Synthetos » laser cut

More Enclosures

Ril3y — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:34:01 +0000

I have been playing around with creating enclosures for prototyping electronics as of late. Today I took a few hours while my son was napping to create a case for my Arduino Mega that I got recently. The typical wear and tear of breadboarding / protoyping with these cool uC’s can be pretty harsh, also knowing the common state of my workbench (screws, tools etc all in disarray) I find these cases completely necessary.

With the recent number of orders for the Bus Pirate V3 enclosure it seems obvious that I post up these other designs as products also. However, these still have quite a bit more testing and tweaking to go through before they are ready for the synthetos web store.

More pics here:

Mini Proto Desk – For the Arduino

Ril3y — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:25:37 +0000

Here is an idea that I have been kicking around. An portable arduino “proto desk”. This is an smaller and more “mass produceable” version of this:

www.flickr.com/photos/rileyporter/4349185833/

I hope to perfect this in the next few weeks and possibly put it up on the synthetos.com store (once I officially launch it)

The “proto desk” is missing the 1.8″x1.4″ breadboard at the moment. (I could not find mine

The top 2 openings are containers to place components in. I still need to fix the lettering alignment on the pins and a few holes were not cut (my stupidity) and lastly the DC power connector is a tad bit too high for the rest of the desk to tighten up nicely. Still thinking about what to do about that.

More to come.

Laser Cut Cleaning Tool

Ril3y — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:11:35 +0000

So my workshop was begining to become littered with metal bits from my new Grizzly G0463 Metalworking Mill. So I got a good deal on a iROBOT dirt dawg. This little guy has been great. I have been a long time consumer of the iRobots but have found that having 3 100lbs+ dogs tend to “tire” the robots out faster than normal. That being said this shop cleaning robot seems to preform as expected cleaning the workshop. In all honesty I am very impressed with it.

However, My metal cutting table has clamping T’s that little bits of metal would fall down into and become very much of a pain to clean. So I decided to fab a part in google sketchup for the T slots to help extract the junk. So a few quick measurements with my digital caliper and I was good to go.

Thingiverse Part Here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1372

Here is the final product:

Mini-CNC Progress

Ril3y — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:58:48 +0000

The progress of my Mini-CNC build is going along great. I finished my X Table axis this last holiday weekend. Here is a video of the newest working section of my CNC running a stepper test program from the arduino.

I placed a 35Lbs weight on the table to get a feel for how sturdy the table was. The platform is made from two 1/8th” hardboard (masonite) pieces screwed together. You can view the video below to see it moving the weight np. The stepper motor used is a NEMA 23 Alltronics stepper. I am driving the stepper from the older 1.2V Reprap driver board. I had built these boards a long time ago and have not had the chance to get the newer (cheaper / better) models. I currently am waiting for the reprap stepper driver v3 board to become a reality. This board support microstepping also! Which should make the accuracy of the Mini-CNC even more accurate while suppressing vibrations throughout.

I still need to finish the Y and Z axis. This I am hoping show go much faster not that I have the basic idea in what is required for the linear motion using steel tubes to progress. I am hoping for this week to at least finish 1 axis. In a perfect work I would get both done. However I have a work project that is going to need my attention to get together pretty quickly. So we will see. I will make updates as I make progress. Check my flickr photostream for more frequent updates.

Bus Pirate V3 Enclosure – Alpha

Ril3y — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:38:43 +0000

This is my first attempt at creating a custom enclosure for the Buss Pirate V3. I think these plexi-glass cases are pretty awesome. They take very little resources to make and can be pumped out pretty quickly. On the opposite side (see below) I etched a “cheat sheet” on the bottom for quick commands.

I could not find my spray paint last night (due to re-organizing my workshop.. I guess a little too well ) so I used a magic marker. This provided ok results for the prototype but if you zoom in perhaps you can see that the letters “bled” a bit. I will fix this on the next version. I like the size of this enclosure but I am thinking that the top might benefit from 1 more 1/8 layer or possibly a 1/16 layer to cover the USB connector. I will post this on Thingiverse in the next few days.

–Ril3y

Rack and Pinion Attempts…

Ril3y — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:02:41 +0000

My first attempt at a rack for a rack and pinion setup on the laser cutter.. All by hand in sketchup.. not super great so far but getting close… Once more unto the breach..