Category: General
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Coming soon to a dominated world near you!
Yep…it’s finally happened!
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Notes to myself: Minibog improvements
I’ve been growing some small carnivorous plants (mainly Nepenthes and sundews) in a tank indoors, but a couple years ago, just for fun I started some Sarracenia (pitcher plant) seeds. Well, what do you know, the darned things actually grew. So this spring, when it was clear I wouldn’t be able to keep them in…
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PID control stove hack for better brewing, sous vide, etc.
“Cook all the foods, hack all the things / Make all the booze, hack all the things” In beer brewing, the temperature profile during mashing has important implications for the beer’s eventual body and “mouthfeel”. The requirements for partial mash brewing are a bit more relaxed than all-grain, but still matter (the enzymatic reactions occur…
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Notes to myself: Lulzbot TAZ n00b guide
A work in progress… Critical Specs: Bed size / Build envelope: 298mm (X) * 275mm (Y) * 250mm (Z) Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm (shipping default; others available) Filament diameter: The TAZ’s extruder expects 3mm filament. However, not all off-the-shelf filament will be exactly this diameter; the discrepancy could affect print quality in severe cases (see notes…
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Tim Tears It Apart: Sensitech TempTale4(R) data logger
One of these devices appeared in a large shipment of temperature-sensitive raw materials at my work, amid a pile of dry ice chips. While I don’t know the MSRP or actual retail price of this gadget, the shipper packs one in with every order and tacks on $60-70 for it as a line-item; nonreturnable as…
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A new feature: “Tim Tears It Apart”!
So, as you might have guessed, I’m an electronics engineer, and I like to tear things apart – especially gadgets. I don’t usually post about it, because a) someone else has probably already posted a teardown of that gadget, and b) I’m lazy as balls. But then I realized a good teardown is not all…
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Notes to myself: Test a Bluetooth Low Energy device on Raspberry Pi, the quick way
Testing if the new nRF8001-based Mosquino BLE shield I built actually works. With the unmodified library and example code, it purports itself to the a Nordic heartrate monitor. Much of the below based on Michael Saunby’s blog post on checking out a TI SensorTag. Install bluez and hcitool (plus any dependencies). As of today, current…
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Refraction Fail
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Fun expression of the day: “flip a coil”
There is supposedly an Afrikaans expression that translates as “flipping a coil” or “flipping the cone”, etc. Kind of a more evocative equivalent to “shitting a brick”. It refers to the act of turning one’s underwear inside-out to dump out the results of having shit one’s pants, e.g. due to extreme rage or surprise. The…
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Rez Trance Vibrator mystery LEDs, and how to control them
So, a friend of a friend recently managed to buy the original Rez, complete with new-in-box Trance Vibrator. But the peripheral didn’t work – it would be detected, but otherwise not do anything. Knowing I had produced a compatible open source version of this hardware, she brought it over for a look. The motor was…
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Solar seed warmer to get a jump on spring
Spring is coming… here is a tiny little hacklet from the bench of Tim. I live in New England. I don’t mind it here, but the growing season is a bit short. So here is a scheme to give outdoor direct-seeding a little head start. Seeds for many food plants, such as melons and peppers,…
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So, it appears MakerBot have gone full evil now…
We shuddered when it was announced that MakerBot were taking the next version of their RepRap-based printer design closed-source. We crossed our fingers when the CEO responded to the flap saying they’d be “as open as possible“. We watched with popcorn the various flaps about Thingiverse, legal mumbojumbo, attribution and moral rights. But now this.…
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The IOC, Trademark Law and You
Yes, it’s true! With the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 (UK), and similar laws pushed through in other countries as a condition of hosting a certain large quadrennial event (US- Amateur Sports Act of 1978; Canada- Olympic and Paralympics Marks Act), any infringing use of IOC ‘properties’ (similar to, but stronger than,…
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Not Dead
Really! Just busy with some real-life stuff, namely wedding related and home renovations. I haven’t forgotten about this pick & place stuff! Lately I’ve been spending most of my project time on getting Mosquino toward an official 1.0 release. The rev2 boards just came in, so once all the parts are in I should have…
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How to use your own modem with Comcast
Typical frog in a hot pot scenario; when I joined Comcast the modem lease was like $1.50 a month, and I didn’t even think about it. As of recently it’s now crept up to $7.00 a month, which kind of made me sit up in shock. How much do those things actually cost, anyway? Answer:…
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I P, U P, everybody (DHC)Ps…
My page that tells you your IP address is up and running again, after a PHP configuration change by my web host knocked it out. Anyway, enjoy the glory of finding out your external IP address without getting socked by porn popups!
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Image segmentation for PnP optical placement
Quick ‘n dirty (but working!) image segmenter for randomly-strewn part identification. About 1 page worth of scripting takes an image of objects on background, determines which part is the background, determines the outside contour of each object and numbers each as a separate object. Now that it’s known where to look for one specific object,…
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Pick ‘n Place Head
This weekend I got some parts in and put together a preliminary placement head for my open-source pick ‘n place project. My requirements are that it be buildable with off-the-shelf parts (ideally same-source, to save on shipping) and no special equipment, allow +/-180 degree rotation while maintaining an undisturbed vacuum, and support interchanging of the…
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Toward an open-source Pick and Place machine
So, there’s some really cool, empowering stuff going down these days with regard to manufacturing. Cartesian machines (i.e. CNC mills) are relatively simple to build from off-the-shelf parts; there are a bajillion people doing this and plenty of ready-made open-source designs available. More recently, hobbyists have gotten in on designing open-source rapid prototypers (3D printers);…
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I quit, I win, final, no talkbalks
It’s like third grade all over again, except that I could theoretically have ice cream for breakfast if I wanted to.