog about designing in the brave new world of digital things.

I generally share my 3D designs freely on Thingiverse. Some designs I don’t care much about, I share them in case someone else might fight them interesting or useful. Some I don’t have much of a right to – a very slight variation / derivative of someone else’s work or a derivative of a work that walks the fine line that is “fair use” such as my OpenSCAD Voltron. Some of my designs are things which I think I might be able to turn into something I could sell or be the start of a little business.

And some of my designs I want to share and am particularly proud of – such as my sushi set, pirate ship, and the printed parts for my PlotterBot. For these very few designs, I choose a “non-commercial” license. I’m so proud of these designs that I want to share them, and yet I feel that my creativity and hard work merits reward – especially if someone makes a profit off of them.

Photo courtesy of David [↩]

I cannot wait to print this!!!

46 lines of code. Just one surface. Booyah!