News @ Suspect Devices

Tag: daily thing

  • Day 14: Thing 14: Remote Arduino Programmer.

    (Archive of : http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/14/day-14-thing-14-remote-arduino-programmer-failed/)

    I have been so happy with the programmer that I have been using that I wanted to add this capability to the xbee rf modules that I built a few months ago. I wired dio0 to both send and recieve boards and put the cap on the output side and wired up a reset.

    Then I figured out that the data passing would require updating the flash on both boards and that that required a windows based PC. (LARGE PILE OF EXPLICITIVES REMOVED HERE) I moved the passthrough to the rts/cts pairs which the old firmware is supposed to support met NOOOOO!

    If I built it but it doesn’t work yet did I make a thing?

    UPDATE: 25feb08 I found an old ob900 (I have like 15 old omnibooks in various states of running) that was running W2k and upgraded the firmware on both radios. I will test them out after I have had some sleep.

  • Day 13: Thing 13 — Mold

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/13/day-13-thing-13-mold/)

    Today I made a MESS.

    Really, I made a rubber mold for casting resin .

    I was given a section of a large display recently that was made up of 6 5×7 led modules. The modules were embedded in epoxy with the lenses built into the front. As most of the led drivers I have are 8×8 (and over $10 apiece) , building displays with the modules wastes a third of the driver. I thought I would try to build 8×8 arrays using the leds I got last week. I took one of the 5×7 arrays and pressed it into some DAS air dry clay and made an 8×8 pattern.

    Then I attempted to make a positive using an expensive clear plastic material that I have never had much success with. After two attempts to get a decent positive I decided to try a wax positive using a large candle that was left in my apartment by the previous tenants. This was successful and so I went to make the mold.

    The a part of the mold compound was so thick that it was almost impossible to work with. For a long time I wasn’t sure that it would set. But in the end I would up with a fairly decent mold. Tomorrow I will get some casting resin from tap plastics..

  • Day12: Thing12 — Helmet Taillights

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/12/day12-thing12-helmet-taillights/)

    One of our local dorkbots put an arduino in a bucket the other day and I got inspired to put one in my head bucket.

    I lined the two largest holes in the back of the helmet with foil tape (for ducts) and then built two boards with leds and mounted in the area with my head. I glued a 4 pack of rechargable AA batteries on the top and plan to mount the 5000 mcd led in the front in the next day or so. While I am testing it the arduino run time board is taped to the outside but I plan to mount a really bare bones arduino under the battery when It is done.

  • Day 11: Thing 11 — led arrays

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/11/day-11-thing-11-led-arrays/)

    Today I got 2000 little leds in the mail.

    They are really bright. So of course I had to play around with them. I made 2 8×8 arrays one is made of magnet wire with no supporting background. I will figure out if I am going to mount this on somehting later. In the mean time I built one on a perf board. Both took for EVER to make. The one on the perfboard is wired to a maxim 7219 led driver to be driven by an arduino.

  • Day 10: Thing 10 — Wheel Watchers for Hacked Tamaya Mouses.

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/10/day-10-thing-10-wheel-watchers-for-hacked-tamaya-mouses/)

    My son aidan and I have been working on a pair of arduino based robots. Today I had him look at the boards from the check reader pile and reverse engineer the emitter detector pairs that tell the reader when the check is present. After poking around at the circuit board he came up with this diagram. Which we distilled into this circuit.

    I was making a set of paper encoders to attach to the wheels but aidan thought it would be better just to use the holes in the gears After a trip to the hardware store for some epoxy putty to sheild the phototranister, I put two pair in each of the Tamaya Wall Following Mouse based robots and bench tested them with an arduino.


  • Day 9: Thing 9 — My Sorry Bot Version 2

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/09/day-9-thing-9-my-sorry-bot-version-2/)

    I have a bot I hacked together out of an overgrown sorry piece that I found. This year I plan to make it into a production maze solver. In order to do that I built a perfboard prototype to work out the placement and details.

  • Day 8: Thing 8 — Place Holder for Rotation Sensors

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/08/day-8-thing-8-place-holder-for-rotation-sensors/ )

    limit switchesToday I made 2 new pieces of things but not the new thing that I had intended as todays thing today. So for now the the y axis that I built for a future drawing machine, and the limit switches that I added to the etcha sketch mechanism will have to do. The etch a sketch mechanism along with 3 of the other robots need rotation sensors. I plan to build them out of the ir emitter detector pairs that all of the check readers have.

    Rotation Sensors

  • Day 7: Thing 7: TA8080K Motor Board

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/07/day-7-thing-7-ta8080k-motor-board/)

    TA8080K

    I have long been annoyed with how the l293s require 3 pins per motor to drive them and traded a couple of on hand mega8s for a bag of these toshiba parts. They are 1 amp motor drivers and perfect for some of the things I am working on for thing a day.

    Board

  • Day 6: Thing 6 — Motorized Etch-A-Sketch(r) mechanism

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/06/day-6-thing-6-motorized-etch-a-sketchr-mechanism/)

    Etchy Sketchy.Several years ago I took apart an Etch-A-Sketch and took notes on the “complicated pully system” inside. have wanted to build one of these since then. With this  and several other projects in mind I bought a small pile of Tamaya pully sets. (this project ate most of 3 of them)

    This turned out to be a bit more complicated that I origionally thought. I wanted to use the check reader motor mechanism that I have a pile of them but mounting them turned out to be less than straight forward. once I got through that I had to repully and thread each axis 4 or for times. My first attempt at the pivot point was a small disaster as well. However we persevered and there it is.  Tomorrow my thing will probably be a motor driver board to use with this.

  • Day 5: Thing 5 — Frame for internal Combustion

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/05/day-5-thing-5-frame-for-internal-combustion/)

    Seen Better DaysI have a painting that I did almost 10 years ago called internal combustion. It was done on blueprints fixed to foamcore. The piece is about 40″ in diameter and has been moved 8 times. It has clearly seen better days. I wanted to build a frame for it. As it is a radial engine like in an airplane I thought a cowling would be an appropriate shape. I dumpsterdove some pipe insulation and cut a circle in some foamcore. My head is still a little messed up from the contact cement but it is done.

    Frame