Is screwing with a McGizmo sacrilege ... ? FINISHED

[G0OSE]

Patent it or you know this will appear on the next FWXXXXXXXX lol!
Very impressive PP. I likey!
This also got me thinking (happens)…… ok, so a while ago whilst in a £1 shop I saw these xmas lights, powered by 2xaa’s.
I got them to fit out my lego r2d2 and millennium falcon (which they do fantastic) - I just found 2 spare sets - they are white, and a coloured set (which are white with blobs of coloured resin on)
the leds are already mounted on 2 protected wires! lucky! I am thinking I could use these somehow like you did?
What do you think?
! !

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

@G0OSE

Patent it or you know this will appear on the next FWXXXXXXXX lol!

Lol, that would be flattery :innocent: It’s been nearly 2 years since I made the holey tail but it looks like nobody in manufacturing liked that idea :person_facepalming:

I have something similar to those lights you pictured. I imagine it’ll be quite some effort to shorten all those wires if you are poor at soldering like I am. Would be interested to see it if you do something with it though

Thanks for the offer Moose but one wife is enough for me

[MRsDNF]

If I ever get back to Perth without the good wife you know your going to get haunted by someone.

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

The panda is being stalked by a moose

[KawiBoy1428]

@pinkpanda3310

The panda is being stalked by a moose :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

[Rexlion]

Screwing with a McGizmo is not sacrilege, however your ‘significant other’ may not appreciate you dividing your bedroom attentiona between her and your McGizmo….

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

I added a resistor to the aux lights. It didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. Dimming the leds down to the level I wanted wasn’t good for the leds. I guess the blue and green have a higher vf because they didn’t really show at all. In fact when the leds faded to those colours it simply went dark. So I changed resistors to increase the brightness. I got it somewhere in the middle where it’s quite bright in the dark but still not enough power to go through the full range of colours. A little bit disappointing but still a cool modification.

This pic is my fist around the torch

Modified Mcgizmo

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

One of the last things I did to this light is add a ring to the head. This ring prevents the head from being over tightened, if that happens it’ll depress the switch. So this stops the thread perfectly to connect the driver without having to be careful. The original system was basically a twisty that used the driver as the end stop.

I had considered blackening the ring to make a black accent to match the tail. I previously showed a pic of a clear tape ring to help electrically isolate the inner tube. I took that off and replaced it with black tape.

Lastly I added a few drops of glue to hold the driver in place. It’s not going anywhere since the led wires are so short but having it fixed in place stops any possible twisting.

[KawiBoy1428]

Tony approved…

[2A1 (2A)]

wow, looks very nice. Thanks for all the pictures and information.

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

@KawiBoy1428

Hahaha

Disco at my place

[CRX]

[Geuzzz]

Verry Nice PP

[djozz]

Nice job!

[MRsDNF]

So whats nest pp?

[mattthemuppet]

very cool!

My attention was caught by the ER16 (20?) live tooling you used to drill the aux LED holes. Is that self-powered or drill powered? DIY or bought? I have a small drill powered chuck I use for doing similar stuff, but I’ve long entertained the idea of making a self contained unit for grinding and drilling, maybe even a bit of milling. Any info would be appreciated!

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

Thanks matt

That’s an ER40 hex collet block mounted in the chuck. The following is quoted from this thread

The motor/driver setup is this novusun 500w spindle. It’s essentially a cnc setup but also has manual controls.

@pinkpanda3310

I wasn’t entirely happy with the spindle setup I did a couple of posts above as I could not swing the cross slide 90 degrees to face the chuck. It took a bit of head scratching but I came up with a method of mounting it to face the chuck. Them main problem was the base of the spindle motor was near flush with the top of the cross slide. I also thought if I mounted it on a quick change tool holder it could possibly have added flex. I’m pretty happy with the result. Of course, if I had space for a mill I probably wouldn’t be going through all this :person_facepalming:

In this last pic I could’ve made that groove with a regular lathe bit but wasn’t thinking at the time. What I ‘can’ do now is make that groove in segments.

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Of course, to successfully use this now I need a radial indicator and chuck stop :person_facepalming:

moderator007 suggested the cam wheel idea…

@pinkpanda3310

I got around to fitting the index wheel. I had a use for it so ‘had to get it done’.

I really needed to make a spindle lock as well but couldn’t come up with a suitable idea and I was impatient to get the job done so used this ingenious contraption.

The compound slide also needed some attention. The small bolts that lock down the compound angle were starting to strip the threads so I fitted some larger bolts. It took a bit of shaping of the bolt to get it into the t-slot. The pic below shows one old and one new bolt.

Here’s a pic of the project.

EDIT- I just realized your question about the collet is in relation to the spindle collet. That one is ER8 size.

I have tried a little milling on titanium , i’m not in a rush to do it again . One suggestion I would make is get a larger ER size. You can always put small drill bits in a larger collet but not the other way around.

[pinkpanda3310 (Pinky)]

@MRsDNF

So whats nest pp?

Clean up :person_facepalming:

[gchart]

Looks amazing, PP! I’m a sucker for extra glow. My lights need lights.

[xevious (Gary)]

Phenomenal work, PinkPanda! Love how you extended the useful life of the McLux. The micro aux LED through the body or head wall has been something I’ve been wishing for. Nice to see the idea in action! And hopefully this will inspire a company like Lumintop or Emisar to consider something like this. I’d definitely go for it, especially if Anduril is the UI.