Arduino Blog

Printed Parts Update II

2011-12-23T11:37:00.000-08:00

So I have FINALLY finished collecting all the printed parts for the Prusa! I ended up having a local guy print the rest of the parts I needed, since it was turning into quite the hassle to get all the parts printed from my local hackerspace, hacklab.to. I opted for LM8UU linear bearings from thingfarm for the x and y axis, and A hinged extruder instead of the standard Wade's extruder. The parts were excellent quality, I didn't realize a well tuned reprap could actually print at that quality level! Now I just have to wait for the linear bearings to come in to finish assembly.

Merry Christmas!

Flame Tube Video

2011-12-13T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here's my finished flame tube video from a couple posts ago. Let me know what you think!

RAMPS Enclosure Project

2011-11-27T13:54:00.001-08:00

After assembling the RAMPS board and testing the pololu stepper drivers with a couple of motors, I found that the stepper drivers were heating up almost to hot to touch after only mere minutes of operation. I decided that I would need to build a nice enclosure to protect the RAMPS board, and also to actively cool down the stepper drivers to attain optimal performance.

I found a scrap piece of acrylic in my junk bin and quickly set about building an enclosure. I picked up a pack of 3/16th inch bolts and drilled 5 mil holes in each of the four corners. The bolts self tapped since acrylic is a relatively soft plastic. I drilled out the center hole for the fan with a series of 1/2inch holes and secured the fan with 3M screws. The fan is directly connected into the PC power supply, so soon as the RAMPS has power, the fan begins actively cooling the electronics. I'm curious to see how well the active cooling works in an actual print situation.

How To: DIY PC Power Supply for RepRap

2011-11-16T18:32:00.001-08:00

Over the last couple of days I have been cannibalizing a PC power supply to work with my (future) RepRap. I spent quite a while reading and rereading the wiki post for the DIY power supply trying to decipher what was the simplest way of putting the power supply together. I found that the wiki didn't really have any clear instructions for a simple +12V power supply, so after getting one working I decided to share how I did it. I figured out a (somewhat) elegant way of wiring that hid most of the unused wires within the power supply box. The following is a brief simplified how-to on assembling a reprap DIY power supply.

TOOLS:

Wire Strippers
Wire Cutters
Soldering Iron
Solder
Electrical Tape

POWER SUPPLY: Any computer power supply will work that has a rating of at least 16amps on the +12V line. It should say the amperage on the side of the power supply, more than 16A is fine as the RepRap will only draw as much power as it needs.

STEP ONE: Cut all the connectors off the wires and group them by color, the four wires you are interested in are the black, yellow, green and brown ones.

STEP TWO: Select about five of each of the black (ground) and yellow (+12V) and cut them off about 2 inches outside of the power supply box.

STEP THREE: If your power supply has a brown wire (3.3V sense) solder it to an orange wire (+3.3V) and wrap it with electrical tape as shown in the image:

STEP FOUR: The green wire is a power on wire, it must be wired to a ground wire in order for the power supply to turn on. You can either wire them permanently together, similarly to step three, or run them out of the box and connect a switch to them so you can have a power switch right next to your reprap electronics.

STEP FIVE: Solder the five yellow and black wires together. Then solder two black wires to the black soldered connection and two red wires to the yellow connection. After the solder connections have cooled, thoroughly wrap them in electrical tape. These wires will feed into your screw connects on your RAMPS (or similar electronic) board. I braided the all the wires including the power on wire together to keep everything clean and tidy.

STEP SIX: Cut all of the rest of the wires down to about an inch and tape them using the electrical tape in groups of similar colors (Example: all the orange together and all the black together)

FINAL TESTING: Put the power supply back together and turn it on, remember to connect the green and black wires together! If your power supply does not turn on, there may be another sense wire for the other voltage rails, look for any wires that are lighter gauge than the rest and wire them to there corresponding colors as done in step three and four.

I hope this helps!

Weekend Project: Ruben's Tube aka Flame Tube

2011-11-12T11:17:00.001-08:00

I know this isn't exactly related to electronics, let alone Arduinos... But I thought is was a really cool project that deserved a blog post. So here it goes.

A couple of months ago I stumbled across a video of a Rubens tube playing music and thought it was a really cool project. When I heard that we had to make a physics project for school, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to build one of these things. I followed the MAKE Flame Tube How-To and improvised a couple of steps.

I used an aluminum tube I picked up from my local surplus store, Active Surplus for twenty bucks, which was pretty reasonable compared to a two inch pipe from any hardware store. I used the regulator off of my barbecue propane tank and just screwed it into the PTC connector with some gas fitting tape. The rest of the supplies were pretty much the same as listed on the MAKE project page.

