Make: Online: Open source hardware Archives

Archive: Open source hardware

November 6, 2009

How-To: Make a Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator

Usually I write about ham radio. But looking at communication devices of the future from the past, I thought it would be fun to have a Star Trek: The Original Series Bluetooth communicator for a cellphone. I worked with Dave Clausen to hack one together from a toy Star Trek communicator, a Bluetooth module, and a microcontroller. Following are the directions and program to make your own. And of course a video to show how the Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator works.

And if you really want to geek it up, the Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator can also be used with the Yaesu VX-8R ham radio. It also makes an awesome gift. Read on for the full tutorial.

Read full story

October 26, 2009

Contraptor - Open source hardware that makes things...

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Contraptor...

Contraptor is a DIY open source construction set for experimental personal fabrication, desktop manufacturing, prototyping and bootstrapping. Various сartesian robots can be assembled from Contraptor and used as a prototyping platform for projects such as XY plotter, mini CNC machine, 3D printer etc. You can make components of the Structural + Basic linear motion subsets of Contraptor at home for about $300 in parts and materials, plus shipping, taxes and time. Sketchup models of Contraptor components are hosted on Google 3D Warehouse while the DXF exports and SVG templates are hosted on Thingiverse, a cool new site for sharing hardware designs. If you like the set but don't want to make it, we're working with Hines Design Labs to fabricate a small quantity of Contraptor subsets, and then release the design/manufacturing files under an open source license, so that anyone with Shopbot could do the same. The initial kits are planned to be sold at or below cost - $150 to 250 depending on the subset. We need 10 committed buyers for Structural subset kit ($200) and 10 for Basic linear motion subset kit ($250).

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, excellent.

October 20, 2009

Open Source Nintendo DS Bluetooth adapter

Gordan Savicic and Gottfried Haider of DSbrut fame have tipped us off that they've just released their DS Bluetooth adapter for the Nintendo DS.

Almost two years in the making, we're happy to finally release our DS Bluetooth adapter. The tiny Slot-1 cartridge allows you to hook up the Nintendo DS wirelessly with other devices such as GPS-receivers, robots and so forth. Today we're making all materials of the project openly available, including the schematics and a GPL-licensed software library for the Nintendo DS, because we believe in open hardware design and want to encourage collaboration in the hardware hacking community.

If you've got a homebrew Nintendo DS project that we should know about leave a link in the comments.

October 19, 2009

The most amazing Drawdio 3D animations you'll see today

Nice work Ian.

October 16, 2009

Monome tweet reader

Man, what don't monomes do? Robert Böhnke puts the popular open source controller to work as a Twitter display.

Related:
Monome's 64 (video) fingers

October 15, 2009

Train an army of crows to gather treasure for you

Josh Klein developed a machine that trains crows to trade coins for peanuts. Literally, for peanuts. So you fill this thing with peanuts and set it out, say, in a public park, and the crows will scour the ground for loose change, carry it to the machine, and drop it in a slot in exchange for food. The project, dubbed "CrowBox," made a big splash when he unveiled it back in 2007. Now he's made the complete plans for the CrowBox freely available online so you can roll your own. And there's no reason you couldn't train your fly-monkeys-fly to gather other crow-portable objects. Twenty-dollar bills? Keys? iPods? Human eyes? The possibilities are endless. Set one up at the beach! Train seagulls to trade whole wallets for pre-shucked oysters!

October 14, 2009

Q & A with MakerBeam @ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

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Q & A with MakerBeam @ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories...

MakerBeam is an open-source metal building system. There's a technology called T-slot (example here) that is widely used for industrial automation, robotics and machine enclosures.

MakerBeam has defined a standard called Mini-T which is a miniature version of T-slot. It's small enough to work as a model building system, and precise and strong enough to build real machines and robots with it.

They used Kickstarter to fund the project so far ($10k).

October 13, 2009

FreeCAD open source design software

I don't do CAD or 3D printing, but this software at least looks promising from my armchair. It's an open source CAD/CAE app based on OpenCasCade, QT, and Python. It offers features like macro recording, the ability to run as a server and dynamically load application extensions, and it runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. One of the many cool features it offers is 100% scriptable objects in Python:

Besides the standard object types such as annotations, meshes and parts objects, FreeCAD also offers the amazing possibility to build 100% python-scripted objects, called Python Features. Those objects will behave exactly as any other FreeCAD object, can be saved in a document and opened on any other installation of FreeCAD, since the python code that defines the object is also saved in the document.

