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Re: Pick-and-Place - 10 years ago

Chips are not magnetic. Anyway, the way they do it now is fairly easy to do and all figured out.

Re: Willing to Facilitate/Selfishly Looking for Help - 10 years ago

I just posted a message in the Austin area of this forum, figured I'd post here to let people know (the follow topic thing)

Re: Helping the poor and ourselves - 10 years ago

A simplified version of that, is I'm looking for people who want to work on cool projects, electronics, and programming, and mechanical stuff. Tony

Helping the poor and ourselves - 10 years ago

I'm creating something that will be a sort of "inventor's paradise". It'll make it possible for people to do things... which might make you think of 3d printers... Think of the ultamate hackerspace. A place where you can use any tools or machines you may need to invent something. Where you can get help on your projects as well. Now imagine that you have lots of time to work on your ideas, 'cause

Re: DIY Conductive ink - 12 years ago

Re: How do you store your spools of ABS when they are not being used? - 12 years ago

You could probably use rice if you don't have silica gel. I've heard of rice being used to absorb moisture in other applications, so maybe it'd work in this application as well. Tony

Electronics/programmer for worker controlled company - 13 years ago

I'm trying to start a worker controlled company. I currently don't have money to pay wages, but in the near future I might have some, not much, but might be enough to pay what someone in a very poor country might be interested in. So I was just thinking, maybe there's someone out there who lives in a poor country or something, and can get by on very little money, who'd like to help me get this th

Re: Small motor needed (toy motor size) - 14 years ago

Thanks. Actually I was just taking apart motors, and oddly enough, I found out the motor I ordered has copper impregnated graphite brushes. Copper impregnated graphite looks a lot like copper, it is hard to know for sure, but it scratches easily, and looks just a little different than copper. Darker at some angles and lighter at other angles. Any idea how long this type of motor typically last

Re: Small motor needed (toy motor size) - 14 years ago

Higher price rarely means quality, usually it just means rip off. Maybe things like burrs on the commutator (the spinning part that the brushes contact) and the gap between the copper with a sharp edge on it, is what causes the inconsistent lifespan. Tony

Re: Joining the crew, and getting started developing! - 14 years ago

That's what I thought. To hot for me ;( Tony

Re: Small motor needed (toy motor size) - 14 years ago

They do everything in my design. The torque comes from gears. Not huge torque, but I think it should do the job. Tony

Re: Small motor needed (toy motor size) - 14 years ago

The 3D printer I'm making. Tony

Re: Joining the crew, and getting started developing! - 14 years ago

How hot does the bed need to be for Direct metal laser sintering? Would a simple plastic tent work for an air tight enclosure? Does metal fumes build up if not vented, and if so, could they be removed by electro-static plates? I'd prefer not to "vent" 'cause it might require a lot of gas. Tony

Small motor needed (toy motor size) - 14 years ago

I need a motor about the size of a toy motor, which is able to run 5000 hours or more at 5000 RPM. I would expect that would be easy, since there's so little current and the brush contact area is so small a diameter, wear should be a whole lot less than big motors. Sure such motors have less space for brushes, but that should be more than compensated by the small diameter of the brush contact are

Re: Plastic recycler - 14 years ago

I don't think it is anywhere near so complicated. Some of these things they talk about, are to align the molecules to give more tensile strength. We don't care about tensile strength, 'cause we are not using this filament for string. Also, we are not making small filaments. It is a quite large filament, so pressure similar to what is in a hot melt glue gun should be plenty. We'd probably not wa

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 14 years ago

That'd be acceptable for an add on device, which I think it a better idea anyway. Also, using modem code would allow it to work via land phone lines, which adds more versatility. Tony

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 14 years ago

A modem would probably use up to much code. There's not much space on my unit. It'd have to be done in less than 1 KB I would say. Ideally a few hundred bytes or less, and little or no hardware. At least, that's how it'd need to be for my 3D printer. Anyway, modems are designed to send signals over very long distances on crappy wires. A direct connection to a phone is much cleaner. Something much

