The ArduFrauenfelderCNC: Progress Report 1

Images of the physical mill so far (most of the work I've done in the past two weeks while I've had something close to pneumonia).

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This is the ArduFrauenfelderCNC so far!

It hasn't really changed that much since I last showed it off. The gantry has been modified to allow linear bearings to be fitted and 10mm steel rods to be fitted for Z-axis motion, as well as support structures for the lead ballscrew.

The base unit hasn't yet been modified for actual use. It needs parts for the lead screw support and stepper motor placement (which will be 3D printed to allow varying motors to be used).

Talking of 3D printing I have also designed printed structures for the controller board holder (top left image), as well as the Z-axis linear bearing manifold (centre image, last item in image). I haven't decided on a dremel, or cousin, for use as the drill yet so the Z-axis isn't quite right yet. Once I do pick one I'll get it ready for cutting, more than likely having to modify dimensions to get the unit right for an actual drill.

I'm going to do a test run of the physical mill once I have to all laid out in SketchUp the way I want it (that is I'll take the incomplete mill and send it to be cut at Ponoko so as to see if it's working as designed).

So the reason I got a bee in my bonnet? That would be thanks to Chris the Carpenter at Rocket Brand Studios. I stumbled across his magnificent propeller-based TX for his robots last year and a couple weeks ago re-stumbled it (I really love that thing). Once I found the page about it I started looking at his blog posts and found a video of him milling lexan for a 3D printer. He just really inspired me again to get my arse in gear and get my baby finished. To which I would have to thank him!

I'll continue to get the mill up to speed in the coming months and post as I make progress.

Xperia™ SmartTags and the Samsung Galaxy SIII

As I've stated before I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-I9300 from MobiCity. Now, one of the neat things it has is a Near Field Communication chip and antenna built into it. What, I hear you ask, can this be used for? Well, there's Google Wallet (US only) and Android & S Beam, but the thing that interests me, and probably you, is it's interactions with NFC tags.

These are the four tags you get when you buy 

a pack of SmartTags (I got mine off eBay, of course).

The Xperia™ tags only come in four variations, meaning you only have those four even if you buy more. They're only addressed four different ways:

Blue tag: semc://liveware/A1/1/NT1/1/smarttags1

Red tag: semc://liveware/A1/1/NT1/2/smarttags1

Black tag: semc://liveware/A1/1/NT1/3/smarttags1

White tag: semc://liveware/A1/1/NT1/4/smarttags1

Now this does of course mean if you had some spare NFC tags laying around you could, perhaps, maybe, make your own... Which can be accomplished using the NFC Task Launcher to write the URI's you want to whatever tag you want...

To get these tags to work with your phone you'll need the Xperia™ SmartTags app (the widget on the left) and the LiveWare™Manager app (shortcut on the right) from Google Play. Below is a screencap of the SmartTag app once your tags are registered, as well as a screencap of the tag edit menu where you add or remove actions that tag will do. The bottom image is a popup notification that happens when a cards actions are being taken:

You can of course change the names of the tags from the factory settings. The tags can perform many tasks, such as toggling Bluetooth on and off, play and audio file, send a text message or make a call. All this it can do, except for anything to do with turning GPS on and off (which would be nice if an update were to include it. Imagine having a car tag that turned Bluetooth on, GPS on, opened a navigation app and adjusted the volume). 

As for the LiveWare™ Manager app you'll find it kinda neat, but somewhat useless (Microsoft's on{x} is way more useful and powerful. But you have to have LiveWare to use the tags). It will allow you to enact actions based on certain changes the phone detects, such as plugging the charger in or pushing a pair of headphones into the audio socket As you can see from the second image I have the Bloomberg app open and show me my stock listings when I charge my phone:

All in all NFC in you mobile device is something that has been a long time coming, and something the world could use a lot more often!

How to cut down a SIM card into a microSIM... except not really.

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-I9300 in the 32 GB variety from MobiCity. My only problem is that I'm upgrading from a three year old iPhone 3GS which uses a regular, old and large SIM card, whereas the SIII uses the new and fangled microSIM.

