MacBook Pro battery swaps are categorized as “difficult,” as most approaches require you to remove every internal component in order to safely dissolve the adhesive used on the battery without damaging the electronics.

Fortunately, replacement batteries aren’t too expensive — $40–$60 online, via most major outlets, and they plug right into a simple slot, with a few Torx screws holding them in place. That, and the adhesive that needs to be melted and scraped out.

With some kite string, fingernail polish, and careful computer positioning, you can sidestep the challenging disassembly, which risks breaking a crictal connector, or losing a tiny component. Just prop it up on a towel, drizzle the acetone fingernail polish remover behind the battery with a small syringe (I used an old one from a medicine bottle), tuck the kite string underneath each cell of the old battery, and begin sawing it back and forth as you pressure it downwards to cut through the dissolving glue. The string pops through quickly. Repeat for all the cells. Once all are complete, you can unscrew the remaining connector, put in the new battery, and you’ll be good to go for a few more years of on-the-go use. Good luck!

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Fast forward 30 years and I’m loving these @statefootwear mid-tops — so comfy! But the rubber seemed to wear a little quick, especially with my futile kickflip attempts. I bought a new pair but this original set still seemed like it had life left in it. And with a tube of Shoe Goo and a scrap of leather on my bench, I decided to try the old trick again. 

This one is much larger than those we’d glue on years ago, because now there’s a lot more to scraping involved. The color and type of leather are all wrong, so it looks pretty goofy. But it works, and it keeps a pair of sneakers out of the trash can for a few months longer if not more.

The post Fun with Shoe-Goo: Reinforcing Skate Sneakers With Leather Scraps appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

I’ve been using this small Joby tripod for the last couple years (and an older one much longer than that) — it worked great for a while, but as indicated in many of the Amazon reviews, the legs can develop a tendency to pop out of the socket, not unlike a dislocated shoulder or ankle.

This happened to me too, about a year after I got it. It was not too bad at first, but over time it loosened up to the point where any force applied to that leg would cause it to come apart, essentially rendering the unit useless for anything except static, standing-up uses. And as these devices are best for their location versatility, that’s no good!

I spent a while trying to device a fix for mine. I considered glueing the socket together, or amputating part of leg in hopes that the next joint would have more grip. Then one night, as the tripod and I stared at each other on my desk, it hit me: heat shrink tubing.

I grabbed my electronics kit, pulled out the largest diameter heat shrink I have (1/2″, I believe), and inserted the wounded leg. A blast of heat wrapped it tightly. Actually, it still felt a bit loose, as heat shrink stays pretty soft after you apply it, but an hour or so later it had firmed up.

I tested it out the next day with my GoPro, and the attempt was successful — the leg still had most of its range of motion, and the tubing held it together even when pushed far.

It’s been in use for about a half year now, and shows no sign of degradation. Now to find a fix for my older one that has almost no friction left in it whatsoever.

The post Wonderfully Simple Joby Gorillapod Broken Leg Fix appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

The problem is supremely annoying — the shaking camera affects both video and stills alike. Videos have a waving, pulsing, jelly-like quality to them, while photos get a heavy dose of motion blur. It only occurs on the rear camera. The front camera works fine.

I started looking into this by reading some forums and determined that there are plenty of others who have experienced the same issue. In fact, the previous model iPhone 6 even had a recall for it. I punched in the serial number to see if we qualified, but unsurprisingly did not, as it’s a different model altogether (although the same issue, and one that Apple should be addressing).

In the same forum, someone suggested the simple fix of putting a magnet next to the camera lens. I tried it, and it worked! It led me to suspect that the shaking is from a failing optical-image-stabilizer function, causing the lens to shift around wildly as it tries to hold position. The magnet seemed to lock it in place, which would work for some scenarios, but not in darker environments where it really helps to have the camera steadying itself electronically.

Regardless, I tucked a small, flat rare-earth magnet behind her case, near the lens, and figured it to be a stopgap for the time being. I was a bit nervous about it erasing credit cards, but it didn’t matter — the magnet popped out shortly afterwards and is now stuck to something that we have no idea about.

