Walter's Epic Blog

Sphere Bot

2012-01-03T22:22:00.000-08:00

For this Winter break, I decided to make ornaments for everyone. I found some great plans for making a knock off Egg-bot on Thingiverse.com and decided to make my own. It took a bit of work and a lot of broken glass ornaments to perfect, but it works great now. Here's a video of it in action.

Printable Planetary Gear

2011-11-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a printed planetary gear I found on thingiverse.com. I've only made a few objects with the 3d printer, but every time its better that I could have expected.

The planetary gear is designed to be used on a nema 17 stepper motor. The gear requires 6 bearings for the planetary gears and one for the output shaft.

I've tested the gear several different ways and it seems to work great every time. I've run the planetary gear at high speeds by mounting it into a drill press. (3200 rpm). The gearbox is even more impressive when mounted to a stepper motor. The backlash appears to be about 1/4 of a step which is ends up being about 0.09 degrees. Hopefully the gearbox doesn't wear in too much and it keeps the low backlash. Here's a small video of my planetary gearbox in action.

The total cost of the planetary gear was about $13. The planetary bearings are 683ZZ and can be found cheaply at a local hobby store 4 for $6. The bearings are used in the Align Trex 600 helicopter. If you purchase the bearings from vxb they are 10 for $25. The other bearing (6x17x6) is fairly cheap, around $2. The stepper motor was purchased from sparkfun for about $15.

Here's where to find everything you might need to make this planetary gear.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8460

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9238

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/PROD/6mm/606ZZ-1

http://www.amazon.com/Bearing-3x7x3mm-683ZZ-600-550E/dp/B000IVQ02S/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1320526125&sr=8-3

Robotic Arm In Action

2011-09-25T19:13:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to putting the robotic arm into motion. Its still only performs basic functions but I think its a good start. I've upgraded a few servos from analog to digital servos. They accept the same signals but seem to hold position significantly better. Another upgrade I'll be making in the future will be to add a thrust bearing to the base for smoother rotation. Its currently only a friction bearing and isn't very smooth at all.

Robotic Arm Fun

2011-06-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

So what do you do when you have a week of free time? Built a robotic arm of course! I had a few smaller servos laying around and a pan and tilt servo kit I bought years before for a camera. It was all the pieces I needed to make a 6 dof robot with a gripper. Luckily, I work at a company with a 3D printer, and there was a night of free time on the machine coming up. So I did some research and spent a few nights drawing the pieces for the arm in Google Sketchup.

Here's a picture of the pieces being fabricated. It was a 9 hour print and used about 3 cubic inches of ABC plastic for the whole thing. I printed at the maximum resolution since there was a lot of spare time. Pretty amazing that we can just print objects these days.

The parts are printed with two materials, the main plastic and a support material. To get the parts after printing, we soak the whole thing, tray and all, in a bath to dissolve the support material, but it leaves the plastic parts untouched. After a night in the solvent bath, the parts were ready to be put together.

Another night of assembly, wiring, and testing, the robot was ready to run. The servos I have aren't very strong so it needed a little help. One joint is counter balanced with 4 oz of lead weight to support the gripper, and the shoulder joint is supported by a few rubber bands. This allows the robot to extend fully without putting too much strain on the servos. Plus I can lift a little more weight, although its still very limited. Initial tests show it can support the weight of two pens fully extended.

Now it comes down to the hard part, writing the control software for the robot. While the forward kinematics equations are easy and I can move the robots servos individually, I would like to specify better movements such as movement along lines or planes. I also want to control it by joystick, and possibly have control over the internet, but that will have to wait for another day.

Atlys Spartan 6 Development Board

2011-02-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

I just got a new Atlys Spartan 6 FPGA development board from Digilent and I thought I would share some photos of it since there are almost no good ones online. The capabilities of the board look great and I can't wait to try it out.

The board is a lot smaller than it looks in the picture. Its about a half inch longer on one side than the Nexys 2 board. It has a cute little heatsink on the Spartan 6, so I know its getting a little more serious than previous boards. Unlike other boards I've had from Digilent, the Atlys board requires external power and doesn't seem to get power from USB, so it looks like I'll be playing with it near a wall. The power supply comes with a weird European adapter that I don't understand (the one with two rods) and the standard US plug.

