We’ve been using GM3 gearmotors for our RepRap extruder motors, but they have a few problems (most notably being underpowered and having cheap plastic gears) so I decided to shop around and try to find a motor that I could be proud of. I stumbled onto the site kysanelectronics.com and ordered a bunch of their 12v DC gear motors. I got about 10 different motors with various gear ratios, sizes, etc. I decided to sacrifice one and take it apart. Turns out I was actually (miraculously?) able to piece it back together again, in working order too!

Here is a flickr set with the teardown.

Anyway, here are a few observations about these motors:

* they are all-metal construction (gears, housing, shafts, etc) the only plastic was an insulator on the terminals
* they are very powerful (my test is attaching vice grips and letting them rotate the vice grips, then trying to stop the rotating pliers with my hands. all could easily move the pliers, and most took a decent amount of force to stop)
* they are pretty cheap! for a single motor, they are $9.07 for a single unit and at volumes of 100+ they drop to $7.34. Not as cheap as the GM3, but they have dramatically higher strength, etc.

I think I may just have to place an order for a hundred of them. =)

Sometimes I blow out transistors.  Sometimes they smoke.  Sometimes they fizzle.  And sometimes, like today, they fail so catastrophically that they blow the face of their encasing epoxy across the room:

(The transistor behind it merely cracked in two.)

As part of my talk for 25c3, I spent some time talking about weaving looms. Looms are a lot like giant physical graphics processors. They’re also considered to be the first machines to really make use of punch cards.

At the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin they have a ton of old industrial textile equipment, including a beautiful Jacquard loom. And next to it, a fantastic model which shows you just how a Jacquard head works. It was so great I had to snap a video of this new tech I was witnessing. If you business is in the need of new technology just like this shop, then consider using this messaging service for business to notice the improvements. 

You can see photos and video of the loom itself over on my blog, Kellbot!

More awesome textile tech was a punchtape driven embroidery machine which was completely mechanical. I couldn’t find much information about it, so if anyone knows about these machines let me know!

Of course there’s a ton of other stuff at the Tech museum… planes, trains, automobiles, math… we spent about 5 hours there and still didn’t see all of it. If you’re in Berlin you should set aside half a day to go see it.

Our article in the NY Times

NYC Resistor was featured in the NY Times online today, and will appear in print this Sunday, on page CY5 of the New York edition.

First, huge thanks go to Ben Popper for contacting us, visiting, and writing the article. Michael Appleton also made our space look pretty darn snazzy in his photo. Thanks guys!

If you’ve found us from that article, welcome! As you’ve read, we’re a group of like-minded people who get together to learn, share, and make things – most often things that blink, beep, or move about, but we do crafty stuff as well, and we’re always experimenting. Here’s a few of the projects we’ve worked on in the past. Bre has also featured quite a few projects on his show, “Things“. If you’d like to keep up with what we’re up to, the best way is to stay informed is to subscribe to this blog. If you have any questions or would just like to say hello, you can email us at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at (888) 881-2802.

Now, if you’ve read about us and thought to yourself “That sounds neat, I’d like to go check it out”, here’s the deal. Our physical location is a private space and there’s not always someone around, so please be sure to drop us an email to make sure it’s a good time to swing by. We’d hate to have you come for a visit and find nobody home. You can also join us for any of our public events. We host open “craft nights” most Thursdays*, so check the calendar and then come say hello! Bringing a project to hack or craft on is highly encouraged.

Another good way to get to know us and check out the space is to come to one of our classes. The schedule for the new year will be filling up soon. The best way to stay updated as new classes are added to the schedule is to subscribe to the RSS feed of new classes.

Finally, if you want to start chatting with other like-minded folks (even if you’re not local to NYC), consider joining our “microcontroller study group“. It’s essentially the public email listserv for NYC Resistor, and a lot of interesting chats happen there.

Okay, I think that’s it… Thanks again to Ben, Michael, and the Times!

*Note: There’s no craft night this Thursday, due to it being New Year’s day, and the fact that a good chunk of Resistors will be attending 25c3

PumpoTron 3000 from Zach 'Iowa' Hoeken on Vimeo.

Get the files for laser cutting your own pump at www.thingiverse.com.