Android CNC Controller

June 8, 2012 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

[Matt] is the proud owner of a JGRO-based CNC router and he’s been working on a way to control it without a computer. What he came up with is a way to drive the CNC machine using this Android tablet.

A big part of the hack is the CNC controller that he’s using. The TinyG is a board that can take commands via USB and convert them to instructions for up to six axes. In the video after the break [Matt] shows off a direct USB connection as the control method. This is the most interesting part to us, but the system can also be run through the network with the assistance of a computer feeding commands to the TinyG. This second method means the Android controller would be wireless.

A trio of repositories host the code [Matt] is using. From the demo it looks like the Android app has no shortage of features.

Continue reading “Android CNC Controller” →

Smartphone Controlled RGB Lamp

June 8, 2012 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

We keep seeing a lot of RGB lamps, but they’re also constantly increasing in size and complexity. Take this rendition, which uses a lot of RGB LEDs and has smartphone control (translated).

The lamp itself uses 31 RGB LEDs arranged in a sphere that organizes them into three vertical rings. They’re all ganged together (not individually addressable) with one transistor per color. An Arduino board is responsible for control, and the build includes a Bluetooth module for incoming commands.

As you can see above, the Android app driving the device is really quite good. In addition to sliders for color mixing there is a separate window with a color picker. [Remick] included options like favorite color combos, color scrolling, and a timer that will shut the lamp off. We couldn’t embed it here, but you’ll find some demo video at the link above.