3 Super Simple 3D Prints for YouTubers – A Sketchup Tutorial for beginners

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When I tell people that I have a 3D printer, many of them ask something like „what on earth could you possibly want to print with that?“. The best answer would be: a lot! I have only recently startet this YouTube channel. To help me with that, I have already printed a number of things, three of which I would like to show you now.

Here are the files: sketchup-tutorial.zip

This is the 3D-printer that I use:

CTC 3D printer at ebay.com*
or at Amazon.com*
or at Aliexpress.com*

SD Card box

3d printed SD Card Box

If you work a lot with cameras, you usually also have lots of SD cards. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little box where you can put them in? I’ll show you how I design such things with Sketchup, but of course you can also download the files on Fluxing.de.

First I need to know the dimensions of the SD card. Then I open the CAD program Sketchup. The free version will do. It is important that the unit of the model is set to millimeters.

First I draw a rectangle. I click into one corner and draw the rectangle. However, I do not click for the other corner, but I simply enter the desired edge lengths in millimeters and confirm this with the return key.

Continue reading 3 Super Simple 3D Prints for YouTubers – A Sketchup Tutorial for beginners →

3D Printed Roller Blind?

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A 3D printed roller blinds – is that possible? Well, yeah – sort of.

I had the Fluxing logo printed on a tarp to hang it in front of my window as a roller blind. Unfortunately you can’t buy a roller blind with your own design, and I thought it was too expensive buy a suitable roller blind just to disassemble it, especially since I still had a chain from an old roller blind.

So I used Sketchup to reconstruct the mechanism. To explain that in detail takes too long here, but I wil happily make a Sketchup Tutorial if you want me to. Here are the files:

roller.zip

Now I have printed the designed parts with my 3D printer. This will take a while, of course.  By the way, I have a very inexpensive 3D printer, but it does the job very well:

CTC 3D printer at ebay.com*
or at Amazon.com*
or at Aliexpress.com*

I trimmed a broom stick with a diameter of 24mm to the correct length. Continue reading 3D Printed Roller Blind? →

DIY camera dolly for time lapses – quick, easy, and dirt cheap!

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Have you ever watched snow melt? Or snails racing? Or grass growing?
Modern cameras usually have a time-lapse function, which allows actions that take hours to be compressed into a few seconds. But how do you get a smooth camera movement over this long time?
With a motorized dolly. And where do you get one? Build it yourself. It’s not difficult, it’s fast, and its ridiculously cheap. I’ll show you how I did it.
We need some kind of base plate first. I still had this sawn off end of a shelf lying around.  I ordered most of the other components directly from Aliexpress in China. It takes forever for the parts to arrive, but everything is incredibly cheap. We need a motor controller, a very slow running motor and three furniture castors. I bought them locally and together they are the most expensive part in this project. Also a battery holder for eight AA-batteries. 8 times 1,5v results in 12V. In the description I will give you links to the parts.
This is the full list:

3 rpm 12v motor (the slower one): € 2,81 https://goo.gl/DyGYjh*

1-channel relay module (for motor only): € 0,44 https://goo.gl/zgD7uS*
2-channel relay module (for shutter and motor): € 0,83 https://goo.gl/4Gk3LX*
8-channel relay module (the one I used): € 3,13 https://goo.gl/Zw24r2*
Arduino Uno: € 2,69 https://goo.gl/TFuEgX*
Motor controller: € 1,19 https://goo.gl/5u8sSV*
Battery holder: € 1,12 https://goo.gl/h4LG5L*
Caster wheels (8 pcs): € 4,51  https://goo.gl/Y4KXms*
Also used in this video:
 
bendy Octopus tripod: € 1,47 https://goo.gl/d9zYKh*
for the timelapse dolly we need a slow geared motor, dc motor controller, battery box, furniture casters as wheels
The axle of one of the three furniture castors is drilled out. I’ll put the wheel on the motor for a trial. The motor gets connected to the controller. I first had to figure out what goes where, because everything is labeled in Chinese. in this case the motor connectors are left and the input voltage right.

Continue reading DIY camera dolly for time lapses – quick, easy, and dirt cheap! →

How to interact with yourself on video

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You want to double your talent? Appear twice in the same shot? Interact with yourself, like Casey Neistat? It is not hard, but it is not that easy either!

Casey Neistat has recently made a video, where he talks to his bearded self. Since I run a dual language YouTube channel, I thought I could steal this idea to talk to myself both in german and in english. However, I made a number of rookie mistakes. If You want to try something like this yourself, there are some points you should pay attention to.

Tip No. 1: Get the camera settings right!

We are going to combine two separate shots into one. We should not let the camera decide anything on it’s own, so we set everything to manual. We turn off the autofocus, so that it won’t start twisting the lens in one half of the picture. And we also set aperture and shutter speed to manual so that the automatic won’t start adjusting the brightness in one half. Both happened in my video.

Continue reading How to interact with yourself on video →

Welcome to Fluxing!

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Hello!

My real name is Florian, but ever since I have been working with the german medieval rock band Saltatio Mortis many people call me Flux.

I like to build things. In many cases I just intend to get something done with as little effort as possible. But then my perfectionism kicks in and I spend endless hours on totally unimportant details. Or I start out with pretty ambitious plans, and at the end i lose my patience or I run out of time, and then I just hot glue everything, just to get it done. In short, I have a totally chaotic working style. And I like”hardware hacking” – using things differently than intended. All that is what I now call “fluxing”. And that is what my blog and YouTube channel will be about.

I have some very interesting projects coming up. I don’t want to tell too much just yet, but here are a few hints:

  • A high end gas barbecue for about 35,-€
  • A successor for my Macbook Pro: Portable, but much more powerful. And self made!
  • A slow moving camera dolly for time lapses
  • How do you film yourself twice at the same time?

For every blog post there will be a video on YouTube (or the other way around). I will try to show everything as detailed as possible to give you the chance to try it yourselves. But I will also show you you all my (many!) mistakes, so you don’t have to make them yourselves.

All blog posts and videos will be available in german and english language. In the top menu, you can switch languages in the top menu. And every video will contain a link in the top right corner to the other language.

I hope I can help you out with your own projects or inspire you to start new ones. But I am also eager to hear your advice, ideas, and criticism in the comments!
And I hope we all will have lots of fun!

Flux