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Why using 3D printing in your smart home is so useful

3D printing, the stuff of science fiction only a few short years ago, is becoming more widely available all the time. Buying your own 3D printer to keep in your home is now fairly accessible, with entry-level printers available for just a few hundred dollars.

But why would you buy one? It’s easy to think 3D printers are still a niche toy, exciting for a few enthusiasts but largely useless for the general population. But this couldn’t be more wrong — 3D printers have a wide range of very practical uses for everyday households.

In this article, we’ll take a look at why 3D printing is so useful and some of the many reasons to consider adding a 3D printer to your own smart home.

Why 3D printing is so useful

  • It’s fast and convenient. With a 3D printer, you can produce simple objects, creations, and components for existing items in a fairly short amount of time — much quicker than ordering the same things online or heading to a local store.
  • You get a ton of control over what you print. Need a very specific shaped object to repair a broken item in your home? It may be impossible to buy what you need anywhere, but a 3D printer allows you to create exactly the right size and shape you need.
  • It’s relatively affordable. As mentioned, basic 3D printers can be had for fairly cheap nowadays, and printing — for smaller objects, at least — costs very little.
  • It’s sustainable. It’s much more sustainable to print your own things than order them across large distances, and this is especially true for niche items that might need to be shipped across the globe to reach you.

Using 3D printing in your smart home

So what can you use a 3D printer for? There are many potential uses for a 3D printer in your smart home, and they range from practical tasks like repairing broken furniture to more creative hobbies. Let’s take a look at some of the main reasons to own a 3D printer.

Create useful items for your home

3D printers are perfect for creating small, useful items to use around the home. Some examples are coasters, decorations, lampshades, stationery, and small kitchen tools. This is a great way to combine practical use with a fun creative hobby, putting your own personal spin on the little items you use every day.

Repair items

You know that table you have that just never sits right? The door handle that doesn’t quite match the others in the house? The light switch that doesn’t fit exactly flush with the wall?

3D printing is the perfect solution to many of these small defects and faults. Because you have so much control over what you print — 3D printers can print according to virtually any instructions — it’s easy to create components to fix and spruce up the objects and appliances around your smart home.

Education

3D printers aren’t a regular fixture in classrooms around the world just yet, but it’s only a matter of time. These machines allow students to take a more hands-on and creative approach to their learning. Some examples could be:

  • Science projects like creating models of the solar system of the structure of an atom
  • Geography work like printing detailed models of mountains or volcanoes
  • All kinds of product design work
  • Creative work like art

Arts and creative projects

Creative projects aren’t just for the classroom — many people own 3D printers purely for their own artistic work. There’s almost no limit to what a 3D printer can do in this area, and with a little experience, it’s possible to create truly beautiful and incredibly detailed works of art at home.

Build your own smart home with Arduino

3D printing is just one aspect of a smart home. There’s an almost endless list of things you can do with the right home automation tools — from growing a smart garden to keeping your pets entertained and fed.

Check out Arduino Project Hub for inspiration on projects you can build with Arduino’s tools, or visit our homepage for more information.

The post Why using 3D printing in your smart home is so useful appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Host the best BBQs ever with home automation

Everybody loves a good BBQ. Getting your family and friends together on a long summer day and evening, cooking delicious food and having a great time as smoke drifts through the air — it’s the perfect weekend activity.

BBQs can also be stressful, however. Anyone who has ever tried to host one will know the challenges of managing multiple meats at once, trying to avoid any overcooking (or undercooking) disasters, and keeping track of all that equipment.

Automation can help run your BBQ much more smoothly, minimizing any mishaps and making sure everyone has the best experience possible. In this article, we’ll look at how home automation can improve the BBQ experience and share some examples from Arduino’s Project Hub.

How home automation improves BBQs

  • Keep track of different items. Automation makes it easier to manage multiple meats and other food items at the same time, notifying you when something is ready so you don’t get overwhelmed by tasks and neglect any of your cooking.
  • Stay on top of temperature by measuring each piece of food and ensuring it’s at the perfect point.
  • Create a more welcoming outdoor area with things like automated lighting, heaters, and even a smart garden.
  • Easy cleanup with robots and other tools to leave your grill and other tools sparkling clean.

Some project examples from Arduino

Temperature Controled Charcoal Smoker

Arduino community member Duncan Barbee knew that the most flavorful way to grill is to use charcoal to heat your smokers. While propane and electric smokers give you better temperature control, they lose that unique and delicious charcoal flavor.

But charcoal heaters present many challenges. You need to constantly stay on top of the temperature, adjusting the vents on a regular basis to make sure everything is just right as the charcoal level changes in the smoker.