So now I was back to the start, but with a slightly better understanding of what may be happening. Sandra and took the phone to the Apple store to see if they would address it. The employee there said he’d never seen this before, but told us that as we were out of the warranty period, it wasn’t something they could do. He also said that on the iPhone 6s Plus, the camera was a non-serviceable unit (which I later determined to be false).

A few weeks later I finally said “what the heck” and decided to take things into my own hands. A quick check on Amazon revealed a number of replacement modules for not much money — all around $20. I ordered one and told myself I’d give it a shot, and if it failed, I’d but Sandra a new phone.

The camera showed up quick, and the phone opened pretty easily using a combination of the iFixit tools and the bits and pieces I have laying around from a couple screen replacements I’ve done in the past (they always include cheap but useful pentalobe and #000 phillips screwdrivers, although the iFixit ones are so much nicer to work with).

I followed the iFixit guide to remove the camera, carefully storing the tiny screws on a magnetic mat. Then I placed the new one into the phone, and screwed it all together. It took about 30 minutes. I turned the phone on, ran upstairs, and let Sandra be the first to test out the new camera.

It didn’t work.

All we saw was a black screen when she turned on the camera app. And what’s worse, the front-facing camera was no longer functioning either. A quick test phonecall then revealed that the earpiece speaker was also out. This was a total failure.

I went back to the desk, reopened the phone, and put the old camera in. It came back to life, still shaking (and audibly so, out of the case). The front camera was still black. I tried the replacement camera one more time, and it was still out. My guess was that the new camera module was bad, and that in the repair process, I fried the front camera and speaker, which seemed to share a single plug. Or, I had wrecked the socket they plug into.

The next day, I ordered a new phone. Well, a refurbished phone, the same model and storage capacity. It was $256 on Amazon and would take a week to arrive.

A day later I started thinking about the “no DOA” guarantee for that replacement camera module, so I sent off for a replacement replacement. I figured, since I spent the $20 and now had a hard-to-use phone, I may as well keep tinkering with it. Plus I had some time until the new phone would arrive.

Just after that, I found a Youtube video I hadn’t seen before about fixing the camera shake in 3 minutes. I thought it must be the magnet solution, but no — it was a video of someone replacing their camera module (as I had attempted) and successfully getting it back together. I realized I wasn’t off in my attempt and started getting new excitement about this.

The replacement module showed up a day after that, and I cracked the phone open again and quickly put it into the phone. I even grew bold and stopped unscrewing the battery clips. Once I got it in the phone and plugged in the connectors, I had to see if it’d work, so I fired up the phone with the case open and the camera pretty loose. To my delight, the camera worked!

I powered down and screwed it closed and turned it on to show Sandra. Only this time, after I pressed the camera icon, the screen came up dark again. Dammit. The phone being closed must be breaking the connection. I wondered if it was a permanent break, so I opened the case and tried to activate the camera again after a restarts. I hadn’t killed it — it came back to life.

With the camera on, I slowly started to close it and noticed that the image would freeze at a certain point. I repeatedly restarted the phone and tried to re-close it over and over to get a sense of what was triggering it. It seemed to be just about the point where the three ribbon cables from the front sensors straightened out.

Then I got an idea — what if I unplugged the non-functioning front camera and closed it again? Would the phone even turn on? Would the screen work? Would it fry the phone? I tracked down which cable goes to the front camera (tip: it’s the first cable) and unplugged it, then powered back up. The phone appeared to be working, including the rear camera. So I closed it slowly, but this time the camera didn’t freeze on me — I got it all the way shut.

It seemed the broken front camera must be interfering with the rear camera somehow (and perhaps the first camera I had installed earlier wasn’t actually DOA). But for the first time in months, the camera had a functional, non-shaky rear camera!

Space inside an iPhone is almost totally non-existent so I had to figure out a creative way to reattach the internal brackets without having the camera module plugged into it. I managed to fold and tuck it enough to get everything closed and gave the phone back to my wife.

The next day, newly determined, I found lots of options for front-facing camera modules online, and even cheaper than the rear cameras. I ordered a $10 option that had decent reviews. It was slated to arrive the day before the new phone, which was becoming my private goal to beat.

Yesterday afternoon, the package was delivered, and around 11pm my time freed up to dive back into the phone.

