Pencil Pusher

First, credit to marmak3261 for his great post on engraving pencils in the Glowforge! I followed his method and it worked great.

In order to be able to open our museum, the Governor requires that we provide some way for visitors to push the buttons on our interactive exhibits without touching the button. Typically this is a little doo-hicky you hold in your hand (easily cut on a GF). You keep a jar of sanitized ones, and a jar of dirty ones next to the button. Hopefully the visitor picks from the right jar.

We thought of another idea, one that has the benefit of no sanitation needed (the visitor keeps it) and comes complete with a rubber tip: The Pencil Pusher! Ta da! Here is an example of me using it to operate my lathe (not recommended by FNL’s):

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Hi, Neighbor, another Bellinghamster here. Nice work there!

Is the museum open yet?

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Hi! I didn’t know of any other Glowforgers in Bellingham.

We open on Sept 9!

Have you visited/seen the show?

  • John
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A brilliant piece of marketing!

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I got mine less than a month ago. I think about what and how to make stuff all the time. It’s like a whole new world has opened up for me.

No, I haven’t seen the show; I only retired at the end of last year…and things got weird after that. I have it on my calendar now.

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Ha, I just realized your avatar if the photo of the Mega Zapper! Very cool.

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Great idea; solution, and marketing too!

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That’s great. In a future world, I’d love to get out there.

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John is very cool. You should check out the link in his profile. :sunglasses:

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I followed the link, but the page is either private, or has been removed.

That’s a great idea. The museum is definitely on my list to see once I get back to the area.

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Not sure why you cant see it, its still there and still public…?

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Yes, and that’s me in the cage getting hit with 4.5 million volts!

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Out of curiosity, how many amps?

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Hi Robert, as you may know, when you boost 220 volts up to 4.5 million, the current drops by the same percentage. So in this case We’re talking about current of a few milliamps (fortunately!)

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If it’s drawing 15A on 220V, that’s 3.3kW, at 100% efficiency that would be 0.7mA. Tesla coils are typically 5-20% efficient, so ~35-150 µA…

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Good point. I forgot to factor in the efficiency.

I was wondering if you were kicking up the watts. and I suppose your neighbor’s wifi reception. I understand that it is the amps that do you in,

Not downplaying how impressive they are!

An average lightning strike is around 30kA (30,000 Amperes)…

One hit a tree in my back yard a couple of years ago, blew apart a 5’ diameter trunk like a snapped tookpick.

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