Tag Archives: Maker

A FreeCAD Case Study: Designing a Light Bar Clip

A while ago we bought rechargeable light bars for our pantry shelves, and we love them. The only problem was that because they were held to the underside of the shelf by weak magnets, every time we bumped a light or dropped a heavy jar into the pantry, the light would clatter to the floor.

This post covers my process of creating, in FreeCAD, clips that would hold the lights securely. I’m really pleased at how they turned out.

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Adding an Air Filter to a Box Fan

During the wildfires of 2020 I saw many instructions for how to quickly duct-tape air filters to a box fan, to remove smoke from household air. Years before that I was interested in buying a woodworking shop air filter that would remove fine sawdust that otherwise floats in the air for days or weeks.

This post describes my experience making a air-filter-box-fan design, using 3D printed clips instead of duct tape to hold the filter to the fan.

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Building a Cuckoo Clock Test Stand

The family cuckoo clock I’m working on is being capricious about when it decides to play the music, so I’ve built a test stand that will let me see what’s going wrong.

After looking through the wide variety of weight-driven clock test stands on NAWCC.org. I decided to build a floor-standing U-frame.

TL;DR: There are links to rough drawings of my completed plans at the end of this post, so you have something to start your own design from.

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Cleaning and Adjusting a Cuckoo Clock’s Musical Movement

I’m in the process of cleaning and repairing a family musical cuckoo clock. I’ve watched a lot of videos on repairing cuckoo clocks, and have disassembled, cleaned, and repaired one cuckoo movement, so I think I’m as prepared as I can be for working on the clock movement.

The musical movement is another matter. What follows is a detailed How To that captures what I learned, what to do, and what not to do.

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