Do Nothing Box

myminifactory

A Classic "Do Nothing Box", seen in the video, has one single purpose - to turn itself off when you turn it on. If you're looking for a project with nothing else to do, build one of these to keep yourself company. I've built many of these over the years for family and friends using wood, salvaged gear boxes and switches. My college friends took it to an extreme level by using Motorola 6800 and Intel 8080 microprocessors to control the logic, and I've seen more recent designs using Arduinos, etc., but as in this design, I've always used two switches to eliminate quiescent current. There are two versions; open frame and box. The open frame version is much easier to build, however, the box version is classic, yet requires more patience due to the confined space. These versions were printed in PLA on a Makerbot Replicator 2 using Makerware, and were designed using Sketchup 8. You will need soldering skills and equipment, plus other hand tools to build this. Light machine oil, cyanoacrylate, sandpaper, 22 gauge wire and a few other expendables are also needed. A parts list is included in the instructions. A video of the prototype box version is on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sRINRQBiXo