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:

DISCLAIMER:  I know I go a bit crazy with the screws.  However my son says it looks like a robot with them so oh well!  If you build your own you will not need this many

This past weekend I decided that I would attempt a carbon filtering fume extractor stack (at least what I called it).  Basically the fumes from the smoke of many different materials is pretty bad.  The idea was to make it so the carbon would filter the smoke and output clean air (ok well a best hopes less smelly air).  Heres some photos of the build.  I will be putting the whole thing on thingiverse soon.  I do not like how the filters are working out.  They were the carbon filters you can cut to size from home depot.  I have a different idea how to make your own carbon filters from masonite, screen door material and the laser cutter.  I will post an update here soon.  Check back to this page to get updates on this project.  I have a lot more pictures on my flickr stream.

This little stepper motor with a PC fan blade is hooked up to 2 LEDs. When the fume extractor is turned on the air flows from the top of the "SYNstractor to the bottom" thus spinning the fan (stepper motor) generating a few volts to turn on the robot eyes!. Super cool IMO. Not sure if it will work but I think once the filters get too dirty then the LEDS will start to dim. But if not.. its super cool that this robot comes to life. Attrib: I got the robot logo from this website. blog.analogmedium.com/2008/05/am-scrape-may-part-i.html

Hide the all of the layers.  Then display only the Dimension and Tcream.  (Note: in the screen shot its the document.. it needs to be Dimension).  Also change the fill style for the cream layer.  It is a “hatch” looking pattern by default.  We want a solid color pattern.  I left the color Grey.  When we print the PDF it will turn it black anyways so it does not matter. Click ok.

Now you need to click Print and then click the PDF button.  This is going to get us a vector format of the stencil.  However, for some weird reason the PDF writer in EAGLE creates some sort of non-standard PDF (not sure exactly).  This does not allow us to just import this into Corel Draw (corel is what the vector cutting drivers work  for the epilog laser cutter).

So scroll down to see the next step.

Now you will need to download Ghostscript and Gview for your platform.  Here is the windows links.
http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/GPL/gs864/gs864w32.exe – Ghostview
http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/ghostgum/gsv49w32.exe – Gview (Windows GUI for Ghost Script)

Ok once those are installed go ahead and open Gview and then open the PDF we created above.

Now click File >> Convert.  Select the EPS Write and type in 1200 dpi.  Then click OK and save it. You now have the file you will be loading into the epilog laser cutter.

Open up Corel draw… Ungroup everything (if needed) and check the outside lines for duplicates.. Meaning select a outer line and delete it… If you see another line.. Delete that one until the lines are no more.. Then just undo the last delete.  Why do we do that?  For some reason Ghostscript from time to time adds multiple lines on the outside.. Not sure why.  But if we do not delete them we will have the laser cutter going over everything (at least the outter edges) 2x or 3x.  Ok so you have removed all duplicated lines and now you are ready to select all and make the line width a “hairline” width.  This is something that corel calls it.  This is the #1 reason that you can only use Corel draw to do cuts (vector stuff) with the epilog.  So anyhow.. Now you should print it out.  Setup your desired epilog settings (based on your material) and have at it.

Your done!   (DFX is here: Goodget 2.1 stencil dxf)

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:

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..

I got a board out of the package.  I painted it with auto spray paint primer.   I then had to do some editing of the pdf I got from the reprap.  I had to import the PDF into corel

draw.  Then I converted it to a bitmap 1200 DPI.  I then was able to invert it.  I dropped my little test logo in and it was ready to go.

I then lazzord the primer covered pcb (single sided copper).  It looked great.  I used the apply the etchant directly on the board and rub off with my hands (rubber gloves) and a sponge.  I did it this way because it uses like 100x less solution.  I was a bit worried about how small the logo was and if it was going to be able to be removed very easy.  But after a few minutes of really scrubbing it was fine.

Once the copper was gone I went back to the computer and changed the lines (lines being the border and screw holes) to hairline which makes them be cut in the epilog driver.  I then re-lazzored the board in cutting mode.  I found that it was hitting the copper line that was the border and the screw holes.  This was not good cause I think it caused the laser beam to split or “move” to the sides of the border.  I think this is why its pretty frayed on the edges.  So it did not cut all the way through this go.

I went back to Corel draw again to think of a way to get it to able to be cut out.  Last try I did was (going from memory) I think the design was 1.647 x .7543 ish?  I selected the whole “image” and shrunk it to 1.627x.7523″.  This moved the laser off of the copper border still there.  This worked and it went all the way through.

My next go (in a few hours) is going to be a bit different.  I have setup the artwork to remove the screw holes and the border so the whole thing gets etched (no border and no screw holes).  After I Lazzor this I will place the artwork back in Corel draw.  Remove everything that is not the borders and screw holes.  Change them to hairline so they can be cut and then it should work without the “fried look”.  I also want to create some very small circles to place inside of the places where wire holes need to be.

The key thing to remember is I need copper to be removed then I can cut all the way through.  So if I can remove a VERY small circle where the wire hole is then I can cut that very small circle (which will look to our eye as just a hole) and no need for the dremel drill press

Have a question?  Just ask in the  comments and I will do my best to help you out.

So for the Wifi Sniper project.  I am working on developing the rotational mount so that the antenna has no room for misalignment.  My current design suffers from the problem of misalignment however not for long.

The rotational mount is nearly finished and ready for testing.  I should have images and videos of the Wifi Sniper using the new mount in the next day or so.  This is really the last hardware design problem ( I think ) thats stopping future progress.  I am sure there is going to be added tweaks and adjustments but thats life.  The overall design should be stable before its offered as a kit.