Hope these pictures are useful to someone. I'll post something cool if I ever get something cool worth posting.

Comes in a large box.

Unboxing

Top of the board

Bottom of the board. It looks like a mini HDMI port on the right corner.

Close up of some of the ports on the board.

New to Arduino

2011-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

So this week I got an Arduino board and played with one for the first time. The board and the development environment are really easy to use and it shows with the speed something simple can be produced. Just take a look at the LCD screen I got working in just a few minutes.

The Arduino environment comes with a ton of premade functions do to anything from analog to digital conversion, SD card operations, making an LCD work, and a ton of other things.

The Arduino is based on an AVR processor and runs at 16mhz. While its fast to do a lot of simple project work, its not so fast when it needs to process lots data. Hopefully Arduino comes out with something much more powerful such as an Xmega based board.

Wet Grass

2010-06-15T19:40:00.001-07:00

Grass, originally uploaded by waltergordy.

We hadn't mowed the lawn in a while and some grass grew pretty tall and started to seed. There are a few patches that the push mower just won't get so we've left the tall parts of the grass to grow and seed. It sure looks great when when we're watering and hopefully it help thicken the grass, but I have my doubts.

Processing For Fun

2010-06-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

I decided it would be fun to write another applet. This time I simulated field lines between static electric charges. The applet was written using processing. You can click on it to reset the simulation or move your mouse over it to rotate. Simulation contains 8 million grids (3d pixels) Enjoy! If your view this in an RSS feed and it doesn't work, go to my original post.

This browser does not have a Java Plug-in. Get the latest Java Plug-in here.

Discovering Adobe Lightroom 3

2010-04-05T09:37:00.000-07:00

I recently discovered Adobe Lightroom thanks to a free beta from Adobe. I thought, if its free, I should try it out. I can't believe this program has been around for a few years and I never used it. The beta will work until June 10, 2010 but I don't know if they will stop giving it out for free before then.

I'm not a professional photographer, so I dismissed lightroom as one of those extra software packages that I didn't need to learn. Besides, photoshop does everything I ever need to do right? Wrong! Sure, photoshop is a great tool. Its powerful and can do anything lightroom can do editing wise. But what its really missing is an easy workflow.

Lightroom's power is in its easy to use workflow and its simple yet powerful tools. I can import all my photos, edit some exposures, make slideshows, print my photos, and export photos to web galleries all within a few minutes. Lightroom brings together all the simple things that I wanted to do but didn't have time to do with all the other tools.

Sure I can use several software packages to accomplish the same tasks lightroom does, but the time and money I save are priceless. Lightroom also have a few advantages over other software packages.

One big advantage lightroom has is the ability to save editing history. Unlike photoshop, when I'm done editing a photo I can go back weeks later and look at the editing history. I can undo changes or make new ones. I also never have to save a file since its automatically saved every edit. Lightroom also has the ability to go back to the original file at any time. Lightroom doesn't just stand alone as a tool either.

With lightroom I can make changes to a photo, but if I need to do something it can't do I just click a menu item, and its in photoshop ready to edit. Then when I'm done with it, lightroom picks up the new changes. Its amazing!

I've only had lightroom for about a week, but I'm sold. For less than a third the price of photoshop, you get all the tools you need to fix, organize, and publish your photos. There's really no reason not to have lightroom, unless you really like doing things the hard way.

Ojito Wilderness Camping Trip

2010-04-04T16:15:00.001-07:00

Ojito Wilderness 2010, originally uploaded by waltergordy.

We just got back from the Ojito Wilderness. What a great camping trip. I love camping in a place that has New Mexico written all over it. It was like camping in the middle of the desert with a ton of great rock formations. If you ever get a chance, I would swing by and stay a night or two. They also have a great mountain biking trail.

New Mexico

2010-03-31T08:47:00.001-07:00

New Mexico, originally uploaded by waltergordy.

