How You (Yes YOU) Can Build Complex Circuits
Here at mimicEducationalRobots we farm out most of our production circuit board assembly, but we still assemble all prototypes in house. Most people are surprised to learn how relatively simple the process really is. This blog assumes that a unique PCB of your own design has come out of your wonderful brain, or at least that you’re interested in how we do things here.
Here’s a challenge for all you hardware hackers out there. Peter Jansen has opened up the Hot Camera Contest on Hackaday.io to use a thermal imaging camera in a battery-powered project.
The challenge here is simple. Use a Flir Lepton thermal imaging camera module in a battery-powered configuration. There’s a catch, though: this is a project to use the Lepton in radiometric mode, where the camera spits out an actual temperature value for each pixel. Yes, this is a documented feature in the Flir Lepton module, but so far very few people are using it, and no one has done it with a small, battery-powered device.
The rules for this challenge are to use the Flir Lepton 2.5 in radiometric mode using either the Raspberry Pi Zero W or ESP32. Any software in this challenge must spit out absolute temperature values in a text format, and there must be a demonstration of putting the Flir Lepton into low-power mode. There are two challenges here, one for the Raspi and one for the ESP32; and winner will be named for each.
via Hot Camera Contest: Build A Battery Powered Thermal Camera — Hackaday
This weekend is HOPE XIII. The Hackers on Planet Earth conference is a biennial event held in New York City. Dating all the way back to 1994, HOPE is an excellent collection of people and ideas.
HDDG 32: Stimulating Communication Through Titillating Wearables
Sarah Petkus takes the stage to discuss her ongoing project, which measures and indicates human arousal using stylish wearables
Sarah’s talk entitled SHE BON: Using Body-data to communicate the intimate and the unseen, discusses her work on a unique new project aimed at encouraging communication around human sexuality. Sarah is a kinetic artist, roboticist, and was recently called a transhumanist, which fits really well once you’ve seen her presentation.
The term refers to an intellectual movement that seeks to elevate the human condition both mentally and physically through the use of technology. Sarah’s talk begins with her origins, which were rooted in feelings of powerlessness.
So, she did what any maker would do: she built a robot army. With the help of her colleague, she built an army of 100 delta robots that you control with physical gestures.
From MakersBox on Tindie:
Learn to solder, and learn a little bit about electronics as well
Soldering can seem a bit daunting,
but it is easier than it looks and it is a skill that opens a world of DIY projects to you. This project is the perfect way to not only learn how to solder, but to show off your new found skill to your friends and family.
Unlike other simple soldering project, this one will also teach you about circuits, and how they work. And it has a switch to save the battery. More power to you!
What you get:
- A perfect purple PCB made in the USA by OSH Park.
- An RGB LED that will open the all the mysteries of color mixing to you.
- A resistor, which in addition to being the easiest component to learn how to solder, will also save your battery life.
- A switch, which far more than the resistor, will save your battery and allow you to sleep at night not wondering how long that color changing LED will continue to light up the room.
- A battery holder for the CR2032, the best and most cost effective lithium coin cell on the planet*.
From Tom Nardi on the Hackaday blog:
For years, the undisputed king of desktop 3D printing conferences has been the Midwest RepRap Festival (MRRF). Hosted in the tropical paradise that is Goshen, Indiana, MRRF has been running largely unopposed for the top spot since its inception. There are other conferences focused on the industrial and professional end of the 3D printing spectrum, and of course you’d find a Prusa or two popping up at more or less any hacker con; but MRRF is focused on exploring what the individual is capable of once they can manifest physical objects from molten plastic.
But on June 23rd, 2018, MRRF finally got some proper competition. As the name might indicate, the East Coast RepRap Festival (ERRF) is an event very much inspired by its Hoosier State predecessor. Held in Bel Air, Maryland, hackers on the right side of the United States for the first time had the opportunity to attended a true 3D printing festival without having to get on a plane. Not to say it was a neighborhood block party; people from all over the country, and indeed the globe, descended on the APG Federal Credit Union Arena for the two-day celebration of everything plastic.
This inaugural ERRF was, to put it mildly, a massive success. A couple of Hackaday Field Agents were in attendance, and we definitely came away impressed with the event considering it was the first attempt. We saw evidence that the RepRap dream of printable printers is still going strong, a gaggle of new printers and products that will be prying at your wallet this year, and an American-made hotend that challenges traditional wisdom. Of course we also saw a huge number of 3D printing fanatics who were eager to show off their latest creations.
We have no doubt that ERRF will return again next year, but until then, you’ll have to settle for the following collection of selected highlights from this year’s show.
We’re no strangers to the work [David Shorey] has been doing with 3D printing on fabric, but it’s always awesome to see up close. The concept here is actually quite simple: pause the print after a few layers, pull a piece of tulle (the kind of thing bridal veils are made of) tight over the bed, and then let the print finish. The fabric is caught between the layers of the print, and as long as you aren’t too rough with it, will hold together quite nicely.
[David] wasn’t the only person to have this idea, but he certainly seems to be on the forefront of perfecting it. Perhaps the most interesting element of this technique is that essentially anyone with a 3D printer and a nearby fabric store can try their hand at it.
From Nicholas Junker on Hackaday.io
The Micro TV-B-Gone is based off of Adafruit’s original TV-B-Gone kit, except made to be as small as possible, using an LIR-2032 coin cell.
I based this project off of the Adafruit TV-B-Gone kit. I wanted to start getting into using surface mount components on my projects, and seeing as the TV-B-Gone was my first foray into soldering, I figured that it would be a great project to work on.
The device takes a rechargeable LIR-2032 battery, and is activated pressing the single button on top. It will run through all TV power codes, and then go into a low power mode, waiting for the next button press. The battery will last around 40 full cycles, before being reduced down to 3.5 volts.
It’s remarkable how tiny electronics have become. Heaven knows what an old-timer whose experience started with tubes must think, to go from solder tags to SMD in a lifetime is some journey. Even the generation that started with discrete transistors has lived through an incredible shift. But it’s true, SMD components are tiny, and that…
via Review: SMD Tweezer Meter or Tweezer Probes For Your Multimeter? — Hackaday
While ostensibly the purpose of the recent East Coast RepRap Festival (ERRF) was to celebrate the 3D printing community and culture, it should come as no surprise that more than a few companies decided to use the event as an opportunity to publicly launch new products. Who can blame them? It’s not as if every day…
via ERRF 18: New Products Make their Debut — Hackaday
OSH Park 