DIY spirograph I made for $0

So I got super bored today and decided to try an make a spirograph.

I had couple motors that I had pulled out of an old ps2 dualshock controller.
Then I cut a circle out of a CD for one motor, and used a mirror from one of my girlfriends makeups for the other motor.

I found a toggle switch out in the garage. And that was pretty much all that I used.

I put it all together quickly, and paid no attention to looks. Used the hot glue gun like crazy, some cool whip containers and a 9v battery. It might look like crap but it worked.... and it cured my bordum.



The outer rings are from me using a CD instead of a mirror on the one motor. The CD casts multiple lines unlink the mirror. But I kinda liked the outer rings.


For some reason youtube slowed the video down a tiny bit. When I watch the video from the file..... The spirograph looks right. When I watch the video on youtube, the spirograph is slowed down a tad, and it just looks like a line continuously going in a circle. Strange. The spirograph actually looks more like the picture above.

That's really great, I love this kind of ingenuity.
I'm going to build me something like this in the near future as well.
My source of mirrors and motors though will be optical drives.

To make it more interesting though you should add at least:
-speed control for both motors (potentiometers leap to mind)
-switch to inverse turning direction.

That should allow for quite the amount of extra fun.

anselm said:

That's really great, I love this kind of ingenuity.
I'm going to build me something like this in the near future as well.
My source of mirrors and motors though will be optical drives.

To make it more interesting though you should add at least:
-speed control for both motors (potentiometers leap to mind)
-switch to inverse turning direction.

That should allow for quite the amount of extra fun.

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Thanks a lot

Thats a good idea. I might add those in there. Ill have to buy those though....... but that can't be much money.

Also, thanks for the +rep

good stuff & thanks for the pics.

Now how about some pictures of your cool whip containers

Flaminpyro said:

Now how about some pictures of your cool whip containers

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LOL! Does your girlfriend know about her mirror?

CDHDC said:

LOL! Does your girlfriend know about her mirror?

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Lol, Yea.

She just thinks I am a nerd. But its cool. :yh:

A source for cheap front surface mirrors are the platters out of dead hard drives.. Though be warned, not all are metal.. A fair number now days are a type of glass with a metallic coating.. make sure you know what your dealing with before you end up with glass in your fingers.

qumefox said:

A source for cheap front surface mirrors are the platters out of dead hard drives.. Though be warned, not all are metal.. A fair number now days are a type of glass with a metallic coating.. make sure you know what your dealing with before you end up with glass in your fingers.

Click to expand...

Great tip. My system crashed on me a few weeks back and had to buy another hard drive. With i took apart the old one. Not think of using it for such reason.

:thanks: +