A note to our customers that the Solarbotics staff will be busy feasting and visiting with family for Canada's Thanksgiving Holiday on Monday, October 11. Any orders received between Saturday and Monday will be processed on Tuesday, October 12.
Painted GraviTrack
Solar botics
March 5, 2018
We always enjoy seeing our products being modified, revamped and DIY-ed, as well as the results of these transformations.
Our customer Vera Kark provided us with some thoughtful feedback on adding mechanical tweaks to improve our Solar GraviTrack build and documentation. She also painted the brown MDF of the machine. She used tempera paint on the wood components still in panelized form, and the GraviTrack's performance seemed to be unaffected.
The GraviTrack looks great in vibrant jewel tone colours, however, we do not recommend applying paint to the hand mechanism itself. You can paint the base and the rails, avoiding the hand mechanism completely. The moisture and the thickness of the paint might affect the precise tolerances of the moving parts, and will interfere with its proper functioning. Another relatively safe option might be felt tip marker since the moisture from alcohol evaporates quickly.
Photos & video by Vera Kark
P.S. Also, a particularly bad idea is painting your GraviTrack after the assembly is completed. Even though we were using a very watered down acrylic paint, the mechanism seized up the moment the paint became sticky. Don't be like us. Take care of your GraviTrack.
A portrait of a sad stuck GraviTrack
MORE POSTS
Sumovore Atmel Brainboard code upgrade
The Atmel Brainboard is a very popular add-on to our Sumovore Sumo robot. But with newer releases of the WinAVR GCC programming suite, there is a difference in the way the source code is handled that will make it not compile and load properly. Bob Cook has been nice enough to tweak our source to […]
Closed for Canada Day (July 1st)
Well now. When we told you to "drop by and say hello" while we were at the Vancouver Mini-Maker Faire, we weren't expecting that big of a turnout. It seems like half the people in attendance were there just to see us. We were thrilled to meet so many of you, and although we were […]
New Product: LED Strips
A brilliant selection of new smart LED strips with various features. They are addressable, white RGB, or full-color RGBW, available on spools or per meter to add blindingly bright effects to your project. Some so bright, we had to shoot them at 1/4 power to avoid freaking out the camera exposure. 5V RGB Addressable Serpentine […]
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!
Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.
Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.