-
Archives
- January 2018
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- May 2017
- January 2017
- April 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- November 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- February 2009
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
-
Meta
Category Archives: Making
CNC Build – Stupid cables
Connecting the new sensor cable is tough — it’s a “real” RS232 cable, so the female end has two protruding female studs, so that two cables can be bolted together. This totally doesn’t work with the way I attached the … Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Electronics, Knowledge, Making, Technology, Woodworking
Tagged CNC
Leave a comment
CNC Build – Courage is the first virtue
Well, as per normal in the way my life and hobbies go, it took two months to get back to the CNC once I’d determined that the cables fit properly. I decided that I was going to push forward today, … Continue reading
CNC Build – Once more into the breach, … again.
The last time I used the big CNC machine, it tried to kill me. So I shut it down, and there things sat for … 4 years? The problem, I believe, is that the motor cables (I was using CAT5 … Continue reading
Ray Tracer : in the weeds
I’ve spent the past week fighting minor math errors in my ray tracer. In order to confirm that my surface normals were being calculated correctly, I added boxes (axis aligned only at this point) as an additional primitive type. That … Continue reading
Posted in Computers, Knowledge, Making, Science
Tagged Mathematics, Programming, Python, Vector
Leave a comment
PCB – The sun is the thing
I finally got back on the PCB fabrication horse. I printed out v1.1 of the 74HC595 LCD backpack, and v1.0 of the MCP23008 version. I chopped up the transparencies and mounted them up on Saturday, then worked on getting the … Continue reading
Breadboard works
With my initial hubris about circuit construction dulled by a couple of nasty bugs and failures, I decided to construct my next circuit the old fashioned way — I bread boarded it first. I wanted to do an I2C version … Continue reading
PCB Fab – Breadboard first!
After failing to get the 74LS174 board working, I decided to go with the flow and build a 74HC595-based LCD driver board instead. There are plenty of examples online, from Adafruit to Steve Hobley to Rowan Simms — this will … Continue reading
PCB Fabrication – OK, I over-reached
I decided to tackle my first circuit that includes an IC. I picked an old standby, the Myke Predko 2-wire LCD backpack, where he uses a Hex Buffer (74LS174), wires it as a shift register, and then uses a diode/resistor … Continue reading
CNC – Head crash!
There are some days when things just don’t turn out right. I needed to solve the motor startup problem, so I sanded off the white paint (I’d used some really old WiteOut — yuck) and re-painted the shaft, this time … Continue reading
CNC – ship shape and Bristol fashion
I went out to the CNC this morning, all ready to get down to cutting. I had a test pattern to cut, and a scaled-down version of my nemesis, The Pumpkin, too. So of course I spent the whole day … Continue reading