Barbee wanted to build a project that gave him the best of both worlds — the tasty charcoal flavor with the ease and convenience of an electric or propane smoker. He developed a controller that monitors the temperature in the smoker and automatically adjusts the airflow to the charcoal to maintain the correct temperature at all times, allowing him to sit back and relax as the perfect charcoal-based BBQ unfolds.

Smokerduino

Robert Korn had already created a sous vide controller using Arduino and a handful of other components, with great success. He chose to apply the same model to a smoker and devised the Smokerduino, which ensures perfectly cooked meat every time with minimal effort from the chef.

Alexa BBQ/Kitchen Thermometer with IoT Arduino and ePaper

Roger Theriault and his wife enjoy making cheese and yogurt at home, but this is a long process involving a thermometer and lots of waiting around. To cut some steps out, he built his own smart thermometer to monitor the temperature of the food and beep when a specific temperature was reached and it was time for the next step.

However, when the device stopped working, Theriault decided to upgrade it instead of simply fixing it. The new iteration of the thermometer uses Alexa devices too, enabling him to easily monitor and control everything cooking in the kitchen or outside in the smoker.

The way it works is fairly straightforward — just give Alexa an instruction and it will find the recipe and instruct the given device to start from step one of that recipe. It also draws on the data from the recipe to monitor the temperature and make any notifications or adjustments needed.

Better BBQs with Arduino

Monitoring and controlling cooking is one of the most useful and rewarding use cases for home automation. Arduino’s products make it possible to assemble detailed and advanced projects to take your BBQs to the next level.

Check out the project hub for some more inspiration or visit the home page to learn more about how Arduino works.

The post Host the best BBQs ever with home automation appeared first on Arduino Blog.

If you grew up in the ’90s and would love to play some of your favorite hit songs through something a bit more nostalgic than your smartphone, perhaps you can do what “digital alchemist” Fuzzy Wobble has done and transform an old-school payphone into a fully-functional boombox.

Fuzzy Wobble was able to get his hands on an inexpensive payphone and hacked it using an Arduino Mega, an Adafruit MP3 Maker Shield, a 20W amplifier, a 20W speaker, and some other components. The unique boombox is also equipped with a rangefinder that detects whenever someone walks by, triggering the phone to ring and enticing someone to answer the call.

The phone is programmed with a recorded menu along with instructions on how to select one of several pre-loaded songs. Hitting the star key sends the device into broadcast mode.

What’s neat is that there’s a tiny booklet filled with images of ’90s tunes, from Coolio to Sugar Ray to Semisonic, each with a four-digit number on the back. Simply punch in the code and the payphone begins to play music.

Pretty awesome, right? You can build one yourself by following Fuzzy Wobble’s step-by-step Instructable here, and check out his demo video below.

All photos taken by space150.Use an Apple Watch to automagically open doors at home or at work with a tap on your wrist.

Read more on MAKE

The post Make an Apple Watch Door Unlocker appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.

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motorcycle camera mountIf you’ve ever watched MotoGP (motorcycle) racing, you might have wondered how the camera appears to stay level even while the bike turns left and right, nearly becoming horizontal. Saftari was curious about this himself and, rather than simply answering the question, he built a gyroscopic camera rig that allows the camera […]

Read more on MAKE

The post Motorcycle Gyromount Always Delivers Perfect Video appeared first on Make:.

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IKEA Hack Music Visualizer Table

arduino, Furniture, Hacks, ikea, music, visualizer Commenti disabilitati su IKEA Hack Music Visualizer Table 

FZFLTD5I3WWOFR7.MEDIUMAn ordinary IKEA table becomes the center of attention when it's turned into a music visualizer!

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circular-knitic-1Artist duo Varvara Guljajeva & Mar Canet designed and built an open hardware automated knitting machine called Circular Knitic.

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IMG_9924I decided to make programmable version of The Clapper using an Arduino microcontroller.

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Control your Halloween Props with Arduino

arduino, arduino uno, Featured, Hacks, halloween Commenti disabilitati su Control your Halloween Props with Arduino 

halloween-make

Jason from Make Magazine published a video tutorial on how to create an amazing choreography hacking your Halloween props using Arduino Uno:

 

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DIY Automatic Fish Feeder Using Arduino Nano

aquarium, arduino, fish, Food & Beverage, General, Hacks Commenti disabilitati su DIY Automatic Fish Feeder Using Arduino Nano 

Yep, that’s a drill bit and it helps to deliver the right amount of food to your fish.The all in one automatic aquarium feeder uses an Arduino Nano and drill bit feed fish at certain time intervals. It doesn’t clean the tank or trim the plants but is immensely effective for feeding fish.

Read more on MAKE



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