Here we go, some images.
Overall Profile of Gage dial side
Overall Profile of Gage
Gage A
The unit itself is a bit too heavy, doesn’t have stroke limits and is a bit ugly. It is but a prototype after all though. The next iteration should be more appropriate for a high end RTJ groove gage.
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything (I think every post starts like this) so I’m gonna document a few things I’m working on right now. Things that are both for work and some things that are not.
First off, the Mikro C compiler deal. A few days ago I went over the the mikroelectronika site and noticed that they had a sale on their compilers, a large develpment board for free if you get the compiler. I already have the PIC-C compiler but I figured it’s time to buy a new on since I haven’t actually purchased one for years.
So, for $250 you get both the compiler and the large development board.
Lot's of buttons and lots of stuff.
So there is the BIGPIC 6 board. It’s a well built board, .120″ thick and the parts and overall quality are top-notch. Granted, I haven’t used it much since I’ve only had it a couple of days, but if you’re going to try out a compiler and want a development board to test out your compiler, this may be your ticket.
The BIGPIC 6 in profile
The only thing I was disappointed about was the lack of inclusion of the displays. They’re not that expensive and from the site has them for way too much money. You can buy them off EBay and wire them yourself if you want though.
Ok, and now for another item of interest of things from the work front. Gages! RTJ gages, BX groove gages and RX gages.
I’ve been tasked with designing our new series of RTJ groove gages. My primary idea is to make it completely electronic and build a non-referential gage. Basically my electronics version is a linear bearing attached to a DRO slide
My Digitial Gage Design. I have most of the parts and am working on the electronics
Doesn’t look impressive, it’s just a prototype really. Here are the actually slide and dro scale. Right now I’m working on interfacing the LS7166 quadrature interface controller but that’s going to take a while since I have to work on the dial indicator version of the gage since the old design has started to reveal problems.
Dial Gage for RTJ Grooves
Anyways, I have all of the materials and I am working on the varieties of things needed to complete these things.
Linear glass encoder
Linear bearing
Yes, an Arduino!
Anyways, these things are all coming along nicely and not in a vaporware kind of way. I shall keep things updated.
Now, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m a total cheapskate. I hate paying good money for good things and wind up buying lots of crap for lots of money. Over the years I’ve seen the question asked by fledgling electronics buffs ,”What should I get to outfit my lab?”
Now this innocuous question is usually asked by people who either don’t have money or are cheapskates like me. I have purchased all kinds of cheap and slightly-less-cheap stuff from a variety of sources over the years and I’ve seen the quality and lack thereof. I’ve worked with it and I’ve had my problems with it. What I figure might be informative is a general guideline of some things I’ve bought over the years, especially the cheap shit, also my opinions on this stuff for people who are starting out.
It should be stated that I’m no expert on electronics and perhaps that makes my opinion suitable for the new hobbyist like myself. Sometimes acceptable is good enough.
Every hobbyist needs a multimeter. They tell you voltages, resistances, current and often times things like frequency, diode voltage drop, continuity and various other things. This will be your most important tool when things don’t work as they should or when building a circuit.
The cheap chinese multimeter
Above is the cheap chinese multimeter. They come in various colors and designs and you can pick them up sometimes for $5. While they seem like a good deal, they are not. I have had a great many of these and they have all been a problem in one way or another. Either the voltage shown is wrong, or the fuse inside is pre-blown or sometimes certain functions simply don’t work. If you just want one around your house to check to see if something is live, buy one but otherwise I would stay away. Now for the hobbyist, there is the middle of the road multimeter, these are the ones I would get if you want a blend of quality and cost effectiveness. Some brands to consider are :
There are others but those are the ones I have experience with. Obviously the more money you spend, typically the better product you’re going to get. If you’re gonna cheap out on anything in your lab, don’t cheap out on your multimeter, it is the single most important tool in your lab. Remember to get one that’s auto-ranging and don’t bother with ones that aren’t auto ranging or have those transistor testers on them. Transistor testers are the mark of a shitty multimeter.