We spotted this storm on our way to Estancia, New Mexico. I had to pull over and get my camera out. When we got to Estancia, it was covered in new snow. We had just missed being in the storm, I think it worked out better that way.

Wedding Photography Class

2010-03-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

I've taken a photography class before at UNM Continuing Education and I had a bad experience. I thought I'd give taking a photography class a second try. This time its working out great. Richard Nunez is teaching the class and its nice to have someone who cares about the students learning. Its really great when the instructor wants the class to fun and get hands on experience.

One of the great things about getting hands on experience is eating free cake. Richard brought in a fancy cake so we could practice taking pictures of the types of items found at a wedding. I think anyone else would have just told us about it, but he went the extra mile.

Another great hands on experience is coming up this Sunday. We'll be going out into the field to take pictures at the worst part of the day. We'll learn how to deal with the bad lighting and it should make for some great pictures.

Spring is finally here!

2010-03-26T13:01:00.001-07:00

Cherry Blossoms, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

I've been waiting for spring to finally get here. Now that it is I can't wait until summer gets here. This week has been so busy. Shelly and I are taking a photography class and the homework keeps us busy every night. Its not that bad, at least we're out getting fresh air.

New Keychain

2010-03-08T14:27:00.001-08:00

Recycled Circuit, New Keychain.

In a recent flurry of boredom, I decided that I would go through some of my old computer parts and see if I had anything useful. Like usual, I didn't get far before I was distracted. I started butchering an old motherboard with a dremel and a file. I had remembered a web page of unique key chains and I got the idea to make one myself.

If you want to make you're own, you'll need some type of saw, a dremel, and a file or some sand paper. The saw I choose was a jigsaw, although this was a bit hard to use since the board had a capacitors and others through hole components that got in the way. The sand paper or file will come in handy getting rid of those rouge copper traces that pop up on the edges of the board. If you don't get rid of them, they'll catch on all sorts of fabric and cause snags. Just smooth out the edges and it won't be a problem.

The way I started was to find a spot on the motherboard that had a nice looking chip close to one of the mounting holes, we'll use the mounting hole as the place to put it on the keychain. The area I picked had some annoying tall capacitors but those came off pretty easy with a pair of pliers. After I cleared the area of all the taller objects, I put the board in a vise and started cutting with a jigsaw. Once I had a rough cut I switched to the dremel.

I dremeled the heck out of it and what I got was exactly what I wanted, a cool key chain. I think this is the on board sound chip. The computer was blazing fast at 500mhz but those days have come and gone. At least its not just sitting in a box collecting dust anymore.

Water Drop Slow Motion

2010-03-01T21:42:00.001-08:00

Water Drop Slow Motion, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

This is a series of different water drops captured with different timedelays. The camera was triggered by a circuit monitoring a photoresistor. A laser beam was aimed at the photoresistor with the drop falling in the path of the beam.

As the drop falls, it breaks the beam causing the circuit to trigger the camera. A configuratble time delay is used to capture the drop in a different spot each time. Each frame is a different drop with a longer delay, but the drops were so identical that it appears to be the same drop in a different frame of a slow motion video.

I implemented the circuit with an NPN transistor, a photoresistor, a potentiometer, and an FPGA. The photoresistor and potentiometer allow me to set the sensitivity of the trigger so that a drop will trigger the camera correctly in any type of lighting conditions. Photos were taken with a Canon t1i and two flash units.

Taking a class on Photo Composition

2010-03-01T14:42:00.001-08:00

Chicago as viewed from the Navy Pier, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

A few weeks ago I got the wild idea to take a photography class. I had reached a place where I was just wasn't able to take the pictures I wanted. I was making a lot of pictures with the occasional good one. I've always wanted to take a photography class just to see what its like.

I did a quick Google search and found exactly what I wanted to find, a composition class in photography. I had no idea it would be so easy to find one, and it started that very night. I signed up online and within a few hours Shelly and I were in the class patiently waiting to learn all about composition and everything we had missed out on.

The first class was a little slow. We covered all the basics like the rule of thirds, using lines to direction attention, using contrast. These we ideas we had both heard before and it left us wondering what we would cover the next week.

