A little over two years ago, we moved into our current house in North Carolina. Since then, I have acquired some tools, built some organizational solutions, and added some quality-of-life features to the garage workshop.The space is mostly functional, and easy to work in with the exception of the hottest summer days, but I’d like to add some more key things to enable me to do more projects. Here is a brief overview of the shop as it is, and some upgrade plans I have for the near future.

My last pen plotter adventure resulted in a simple method to generate a 2d plot in python, export that as an svg, then translate that svg into something readable by my pen plotter. For my next trick, I aimed to optimize the process of exporting multiple colors.

Several months ago, I built a pen plotter from an open-source design from thingiverse and modified it to hold a different servo and be wall-mounted.

The goal of this project was to take a simple 2d plot generated in python, and export it to a gcode format that is readable by the pen plotter device.

I didn’t think I would be revisiting this project so soon, but the foam was already cut, and I filled up the first terrain piece with my entire collection of painted ‘Mechs. I also remembered to take more in-progress pictures, so there’s a bit more detail to the process.

As my collection of 3d printed and purchased Battletech figures has grown, I needed a better way to display printed pieces. This homemade tiered shelf is what I came up with.

I needed a way to transport plywood from the store back to my house using my Rav4. In the past, I have had the sheets cut small enough to load in the back of the car, but this time I wanted the freedom to cut it myself to my own specs.

With a desire to film more projects, and an itch to test out the latest MPCNC reincarnation, I designed and machined a large camera arm based on an architect lamp.

With the current state of mass telework and increased social distancing, finding new ways to connect with others over shared projects has become a necessary endeavor. This has lead me to upgrade my webcams, and use OBS to create a streaming setup to show-and-tell what I have been tinkering with.

I have been thinking about this project for a long time. After I started using the needle cutter, I really wanted a vacuum table that could flatten the foamboard, and an underlying work surface that would not destroy the cutting tool.

After a two week hiatus from the MPCNC, I got the itch to get back to making things. I wanted to salvage the spoilboard as much as I could, level it out, and create a few clamps to make workpiece holding a little easier.