Whenever you do electronics work you need some source of power. This can range from using the USB port on your computer (like with an Arduino) to getting fully programmable supplies.
From a diy site on a refitted computer power supply
Some people try to save a few bucks and use a computer power supply for their projects. This isn’t bad since it outputs a whole lot of different voltages (3.3v, 5v, 12v, -12v) and can usually supply a whole lot of current. Only problem I have with them is the fact that they don’t tell you much about how much juice you’re using and you can’t limit the current.
Some people are really cheap and use wall-warts (like I did) for power. This is almost universally a bad idea because wall warts can fail spectacularly when shorted out or exposed to weird power loads. If you value your time and parts, don’t experiment this way.
A regulated DC power supply. This is basically the standard model made in china and is marketed under like 30 different brand names.
The best way that’s cheap is simply an analog adjustable power supply. They go for about 110 to 140 bucks and will last you a long time under normal use. You can adjust both maximum voltage AND maximum current so you can perform various tasks with it and save yourself headaches sometimes by limiting current. Trust me on this, for most things this is the best option.
Everyone wants to be able to diagnose problems with their circuits, see if there is actually changes going on over data lines, or see if there’s noise on your power supply or something. Also it just looks cool to have a 50′s mad scientist’s lab for when people come over.
This is one item that I see people cheaping out on all the time, and frankly myself as well. While I don’t have top end equipment at the moment, I have second hand equipment that is pretty good.
Your basic analog scope
Above is your general, all purpose analog scope. For most things this guy will serve you well. Buying a new one is often almost as expensive as buying a digital storage scope so buying one like this should be second hand. You can get an analog scope for a song on EBay sometimes and even around town at universities and college, they have extras kicking around. Using an analog scope correctly is a good skill to have and will serve you well with your digital storage scope, if you decide to get one.
a Digital Storage osciloscope
These may be your ticket to have in your lab. Some companies like tequipment sell GW Instek oscilloscopes for $300 or so. While it can be a bit of an investment, this may be your ticket to having decent equipment for your hobbyist lair. The one shown above is obviously an older one and similar to my tektronix 100mhz scope. I got mine second hand for $400 and it’s been a great investment. To be fair, there are other economy brands such as OWON, Rigol and others but I only have experience with the instek ones.
An example of the DSO Nano
The DSO Nano. They are cheap and tempting but they are not worth the money. From what I can tell, they have very low bandwidth and aren’t that great. There is a new model out for about 180 bucks, I may buy one to see what it’s all about. There are other portable DSOs out there but anything that’s any good is a fair amount of money such as the Fluke 123 and various others. OWON makes one for about $500 I believe.
An example of a usb oscilloscope
Well, some people like Dave from EEVBlog warn people away from these USB oscilloscopes but I wonder why sometimes. The only difference really is that the display is now standard hardware instead of the company having to engineer a whole interface on custom hardware. It should be noted though to stay away from the cheap ones on EBay. The ones for about 60 bucks have a bandwidth in the low KHz, yes, not MHz and they suck. Stay away from cheap USB oscilloscopes. somebody who appears to make good ones is Picotech, but that said they are the only company I have experience in that regard.
Anyways, You can get away with $300 oscilloscopes for hobby work, don’t cheap out if you can help it. It’ll make your life easier.
The Rest
Well, I don’t know if I can say “The rest”. there are so many things you can buy to accompany your lab that it’d take many tens of pages of writing to cover even in a very cursory fashion.
I’ll list a few things in point form you could need in your lab to make it both workable and useful.
Anyways, that’s what I have to say. I’m sure I’ll get comments telling me how painfully incorrect I am and that I’m a subhuman monster for saying such things. If I’m terribly wrong, tell me, perhaps I’ll change it.
It should be said that I started out with damn near nothing but a bench and a $10 multimeter. I struggled and struggled and bought nothing but cheap crap because I’m a cheapskate. I didn’t buy a compiler and there was no such thing as an Arduino (At least not to my knowledge) so I wrote all my programs in assembly which is extremely time consuming.