Enter eBay and a Hong Kong supplier of SIM cutters:

I decided to buy a throw away, $2 starter SIM to experiment on before trying to cut my actual phone SIM:

You place the normal sized SIM card into the cutter, which is rather similar to a regular hole punch, and depress the lever with a steady amount of force until it pushes out a microSIM sized piece of smartcard plastic:

The cutter came with a couple adaptors so if you so choose you can use it in a regular phone again. It does make the card quite small:

Now I say "except not really" because my actual real life SIM is too big, as in the contact pads, to use in the cutter. Or at least I'd rather not risk it:

On the left is my normal sized SIM card, on the right

is the freshly cut microSIM in an adaptor.

I'm pretty sure I could cut my proper SIM and have it be fine and functional, but first I'm going to go down to my local Telstra store and have a talk to them (which is something I never really like doing) about my problem.

UPDATE: I found a same sized SIM as my actual one and tried to cut it. As long as you manually align the card in the cutout window so none of the chip is in the line of the cut it works beautifully.

The blog now has an address!

As you may have seen the blog now has it's proper URL, www.mirrorshades.gs, the one it started life with! I am ever so slightly annoyed at having to have the www. of my address included for this to work, but it's a small price to pay.

It's registered with GoDaddy and they make it so very easy to achieve so I thought why not, since my hosting plan is now defunct and the domain just pointed at a 403 message now.

Go here for instructions on how to achieve this.

iMac Caddie

I own an iMac, mid 2011 model, and as it currently stands it sits low on my desk as well as sitting far to forward for my liking (because if I were to push it back into the monitor alcove then I wouldn't be able to use the DVD/CD drive).

 Last week I got sick of my setup and started designing what I call a caddie:

It will be made from MDF and clad in plywood of some description. The iMac foot holder (the raised part) is made entirely from plywood and is just there to make it look neat. 

There will be room for five HDD's inside and a USB hub (as well as a Firewire hub hopefully) with easy to access cutouts. The whole unit will be connected to two or three draw sliders to make it easy to get access to the DVD/CD drive. I'm also contemplating placing NFC tags in there somewhere too so I can place my Galaxy S3 on it and have it do stuff.

It's a massive work in progress, I'm not even sure if I'll go to my local hardware store to get the materials or whether I should just go with Ponoko, but I thought I'd throw it out here anyway.

The Pebble and it's rise to mind blowing success!

Well, unless you've been living under a rock on a far away island recently then you would have heard about a Kickstarter campaign for the Pebble smartwatch!

It's a wristwatch that runs an ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller, a 3-axis accelerometer, Bluetooth and an e-ink display. It can run apps and comes with an iPhone and Android app that loads apps to the watch. It'll be able to show incoming calls, new SMS's (Android only), email notifications, as well as having an SDK so you can write your own apps to do whatever you want!

It's a remarkable product. In the first 28 hours it raised over a million dollars! That's a single bloody day! At the time of writing this it's up to 33,989 backers and is sitting on $4,901,024 in pledges (me included =3). It's officially the highest funded Kickstarter campaign, ever, which is incredible since it still has 29 days to go.

I'm buying a new Android phone for my watch xD A nice shinny new Samsung Galaxy Nexus, just so I can get the full Pebble experience.

I hope you find it in your heart, and wallet, to back this project even though it doesn't need it simply because it's awesome.

Prototype boards have arrived.

My prototype boards have finally arrived from BatchPCB (they got here a week or so ago) and DorkbotPDX (a couple days) and I'm rather chuffed with them! I'm having to order parts in as my local electronics store would have to order them anyway and I prefer Little Bird Electronics =)

They're bad photos I know, but my camera is out of action at the moment so I used my phone. A DSLR it ain't, but it gets the job done. I messed up on the AD595 breakout board as the thermocouple solder pads are now covered in solder mask. My bad. I'm altering the design to fix that.

When I have the three boards up and running I'll do a post for each of them, hopefully working flawlessly...