Projects

Upgrading The Furnace Cart

by on Jul.20, 2014, under Casting, Crafts, Projects, Welding

Ben, Claudio and Eric built up a replacement furnace cart tonight. It should be much more stable to wheel the furnace outside when melting aluminum and burning out your molds.

Come by one of our regular Friday night Open House meetings at 7pm to see it in operation! RSVP at Meetup.com!

 

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First Attempts at Aluminum Casting

by on Jul.11, 2014, under Crafts, Meetings, omgwhathaveidone, RepRap

Scott brought a plaster mold to the open house meeting tonight. He used 3D printed PLA parts and used the forge to burn out the PLA plastic and to melt some aluminum cans and some aluminum heat sinks. We ended up cooking the mold a bit too much, it was rather fragile. We could probably burn it out in under 30 minutes for the next attempt. While not perfect, we learned a lot!

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Shapeoko 2

by on Jul.01, 2014, under Arduino Projects, Projects, Woodworking

Our new Shapeoko 2 CNC Mill has been assembled! Thank you to all that pitched in to help put it together. We’ll announce an introductory class on operations when we have some demonstration materials arrive.

If you’d like to learn more about the Shapeoko 2 CNC Mill, more information can be found at Shapeoko.com and purchased at Inventables.com.  Some project ideas to get you started can be found at Project Shapeoko.

Stay tuned for more information!

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HACKmemphis HACKday December 14th

by on Nov.20, 2013, under Events, Projects

December 14th we’ll be hosting a HACKmemphis HACKday at the space from 10am to 7pm. Vaco is going to be sponsoring lunch for the day and MidsouthMakers/HACKmemphis will make sure there are pleny of drinks & snacks throughout the day.

If you’re interested in attending please register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/hackmemphis-december-hackday-tickets-9431992343

A HACKday sponsored by HACKmemphis. Bring your projects, form groups and make tech happen. Don’t have a project? No worries! Come join a project with other local developers. We will have plenty of tools on hand for nearly any kind of project (From small electronics to woodworking and crafts). We’re open to Software, Hardware, ANY kind of developer / maker / hacker.

As always, designers are encouraged to join this event. Help a team build an awesome UI or just come work on that project you never seem to have time to finish.

All the things you loved about HACKmemphis 2013, but in one day and with slightly fewer danishes.

Lunch will be provided (Sponsored by Vaco!) as well as snacks and drinks (Sponsored by MidsouthMakers) through the day.

Space is limited. Please do not register if you are not sure you will be able to make it. We anticipate selling out and having to use a waiting list. If you register a ticket and find out you will not be able to attend, please cancel your order or contact us so we can free up the ticket for someone else.

Note: Because MidsouthMakers‘ space is a place where tools and machinery are in use, their insurance requires all attendees fill out a waiver. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us prior to registering.

 Thanks to Vaco for sponsoring lunch!

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Halloween Maker Projetct – Lego Minifig Mk. 2

by on Oct.31, 2013, under Arduino Projects, Crafts, Electronics

LegoMk2

This is my LEGO Minifig Head Mk. 2

The original head was starting to get beat up pretty good, so I built a new one. As they are made out of solid Styrofoam, they get pretty warm, so I have a fan system to keep me cool. In the previous version, the fans were activated by a switch in my left LEGO hand and run by a battery pack in my pants pocket. While this worked, it was a chore to get in and out of, and I would usually require assistance getting the wires run and connected.

When I started building Mk. 2, I decided to try to eliminate that issue. I have taken an Arduino Uno and an Arduino Mega 2560 and connected them via two Nordic NRF24L01+ boards. The Uno has 3 switches and is run by a 9V battery. I am currently only using one, the other two are for future plans. When the pin connected to the fan switch goes high, it sends a code (the number 11 in this case) wirelessly to the receiving unit on the Mega. When the Mega receives that code, it closes a relay and starts the fans.

I used Maniacbug’s RF24 Library available on Github – https://github.com/maniacbug/RF24. I found the examples included with the library kind of hard to understand (I’m not a programmer), but I found this example – www.bajdi.com/rf24-library-revisited – and I got my project up and running.

The sketches I used (note, I had a lot of serial.print statements for debugging and I’ve commented most of those out):

For the sending unit:

#include <SPI.h>
#include “nRF24L01.h”
#include “RF24.h”
int msg[1];
RF24 radio(9,10); //define the CE and CSN Pins
const uint64_t pipe = 0xE8E8F0F0E1LL; //Send and receiving units addresses must match
int SW1 = 5;

void setup(void){
Serial.begin(9600);
radio.begin(); // set up the radio
radio.openWritingPipe(pipe);} // Open the radio for sending

void loop(void){
if (digitalRead(SW1) == HIGH){
msg[0] = 11; // Code that is sent to the receiving unit
radio.write(msg, 1); // send code if Pin defined above is HIGH
//  Serial.println(“Switch high”);}}

And for the receiving unit:

#include <SPI.h>
#include “nRF24L01.h”
#include “RF24.h”
int msg[1];
RF24 radio(48,53); //define the CE and CSN Pins
const uint64_t pipe = 0xE8E8F0F0E1LL; //Send and receiving units addresses must match
int relay = 7;

void setup(void){
Serial.begin(9600);
radio.begin();
radio.openReadingPipe(1,pipe);
radio.startListening(); // Open radio in receive mode and start listening
pinMode(relay, OUTPUT);} // Set relay pin to OUTPUT

void loop(void){
if (radio.available()){
// Serial.println(“Radio Available”);
bool done = false;
while (!done){
done = radio.read(msg, 1); // poll Radio
// Serial.println(msg[0]);
if (msg[0] == 11){ // if Radio receives ’11’ from sending unit, set relay pin high
delay(10);
digitalWrite(relay, HIGH);
// Serial.println(“Pin 22 High”);
}
else {
digitalWrite(relay, LOW);
// Serial.println(“Pin 22 Low”);
}
delay(10);}}
else{Serial.println(“No radio available”);}}

Here’s a short video of the system working:

The next plan is to wire a couple of other gadgets to the Mega and I have a relay board I will be using to control them.

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