Anyways, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if I can learn it, anyone can. even on a limited budget. If you’re serious about it though, spend the extra few bucks and get something decent.
Well, let’s try it out, here’s an html5 program. see if it works. you need javascript enabled to see it. Tell me if it works!
http://smackaay.com/gm/t1/index.html
(update nov 9, 2011)
Well, I dunno what it’s called but this is my new game. It is extremely preliminary… extremely!
booya grandpa!
Well, since I posted a bit of stuff yesterday I’m gonna post a couple of other things I’ve been playing with. Since I finally have a day off. may as well.
The FPS I’m making
I don’t know what I’m gonna call it, I don’t even like FPS’s anymore. I dunno. Anyways, heres a screenshot
FPS a la' Steve
Nothing spectacular.
Arduino and ChipKit
Like I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been playin with both the Arduino and ChipKit. Frankly, I need to get over my personal bias over these arduino based things. The way I feel about them is that it’s like cheating, where very little learning is required to make some sort of result.
I am however wrong. With the progress of technology we use technologies that are based off of previous technologies. Even using MCU’s would technically be cheating by my reckoning since we should be using a CPU and related chips. Then even deeper we should be using nothing but transistors in order to not cheat. So, by that reason, I am wrong. Using an arduino and premade shields shouldn’t reduce the feeling of accomplishment at all. Now that we don’t have to worry as much about hardware, application becomes top dog.
Anyways, Here are the Arduino and ChipKit
ChipKit and Arduino
Now, as it might seem, the chipkit is quite a bit more advanced. It uses the same arduino software for compilation. It is also substantially faster. There was a comparison done, here on hackaday. It is a really neat device despite the fact that the software isn’t optimized.
The only problem though, as I have already mentioned is the voltage difference. So, it can be said that many shields would not be compatible with the chipkit. They do have similar layouts though.
ChipKit and Arduino from the top
A problem I did have with the chipkit was that the software wouldn’t write to the chip. apparently I had to download and burn the new bootloader to the MCU that was on board. lucky thing I have a pickit3 and was able to burn it, otherwise it would’ve been a brick. I think it’s odd that they didn’t test for that (apparently it was a certain batch of pic32 mcus that had a problem)
Something I do like about the chipkit is the extra IO and the fact that it uses a miniB plug rather than a massive printer usb plug.
Wireless units
At 4$ shipped per piece, these are wireless units. they have a variable frequency selectable by software and have a range of about 100m. I was going to make some of the centerpieces with them but since people take them home, it’d be pointless.
Wireless modules
Well, I’ll keep on truckin’
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve updated (which seems to be the standard intro for my posts) and I’;ve decided to state a little bit of what I’ve been doing as of late.
LED colored vases as centerpieces
Pretty self explanatory. Since I’m getting married later next year, I decided it’d be cool to have the centerpieces light up with the colors of our wedding, which are pink and orange. I’ve ordered a huge number of LED’s for this occasion for relatively cheap. I did a test a while back with a prototype board (the colors were purple and orange) and the result was very nice. I was going to make the light respond wirelessly with a module but that’s not going to happen since people bring them home and stuff, I want to keep the modules.
Playing with the chipkit
the chipkit is an arduino clone that runs a pic32 mcu on it. very fast!!!. Only problem I have with the unit is that it’s not really 5v compatible. I suppose 3.3 is quite high considering the speeds that these run. It also has more pinouts than the arduino UNO.
Very neat device
Burning with copper
Well, I just thought it’d be neat to post how we’re burning an almost impossible to machine thread into a set of master jaws. it’s not terribly impressive but I thought it could be interesting to some
the unfinished thread
the edm'ed thread
Burning with copper
I think it’s neat anyways. Anyways, there’s more to come in terms of neato projects, I just don’t feel like documenting them until they get to a certain point of completion.
So a company that shares a parking lot with out company sells and distributes photocopier services. One day I was told about a whole bunch of photocopiers that were just sitting there. Deciding to take the plunge and rip through them the bounty was great!
Stepper city
There you go. 33 steppers from only 10 or so photocopiers. I found the following things.
