Work log - Week 7 - March 9, 2022¶
Wednesday - 3/9¶
Class Links¶
https://fabacademy.org/2020/labs/leon/students/adrian-torres/adrianino.html#pump
http://wiki.textile-academy.org/fabricademy2017/students/cheung/wei-ying
https://adrianacabrera.github.io/SoftRobotics/index.html
From Roland Grichnik to Everyone 10:04 AM also a neat trick I found online was to solder a wire across all the pins of the chips to desolder and then use that wire for heat transfer to all pins
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/59
https://fabacademy.org/2021/labs/kochi/students/pallab-shrestha/Wild_Card_Week.html
https://fabacademy.org/2019/labs/ulb/students/axel-cornu/assignments/week08.html
https://www.toolstoday.com/v-15584-m-1000-flex.html
Deepnest (used this, super unimpressed.)
carveco cam
The Rest of the Day¶
Still making slight changes and tweaks to my electronics design boards. I wish I had a better understanding of electronics (and the ability to produce them all at home.)
Attended class in the morning, starting designing and working on the “Build something big” project. Still not quite sure what I’m going to make.
David Taylor sent me information on the 1/4” carbide bits we’ll be using with the Shopbot router. It’s important to know what equipment you’ll be using to produce something. I know Neil’s said it, and I’ve preached it for years: Your design choices inform your production techniques and equipment, and your equipment informs your design choices. If you don’t have both in mind while designing something, you’re going to run into trouble.
Started playing with Zbrush Mini. With so much software, the trick is simply in learning how to use the software and get it to do what you want it too. With Zbrush and similiar 3d scultping softare, it made me realize very quickly that I have no artistic ability.
Zbrush mini is fairly limited. It’s useful, but just barely so. It’s like tinkercad, a basic intro to 3d sculpting software.
But you can do some crazy stuff with it, this was just 5 minutes of playing around and learning the software.
Also updated my attiny “blink” board. Removed the normal led in place of a neopixel led.
Also : This was timely: https://learn.adafruit.com/working-with-i2c-devices
Thursday 3/10¶
I was able to accomplish a lot today. No one was around except Andrew, one of our great lab assistants, and I got to show Andrew how to use the Roland srm20 mini-mill to make circuit boards.
Managed to make a new attiny board with a neopixel. And the neopixel works (which is shocking, as I did an atrocious job prying it from another circuit board.)
I managed to get the SAMD11C-ADXL343 test board milled out, and it looks like it should work. Also collected most of the parts that I’ll need to solder it up. Couldn’t find a tantalum capacitor in the lab, but I managed to find a NOS one at home, in vintage Radioshack packaging. I should sell it on ebay.
I made some more test cuts on the kapton tape for the solder paste experiments. I think I have a number of decent stencils to try and now use.
100% speed and 6.5% power seems to get the best results for cutting Kapton tape. We want to cut all the way through, but with as little buring as possible. Even at 6.5%, there’s a decent amount of carbon created during the process.
Still need to take a magnifying system and a sharp exacto knife to peel away the small parts left over.
And I was able to cut out test pieces for “Build something Big” project.
Friday 3/11¶
Spent a good chunk of today preparing the final version of the files for cutting on Charlotte Latin’s Shopbot tomorrow.
Also spent some time trying to figure out how to program the neopixels a bit better. Very slow progress.
Saturday 3/13¶
Literally spent 12 hours at Charlotte Latin School, which was kind enough to allow us to use their facilities and their shopbot, and didn’t make a single chip.
See more about this debacle here.
Sunday 3/14¶
Spent most of the day recovering from yesterday, and documenting what I don’t like about Shopbots.
Monday 3/15¶
Worked all day, spent time in the evening documenting
Tuesday 3/16¶
Met with Adam and Denny in the afternoon, and we discussed working with the different electronics projects of the previous week.
Later met with Cori, David and Adam, and worked on some new designs for electronics.
Watched as David destroyed Cori’s circuit board. It went up in sparks and smoke. And it smelled like burnt plastic. It was awesome. Less awesome for Cori. (She did not slash David’s tires, she’s a nice person.)