Despite being half the price, the front module has a number of tiny sensors on it that can be really tricky to align. I followed the iFixit guide and a youtube video for pointers. Still, it was the hardest part of this — two of the tiny sensors have minuscule brackets on them that you have to manually remove and replace, and that’s not made clear in the directions. I also wish that the iFixit guides would go into better detail on the process to reinstall everything, rather than saying “Follow the steps in reverse.”

But with steady patience, after numerous times to try to figure out how to fold the ribbon cable and hold all the pieces stacked in place correctly, I got the module bracket screwed back on, and went for the power button.

It worked. Front camera, rear camera, ear speaker. I screwed it back together and admired my work with numerous calls and Facetimes to myself.

Then I realized the proximity sensor wasn’t working — this is the piece that makes the screen turn off when you hold the phone to your head, so your ear doesn’t start pressing buttons or hang up on the person. It also keeps the screen heat down.

As it was after midnight, I stared at the phone for a few minutes, wondering if it was important to fix it. “Yes, it is,” I said out loud. Then I Googled a bit. As expected, the “easy restart” solutions didn’t work. I figured it was just a misaligned sensor in one of its tiny holes — they’re pretty dang hard to put and keep in place.

I then found a video where someone shows a process of scratching the paint off the inside of the case where the proximity sensor sits, and replacing it with black ink from a marker. It seems like one of those phony phone fixes, but had a lot of views, likes, and comments all thanking the video maker. Perhaps it was legit. I decided to try it too.

It’s hard to say if that’s what solved the issue, or if it was me doing a better job aligning the parts afterward, but once it all went back together, the proximity sensor worked too, and all the camera and speaker modules. It’s as good as new.

Today the replacement phone shows up, and I will turn around and send it right back. I’m thrilled as you can see in the follow-up tweet I posted last night.

The post How I Fixed My Shaking iPhone 6S Plus Rear Camera appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

First, get your software. I used Osirix to convert the CT scans in their native DICOM format into an STL. This is a Mac-only software tool; an alternative is to use the program 3DSlicer, which works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Next open the software and import your DICOM files. There may be folders for different scans (in my case, I had head scans from different angles, and a torso scan). Select the set you want to work with.

From here, it organizes the slices in order. You can slide your way through the scan to see your body from one slice to the next — it’s pretty fascinating.

You can even export this “fly-through” view as a 2D movie file, using the menu option “Movie Export” at the top of the screen.

But for 3D viewing and printing, you’ll want to select the menu bar option “2D/3D” then “3D Surface Rendering.”

A pop-up box will offer you a lot of options. Most of these go way beyond my understanding of CT imaging, so I suggest that you play around with the rendering options to see what results you get. There are options for two materials — you can choose to isolate just bone material, or leave the skin on the scan. Or just do skin only! It’s pretty creepy and totally amazing.

The menu options on the top of the screen here allow for you to reconfigure the render, rotate it, zoom in and out, and even create video files like the one below.

For 3D printing, however, you’ll want to use the “Export 3D-SR” option, then chose the last option “Export as STL (.stl).” That’s the file type that 3D printer software is most familiar with, and can convert into a printable file. Be warned, this will likely be a very large file.

Once set as an STL, you’re able to use a 3D printer slicing software like Cura to slice it into layers that are designed for a 3D printer to create. I’ve printed mine successfully on Ultimaker and Printrbot Play printers.

You’ll probably want to play with the settings to get something that works to your liking for this. I’ve done a lot of prints so far, each time tweaking print angles, support material, etc, to see what results I get.

If you want to download my own skull, I put the STL on thingiverse: thingiverse.com/thing:1935234

Here are more specific steps to do this yourself using 3DSlicer, from an article I coordinated on with Luis Ibanez in Volume 42 of Make: magazine: makezine.com/projects/make-42/3d-print-your-medical-scan

AHA! Moment
The first time I tried this print, years ago, the prints constantly failed. I had it done on an industrial machine (with a lot of cleanup). Then a few years later I re-ran it with a Cura update and had success!

UH-OH! Moment
The CT scan has a lot of noise in it — there are artifacts from the oxygen mask and hoses that were on my face. The printer adds support for them, or tries to place them mid-air, resulting in whiskers. I’m working on a cleaned-up version of this using Meshmixer.