The project is still in alpha. The only official builds are in Windows and 32-bit Debian Linux, but you can download (from their SourceForge site) unofficial builds for AMD-based 64-bit Debian/Ubuntu, openSUSE. and Intel Mac OS X.

FreeCAD

October 4, 2009

Christina and Forest at Maker Faire Rhode Island

At Maker Faire Rhode Island, I saw Christina waiting near the AS220 Fab Lab for her son Forest. She was holding some of the replacement parts that he had made for his MakerBot. We talked a bit about what making means to her and Forest. They're already looking forward to Maker Faire 2010.

MAKE subscribers, watch your mailboxes for Volume 20: Kids, which should be arriving very soon.

October 1, 2009

Larson Scanner Kit

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, pioneers of the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, just released a new Larson Scanner kit!

Today we're releasing a new open-source project and kit, which is an updated approach to the "Larson Scanner." The Larson scanner is named in honor of Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider television shows, and consists of a set of red LEDs that scan back and forth.

Three years ago, we showed how to make a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, in what has become one of our all-time most popular tutorials. The circuit for that project was based on a 555 timer, driving a 4017 decade counter, and has 6 pixels of resolution. To create the incandescent fading effect, we added low-pass transistor drivers. We also wrote up a version of that article for the 2007 MAKE Magazine Halloween special, which included a slightly nicer version of that same circuit.

And while it's been popular, we've always had some nagging reservations about it, and in particular its battery life. This year, we decided to do something about it and made a much better version of the Larson Scanner, and so here it is!

The kit is open source and designed to be hackable. Read more about the kit in their announcement.

From MAKE magazine:

DIY HALLOWEEN from MAKE & CRAFT!

DIY HALLOWEEN from the editors of MAKE and CRAFT brings you 40-plus DIY projects for the holiday that's made for makers. From the craftiest costumes to amazing animated props and the latest in computer-controlled haunted house effects.

September 28, 2009

Open source Homeland Security non-lethal weapon - The Do-it-yourself handheld LED-based Incapacitator: THE BEDAZZLER

Adafruit's first open source Homeland Security non-lethal weapon project - The "Do-it-yourself Handheld LED-Based Incapacitator: THE BEDAZZLER". After attending a conference where the $1million "sea-sick flashlight" (THE DAZZLER) was demoed by Homeland Security, Adafruit decided to create an under $250 version and here are the source code, schematics and PCB files! This is not a kit - but it is an Arduino project!

Check it out!

September 23, 2009

Making the most of open-source hardware

Great overview - Making the most of open-source hardware - Electronics Weekly - Gerald Coley, Texas Instruments...

AT A GLANCE

* Open-source hardware offers an advanced start on your design.
* Open-source software complements open-source hardware.
* Open-source hardware prepares your PCB (printed-circuit-board)-fabrication and -assembly houses for high-volume production.
* You may want to share your improvements by making them open-source additions, as well.

Many designers are familiar with open-source software, such as Linux, in which the source code is available to all. However, fewer are familiar with organizations offering open-source hardware. These organizations release free information, including schematics, BOM (bill-of-materials) information, and PCB (printed-circuit-board)-layout data, covering the overall hardware design.

Designers with this information can build or add to a freely available design. In many cases, open-source software supports the original design, providing additional advantages. Some aspects of open-source hardware go beyond the sharing of the design itself.

These aspects can save time and money for not only hardware developers but also PCB designers and fabricators, contract manufacturers, and even software developers.

You can license open-source projects from organizations such as Creative Commons, which offers the Attribution-ShareAlike licensing program. Creative Commons stipulates that a user must attribute the open-source work in the manner that the original designer specifies but not in a way that indicates that the original designer endorses the user's work. Likewise, if users provide that work as open-source hardware, releasing it back to the community for access by others, then they must provide that work under the same Attribution-ShareAlike licensing...

Read the rest in the latest Electronics Weekly or online...

September 22, 2009

Printing braille

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This is interesting, some examples of a Makerbot printing out braille, langfordw writes -

This is still a work in progress but the MakerBot actually seems to print braille rather well. I can't read braille so I can't judge for sure whether it's readable but it certainly seems like it. The trick is to get the G-code right to prevent warts on the front face (i'm still fiddling with this). I think this might have a lot of potential. A braille bracelet will be next in my printing/designing queue.

Grid beams for Halloween props

Creatrope has posted an interesting discussion on the use of Phil Jergensen's reusable grid beam elements for Halloween props. I dunno how much I can get behind the whole gridbeamer thing just yet, but for seasonal stuff it does make a certain sense: If you like it a whole bunch, store it complete, and if you don't, take it apart and reuse the elements.

