Hackaday Links: February 26, 2017

The MeArm Pi is a fantastic little robot kit that was the first place winner of the Enlightened Pi contest here on Hackaday. It’s crushing the Shitty Robots subreddit, and compared to the old MeArm kit, it’s much, much simpler to assemble. Ask me how I know. Now the MeArm Pi is a Kickstarter. This tiny robot arm is programmable in everything from Scratch to Perl. It’s highly recommended for children ages 8 to those wanting to recreate the opening scene of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

Almost a year ago, Lulzbot unveiled their latest 3D printer at the Midwest RepRap Festival. The Taz 6 is a great printer, but it’s a bit of a departure from their previous designs. The biggest change was the ‘brain box’, the controller box that encases the power supply, stepper drivers, and other associated electronics. Last year, Lulzbot said they would be selling this brain box by itself. It’s out now, ready for integration into your own self-built Taz, or a 3D printer of your own design.

Speaking of the Midwest RepRap Festival, it’s only a month away. It’s scheduled for March 25-26th at the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana. Why the middle of nowhere? It ensures only the cool kids make it. For one weekend a year, Goshen, Indiana turns into the nexus of all things 3D printing. Don’t ask questions, just come. It’s free, although it would be cool if you kicked a few bucks over to the organizers.

[Clickspring] — the guy who built a fantastic clock in his home shop – is working on his second project. It’s an Antikythera Mechanism, and the latest episode is about building a gigantic gear. This is a unique approach to building an Antikythera Mechanism. [Clickspring] is still using modern tools, but he’s figuring out how this machine was built with tools available 2000 years ago.

Ogopogo, defeated by the Travelling Hacker Box.
Ogopogo, defeated by the Travelling Hacker Box.

Ogopogo. Champ is a picture of a log and Nessie is a toy submarine with a head made out of plastic wood. Ogopogo is a plesiosaur. Are you going to tell me a log – or at best a beaver – can kick the ass of a plesiosaur? Ogo. Pogo. Plesiosaur. The Travelling Hacker Box has conquered Ogopogo.

The ESP32 is quickly becoming the coolest microcontroller platform out there. You know what that means – Kickstarters! The FluoWiFi is Arduino-derived dev board featuring the ESP32 for WiFi, Bluetooth, and all the cool wireless goodies. This board also features an ATMega644p — basically the little sister to the ATMega1284p – for all your standard microcontroller Arduino stuff. It’s £25 for a board, which makes it pretty inexpensive for what you’re getting.

12 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: February 26, 2017

    1. exactly my thought! And you would expect that the insides look a lot neater, a lot of wires and empty space… I noticed the 3D printed plastic cover, nice touch but not really professional for that amount of money.
      Talking about wires, the switch is connected via a pair of wires that do not look like they are double isolated, which according to some regulations should be the case, but I can be mistaken. The loose connectors come out the back don’t look pretty/professional either, so I guess there is something special about them.

      A costly solution which controls your self build 3D printer…
      You’ll build a printer yourself to save money, this controller costs more then a complete printer.
      Or you make your own printer just to make something special, and in that case I doubt that this controller will supply you of all your needs.
      I don’t get the point?

  1. I don’t see any reason why would someone stick an AVR on an ESP8266 board, let alone an ESP32 board with its separate application processor.
    Calling a £25 board “inexpensive” is a joke.

    1. Everything’s relative, son.

      Calling a Raspberry Pi “inexpensive”, with its $35 price tag makes sense, because of how expensive other stuff is…

      If you don’t like it, *don’t buy it*. At least it’s not an ESP32 hamstrung by an ATTiny85

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