1. Milled and stuffed one bridge board and two node boards for the HelloBus.
2. After several attempts to flash the bridge and continuous errors, I reflowed all of the connections. Still no luck in flashing.
3.
I thought that my FABISP might be the culprit, so I tested it out
by reflashing my FAB Arduino. Yep, the ISP worked fine. Attempts
to flash the bridge using another ISP (a commercial model verified
to be serviceable) also failed.
4. I decided to just mill and stuff another set of boards.
5. These boards showed a bit more promise in that the bridge flashed successfully, but the nodes refused to listen to the bridge.
6. By this point, I had left Rhode Island and had no access to the appropriate equipment to take the next logical step, i.e., mill and stuff new nodes.
7. Some other things I've done in the vein of serial control:
a. helped out with the class project (building an Ultimaker with an extended vertical build area.) Specifically, I assembled and installed the limit switches, set up the x and y axes, helped set up the blocks for the drive belts and the support arms for the build platform. Pictures follow:
Also, video of the Ultimaker's stepper motors being controlled by its electronics:
b.
built an Ultimaker of my own recently in order to complete the
final project. Here, I didn't use any fabrication, but rather
assembled premanufactured components. Nonetheless, this involved
connecting several motors and a heater, each with their own board,
to an Arduino, flashing the Arduino and then using it to control
all of the serial devices. Video can be found below: