April 2010 Archives

Here is a very brief clip of a nodding head.

I attached a doll head that I sculpted (with flameworked glass eyes) to a servo motor. This will be part of a larger diorama of dancing automatons that I'm working on.

The Mantis, built from a kit designed by David Carr as part of the Machines That Make project.

Boards for the Fab Net controller and drivers designed by Ilan Moyer.

Here's a little board that can be used as a button interface to a three axis machine (X+/X-, Y+/Y-, Z-up, Z-down). It is implemented as a voltage divider, so the various button presses can be read on a single analog input pin. Here's the schematic:

I'll have better photos and schematics later in the week after I stress test the thing, but I was happy with how it came out and wanted to post some pictures. The Fabian (named after our cat, though you could pronounce it FAHB-IAN if you want) (oh, and a funny thing happened to Fabian yesterday; he was chasing bees, caught one, and got stung on the lip) is a student-friendly, Arduino-compatible board that can be milled in a Fab Lab. More to come.

This is the first variant of the "Fabian" board that I made; it is the simplest controller for three unipolar stepper motors you can imagine. I thought this might be useful for someone who is building a bootstrap machine with handtools. This board could be used as a controller to mill a better controller, which could then be used to mill out the final parts. Arduino-compatability means there are a lot of people out there who can program it. The firmware is a simple HPGL parser and moveto function.

I'll admit it: I've been having trouble with traces ripping up after repeated use of the surface mount pin headers we've been using in the lab. Here is a solution: a development board for the Attiny45 that is easy to use with a breadboard or to incorporate into a project with through-hole wire connections. It also has a sturdy six pin header for an FTDI USB to TTL cable. The Eagle schematic and board files are linked below:

Schematic

Board