It Is ‘Quite Possible’ This Could Be The Last Bay Area Maker Faire

May 16, 2019 by 111 Comments

The Bay Area Maker Faire is this weekend, and this might be the last one. This report comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, and covers the continuing problems of funding and organizing what has been called The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth. According to Maker Media CEO Dale Dougherty, “it is ‘quite possible’ that the event could be the Bay Area’s last Maker Faire.”

Maker Faire has been drawing artists, craftspeople, inventors, and engineers for more than a decade. In one weekend you can see risque needlepoint, art cars meant for the playa, custom racing drones, science experiments, homebrew computers, gigantic 3D printers, interactive LED art, and so much more. This is a festival built around a subculture defined by an act of creation; if you do something with your hands, if you build something, or if you make something, Maker Faire has something for you. However you define it, this is the Maker Movement and since 2006, there has been a Maker Faire, a festival to celebrate these creators.

It’s sad to learn the future of this event is in peril. Let’s take a look at how we got here and what the future might hold.

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PocketPi Is Exactly What It Sounds Like

May 16, 2019 by 39 Comments

The Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers are remarkably useful things, but they generally require some accessories to be hooked up to become a useful computing platform. [Ramin Assadollahi] wanted a pocket-sized computer to work on without the distractions so common on smartphones, so whipped up the PocketPi to do the job.

It’s a testament to the popularity of the Raspberry Pi platform that [Ramin] was able to put this project together with so many off-the-shelf parts. A Pi Zero W was chosen for its compact size, while a HyperPixel 4.0 screen was chosen for its high resolution in a small package. These parts were combined with a 3000 mAh battery, Adafruit Powerboost 1000C and a small USB keyboard and hub. It’s all wrapped up in a tidy 3D printed package, giving the pocket-sized computer a classic late-1980s look, albeit with much more horsepower under the hood.

It looks like a fun and useful machine to have when out and about, and the full QWERTY keyboard makes input easy. We’ve seen [Ramin]’s work before – with last year’s StickPi implementing an e-paper display. Video after the break.

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An Impeccably Designed High-Speed LED Flash

May 16, 2019 by 58 Comments

If you want to take a picture of something fast, and we mean really fast, you need to have a suitably rapid flash to illuminate it. A standard camera flash might be good enough to help capture kids running around the back yard at night, but it’s not going to do you much good if you’re trying to get a picture of a bullet shattering a piece of glass. For that you’ll need something that can produce microsecond flashes, allowing you to essentially “freeze” motion.

You can buy a flash that fast, but they aren’t common, and they certainly aren’t cheap. [td0g] thought he could improve on the situation by developing his own microsecond flash, and he was kind enough to not only share it with the world, but create a fantastically detailed write-up that takes us through the entire design and construction process. Even if you aren’t in the market for a hyper-fast flash for your camera, this is a fascinating look at how you can build an extremely specialized piece of gear out of relatively common hardware components.

So what goes into a fast LED flash? Rather unsurprisingly, the build starts with high-quality LEDs. After some research, [td0g] went with an even dozen CREE CXA2530 arrays at just shy of $7 USD each. Not exactly cheap, but luckily the rest of the hardware is pretty garden variety stuff, including a ATMega328P microcontroller, some MOSFETs, and a TC4452 driver. He did pack in some monstrous 400 V 10μf capacitors, but has since realized they were considerably overkill and says he would swap them out if doing it all over again.

To make development easier (and less costly, should anything go wrong), [td0g] designed the flash so that the LEDs are arranged in banks of three which can be easily removed or swapped in the 3D printed case. Each trio of LEDs is in a removable “sled” that also holds the corresponding capacitor and MOSFET. Then it was just a matter of getting the capacitors charged up and safely dumping their energy into the banks of LEDs without frying anything. Simple.

At this point, the astute reader is probably thinking that a high speed flash is worthless without an equally fast way of triggering it. You’d be right, but [td0g] already figured that part. A couple years back we covered his incredible ballistic chronometer which is being used as a sensor to fire off his new flash.

MIDI Synthesizer From A Sega Genesis

May 15, 2019 by 14 Comments

[Aidan] is really into FM synthesis chips for creating audio, and one of the most interesting chips from that era is found on the Sega Genesis. Anyone involved in the console wars at that time certainly remembers the classic, unique sound that those video game systems were able to produce, so [Aidan] built a device using a sound chip from a Genesis to play any piece of music from any game. The second iteration of that project, though, is able to use those same sound files as a MIDI synthesizer.

