Solarbotics will be at the Calgary City Teachers' Convention Thursday & Friday, February 16 and 17, 2017. We will demo a variety of educational kits for teachers to use in classrooms, including introductory kits to develop skills in programming, mechanical construction, and soldering. Come put a face to the name at booth 727 at Calgary […]
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
New Product: Grove, More Grove & Ko...
Seeed Grove - RTC $6.90 The RTC module is a member of Twig. It is based on the clock chip DS1307 which supports the I2C protocol. It uses a Lithium cell battery (CR1225). The clock/calendar provides seconds, minutes, hours, day, date, month and year information. Nidec SMD Vibra motor 1.3V DC, 105mA, 9500rpm $3.00 Surface-mount […]
Important Message on Shipping
Canada Post and Purolator both are experiencing server outages, so that means that we won't be able to ship any orders today. They are working on it and hopefully will fix it soon. This may also mean our shipping estimator will have trouble placing quotes and calculating your shipping. Please please try again a little […]
Wednesday Cool Links: Bioluminescence, F...
Keep warm! What else can I say... This is the season of thermosocks, spice chai, frozen windshields and many layers. For those who are not hibernating just yet, here's a weekly dose of entertainment: Bioluminescent Bacteria Lamp I want one! Hopefully no bacteria were hurt in this lighting experiment, and they were all paid accordingly […]
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.