User:Micha

about me

Hullo fellow makers!

I'm a computer scientist turned user experience designer living in Nußloch.

Pronouns: he/him

interests

Everything 😅

I'm still exploring the space. I can imagine I'll find a couple of useful things around the household, regarding home automation (mainly Homematic IP right now), musical instruments (bass guitar / guitar) or repairing electronics. Or anything that leads to some cool or fun stuff for my kids (5 and 7 years old).

Besides that, feel free to chat with me about Terry Pratchett, politics, computer games, management, parenting... really about anything but soccer or beer.

projects

done:

• A laser-cut of my daughter's name for the door of her new room.
  • Steps:
    1. Use PowerPoint to create samples of my daughter's name in different fonts.
    2. Have multiple rounds of voting on her favorite representations of her name to find her favorite one. Of course, she picked the most fancy-looking and curly font (see screenshot):

       

    3. Convert winner name to SVG.
    4. Import in Inkscape, add a border.
    5. Export as DXF (on the same machine as PPT, Inkscape so it knows the font).
    6. Try out a few ways to cut this into a piece of poplar plywood (4mm):
       1. Cut: the centers of the letters are not connected to anything so they fall out. Doesn't look good.
       2. Engraving the name gives a nice result (cut the border, of course). Just some smoke resdiue on the surface.
       3. To remove discoloring around the name, sand the surface with some sand paper (by hand).
  • Further options: Paint or spray or give a finish in some other way.
• Laser-cut product logo into a piece of 4mm plywood. It's about A3 size and can be used to draw the complex logo onto a whiteboard or flipchart.
• Laser-cut heart-shaped congratulations for colleagues who got married (including our product logo).
  • Hints:
    • Copy-paste shape from PPT to Inkscape to preserve size (also for DXF export from Inkscape).
    • To avoid problems with fonts, export DXF on same machine the PPT design was created on.
• Laser-cut stylized christmas tree ornaments with product logo.
• Laser Cutter: A more or less 3D robot to be put together during a treasure hunt at my daughter's birthday party.
  • Designed in Autodesk Fusion (after the fantastic Seminar here in the space).
  • Exported to DXF files via the free plug-in DXF for Laser. Exported all relevant faces individually.
  • Use File Drop to get (zipped) files to Laser PC.
• 3D printed broken Flowbee adapter
  • First with original version by daschi. It was almost robust enough with 100% infill and PLA - almost ;-)
  • Created a derivative version with Autodesk Tinkercad. Just added more material at the most fragile part. That worked.
• Laser-cut and engraved stylized paper flowers to put around play-doh containers.
• Laser-engraved photo for the Members Wall: See project page Project:Laser-engraved Photo for Members Wall
• Project:Restore Garden Bench
• Laser-engrave kids "signatures" into wooden disks for good-bye present to kindergarten.
  1. Have kids write their names on a small-ish pieve of paper with a felt pen.
  2. Convert to binary image like in Project:Laser_Engraved_Stamps#Preparing the Image (just don't invert and mirror it). If the line is too thin, add a gaussian blur (Filters->Blur->Gaussian blur...) and then apply a color threshold again to revert to a 2-bit image.
  3. Use laser-cutter software to engrave the resulting image (via our File Drop). Rescale to fit the workpiece, e.g. to around 100mmx25mm. Settings I used (LaserSystem):
     • Engrave, Speed 400, Power 100, Scan Gap 0.1,
     • Origin position: center (easier to align on the wooden disk)
     • Focus -2,
     • 3 passes.
• Several Project:Laser Engraved Stamps, e.g. with drawing the kids made themselves. Some with default settings, some with a slower engrave speed to make the ridges stand out more (e.g. 120 instead of 200).

in process

• "Unicorn" game based on designs that my daughter and I made.
• Multiboard storage for tools
• Project:Cage for Pet Rats

ideas

• Several contraptions to put multiple prints of photos on a concrete wall without drilling holes for each and every one of them.
• Maybe several picture frames as well.
• Our family name as a sign on the outside wall next to our front door. There are already holes there from the previous owner which I could use to attach it to the insulation.
• Hang tools and other things on wall.
• more to come 🤓

machines I've had an introduction to

• Bench Grinders
• Laser Cutter
• 3D Printers
• Dremel / Rotary Tool
• Chop Saw
• Compressor

contact me

You can reach me via Special:EmailUser/Micha.