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

October 26, 2012
New Product Friday: Switches

Ok, switches everywhere! Most importantly, switching from Friday to Saturday is scheduled exactly at 12.00pm tonight, hopefully it happens on time. Because it was a long five days, and another seven before that, and then another seven. Should I continue? I think we all deserve a little bit of time titled Saturday and Sunday. Also, […]

June 30, 2004
Canada Day & 4th of July

We'll be closed Thursday June 1st, as it is Canada Day! Ah, time to take off the snow-shoes and swim with the polar bears, and eat snow-cones with our Husky dogs to celebrate Canada's birthday! It's worth noting that we will be open on July 5 (most of you Americans get Monday off, right?).

February 23, 2018
APA102-2020 MicroNova Custom LED Choker

I created this choker as a project to demonstrate the new MicroNova APA102-2020 LED strips. Photo by Yeti, edited by Batgirl These addressable LEDs are extremely small, less than 1/4 the size of a standard 5050 LED. This project was built using engineering sample standard MicroNova 99 LED / meter strips . The MicroNova strips we are selling have 198/meter - […]

June 26, 2012
Original Robosapien Prototype

Well, we're all back from Maker Faire, feelin' pretty groggy but fairly alive (or, perhaps more accurately, undead - something about being in a zombie-like state sounds about right). So to break the recent drought of news posts, we've dug out a treat from the deeper regions of the Solarbotics server archives. This is some […]

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
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.