Useless (Xmas) Machines!

Dave Hrynkiw
December 13, 2010

We're teaming up with Brett Coulthard of Saskview.com to get their version of the Useless Machine put together as a parts bundle. We just finished it Friday night, and quick-posted tweets & a few photos of it, and are shipping today!

What comes in the bundle? Pretty much everything you need to successfully build a Useless Machine of your own:

  •   1 x 39300 Black acrylic "Useless Box" construction set (with nut/bolt hardware)
  •   1 x SWT8 DPDT toggle switch
  •   1 x SWT9 SPDT lever switch
  •   2 x #2 mounting screws for SWT9
  •   1 x BHoldAA 2-AA battery pack
  •   1 x DSST (double sided sticky tape, for mounting the battery pack)
  •   6" hookup wire
  •   1 x GM4 gear motor
  •   4 x "Little Rubber Feet" to protect your Useless machine from abrasive counter tops!

We're only offering the box in black acrylic at the moment (experimented with clear - ehk), but if you ask really nicely, we probably could run one in red, blue, green, orange, white and (if you really want it), clear. Call in if you want any of those options.

Speaking of cool "Useless machines", Tony Youngblood's Christmas version was just featured on the Makezine Blog. He built his with our GM8 for super-fast response (we did our bundle with the slower GM4 - we like a more deliberate "ME: OFF" response).

MORE POSTS

February 17, 2003
Closed for the holiday...

Monday February 17 is Family Day in Alberta (where we are), and President's day in the USA. So we're going to be out playing in the snow today. See you tomorrow!

February 6, 2007
GM Motors used in humanoid arm

Here's a link to a neat project featuring our GM gear motors in several spots in a humanoid arm mechanism. Very cool! Read More...

July 12, 2007
Circuit: Stepper Motor

This is a neat little one-chip circuit we originally tuned for use with our "SM1" Stepper motors. We've presently sold out of the motor, but this circuit has proved to be a good unidirectional (1-way) driver for small stepper motors.

March 25, 2004
Solarbotics Antweight

Adam Conus sent us a nice little message about his antweight combat robot The Fly.: Western Allied Robotics is kicking off another year of antweight combat events and I need new motors. (Because I'm very, very hard on them!) Still, they're cheap and light. Check out- http://home.comcast.net/~conusa/adam.htm to see the robot complete with solarbotics sticker!

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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!

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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.

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