Maker Faire Denver and SparkFun AVC this weekend

October 13, 2017 fustiniavc, denver, Maker Faire, sparkfunLeave a comment

Maker Faire Denver and SparkFun AVC is this weekend!

Look for Drew in purple!

The Tiny, $25 PocketBeagle

September 27, 2017October 12, 2017 fustiniBeagleBoard.org, BeagleBone, hackaday, Maker Faire, pocketbeagle3 Comments

It was announced a day or two ago, but now the PocketBone has made its first real-world appearance at the World Maker Faire in New York this weekend. This is a tiny, tiny Linux computer that’s small enough to fit on a keychain, or in an Altoids mini tin. It’s only $25 USD, and from the…

via The Tiny, $25 PocketBeagle — Hackaday

https://hackaday.com/2017/09/23/the-tiny-25-pocketbone/

The Monolith Brings the Boom to Maker Faire

June 14, 2017June 12, 2017 fustiniAudio, hackaday, Maker Faire, mfba17, music, synth, teensyLeave a comment

[Ross Fish], [Darcy Neal], [Ben Davis], and [Paul Stoffregen] created “the Monolith”, an interactive synth sculpture designed to showcase capabilities of the Teensy 3.6 microcontroller. The Monolith consists of a clear acrylic box covered in LED-lit arcade buttons. The forty buttons in front serve as an 8-step sequencer with five different voices, while touch sensors on the left…

via The Monolith Brings the Boom to Maker Faire — Hackaday

Apertus SMT workshop at Maker Faire Berlin

June 10, 2017June 10, 2017 fustiniberlin, education, germany, Maker Faire, SMD, SMT, surface mount, workshopLeave a comment

The Apertus° open source cinema team will be running a Surface Mount Technology (SMT) workshop at Maker Faire Berlin this weekend in their AXIOM booth #121:

SMT workshop is on at @MakerFaireBER booth 121 @oshpark pic.twitter.com/0QahRreKub

— apertus° (@ApertusOSCinema) June 10, 2017

Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Workshop

In the course of attending a lot of fairs and exhibitions, we’ve noticed that our cameras and components attract the attention of people from all walks of life. We’ve found that despite our reassurances, people discovering the world of Open Hardware tend to doubt their capabilities where soldering tiny components by hand is concerned.

https://www.apertus.org/smt-workshop

This is why we hold Surface Mount Technology workshops – so that with a little confidence, the right tools and some initial guidance from members of our team, anyone can have great fun learning to make their own PCBs. The workshops are very popular and we have visitors designing pendants and earrings with colour LEDs and blinking patterns – which always creates a buzzing atmosphere.

https://www.apertus.org/smt-workshop

apertus has shared the boards on OSH Park:

ART Base

ART Tear

ART Star

ART Diamond

I/O Expander for LED Arcade Buttons

May 30, 2017May 26, 2017 fustiniAudio, LED, Maker Faire, mfba17, music, synthLeave a comment

Teensy creator Paul Stoffregen has shared a new project on OSH Park:

I/O Expander for LED Arcade Buttons

The Monolith Synth Project needed to use a large number of these LED lit arcade buttons.

Dimming of the LEDs was required. Initially I considered using this Adafruit 16 Channel PWM board. But the LEDs in these buttons have integrated resistors which require 12 volts, so 16 transistor circuits and another board for reading the switches would have also been needed.

It uses the same PCA9685 chip for 12 bit PWM control on every LED, with mosfet drivers to handle 12V outputs, and also a MCP23017 chip to read the buttons. Every button has a discrete 1K pullup resistor (rather than using the higher impedance on-chip pullups) to help with use in the same cable bundles cross coupling to 12V PWM signals.