FEATURE
How I Made: BinDayCator
having WiFi is you can reprogram them over
the network using the Arduino OTA library
- handy when your prototype lives in the
kitchen next to the bins, and far away from
your PC.
I’d posted pictures of my device on social
media, and it had really struck a chord –
being shared widely, prompting much
discussion on the subject. People really liked
the idea and the issue resonated with them
on some level, even if it was just the novelty
factor. A government department and media
outlets were interested too, and wanted
demonstration units, so now my focus was
on producing a more high-quality finish and a
web interface for demonstrating.Layer lines can be an interesting texture,
but I wanted a smooth finish because when
it glows, you can see every line. Every other
imperfection stood out clearly, too. You
can say goodbye to that seven-hour print
because of a single cat hair sandwiched
between layers during printing. Support
structures also left imperfections on the
print. So, I spent a while trying a range of
supports, from standard Cura supports
to the organic-looking, tree-like supports
that Meshmixer could produce. I tried
vapour smoothing to remove layer lines, a
technique normally used with ABS, but not
so much with PLA. ABS can be smoothed
using commonly available acetone, but PLA
doesn’t react to it, and so I went through
a number of increasingly uncommon (and
unpleasant) chemicals. The best solvent I
found was called dichloromethane – it was
difficult to work with and hard to store sinceAbove
A prototype in
progress
Left
The electronics is
quite simple