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Category: CNC
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Published: Wednesday, 04 December 2013 20:44
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Written by Justblair
I treated myself to a Chinese Import CNC Printer a couple of months ago, these machines fall at the affordable end of the CNC market. It will not be a surprise then that they arrive with very few frills included. You get an aluminium constructed machine, a control box with some cheap and not always cheerful controlling electronics. and a box of starter mill ends and bed clamps. Once I had my machine up and running, it became obvious that controlling dust was going to take priority.
Read more: Light and Compact Dust Shoe for CNC3040T-DQ
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Category: Computing
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Published: Tuesday, 19 November 2013 00:16
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Written by Justblair
Some hacked together projects are born to solve problems, some provide proof of concept. This project did neither, I did it because one day I had an idea that I thought would be cool and so I just did it.
The project itself is pretty simple, but I think the result is as cool as I had hoped. Dear Internet, I give to you my robotic keyboard.
Read more: Pimped Robotic Cherry G80 3000 Keyboard
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Category: Computing
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Published: Sunday, 17 November 2013 16:14
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Written by Justblair
A while ago I became interested in mechanical keyboards and now use them both at home and at work. These days most of the mechanical keyboards on the market use a switch made by Cherry, but there is a huge amount of support amongst enthusiasts for a much older keyboard, the IBM model M.
It is still very much possible to find one of these keyboards as the construction of the keyboard makes them incredibly durable, even against prolonged use and abuse. The other reason that they are available is that the range of IBM model M keyboards were in production from between 1984 right up to the current day albeit under 3 different manufacturers (IBM, Lexmark and Unicomp). I recently purchased a 122 key terminal keyboard, an unusual version of the Model M. Here is the steps that I took to bring it into it's second career as a USB 121 key keyboard.
Read more: Restoring an IBM Model M 1394324 Terminal Keyboard
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Category: Reprap
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Published: Monday, 12 August 2013 20:24
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Written by Justblair
Recently my attention was drawn to a UART-ETH-WIFI module (serial port - Ethernet - Wireless network) that is incredibly cheap and incredibly flexible. I have been playing around with it and have managed to use it to connect my Reprap printer to a wireless network. It have it tested and can confirm that it works between Pronterface and the RAMPS board running Marlin firmware. What is cooler still is that with a little port forwarding I can upload files and control my 3D printer from anywhere in the world!
It took a little fiddling around to achieve this so i thought that i would produce a simple guide for anyone who wants connected! This guide uses software designed to work on Microsoft Windows, though I am sure that Linux and Mac have equivalent packages that could also be used.
Read more: Connect to your RepRap Wirelessly or Via the Internet Using the HLK-RM04
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Category: Blog
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Published: Saturday, 06 July 2013 13:19
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Written by Justblair
I have been using Windows 8 on my Lenovo Ideapad for some time now. It is fair to say that Windows 8 has been the unlucky recipient of a huge amount of criticism and it is also fair to say that this criticism has been fair. So when Windows 8.1 Beta came out I could not resist its pull for too long and decided that installing a possibly buggy beta was preferably to tolerating the mess that is Windows 8 for any longer…. Then I tried to program an ATtiny85 and found the drivers did not work! Happily I fixed it.
Read more: Windows 8.1 Compatible Drivers for the USBtinyISP
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Category: Reprap
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Published: Sunday, 27 January 2013 21:07
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Written by Justblair
Since building my first RepRap Prusa V1 printer over a year ago, I have been gradually updating the machine, improving it’s print quality as I go on. One of the areas that I have managed to improve upon quite a bit is the y Axis of the machine. The original Prusa had a fairly complex sprung print bed which was less than ideal. in order to improve upon it I both used ideas from the V2 Prusa and developed my own very simple adjusting mechanism to all but eliminate backlash in the Y direction. Here is how.
Read more: Simple Heated Print bed Levelling for RepRap Printers
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Category: Reprap
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Published: Monday, 05 March 2012 22:25
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Written by Justblair
I have been more than a little quiet on the website, mostly because of the birth of my son and the busy busy lifestyle that goes alongside such an event. However that does not mean that my soldering iron has been allowed to go rusty. For the last few months I have been busy building a RepRap 3D printer. This is a popular project these days and one that has been rewarding and challenging to me.
The printer that I opted to build was the Prusa Mendel, named as such in recognition of the designers. Building the printer is a story for another article, but in this I want to show you how to add a LCD/Rotary Encoder based control panel to the printer.
Read more: Attaching a LCD display and Rotary Encoder to a RAMPS Controlled RepRap Printer
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Category: Blog
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Published: Friday, 01 July 2011 14:44
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Written by Justblair
On the 2nd of July 2011 I am organising an Arduino Workshop at the Center for Contemporary Arts, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow.
The workshop is being held at the Electron Club room and we meet at 1pm (Presentation starts at 1:30).
We are going to begin with a presentation about the Arduino programming environment which will be suitable for everyone. I hope to give a short guide on the software and demonstrate the building of a couple of simple sketches. After there will be a chance to compare projects, seek advice from other attendees and generally chat and plan how to move a regular meeting forwards.
I will also bring my box of "toys" so there will be other hardware (sensors, servos, displays etc) available for people to experiment and play with. If you have an Arduino, bring it and a laptop with you! If not, still come. I have a couple of spares and others may have more too.
This is the first event of this kind that i have organised and I hope that it will become a regular event!
If you are in the area and can spare some time, come along and try out some Arduino programming with us.
I treated myself to a Chinese Import CNC Printer a couple of months ago, these machines fall at the affordable end of the CNC market. It will not be a surprise then that they arrive with very few frills included. You get an aluminium constructed machine, a control box with some cheap and not always cheerful controlling electronics. and a box of starter mill ends and bed clamps. Once I had my machine up and running, it became obvious that controlling dust was going to take priority.