TIPS (Things I would do differently):

The metal tube HEATS UP! I would suggest more than five inches of extra pipe on each end, probably at least 7 inches from the last flame hole to the beginning of the baloon.
I would suggest using some form of metal couplings rather than plastic ones because the pipe gets very hot
Don't bother with pipe taps, just use pipe joint compound, its less hassle.

The results were pretty impressive, I was able to create different length sine waves using a tone generator on my iPhone. Overall, building a Ruben's tube is a pretty kick ass weekend project!

VIDEO COMING SOON!

Printed Parts Update

2011-11-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Just an update on the parts that I have printed so far:

Building a RepRap Prusa Mendel 3D Printer

2011-11-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

I have been absent from the electronic scene for quite some time now, but my interested has been rekindled after some time researching 3D printers. I have decided to build one for my Grade 12 project!

My first goal was to build the printer for 450 dollars, so I began to research all the available options and their associated costs. I finally settled on a combination of parts, with the majority ordered locally. I will make a basic list of the main components and where I purchased them from:

Electronics - RAMPS board on Arduino Mega
http://ultimachine.com/
http://www.ebay.ca/Arduino Mega
Motors - Wantai 42BTGHW811 bipolar hybrid stepper motors
http://www.wantmotor.com/
Stepper Drivers - Pololu A4988 stepper Drivers
http://mixshop.com/pololu
Vitamins - Complete structure kit
http://mixshop.com/
Extruder - Complete Wades Extruder kit
http://mixshop.com/

So far I have received the Arduino Mega and the RAMPS board, which I assembled. If you aren't comfortable with SMT soldering, I would suggest going with the SMT already Soldered option.

I went to the open night at the Toronto Hackerspace http://hacklab.to/ and found out that they had a working makerbot which they are generously letting me print my parts off of. So far I have printed 3/4 of the parts over the course of a couple weekends. Hopefully by next week I will have the Mixshop order and all the parts printed and will be able to begin assembly!

Unpopulated RAMPS

Finished RAMPS Board

TV-B-Gone!

2009-03-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

I just received my TV-B-Gone in the mail today, I ordered it from Adafruit Industries, the shipping to Canada took exactly one week. I was very impressed at the detailed instructions. It took me about half an hour to assemble and test with a camera. I haven't had a chance to test it on a TV yet, but I plan on making a video of turning off all the TV's in Sears! I cant wait!

Nigel

Ideas...

2009-03-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

I'm in a sorta contemplative mood, and I have come up with an interesting quote:

"Being a scientist, or an inventor, is like being a lawyer. The laws of science have been laid down years ago many have tried to outright break them and failed, they cannot be broken. the ones that are successful are the ones that find loop-holes, alter statements, try different perspectives, and sidestep these laws without ever breaking them to achieve their goal. And when one can do this, anything is possible."
~Nigel

The Scotch Tape Spirograph!

2009-03-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

I was getting sorta bored over March Break so I decided to build a laser Spirograph. I had most of the parts so it took me about 3 hours to build and tweak. I finally got a chance to use my box of pots to control the speed of the three fans. The laser is from a 2 dollar laser pointer from Active surplus, so its pretty crappy, after 2-3 minutes of use it starts to lose intensity until you can barley see it, not sure why it does this. I plan on replacing the laser at some point. Once I'm back in school I plan on building a nice little enclosure for it out of wood and acrylic. I will make a video as soon as I get a better laser.

Enclosure Project

2009-02-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

I finally finished my project, well I finished the enclosure, but still need to finish the electronics and write the code. I decided to use pots instead of the faders because it was much easier to fabricate. I haven't rigged up the LED's yet, but plan to do it sometime soon.

Enclosure Project

2009-02-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Lately I have been very busy with school and exams and other stuff so I haven't had much time for working on electronics projects, but with the new term, I have started woodwork class, and our woodwork project is to make a nice wooden box. So I decided to make a music mixer that will control music in Ableton Live. I plan on using 6 faders and possibly some switches. The main body will be made of wood and the top will be see through, this way I can put some RGB LED's under the faders for some cool illumination. I might also put an audio jack in the side so I can use the synth program too. When I'm done the project, (which should be tomorrow, at least the enclosure) I will post some pictures. If anyone wants to make a project like this just send me an a message and Ill see if I can do a tutorial or something along those lines.

