Category Geek

So, the other day a large crate arrived on my doorstep.

Hmm, what could this be?

Yep, I treated myself to a new toy. A 40W CO2 powered lase CNC engraver/cutter (Model K40-III). Now, this isn’t exactly a top of the line model, infact it is probably the cheapest you can get one without going down the DIY route. It is a very cheap device from China, with the most basic of functions. Basically an X/Y axis with a couple of stepper motors, a 40W laser, and a very basic controller board. The main drawback (besides all the instructions being in Chinese) is the fact that it will only work with the rather rubbish software that comes with it, and that will only run on Windows XP. That isn’t going to work for me, especially after finding an old XP laptop and trying the software out. To say that it is buggy and un-userfriendly would be an understatement.

Thankfully, I knew this before purchasing it from eBay. There is a great open hardware project call LaOS, which is designed to replace these cheap and nasty controller boards on these types of lasers. So, armed with a PCB from the project, a bunch of components, lots of pictures of the existing setup, and my trusty multimeter, I am going to set about installing a nice LaOS board. The benefits of this new board is the fact that it adds network capabilities. It becomes effectively a network printer, controllable from a linux machine as a Cups based printer. This way, programs like Inkscape to draw the desired output, and send it to the machine. A much easier way to control it.

An LCD display with local controls is also available as an addon to the main LaOS board. All in all it should turn this cheap basic machine into something fairly usable. It should then be able to compliment my printer for making things, and Joy should also be able to use it for some of her arty stuff.

Testing!

So, first stage was to do a few tests to make sure it had survived the journey and was in a working condition before I break it. The front panel has a handy laser test button to let you fire the laser without having a computer hooked up. Needless to say, after hooking up the water pump to cool the laser, I had a bit of fun burning things! 

Seems to be working ok

And with it hooked up to a computer with the rubbish software

About the best I could do with the software supplied

All seems good, so time to take it apart! Hopefully the next post will have a nice success story of a much improved machine

Unboxing!

Unboxed!

Thats a 40W Laser

Second part is here

Well, I’m more or less recovered now from another convention weekend. Yet again, Sean Harry has proven that he can throw a damn fine party. This time it was the 3rd Annual Vampire Ball held at the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow, London. It was my sixth convention since I was introduced to them in 2010, and my third one at the Renaissance. Its a fantastic venue with friendly staff who don’t mind the insane antics of a bunch of geeks as they take over the lobby. We decided to travel down a day early so that I was more recovered after the long drive. I’m so glad we did seeing as it took over six hours to drive there thanks to the M40 being at a standstill. It also gave us a chance to catch up with some of the other regulars.

Read More

Ok, I think this cartoon sums it up…

Read More

So, been a while since I’ve done any updates, but then I’ve been a little busy recently. Since my last post I’ve been in the states working again. This time, not only Washington, but Boston too. Anyway, not much to talk about on that, just lots of flying and propping up bars in hotels.

Read More

Not my normal geek type post today, but still very geeky. This weekend I was at a science fiction convention at the Renaissance Hotel in Heathrow called Inva2ion. One word sums up the weekend for me:

EPIC!

Read More

I got a stable flight out of my quadcopter at last.

I played it safe, and took it to the parents’ house seeing as they have a larger garden than I do, and made a few test flights. Only a low level hover, but it was controlled, albeit very roughly. Just goes to show how much practice it is going to take before I can start flying it properly. It wasn’t the most stable of flights I must say, I think amongst other things the propellers and motors all need balancing. It all was going fairly well until I got a bit to cocky and lost control. Only broke a propeller, so not too bad. Since then I’ve also secured the flight controller (an OpenPilot Copter Control) a bit better, which will hopefully keep it level and prevent any major drift and I’m going to make sure the motors are balanced. One recent purchase was a pan/tilt platform so I can put a cheap cam on the front to get a birdseye view of the flight. I’m very tempted to get a full FPV rig too, but I think it’ll be better to walk before I run.

