Hi I'm sick and tired of using a regular hedge trimmers like this one. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but these are good to trim squares or large curves. Let me show you my problem. We have these miniature boxwood plants that can be quite tough to trim with this.

Have you ever tried and failed? Have you ever had problems solving simple tasks? Does it make you feel like a failure? Have you ever considered that on top of you being a loser, you might not be using the right tool for the job? Good news: I'm going to make the right tool for you because I'm smart. You can be smart too. Thanks to my sponsor. Brilliant! You need to train your brain for solving problems and understanding science.

and Brilliant.org can help you reach that goal through their interactive courses and quizzes. So sign up at Brilliant.org Electroboom to start using it for free. more at the end. So I think the right tool for trimming such small plants must be something small, handheld, and maneuverable.

I'm thinking something that can attach to the palm of your hand like a lawnmower. and what's much smaller and lighter? Let's make it. Basically, we need a motor and a motor driver and a blade. Good thing I heard stuff so I have everything I need for the motor I have some drone brushless DC motor for the motor driver I guess I can design it from scratch but why would I do that? but I already have an ESC in my stash I just plug the motor into this.

now. the ESC requires a signal to control their speed which is pulses every 20 milliseconds and the pulse width controls the speed now. I Guess I can design a circuit to do that, but why would I do that when there are these cheap Servo control units that provide the signal I Need you just turn this knob to control the speed here? I Connected everything to a 12 volt power supply and if I turn the knob? What the? every year many people lose their lives to motor related accidents probably I don't know. just be careful.

So all I need is to replace this proper with a metal blade that can cut. and hopefully this will qualify me as a real maker because I'm attending Open Source on July 15th and 16th in San Francisco along with a ton of other sane or insane creators like myself and many other people from Maker Community showcasing their projects. I've heard few tickets are left so if you'd like to meet us at the Maker Community Projects and creativity. now is the time.

Uh, what do I make my blades off of? I Bought two spatulas I'm gonna make some Cutting Edge of Technology from these. first we try to remove the handles, let's sharpen the blade. nice. see how sharp my blade is.

Now foreign. It's okay, it's supposed to just cut thin branches, cut the extra bits, widen the holes a little bit so now the motor shaft can fit in the hole like this. Good. Now we put some washers in the shaft, add our blades on the washer, then we tighten the top, make the blades straight.

Then we take a Canadian Dart and put the tip in the hole here and tighten it and done. Let's do a quick test to see if it runs. Oop, What is it saying? Oh good. The trim is not set to zero.

Good. Well, this is good. It means it's safe. If I turn it on and the trim is accidentally not on zero, it's gonna complain.

So I have to turn it to zero first and ramp it up slowly and very slowly too. I don't want to cut myself Oh okay, this is quite dangerous, but I have to hold it much tighter. Let's start. This is not slow.

I I Need vibrates well. the vibration is not huge I Think it's quite well balanced and the imbalance might be coming from the fact that I'm putting the blades on top of each other so they are not super balanced this way. which means I can't trim my hedges just holding it by hand I have to make a proper housing for it. Hmm hmm I could have used this as my blade later if this doesn't cut and my blades can loosen up like this.

I wish I could weld them I don't have a welding machine though. wait a second. I Do have my modified Transformer that can send thousands of amps through metal and melt it and hopefully weld it. Let's try it out.

First, we try to align them perfectly and tighten the screw. use the Canadian darts. turn on our Transformer so noisy. one on the bottom and one on the top.

Yeah, scared me again. Does seem like it's welded. Let's unscrew and try it out. It's hot.

Hey holding together. We can do this a few more times for a better connection. I Better wear gloves to protect my fingers better. Okay, what's burning skin? not the prettiest world? what considering my tool I Think it's okay.

Now we just have to file it a little bit to clean it up. Foreign good. Now it's as smooth as a cactus. Oh, by the way, the Transformer output I was using to weld has a very low voltage but very high current so it wouldn't shock me and it's safe to use in case you were wondering.

could it still burn you? Okay, let's try it. my God It's fast. It's quite balanced though. whew Well, this is a bit too dangerous.

I should probably go shopping for protection because this could chop my This is not too bad. a little bit heavy though. these could be better. Too deep though.

Fine. I'll take this one. So I bought this which was a waste because I realized I already had this which is proper size and holy too. So it's lighter thank you And while we are at it, we make the blades a little bit sharper.

okay and as you can see, the blade is a little bit inside the edge of the housing so if it's going to jump out, hopefully the housing will catch it. I think it is safer now my God it is safer though I'm not comfortable putting my fingertips on the edge of this thing I need a handle? I guess we'll Bend this piece of metal into shape like this. Here you go now. I can hold it like this or I think I prefer it more like this and just go around.

And now for battery I Guess we can mount a light lithium ion battery on this guy, but I also have this lead acid battery 7.2 amp hours. but because it's quite heavy, I will connect it to this side with long wires and hold it in this hand. While this side remains light and maneuverable, just cut some length of wire solder, the wires heat shrink and it's done beautifully. And on the battery side, we basically connect it to the battery using some quick connect.

Simple dimple. maybe I should have used a switch to you know, disconnect the power first and maybe I should have used also a diode to make sure you don't connect the power backwards. This is not a consumer product yet. let's see if it works.

Oh my God still scares me. Let's go give it a try. These ones I've tried to trim before using my original trimmer. Let's find another one.

Okay, let's do this one. Whoa. look at that. Not bad, eh.

Let's go to the other one. Damn. Am I an inventor or what? Here's another one. Damn it.

Look at this. The blade has gone loose and came out a little bit. Still tight. a little bit dangerous if it flies out.

Hopefully this protection would help if something like that would happen, but hey, it works. Awesome! This definitely has potential I just have to make sure the blade is tight so it won't jump at my face and see. This motor holder thingy is made of aluminum and it has already developed multiple cracks and that's why the motor is shaking hard I Just have to replace it with steel and we are good to go. We just better make sure it doesn't get too close to our body I won't make it a real product I Don't want to be responsible for for helping make people smarter and I can't do that.

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