Nigel

Synth-In-A-Box

2009-01-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,
I wanted a break from designing, so I spent a night creating a enclosure for my first version of the Audiuno Synth. Its really cool when you can use the synth in a enclosure, it gives it a more finished feel. I was playing around with it and I made A LOT of sounds that weren't originally meant to be made, I could even get a sorta distortion affect. I think most of this was from my analog input somehow floating and generating random numbers. The enclosure is just a old cardboard box I found laying around. I attached the pots, then spray-painted it. The audio jack is on the side of the box, along with the power cable. If anyone wants me to make a video demo just post a comment.

Synth PCB

2009-01-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

Hi,

I have converted the PCB files into eagle so I can have them professionally fabricated. I also created a 3D rendering so you can see what the shield is going to look like without any headers.

Arduino Synth 3.4

2009-01-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I updated the PCB design so that it would fit the parts I got, I also included a MIDI OUT jack so I can use the board as a midi controller. I plan on fabricating this sometime this week. I printed out a copy and placed most of the parts to make sure they all fit. The only parts that are missing are the female headers and the SPDT switches. The parts fit pretty well accept for the one sliding pot that is covering the analog headers and the power headers. I'm just going to coat the headers with something non-conductive before I solder on the pots.

Solduino - Solar Powered Arduino

2009-01-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Hey,

I have been thinking about the concept of a solar powered Arduino. I have a 3v solar panel from a Hydrogen fuel cell car, which I plan on using to generate electricity. I found a schematic for boosting the voltage to 5v. I'm thinking that I will store any excess power in Gold or Aerogel 1 farad capacitors. This power can then be used to ether power two servos for sun tracking, or store up power for when there isn't enough light to run the Arduino.

Arduino Synth 3.2

2009-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

Hello, I just finished designing the upgraded PCB for the Arduino Synth. Its new features are:

MIDI IN
Audio Output
6 Sliding Pots
2 SPDT Switches
2 Status LED's

Now that the pitch doesnt need to have its own pot, I can have seperate volume envalopes for each oscillator making it much more interesting. Also with the two switches, I can implement a choice between Square and Triangle waves. Also the board is much more compact now that all the pots are attatched to the board. I havnt actually fabricated a PCB yet, but I plan to within the next week.

Future hardware Features:

MIDI IN
A DAC
A LCD Interface

Here's a Parts List:

G – Ground
5V – Voltage In
L1 – Serial Status LED, Yellow
L2 – Power Status LED, Red
R1, R2 – 220Ohm Resisters
R3 – 50Ohm Resister
SW1, SW2 – SPDT Switch
AUDIO – Audio Output Jack
MIDI – Midi jack w/ Breakout Board
J1, J2, J3, J4 – Assorted Jumper Wires
IC – 6N137 Optocoupler 10MBit
Squares – Male or Female Headers

This board is getting to the point where I can't fabricate it myself anymore, so I'm thinking of making this into a kit with a double-sided silkscreened PCB. Please Give me some input.

Thanks

Arduino Robot Platform 1.1

2009-01-03T14:50:00.001-08:00

Hello,

I have finished making the first prototype of my robot platform. It was pretty simple to make. I had a few bugs such as bridging 5v and Ground pins and frying my Arduino. I had to go and get another one, luckily there is a Electronics shop 20 minutes from my house that sells them so I was able to start working the next day.Hey you learn from your mistakes! The main parts are:

- Arduino

- Freeduino Motor Shield

- Cardboard Chassis

- Lithium Battery

- Battery Adapter

- Gear Box

- Wheels

I also bought some different light sensors and soldered them up so they each had female headers, makes it a lot easier to prototype. I bought the LCD screen for two dollars from my local electronics surplus store. There is even an Arduino Library to run it so it is really easy to use. (Library: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Code/OptrexLCD.zip.) I set it up so that it displays analog input from a photo diode. The first picture is with ambient lamp light. The second picture is with the diode covered by my finger. The next step is to create a line following sensor PCB and fabricate it. Then use the PID Library to write a line following program.

2009-01-02T22:17:00.001-08:00

Arduino Synth V2.1

I first saw this synth at http://code.google.com/p/tinkerit/wiki/Auduino. It sounded really cool so I decided to make my own "shield". It had 5 pots that ran off of it. This was my first time fabricating a PCB so I had to redo it a couple of times. But my finished product workes pretty well. I plan to add a MIDI interface and a better audio plug (non-existant right now) I would also like to make it into a version of this shield just with more features. I am working on a schematic and will post it soon.

Arduino Intro

2009-01-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I have been working for a couple months with the Arduino and have decided to start a blog to document my projects. The most recent projects are:

Arduino Synth - A simple Granular Synthisizer that has two oscillators.

Arduino Robot Platform - A robot platform that I can attatch different sensors to.

Arduino Solar Tracker - A pan/tilt solar cell that provides power to the Arduino.

I will continue to update how each of these projects are doing.