Initial flights were in a + orientation, with one rotor being at the front. I’ve since changed that to an X orientation which means that there are two rotors at the front and the forward direction is in the middle of these. This makes attaching a camera a lot easier, and is the prefered orientation for FPV flying, so might as well get used to it from the start. I could do with some coloured propeller blades so that I can see which way is forward from a distance. Either that, or I may attach some LED strips to the two front arms.

In other news, I’m just building a new hotend for my printer. After the last .5mm one backed up, I tried the .25mm nozzle I got but I think that was a bit too ambitious. After a few hours of tweaking settings, I still couldn’t get a decent reliable print out of it. I’m just waiting for the fire cement to set properly on the new one, and then I just have to solder the wires onto it and mount it. One thing that is being a pain is the thermistor legs are very thin and fragile. I’ve already broken two and they aren’t the cheapest of components. They definitely need to be handled with care and strengthened up.

I also nearly melted another MOSFET buy hooking up the heated bed. Checking afterwards, the bed has a very low resistance (approx 1.5 ohm) which means the MOSFET gets very hot rather quickly. After a bit of digging in the forums, it was suggested that I put a heatsink on it. Nice idea, and easy solution, except the Sanguinololu board that I’m using has very little room to attach one. I’ve got a few different ones to try, and hopefully I can get one fastened on.

So, if the hotend is set by this evening, I may get chance to hook it up and give it a test! I may actually finish this project at some point!

I got a nice parcel delivered today. Two nicely build hotends for my new Prusa Reprap. After all the issues with the Huxley, the Prusa has been a total doddle. The last piece I needed for it was a hotend, and after having some issues sourcing some of the components, I had a look on eBay for any pre-built ones. I found one guy shipping some from Poland that looked perfect for what I needed, not only did they have all the molex connectors already done in a way that is compatible with my Sanguinololu board, but he was offering a twin pack with one .5mm and one .25mm nozel. Oh, and a pre hobbed bolt too!

So, with the body built and the electronics tested, all I have to do is figure out how to attach the hotend and I can start building. I’ve already posted a video a few days ago of the body moving nicely, which is further than I ever got with the Huxley. Never know, maybe by this weekend I’ll be able to print something! Just have to finish work first.

Here’s the video of the first test of the electronics.

Well, had an eventful three weeks in the states, but I’m back now and eager to get on with things!

The first two weeks of me being away were taken up with work as part of my regular visits to the states to see everyone in the office. I’m glad I was out there at this particular time thanks to an email received in the early house of Monday morning, informing me that the american arm of 2ergo had been sold to a company called SoundBite. A bit of a shock to say the least! Still, the new company sounds promising and once I have a few HR things sorted out I’m sure things will be fine. As long as I have servers to play with I’m happy!

The last week of stateside was spent with my partner in crime, sightseeing around Washington DC. We both love museums, and these took up the majority of our time, along with a trip to the National Zoo, and a fantastic Segway tour of the city. Many thanks to Carly, our guide from Segs in the City. There ended up only being us two and the tour guide, so we could go at our own pace and managed to get a lot more out of the tour than we would have if we had a bigger group.

Segways are great fun… Hmm, I may have to build one!

Here’s a few photos from our trips.

• Museums
• National Zoo
• Segway Tour

Was a great week off, and a first for us to both be abroad in the same place at the same time!

But, I’m back home now, and back at work. I’m hoping this weekend I can get my quadcopter flying again if the weather is nice, and to also get a big chunk of my new Prusa based 3d printer built now that I have all the parts.

I didn’t want to do it, but I’ve had to give up on my Techzonecom model Huxley printer. I’ve spent another couple of hours on it today and decided it just isn’t worth the hassle. It certainly helped that I found someone on eBay selling printed parts for a Prusa for a decent price.

The Huxley isn’t totally lost, there are many options open to me to get it working, once I have a working printer. Its a chicken and egg problem.

One thing I do have to say, and it seems I’m getting backed up on the forums about this, is never buy anything from TechZone Communications. They seem to have lost the plot and have a long stream of unhappy customers, as well as a below par product. Besides missing parts in the kit I received, and electronics that burst into flame, it also in my opinion is a poorly designed reprap printer. Captive nuts are needed to be melted into the plastic parts, the extruder is external to the main printer with no easy way to mount it and the electronics are just shoddy.

