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 GraviTrackafter 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.
The America Solar Challenge finishes here in Calgary tomorrow (July 27) betweein 11 and 3:30pm! The teams are coming up over McKnight Blvd., which isn't far from our offices. We'll be out watching them go by for a few hours tomorrow, so if the phones don't get answered for a bit, you'll know why. Go […]
We've been getting requests for the parts bundles as mentioned in Gareth Branwyn's book 'Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots'. We're sorry to say that we don't have them ready yet (major website development takes up staff man-hours), so please bear with us - we're working towards having something together. And no, we don't have […]
Well, the first 100 copies of "Junkbots" have officially been sold. But since I can't get enough of signing the inside cover of every book in the office, we're going to have to extend the offer until the ink in my pen runs out. So the Junkbots book/motor deal will last for until at least […]
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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.