Also, there can be a lot of support extraction needed after the print finishes, depending on your settings.

If you print your own, or have any questions, ping me in the comments!

The post Make a Skull from your CT Scan appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

When this event came about, I had done a variety of projects with Craftsman, all coming after striking up a friendship with one of their team members, Rich Goldsmith. He and the crew enlisted me on fun activities at their incredible (now defunct) event space in Chicago, and brought me to ComicCon in NYC one year as well. I’ll recap those projects in later posts.

For this one, the Craftsman team and their agency, Zeno decided to host a small number of tool-enthusiast content creators to a weekend of nonstop action at Lake Arrowhead, located in the mountains a couple hours outside of Los Angeles. They hired people to lead workshops (including myself) — everything from chalice turning to cigar rolling to mini-trebuchet building (my activity). They brought in Rob Riggle to provide some laughs for a few hours and to help “dude” things up a bit. There was grilling, a nighttime performance by the band Everclear, a bonfire, and a night ride on the lake.

I didn’t get to do most of these activities! In addition to doing the mini-trebuchet workshop, I also built a medium-scale throwing machine that would launch baseballs into the lake. This thing would be approximately 4′ tall at the axle, with, if I remember correctly, a 10′ throwing arm — enough size to whip small objects to considerable distances. It took up all my free time.

Side note: As the event got closer, the organizers got a little nervous about flying baseballs, so we changed the plan to throw water balloons instead.

Building the catapult was a lot of fun and entailed some on-the-fly engineering. My pal Chris W, an expert with SketchUp, helped lay out dimensions so we could get our cuts accurate.

Once on site, one of the first things we realized with the materials I had requested was the dowel for the axle was not going to work — it was thin and joined together in various spots, and was basically a rod for a closet rack. The axle is a common break point on trebuchets, so this was a problem, and as we were pretty far from any towns or stores, it created a quick scare. Then I noticed Rob North lathing some larger pieces of lumber for his chalice workshop, and asked him if he might be able to turn a 2′ length of 4×4 into a thick dowel. He smiled, and 10 minutes later we had a serious piece of round wood in our hands. Problem solved!

Another concern with the build came with the throwing arm — the axle would pass through it, which creates a weak section around the hole. We wanted to reinforce this when one of the attendees, Mark Clement of myfixituplife.com, suggested putting plywood on either side of the hole. He jumped in and started cutting and affixing pieces, and made the trebuchet build a big part of his afternoon. I think he enjoyed it as much as we did.

Finally, the sling — we had to get creative for this, and used some rope and fabric we found onsite. Getting it dialed in takes a bit of trial and error, and many of our shots went high rather than far. But a few performed beautifully, as you can see in the video above. Mark’s celebration says it all.

Trebuchets, even small/medium sized ones like this, can be a bit dangerous, and we never really found out where the water balloons that went over the lodge were landing, so after a handful of launches, the organizers said they were happy and we could stop now. I don’t blame them.

Overall, it was a super fun weekend, and I’m glad I got to spend it with some pals like Chris, Timothy Dahl, and my Make: coworker Jason Babler. I got to see the cool folks from Craftsman: Ryan Ostrom, Cristina Cordova, Rob North. I met some great new people like Mark, Carla Bruni, Karl Champley, Justin DiPego, Dan Cary, Eric Jacobi, Steve Mazucchi, Andrew Snavely, and many others. Also, Ian Ziering was staying there at the same time! A long overdue thank you to Craftsman for making it happen, although now that the brand has been sold to Stanley Black & Decker, I’m not sure who will receive that message.

And as I was largely working the tools for the build, I didn’t take that many photos or videos. But I did discover that the official images are now on Shutterstock. (I can purchase a photo of myself for a cool $199!) I’m going to risk embedding them here with watermarks and see if they figure it out.

The post Catapult madness at the Craftsman Makecation appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

I printed this model in PLA on an Ultimaker. In hindsight, I’d have done it with ABS to avoid warping in the sun, but it’s held up adequately regardless. I set up the trap at night, and checked the results the next morning. Success! Since then I’ve printed a few others (different types as well) and used them around my yard. 