I was a little disappointed but I kept my hopes up that we would finally be told the secret to everything, how to make the best picture in any circumstance.

The next class came and went. This time we spent a little time actually looking at photos and discussing what worked and what didn't work, but no magic to get that perfect picture. It looks like there was no magic formula.

I was really hoping to get more out of this class that I did. I hate to think that most photography classes go the way this class did. We were shown a few examples here and there but what I really wanted to learn was how to take a better picture i the same situation.

One thing that could have made this course better would be a series of examples of the same object showing the difference between a good photographer and an amateur. Since I didn't find what I needed in the class, I had to look elsewhere.

I searched Amazon for a few books and what I found was great. The composition help I looking for was in two books, Composition Photo Workshop by Blue Fier and The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos by Micheal Freeman. These book introduce the basics and have a ton of great examples to follow. I would recommend these books to everyone who wants to learn what gain more understanding about how pictures are made.

Although reading about composition won't instantly make you a better photographer, at least it will give you the ambition to start trying. I also found this little article about Teaching Yourself Photography. It has lots of great ideas, and if you're all alone it has some great starting points.

FPGA Board

2010-02-28T22:07:00.001-08:00

My FPGA Board, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

This is my favorite piece of electronics in my toolkit. Its a FPGA development board. This is some what similar to a microcontroller, but about a million times better in some ways. What this thing can do at 50mhz, would take a microprocessor hundreds of mhz or more to do the same thing. Any sort of digital task is easy with this type of board. I recently used this board to build a laser shutter for my canon camera. It took about an hour to put together and to get working properly. This thing is a life saver.

strawberry drop

2010-02-28T21:55:00.001-08:00

strawberry drop, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

Dropping stuff into water is awesome! I spent a few hours trying to get a pictures of a drop of milk, water, and food dye. But when I got frustrated I dropped something else in the water it dawned on me that I should be dropping other things into the water. Since this was recently after Valentines Day we still have some strawberries. This worked perfectly the first drop and I could never get the same effect again, but it only takes one.

Lone Salt

2010-02-28T21:46:00.001-08:00

Lone Salt, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

I spent twenty minutes setting up these grains of salt with a mechanical pencil. Its hard not to crush them or damage the nice perfect little cubes. I can't believe salt actually looks like this.

Max

2010-02-28T21:44:00.001-08:00

Max, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

Another cloudy day with nothing to take pictures of so I volunteered my cat Max. Surprisingly he sat there long enough to get sleepy.

Crane in Field

2010-02-28T21:43:00.001-08:00

Crane in Field, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

Shelly and I were driving around Corrales, NM just enjoying a lazy Saturday when we spotted a group of cranes in the middle of a recently plowed field.

Art in the dark

2010-02-28T21:41:00.001-08:00

Art in the dark, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

This is part of a series of smoke picture I tried to take. It was a cloudy day with nothing to take a picture of. So I went to Whole Food, bought some incense, and started taking pictures. I learned two things about photographing smoke, don't move and less is more. Don't try to move the incense around, just set it up and let it make beautiful ribbons.

Daniel's Bike

2010-02-28T21:38:00.001-08:00

Daniel's Bike, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

This is my first attempt at taking a picture for someone else. We tried all sorts of lighting and what worked was two softboxes, one on each side of the bike. I photoshop'd a little, removing the distracting red color from the vise and adding a nice tone to the image.

Brantley Lake State Planetoid

2010-02-28T20:37:00.001-08:00

Brantley Lake State Planetoid, originally uploaded by walter gordy.

Taking panorama pictures are fun, but what makes them more fun is making them into little planets. This one was taken at Brantley Lake State Park. I took 8 pictures with a 10mm lens, Canon t1i, then stitched them together with Photoshop and applied a filter to convert to polar coordinates. Its that easy.

2009-12-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

Mix some consoles together, get a thermal camera, add some heat, and see which ones get baked. We collected four systems, Xbox 360 Acade, Xbox 360 Elite, PS3 40gb, and a PS3 slim and captured their thermal profiles for a quick comparison. Since there are no actual temperatures involved in the video, its only comparing which consoles run hotter.