A good, precision-made lathe chuck can be very expensive. You can save some real money by buying an import chuck, but as with most things, you get what you pay for.
In this BlondiHacks video, Quinn runs through what you can do to clean and optimize a new, cheap chuck (or an old used one that might need some loving care). This mainly involves taking the chuck apart, cleaning out the machining dust, de-buring it (something they skip with cheap chuck manufacture), and giving it a good oiling.
Someone in the video comments had a great tip. After you reassemble a freshly oiled chuck, it is going to spatter oil the first time you spin it up. This maker recommends affixing a paper bag over the chuck and running it at high speed to catch all of the extra oil as it flies off.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
