A colleague of mine at GeekHack.org asked me to build one ErgoDox for him - he didn't like to solder SMD components.
After one month I could build his little keyboard:
I'm waiting for his pictures with the Keycaps ...
A bunch of nerd and tech stuff ...
A colleague of mine at GeekHack.org asked me to build one ErgoDox for him - he didn't like to solder SMD components.
After one month I could build his little keyboard:
I'm waiting for his pictures with the Keycaps ...
I still didn't finished my Prusa I3 but I can say that I'm almost there - after almost one year now it's just a matter of a few adjustments/regulations and then I'll be able to print my own wissle.
And now, I just decided it, I do want to build one simple 3D scanner. I decided to build one after I saw this KickStarter printer: R-360.
I loved the idea and the size is really cool for small apartments. My bench is already filled up with stuff that my wife wanna throw away, GOSH! I need more room to my stuff! One of the most interesting features are the ability to install one "3D Scanner" kit and a plotter.
I don't like the online service idea - I think that a software like Repetier would be good enough. The online 3D library is awesome tought.
It's sad that they didn't reached their goal - now we will have to dig the web to get the details of this gadget in order to try to bring it into maturity.
KickStarter.com is awesome, I love their projects, I love the idea to invest into gadgets and toys that you like. There is one catch thought, IMHO, they have the tendency to support mostly (again, IMHO!) "professional" projects. IF you don't sell yourself they will not help you with that - even if you do have one awesome idea ...
A while ago I saw another project at KickStarter - the Peachy Printer. One US$ 100 printer. The catch is that this printer is not complete - you will have to spend some money into the resin container.
And the 3D scanner? It's here, the SpinScan. The project is a work in progress but it's super cool.
There is one alternative idea using encoders to point where you want the vertices but I don't know none open source project implementing it. Take a look here for details.
Hi guys, long time no see you. There's a while since my last post - that's because I've been working into a few projects that I need to finish to keep my spirits up (my quadcopter for instance). I said that I need to finish a few projects? Now I do have to finish more one! I got kinda envious of my friend Gilson's printer and then I started another project (one Prusa I3). Yes, my procrastination list is still huge! Thanks to you Gilson!
One month or so ago Matt3o asked me if I could design a PCB for an Keyboard layout he had in mind at that time (picture 1). You can see more about his topic at the GeekHack forum - there are also a few awesome pictures of his keyboard there.
Picture 1, Matt3o Layout
After almost 3 weeks I came up with the 2 PCBs below:
Picture 2, complete PCB - GitHub Kicad files here
Picture 3, PCB with headers to attach the Teensy 2.0 board - Github Kicad files here
Matt3o ended up using direct wiring into his keyboard (I think he got impatient waiting for my design) and we didn't used these PCBs for real. Would be good to have a complete review before you do decide to order it into a fab house (OSH for instance).
If you do know what ALPs Switches are you do also know that there aren't many open source projects out there for this old fella - that's why the guys at the GeekHack forum came up with the idea to build one PCB to this little prehistoric switch.
The credit goes for Michal Trybus (Komar007 @ Geekhack), I just got his rev b project files and changed the switches used on it to fit the ALPs footprint. You can get more info regarding the original GH60 project at here and if you do want to know more about the Alps version at here.
This project is still up and running, right now we are just waiting the best moment to start the beta-testing and group buy action.
GH60 ALPs PCB, Github Kicad files here.
GH60 ALPs PCB Back side
Another RepRap blog? Ohhhh YES, more one!
My goal here is not to teach anyone - I'm new to this RepRap world and I'm still learning all this stuff - my goal here is to keep an build log for my own reference and, maybe, help someone in this endeavor. A friend of mine (Gilson) has mentioned some time ago that the Prusa I3's documentation is not so good when compared with the Prusa Mendel - there is no complete manual or book with ALL required info until this date and by what I've saw it seems he is right. So I hope that this build log helps in this documentation too.
The thing is that I'm envy of my friend Gilson's printer - actually I don't like to keep asking him to print parts to me all the time - then I decided to build my own. Right now I'm waiting for a few parts from eBay and AliExpress yet. Maybe in two or tree weeks I will get the Step motors and then I'll send my frame to the CNC shop in order to start the building phase! (after more or less 3 months buying and waiting for these parts I'm kinda bored - it's a real pain to buy stuff from China!)
Until I start this building phase take a look at what I've done so far ...
