2019-06-11 08:00

Long time…no post

I really liked that I was making something which I will be able to look back into; I’ll try to start this over again…but it feels like I’m leaving a big gap behind…so I’ll try to collect some things happend since my last post…

I usually written these on the bus going into work…but somewhere around I stopped writing these posts I became a Hive committer and eventually got into the Hive team - this caused a little bit to change life style to adapt to some meetings which were occured later/etc.

Nowadays I rarely even ride with a bus - and it’s impossible to write driving a car :)

so…here is a quick rundown of what happened in the last 2 years :D

Home automation state

The ESP boards are in service!

There were some issues with the design of course - but I was lucky they were just minor glitches…I currently have 2 of them in service.

Lessons learned:

don’t put buttons on the pcb! it doesn’t make sense I’ll only use it when programming the board
the connector to the programming connector missed the ground – no big deal…
I’ve put in to many things…I will just drop the IR parts. They do work but completely unneccessary
stop using crappy switch mode power supply modules; instead use a simple linear regulator
there are some issues with the ATTINY – ESP comm…
try to squeeze in the light sensor under the dome of the PIR - this will most probably work

I’m still planning to finish and submit the second design…it’s still not finished - but looks much smaller

3d printing

I was carefully designing the box for my electronics; but after getting to know Berci - I started wanting one of my own…

so: in early 2018 I bought an ANET A8; which is cheap as hell 3d printer.

Upgrading the printer

I’ve printed a bunch of upgrades for the printer…bought some extra stuff and started upgrading the printer by changing parts.

Right now I’ve an Anet A8 derivative with:

MKS-GEN-L board
bowden extrusion
an e3d clone
z sensor + autocalibration
mesh bed leveling
ATX powered
Raspberry pi 3 running octoprint
some custom electronics to switch off the printer from the rpi
camera
also added some led strip to make it easier to take a look at it during night

I’ve a lot of parts hanging around…I still plan to extend it to dual extrusion…but I’ve right now postponed that

In the meantime I’ve killed a lot of time designing toys and other things for my daughter.

Toys

Ramp

My daughter had a parking station which had a broken ramp…so my first project was to design a new ramp for the matchbox cars. (FIXME: add some pictures)

Matchbox elevator

I’ve spent a lot of time putting together a matchbox elevator; it was a fun challenge I learned a lot about OpenSCAD :D I had to even re-desing it once…the end result was eventually worked pretty reliably - until some other kids came and busted the elevator car… (thingiverse)

Container truck

I started retrofiting a cheap chineese container truck to have removable containers; which will be able to accomodate a matchbox :) I’ve used some nail gel to glue magnets both into the container and on the storage plate…it worker okay - but it turned out not that nice;

however I was able to reuse the container design later :)

Wooden track fixes

These small plugs came out and I really don’t liked the spherical ones; so I designed something similar to the original…no big deal

(thingiverse)

For trhe wooden rail I’ve also printed a bunch of flexi tracks and whatnot :)

Wooden rail car

I’ve built a kinda working wooden rail car with a removable container(hold there by small magnets) - but since my daughter seemed to lost interest in them…I kinda stopped finishing it…it works and all so I’ll upload it to thingiverse once :)

Upgrades to the Toilet :)

At first I just measured and printed a custom hanger for the “hole reducer” we had there hanging around…it made the place much better.

And after some time I wanted to print a toilet roll holder; however going thru the existing desgins just given me new ideas… so I designed and printed a new toilet paper roll holder :D It’s the largest print I’ve made so far…