September 17, 2009

Working printed handcuff key

A German hacker named Ray has printed a working handcuff key, to the Dutch national pattern, on his RepRap. You can download the .STL file here. Not that we encourage that sort of thing. <SUBLIMINAL>Do it do it do it do it.</SUBLIMINAL> [via Boing Boing]

September 9, 2009

Drawdio videos!

Two great Drawdio videos from Ars Electronica Festival via leobard & Jay! Kit is available in the Maker Shed too!

September 5, 2009

Idle speculation on the shan zhai and open fabrication

Neat article by Tom Igoe... Idle speculation on the shan zhai and open fabrication...

Strategy & Business magazine has an interesting article on the shan zhai manufacturers in China at the moment. It’s the first business press article I’ve seen in the US that takes a relatively balanced approach to reporting on them. It’s worth a read, as it’s a trend that’s already affecting business, particularly the electronics business. It suggests a new approach to economic recovery as well, one based on small companies well-networked with each other.

I first learned about the shan zhai on a recent trip to Shenzen, China, hosted by PCH International and Bunnie Huang (Bunnie’s got a good blog post describing the shan zhai). The popular image of these companies in the US is that they’re producing cheap knockoff goods based on established multinationals, but there’s more to it than that, as S&B and Bunnie point out.

September 3, 2009

Pattern kits for Gingery machines?

So here's a random idea I had.

Most readers are probably familiar with Dave Gingery's series of books on building a set of homemade machine tools. The technique, basically, involves building an inexpensive homemade charcoal furnace and crucible for melting aluminum, then using traditional green-sand casting techniques to mold the various machine parts from wooden patterns. Much of the content of Gingery's books details the construction of these patterns.

As I have recently discovered, however, lost-foam casting is a much more accessible metal-casting technique than traditional green-sand. It requires no special flasks, no special sand, and no consideration of parting-line placement in designing patterns. Basically you make your pattern from styrofoam, bury it in sand, and pour hot aluminum into it. The foam vaporizes and diffuses into the sand, and you're left with a perfect aluminum duplicate. The only downside is that the pattern itself is destroyed, so if you screw up the casting or want more than one copy of a part you need a new pattern.

Here's what I'd like to see: Some enterprising soul with a CNC foam cutter could sell kits of the Gingery machine patterns ready-cut in XPS foam.

Then, if you wanted to build the Gingery tools, you wouldn't have to spend a lot of time learning the art of green-sand casting, or building the special tools required, or carpentering on the patterns themselves, most of which will only be used once anyway. You'd just buy a few ounces of pre-cut foam patterns in a kit, bury them in sand, and start pouring hot aluminum right away. Depending on sales volume, it might even be practical to make the foam patterns in conventional molds, the same way styrofoam packaging inserts are produced, at lower cost than CNC machining.

If you're interested, supportive, or (for your own unfathomable reasons) furious, feel free to sound off in the comments.

August 27, 2009

Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it

Matthew Paul Thomas "Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it".... Interesting article via Tom-

When I wrote the first version of this article six years ago, I called it “Why Free Software usability tends to suck”. The best open source applications and operating systems are more usable now than they were then. But this is largely from slow incremental improvements, and low-level competition between projects and distributors. Major problems with the design process itself remain largely unfixed.
Many of these problems are with volunteer software in general, not Free Software in particular. Hobbyist proprietary programs are often hard to use for many of the same reasons. But the easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source. And while thousands of people are now employed in developing Free Software, most of its developers are volunteers. So it’s in Free Software that we see volunteer software’s usability problems most often.

That gives us a clue to our first two problems...

I hear this a lot, one example that a maker was struggling with the other day was Inkscape, folks love it but many complain about usability. It's a valuable tool for any maker, but many that I talk to end up using CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator for their laser cut designs, etc.

August 26, 2009

Take advantage of open-source hardware

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Gerald Coley @ Texas Instruments for EDN has a great article about open source hardware. It's impressive to see TI jumping in with articles and supporting projects like the BeagleBoard...

Many designers are familiar with open-source software, such as Linux, in which the source code is available to all. However, fewer are familiar with organizations offering open-source hardware. These organizations release free information, including schematics, BOM (bill-of-materials) information, and PCB (printed-circuit-board)-layout data, covering the overall hardware design. Designers with this information can build or add to a freely available design. In many cases, open-source software supports the original design, providing additional advantages. Some aspects of open-source hardware go beyond the sharing of the design itself. These aspects can save time and money for not only hardware developers but also PCB designers and fabricators, contract manufacturers, and even software developers.

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