Everything an inventor could need. Amazing!
Well, tomorrow I got 15 more copiers to disassemble! Everyone should try disassembling them!
Well, I was in the local Wal-Mart the other day and spotted this little device in the E-book reader section. It is the HS-M700-4GBBK version of this particular device. Here’s a shitty picture.
It’s a reasonably well laid out device. It seems to function reasonably well but has some problems. Remember though, it has quite a low price of $78 so it was a reasonable purchase. First, let’s state the features stated on the product listing and write a review on each of the features:
7″ TFT Screen (800×480 res.)
Well, this was a bit of a disappointment. The screen works ok but it is pretty dim. Any kind of ambient sunlight, even near dusk, will render this screen dark.
The touchscreen itself is pretty bad too. Well, it’s not the touchscreen per say but the responsiveness of the software is pretty poor. When switching through stuff especially when running an app, the software doesn’t seem to register hits very well. That said, it does respond just well enough to function but it is frustrating.
4GB of internal storage
Yep, it does have that and the transfer rates seem reasonable. not much to say on this.
Built-in rechargeable battery
The battery is quite large as you’ll see in the pictures later. I haven’t been able to test it’s battery life but I would say it’ll last quite some time just playing music.
Loud internal speaker
Yes, they described it as loud. the speakers aren’t bad for how small they are and play loud enough so you can hear what’s being played. A point for Hipstreet.
Dual 3.5mm headphone jack
Yes, it has dual jacks. I suppose thats for if you have a friend that wants to listen in on another set. Both jacks appear to work fine for both line out uses and headphone.
USB 2.0 interface
Yes, it runs at USB 2.0 speeds, not much to say about this.
MicroSD slot (up to 16gb)
This too appears to function adequately.
Multi-task operation compatible
Yes, you can play music and browse through the menus or photos. not much else really to do. It does become a bit slower while this is occurring.
Ebook reader functions: TXT, PDF, EPUB, FB2, HTML
Ok, here is the real crux of the issue, the EBook capabilities. Let’s just say the reading is less than stellar for PDFs. While it does render them more or less properly, you can’t make it zoom page-wide . That means that even if you set the tablet to read sideways along the long portion, it’ll simply squish the pdf page into a smaller space. With a standard pdf you have two choices, barely readable and unreadable unless the text is large print.
With TXT, EPUB and PB2′s it seems to render OK, however the rendering is really slow. flipping pages can sometimes take quite a bit of time. Changing the font size with the +/- keys can take some time too, especially with a larger text file. Though, I must say, reading with it in the dark is quite OK.
So, in closing with this feature. Don’t use pdf’s.
Music: MP3, WMA, WAV, FLAC, AAC, APE, OGG
As one might expect with a device like this, the music playing is actually quite good. I tried MP3, WAV and OGG. They all played flawlessly. There is some lag between songs but it’s acceptable.
Video: MPG, AVI, MOV, RM
I tried some MPG’s and AVI’s. They played flawlessly. Some high resolution or low compression formats seemed to lag the player but it would get over it’s hiccups eventually. The player itself is decent, however, again, the screen is really dim so it’s really only good as a nighttime player.
Photos: JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG
Well, not much to say here, it displays all of those formats fairly well and has a slide show format. The interface isn’t terribly intuitive for panning but other than that, it is a picture viewer.
Voice recorder
Can you say “WSHHHHHHHsdgfsdgklfsdgjlfdg” That’s about all you’ll hear. The mic really suck so the recording suffers. Why they include these features is beyond me. Nobody uses them.
File Browser
Yes, you can cut, copy paste and delete. not a bad feature actually. Though there is no directory creation so I can’t fathom any real reason why you’d want to perform any of those operations.
Calendar
It really is just that. A calendar. No days of interest, no scheduling. Time and date. Nothing more. meh.
Summary
For a little under $80 bucks it’s not a bad device. If you have some EPUB books or something this might be OK. It does differ from the Kindle in the fact that you can use it in the dark, this may be it’s only redeeming feature in the EReader market. However, it does excel at playing music and video files so I suppose it has its charm there. So I give this device a 6/10 . I only give it a 6 because it was so cheap.