Official Ramps 1.4b BOM (just in case you need to save money doing your own): here
My Prusa I3 BOM (for those willing to build one Prusa I3): here
My part list (I didn't liked a few parts so I decided to design my own, you can see it here): here
Logged | HotEnd | Price | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2013/05 | J-Head, MKV | $60 USD | most used and popular, this one seems to be the latest version. Easily found on eBay. |
2013/05 | MG Plus | $70 USD | +shipping. MakerGear hotend, good quality by an not so reasonable price. Easily found on eBay. |
2013/05 | Trinity MetalMagma | $65 USD | +shipping, sold out. It supports 400C. |
2013/05 | E3D-v4 | £39 GBP | All metal and J-Head compatible, SUPER! |
2013/05 | arcol.hu | €99 | Expensive. All metal hotend however I never heard about this one. |
2014/01 | CB-Printer | €1,830 | Super printer, alu made in Poland |
2014/01 | Bulldog Extruder | to be defined | Another alu made extruder |
Logged | Extruder | Description | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2013/05 | Metal Extruder | RepRap Metal Gear System Extruder. | AWESOME! Build instructions here. |
2013/05 | Metal Gears | Metal Gear System Hardware Pack for Prusa/i3. | kinda expensive but you can do contact the owner to ask him to send it using a cheaper shipping (without insurance and tracking). I've found this info into this blog. |
2013/05 | Ponoko Extruder | CNC acrylic parts. |
Logged | Link | Notes |
---|---|---|
2013/05 | book | Getting Started with RepRap by Josef Průša, O'Reilly Sep 2013 |
2013/05 | Prusa I3 Build Manual | |
2013/05 | Prusa Mendel Build Manual | |
2013/06/23 | RepRap Calculator3 | by Josef Průša, a must have for all makers! |
2013/05 | Drive Gears | Drive-gears to be used in direct drive and some other extruders. Only required when using some kind of (like the Adrian's_Geared_Extruder). |
2013/06 | Mechanical Endstop | Recommended but not required. Simple pull up resistor schematics to connect your mechanical endstop. This pull up resistor is not required - The AtMega already has one internal pull up resistor that just need to be FUSE enabled. |
2013/05 | Optical Endstop | Recommended but not required. Why they are not using the internal pull up resistor too? |
2013/07 | Improved Optical Endstop | Recommended but not required. Still not using the dammed internal pull up resistor ... |
2013/06/04 | RepRapDiscount | Recommended but not required. RepRapDiscount Smart Controller. |
2013/06/04 | UltiPanel | Schematics for UltiPanel with rotary encoder. |
2013/06/04 | Touch TFT LCD | Graphical RepRap Touch TFT LCD (mini Pronterface style). |
2013/06/04 | SynchroMesh Cable | Kinda hard to find it here in Brazil. |
2013/07/31 | Aluminum frame Prusa i3 RED ANODIZED | Awesome Frame, 69 euros! |
Please, fell free to drop a line!
How is that old adage? A picture is worth a thousand words?
Okay, it's just a excuse - I'm a lazy bum.
So, let's say that you want to use your Arduino board with a LiPo battery. What would you have to do?
WARNING: If you have never used a LiPo battery before, I strongly advise you to read this guide before continuing. This guide will teach you the basic safety precautions required by this kind of battery.
If you do have the money for it OR if you don't fell comfortable working with the steps that I'm writing below, I suggest you buy a board that already has a USB LiPo charger embedded, like an Arduino Fio* - the only practical difference between this board and what I'm presenting here is the more expensive price and the impossibility to use it @ 16Mhz without modifying the board.
Since I'm always concerned with simplicity, I'll only suggest already tested and safe modules. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, do we? This is just a simple Arduino power guide.
Charger/Booster | LiPo, 1S1P | Micro USB-B Cable | JST RCY Connector | 2pin molex |
Why use a "low discharge" battery and what the hell is that? The discharge rate is simply how fast a battery can be discharged safely, suffice it to say that we don't need a battery with a high discharge rate (the normal type out there) for devices with low consumption. Our Arduino is a low consumption device (it requires 100ma, tops) so a low discharge rate battery is more appropriate, safer and it will drain slower than a normal battery. If you want to know more about LiPo Batteries, take a look into this link.
This is the basic wiring to power up any Arduino board running at 5v (pictures 8 and 9). It's important to note that we are wiring the charger's output straight into the uC and it's not passing though the internal voltage regulator (the LM whatever LDO). That being said make sure to use only 5v regulated power sources otherwise you will melt your little friend.
The booster is also available in a single module, without the LiPo charger:
The Sparkfun's USB LiPo charger/booster used above can be configured to work at 3.3v, you can see how to into its guide, doing so you will be ignoring it's embedded booster circuit. For this scenario it's better to use one simple LiPo charger instead - cheaper and smaller.
Charger | 5v Booster | Another Charger | More Charger |
At this point you did powered you Arduino however you didn't wired the USB data pins (D- and D+), there's no such pins in the LiPo charger nor in the 5v booster - both modules don't care about these signals. They could have designed these modules taking into account these pins but they didn't. Why? I think they are just assuming that you are only using the USB cable to charge your LiPo or to provide power to your device, not to communicate with your computer (silly assumption).
To enable the USB communication you will need one USB 2.0 header like the one I did here.
continue ...
Sometimes you will need a way to identify when the device is been powered by the USB or been powered by the LiPo. This is not required but it will help some wireless applications (if you don't need or don't have a clue why an wireless application would require it just wait my next post - when I'll wire a bluetooth module to one LiPo powered Arduino).
The easiest way to identify when the board is been powered by our LiPo is to check the USB 5v presence. You will need one 100k resistor, one wire with 2.54mm headers and one USB 2.0 header.
/* USB 5v –> 100k resistor –> Arduino A5. Blink when powered by LiPo. */ #define DEBUG // Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards. int led = 13; // Analog 5 will be used to read the vcc line voltage. int vcc = A5; // the setup routine runs once when you press reset: void setup() { Serial.begin( 9600 ); // initialize the digital pin as an output. pinMode( led, OUTPUT ); } // the loop routine runs over and over again forever: void loop() { int vccA = analogRead( vcc ); float vccR = vccA / 204.6; #ifdef DEBUG Serial.print( "VCC Voltage: " ); Serial.print( vccA ); Serial.print( " - " ); Serial.print( vccR ); Serial.println( "." ); #endif digitalWrite( led, HIGH ); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level) delay( 1000 ); // wait for a second if( vccR < 3.3 ) { digitalWrite( led, LOW ); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW delay( 1000 ); // wait for a second } }
204.6? what's that? Take a look into the documentation of the function analogRead and try to figure it out by yourself as a mental exercise.