Re: USB on cheap MCU - 14 years ago

Quality is almost purely a factor of design, and has almost nothing to do with the price of the components. I'm moving away from the idea of this product being open source. The problem with open source, is it prevents profit, which also prevents investment. If I can make a little profit, I can get investors and make it cheaper, and the profits can then go toward creating open source CAD and CAM

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 14 years ago

That would take a bit of research, since it'd be an analog audio signal, likely distorted some by going through some RC filters, which would need to accurately convert into a digital signal. Sounds like a good idea though. Just need a super simple way of doing it. Tony

Re: Is the gpl liscense enough protection? - 14 years ago

Protection is not as important as people think. In fact, patents do inventors more harm than good. Inventors spend way to much money on patents, when they'd be better served to simply develop their projects without patents. Companies will try to steal ideas whether they are patented or not. Filing a patent only serves to give those companies your plans. Also, those companies routinely search pat

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 14 years ago

I'm pretty much doing it myself, at the moment. I expect to finish the PC board today I wouldn't mind help, but it'd have to be more than casual interest, and the goals have to be compatible. For example, someone who wants to make a 3D printer for themselves is of no use to me, 'cause I spend thousands of hours minimizing the cost. I pinch every penny, 'cause the poor don't have money to burn.

Re: free ranging buildbots - 15 years ago

Don't sound to difficult. I can picture a few ways of doing this. What's the purpose though? Is the purpose to have small things, which are low cost material wise, to build large things? If so, what do you imagine these things to building? Or is the purpose that you simply like to have a challenge? Tony

Re: USB on cheap MCU - 15 years ago

That v-usb info was quite helpful, thanks! I probably won't be using an AVR chip, but I'm sure I can use the info to figure out what I need to do. I didn't find anything cheap in that last link. When I say cheap, I'm talking cheap in half a million quantities. I have to seriously nitpick to get this thing as cheap as possible. The FTDI FT232R chip is almost more expensive than all my electronics

Re: Using a Spreadsheet to make G-codes - 15 years ago

So, as you see, no macros needed. Tony

Re: Using a Spreadsheet to make G-codes - 15 years ago

Ok, here's a pic of a spreadsheet. Notice the highlighted area. That gets copied over and over again. The stuff in columbs G and H are formulas, which don't get included in the G-code. Tony

Re: Plastic recycler - 15 years ago

I was just thinking about something sort of like they do with roughing endmills.They stagger the cut, so a high spot on one tooth is a low spot on another tooth, making it cut off small chips as you'll see in this picture. I'm thinking something that spins fast and has 2 or 4 blades with these stagger cuts on them, and of course it needs to be open source and cheap to make. I don't think ev

USB on cheap MCU - 15 years ago

Is it possible to add low speed USB to an MCU which doesn't have USB? From what I read, it looks like it wouldn't be all that difficult. The reason I ask, is USB adds a few dollars (in single quantity, so probably 70 cents or so in high quantity) to the price of a MCU. It is very important to reduce cost as much as possible. Tony

Re: Plastic recycler - 15 years ago

I would think using a wood chipper would be a whole lot easier. It might not make small enough chips, but it should at least cut it up small enough to fit into a meat grinder (if that would work) or something. Or... you could buy a plastic grinder. They probably cost about the same as a wood chipper, I would think. Tony

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 15 years ago

A friend of mine told me that a long time ago when people had a problem, they'd fix it themselves. If there was a fire, they'd all grab buckets and put it out. Now if there's a problem, we blame someone else and expect someone else to fix it. Now if there's a fire, people call the fire department. If something is wrong with the economy, blame the President and the politicians. We need to go ba

Re: $50 machine to help end poverty - 15 years ago

Widen the scope to include ideas that are just ways of improving things, not necessary making money. Maybe saving money or saving time. If you do that, I'd say 100% of the people. 'Course, not that many people would have the computer skills to use the thing. Even so, if there's a person making money near you, it often benefits you. Here's how it works. When people buy things from other countrie