The interesting aspect of these chips is how they use registers to change the audio output. Essentially, there is a complicated register map (one section of his write-up is simply called “Register Hell”) that can be called in order to access the various types of effects one would normally see on a synthesizer. It’s not straightforward at all, though, and got even more complicated once [Aidan] started adding MIDI functionality to it as well. Once he finished sifting through the Sega Genesis technical manuals and a bunch of registers, though, he had a unique synthesizer working that doesn’t sound like anything you’ve ever heard, unless you’ve ever played a Genesis.

If you’d like to check out his first project, the MegaBlaster, which plays the sound files of the old Genesis games directly, we featured that a while ago. Keep in mind though that his latest project isn’t just an updated MegaBlaster, though. He built this entire thing from the ground up.

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Air Compressor From Fridge Parts Gets An Upgrade

May 15, 2019 by 21 Comments

Air compressors are often loud, raucous machines – but they don’t have to be. [Eric Strebel] built a remarkably quiet compressor using parts salvaged from an old fridge. After several years of use, it was due for an upgrade (Youtube link, embedded below}.

While performance of the original setup was good, [Eric] desired a compressor with more capacity for his resin casting activities. A 15 gallon air tank was sourced from a damaged Craftsman brand compressor, and pressed into service. The build involved plenty of sheet metal work to mount the various components, as well as an upgrade to the pressure regulator.

During the refit, [Eric] takes the time to answer questions from the audience about his original build. He notes that the fridge compressor has worked well without using any noticeable amount of oil, and that there was a problem with water build up in the original tank which has been solved in the new rig.

It’s a great example of building your own tools, which can provide years of service if done right. Check out our write up on [Eric]’s first build, or his work on photogrammetry. Video after the break.

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An Open Source ESC For Brushless Motors

May 15, 2019 by 18 Comments

For something basic like a brushed DC motor, speed control can be quite simple, and powering up the motor is a simple matter of just applying voltage. Brushless motors are much more demanding in their requirements however, and won’t spin unless driven just right. [Electronoobs] has been exploring the design of a brushless speed controller, and just released version 1.0 of his open-source ESC design.

The basic design is compact, and very similar to many off-the-shelf brushless ESCs in the low power range. There’s a small PCB packing a bank of MOSFETs to handle switching power to the coils of the motor, and a big capacitor to help deal with current spikes. The hacker staple ATMEGA328 is the microcontroller running the show. It’s a sensorless design, which measures the back EMF of the motor in order to determine when to fire the MOSFETs. This keeps things simple for low-torque, low-power applications.

It’s a tidy build, and the latest revision shows a lot of polish compared to the earlier prototypes. If you’re interested to learn more, try building it yourself, or consider building a thrust testing rig for your bench at home. Video after the break.

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Lifelike Dinosaur Emerges From The Plumbing Aisle

May 15, 2019 by 26 Comments

Despite the incredible advancements in special effects technology since the film’s release, the dinosaurs in 1993’s Jurassic Park still look just as terrifying today as they did nearly 30 years ago. This has largely been attributed to the fact that the filmmakers wisely decided to use physical models in many of the close-up shots, allowing them to capture the nuances of movement which really helps sell the idea you’re looking at living creatures.

[Esmée Kramer] puts that same principle to work in her incredible articulated dinosaur costume, and by the looks of it, Steven Spielberg could have saved some money if he had his special effects team get their supplies at the Home Depot. Built out of PVC pipes and sheets of foam, her skeletal raptor moves with an unnerving level of realism. In fact, we’re almost relieved to hear she doesn’t currently have plans on skinning the creature; some things are better left to the imagination.

In her write-up on LinkedIn (apparently that’s a thing), [Esmée] explains some of the construction tricks she used to help bring her dinosaur to life, such as heating the pipes and folding them to create rotatable joints. Everything is controlled by way of thin ropes, with all the articulation points of the head mirrored on the “steering wheel” in front of her.

Now to be fair, it takes more than a bundle of PVC pipes to create a convincing dinosaur. Obviously a large part of why this project works so well is the artistry that [Esmée] demonstrates at the controls of her creation. Judging by her performance in the video after the break, we’re going to assume she’s spent a not inconsiderable amount of time stomping around the neighborhood in this contraption to perfect her moves.

In the past we’ve seen the Raspberry Pi used to upgrade life-sized animatronic dinosaurs, but even with the added processing power, those dinos don’t hold a candle to the smooth and organic motion that [Esmée] has achieved here. Just goes to show that sometimes low-tech methods can outperform the latest technological wizardry.

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