A month or so ago my Twitter followers saw me send out a request for a quick-turnaround laser cutting project that I wasn’t willing to talk about. Now that MAKE 25 has hit the news stands I can talk about it:
It was great to work with the folks at MAKE on such a big How-To article. Seeing first hand the work they put into verifying everything was a real pleasure. (It’s always good to have someone double checking your work!) And having professional illustrations to go with are always welcome.
The emergency laser cutting was for the fully transparent version of the gumball machine you can see at the head of the article thanks to the lovely photographers at MAKE. I made my first visible gumball machine for the most recent Bay Area Maker Faire, but it was a bit of a mess and was mostly destroyed in a recent move. This gave me a chance to make a new one with all of the improvements that I learned in writing the article, and I needed a new one to take to future Maker Faires. However print has pretty firm deadlines and I needed to make it in just a couple of days to meet their photo deadline. Due to my complete lack of time I couldn’t find anyone to give me fast enough turn around on the laser cuts. Which isn’t their fault, I had never laser cut this design before and wanted to allow enough time for a second pass when, invariable, part of the first one wasn’t quite right.
So I had to cut it myself, unfortunately my temporary remote lab was a little short on power tools. The only power cutting tools available were a Dremel and a jigsaw. But I had lots of straight edges and clamps and even a jigsaw blade that was intended for acrylic. Oh, and I learned you can buy acrylic at most home centers near the window department.
So here it is. It looks even better than I could have hoped. Acrylic is a serious pain to work with using power tools (it really should be laser cut) but it came out looking great. You even have to look really closely to see where I let the saw get away from me twice, and the places where I mis-drilled holes. And those two chips. (Sorry, no extra points for finding additional flaws.)
MAKE #25 is mostly about microcontrollers, so there are a bunch of information about what a microcontoller is, how to choose one, as well as other clever Arduino projects. And there is the great model rocket project that’s featured on the cover. So don’t just go out and buy it for the secret knock gumball machine (Pages 92-103. Full instructions with diagrams and charts. Ahem.) but get it for all the automated yogurt maker, the sous vide cooker, the DIY beehive and the dozens of other great things.
If you’ve come following links from the magazine, welcome. MAKE has all of the downloads for the article available here. But on the off chance their site is down you can download them here:
- Case template.
- Wiring schematic / wiring diagram.
- Main Gumball Machine Arduino sketch.
- Servo Reset Arduino sketch.
I also want to thank Liz Smith who was the only one clear headed enough to take photos at Maker Faire, and Ronnie Padilla for being my good natured model on the last page of the article.
And it turns out that if you put a light under it, photos look like they’re x-rays.
A great plan. Thankyou! During trial runs the gumballs get jammed in the back behind the plates and box. Checked all pieces sizes for correctness. Am I missing something?
Hard to say, I had similar binding problems with the first version, but fixed it in later versions. If they’ge getting jammed between the funnel and the ball delivery cylinder thingy, the first thing I would try is making the funnel narrower, front to back. A quick and dirty way to see if that fixed your problem is to cut a piece of material (plywood or acrylic or whatever you used) that fits in the lower back of the funnel and taping it in place. Or maybe two.
Alternately check the clearance between the funnel and the cylinder. If you have a noticeable gap (more than 1/4″) somewhere you can cut new funnel end pieces to fill in the gap.