Plus some!!!
So decided to crack this puppy open. Here are some pics
This is the full unit open to the elements. As you can see the battery is quite large and the circuitry is quite minimal.
This thing is the CPU. I tried digging up info on the BOXCHIP F15 and it was unable to find a manufacturer. It looks as though this is a very common device for pre-packaged music/video players on the market today. It probably contains both a CPU and a bunch of decoding hardware for various file formats. While it’s running it does run somewhat warm to the touch but not very. must be quite efficient.
This is the K9GBG08u0a 4gb nand flash chip. this is what provides data storage. looks like you could put another chip on and extend the storage.
This is the K4H511638J-LCCC. It is a 64MB SDRAM chip. This of course provides the working ram for the BoxChip CPU.
Well, there ya’ go. The HipStreet Ereader.
Yay! this site has been around and updated semi-regularly for four years now. Having just paid the bill for another 2 years, hopefully it’ll be around for a while longer.
Looking back through this site I can see some of the things I’ve worked on and recall the state of my life at each of those times. I’ve gone through three jobs and one period of pseudo-unemployement. Some tough times and some good ones. I’ve learned a lot both professionally and personally.
Here’s to another 4 years of half-finished but fun projects. 
Anyways, as I promised, here is the almost finished. A couple days later than I said but, still, I did finish it for the most part.
The lamp standing and working
So Basically what we have here is a $20 lamp that’s been outfitted with buttons to control its power status. I have to warn people first, the methodology of affixing the stuff in here is very sloppy. If you follow these methods of hot gluing stuff, use caution to support the boards in other ways.
Inside of the lamp, gutted out and re-purposed
As you can see, I busted the box off of a wall wart to use as the power supply and used a terminal block to handle all of the mains stuff. It got pretty crowded in the enclosure so I’ll have to make a new cover for the bottom. Also, without the weight that was inside of it, it’ll topple. Anyways, it seems to work well.
Buttons and light
So, after this is all done and a cover is made, I’ll also have to secure all of the boards a bit better and cut the prongs off of the wall wart, That’s a tad bit dangerous to have those prongs exposed.
So, whenever I get around to part three, I’ll take some pics and show them. Thus ends one application for the PIC10F200.
As an aside, I’ve been doing some of the work at a local hackerspace here in Edmonton. I was extremely surprised to find one here in Edmonton, land of the rednecks! Well, here are some pics of the place. It’s only been around for two years and could always use some new members.
Here it is on the outside, nothing to make note of here.
The outside of the Edmonton New Technology Society
And here is the inside of the common area of the ENTS.
Edmonton New Technology Society Pano Inside
Pretty messy, but that goes with the territory of a shared common use area I suppose. If anyone is interested, visit Ents.ca here in Edmonton.
Well, in the vein of the spirit of the low-end microcontroller, I decided to make a timer lamp based around the PIC10F200. I did one years ago and it was based on a pic16f505 which is a low end MCU as well but it has quite a bit more ram and rom. Also, oddly enough I shall actually share both the circuit diagram (which is dead simple) and the .hex file so people can use the program to make their own timer lamp if desired.
So here’s the quick rundown
The LED blinks very slowly so that you can see the lamp in the dark, but not so rapidly to become annoying. The power button turns the lamp on and off. the timer button turns on the timer. the increments are 1, 5 and 30 minutes.
Here is the circuit diagram.
Circuit diagram of Timer Lamp
Also, here is the HEX file: Timelamp hex file
Also, here are pictures of the boards in development.
Timer lamp on the breadboard
This is messy but, it worked for dev purposes.
Timer lamp Circuit on the PCB. Kinda tight but it works.
And here is the finished board. Not bad for a couple hours of work. Yes, it’s messy, like everything I do.
So, tomorrow I’ll be going to my Hackerspace and drilling the holes and installing switches into a lamp I bought. Part 2 tomorrow, or the next day.
The Amp Hour Radio Show