I bought my kit via a UK company called RepRap Central who it turns out are resellers of TechZoneCom kits. I didn’t know this before I bought it, and they don’t make any mention to TechZoneCom. They do however sell other brands of printers, including MakerBot. Communications with RepRap Central are pretty good, and they do have good prices on filament.

So, I’ve got the plastic parts for a Prusa on order, I’ve got plenty of hardware, I’ve got a completed Gen 7 electronics kit built. Hopefully the parts will be arriving next week, and I can have a start at building it. Unfortunately, I’m off to the states for a while for work, so its going to get put on hold for a little while.

Hopefully the Prusa will be a little easier.

I haven’t done much in the way of geek things over the past week, and I’ve been meaning to have this rant, so here we go.

I like gadgets. I have a lot of them, some may say too many, but I say not enough! I’ve even had an e-reader, and am quite impressed with e-ink technology. What I don’t like is the actual e-books, or rather how they are sold.

Nothing can compare to an actual physical dead tree version of a book. Its great to have a book in your hands, its just a much more pleasant experience. E-books however are handy. They’re great for taking on holidays, much easier having a device with hundreds of books on than carrying around a stack of heavy paperbacks. Also, a lot of documentation comes as downloadable PDF files which is so much easier to read on e-ink device than an LCD screen.

A lot of my issues surround DRM and price.  I’ve got issues with DRM on any format or media, but on e-books it is especially bad, compounded by the fact that e-books are generally only a little cheaper than their physical counterpart.

With a real book, you can

• Lend it to a friend
• Give it to a friend
• Take it to a second hand shop, and swap it
• Keep it forever

All these points have one thing in common. Ownership. You never actually own an e-book, you’ve just got it on long term loan from the seller. You aren’t allowed to resell the book at all, and even lending it to someone is hard enough. Woe betide if you want to try a different e-reader, you’re left with having to either illegally strip the DRM from the book, or buy it again.

If the seller goes out of business, you will more than likely lose access to your books. Don’t think this will happen because of the size of the company? Well in 2007, Virgin’s downloadable music store decided it wasn’t making enough money, so withdrew from the business. Suddenly all the music you bought through that service was unusable. Or maybe the seller decides that they sold the book by accident, as Amazon did with 1984. They removed access to the book to stop you reading it.

The last point above is not just about DRM or ownership as such, its down to the fact that the digital world moves so fast. The current e-book formats may not be around in five or ten years, but I have books on my shelves that I remember buying whilst still at primary school, nearly thirty years ago. I also have books that are older than me, that were picked up from second hand bookshops. These are out of print and unavailable from any e-book retailer. In another thirty years, will I still have a functioning e-reader that will read the current formats? Projects to read digital media that is less than twenty years old are a big undertaking these days, but I’ll still have books on shelves that I can simply pick up and read.

Of course, to compound all this, e-books are sold at a ridiculous price. As I’ve already mentioned, you are simply renting these books and never really own them, but the price difference doesn’t reflect this. Some e-books are still being sold at hardback prices, when the actual cost of manufacture is a moot point. A lot of my previous issues could be overlooked if they would simply charge a reasonable amount for the books. If a book was under a pound to purchase (rent), then I would think nothing of paying for it, and I may even take more of a risk on an unknown author. I find myself being put off buying a book these days, even a physical one, because the prices are so high. The pricing model has worked for smartphone apps, so why can’t it work with books?

I love reading, I love books, and I love gadgets. Unfortunately there is no way currently for me to legally use e-books. If I want an MP3, I buy the CD and rip it. If I want to store my DVDs on my network, I can rip them too if they don’t already come with a digital version. This can’t be done with books unless you go to the trouble of buying or building a book scanner. I could use the kindle app and then strip the DRM out of the file, but I don’t want to do this as I shouldn’t have to, and I’m not going to give Amazon any of my money whilst they still insist on running this monopoly. I do need to say, it is not just Amazon. All other e-book sellers work in the same way, and this could be due to the publishers, but it is still wrong.

Right, rant over. I’m going to go to bed and read a good, dead tree, book.