The post This beer-powered Slug trap Totally Works appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

Finally, I resized the image to be approximately 4′ tall, and printed it out. The printout took many sheets of paper, which I then taped to a 4′ x 4′ piece of plywood. This would be my cut guide.

From here, I cut the outlines with a jigsaw, being careful to not slice through the sawhorses below. I’d periodically chop dangling pieces off to keep them from flopping around too much as I made my cuts. 

Finally, I had my plywood witch.

Next, I painted it with a coat of primer (to keep the wood from absorbing the color paint), then a couple layers of black to really accentuate the silhouette aspect.

I added a wedge of wood on the back to create a stand, and put it in my front yard. It looked awesome.

But I knew it could be scarier, so I decided to add a red spotlight behind it, and a fog machine to create an ominous glow. As the sun went down, it really started to show nicely.

And once it got properly dark, the witch really started to show its terrifying aspect. A smash success!

The post Oversized Halloween Witch Silhouette appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

Adam DIY: How to Build a Skate Ramp/Quarter Half Pipe
In this installment, AdamDIY creates a 2′ tall, 4′ long basement ramp. The removable, hideaway platform is pretty clever, and I really like the simple jig he uses to get the coping placement dialed in. Its 5′ radius might be a tad tight for my liking, however — I’m all about really mellow, shallow ramps these days. That could be adjusted without too much trouble though. Skip to the end to see Adam bust a rock and roll on his new creation.

DIY Quarter Pipe
Australian video, so the material dimensions are slightly different. Standout part to me is that I like the 6′ width of this simple ramp — nice to get a little wider than the 4′ size that we’re regularly held to with standard 4 by 8 sheets of material.

Seth’s Bike Hacks: Building a Family Bike & Skate Ramp
Biggest takeaways of this fun bump-ramp build:
-Uses 2x3s instead of 2x4s to save weight (I’ve long felt that 2×4 micro ramp quarterpipes are unnecessarily overbuilt for what most of us will be doing on them)
-Explains the “wet the plywood to bend it” trick nicely
-Clever foldaway caster integration with string-pulley activation — this part is awesome!

How To Build an Easily Stored Skate/BMX Mini Ramp
Here, TheHowToDad follows the quarterpipe plans put out by DIYSkate to build a pair of mini ramps that can be set up in the garage facing each other for miniramp halfpipe fun. The slick trick with his build is making the 2nd ramp just a few inches narrower than the first, allowing it to nest inside it for compact storage — something that most of us would appreciate, I imagine.

How to Build a Mini Ramp in Your Basement with Greg Doefler
Greg from OpenSource(Skateboards) documents his indoor ramp build in this video, with his usual silliness. Peek at his method of mounting the coping using J-bolts, which eliminates the screw holes on the front side of piping. Check his channel for some good trick tutorials, too.

Vice: How to Build a Mini Ramp with Billy Rohan
An older video (2012) with over a million views. Watch this for:
-Nicely explained overview of the entire miniramp building process, including having to build a deck under the ramp to give a level surface for it
-2×4 transition drawing tip (more consistent than using a string)
-Good info on skinning a ramp, especially a large one. It’s trickier than you might realize, even having watched plenty of how-to videos.

More eye candy
A few additional videos you may want to peep to give you more inspiration for building your own setup:

The post Video Roundup: More DIY Skate Ramps appeared first on DO IT: Projects, Plans, and How-tos.

First, I measured the diameter of the broken rod with my digital calipers and bumped it up a tiny bit to give some wiggle room/allow for shrinkage. This is not uncommon with printing. I then knocked out a quick tube shape on Tinkercad with tapered edges to keep clothes from snagging. Final measurements were 10.2mm ID; 13.2mm OD; 100mm long.

The design process took a few minutes; printing was about 30.

Getting the sleeve onto the dowel required a bit of force and a bit of heat from the hot air gun — a trick that I find myself using pretty frequently with printing. Rather than throwing away an “almost-there” design, warm it up with some hot air and work it into place before it cools again. This saves me a lot of waste.

It seems to be holding strong now; the Nylon-X filament is pretty durable.

There are countless other ways to have fixed this but for the amount of effort and cost, I’m particularly happy. Luckily I had the tools to make this repair happen so quick. Now it hopefully doesn’t split along a layer line. If it does, I’ll update here.

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