PARTS Projects

The bRainSilo remodel progress is looking good for a group project meeting on Monday, so we’ll follow-up on the BrushBotComm board build we started a couple Saturdays ago.  We’ll continue assembling boards for those that didn’t get theirs built last time, and hopefully we can start programming them.

Time: Monday 3/22, 7:00pm
Location: bRainSilo: http://brainsilo.org/wiki/Location
Bring:

• BrushBotComm boards if you already have them, built or not
• Money if you haven’t paid for boards/parts yet
• Soldering iron — if you have a decent one with a fine tip.  We still need to solder up some programming cables.
• Desk lamp if you can — we didn’t really have enough light last time
• Vision enhancement devices — I’ll bring my stereo-microscope and what magnifiers I have, but I think we could have used more last time

See you Monday!
Monty

What would happen if we had swarm board development at BackSpace on a day other than Dorkbot Monday. Granted, lead and food don’t go together. There is not a lot of exposure to lead.  The meeting at the University was low key enough that I don’t think anyone would mind too much if we did the same thing on a slightly smaller scale. Limit people placing parts on boards to 4 and “baking” to 4 at the same time.  And, the process is close to smoke free. That might allow more people access to the venue without much hassle.

Beginner CTL: TBD

Advanced CTL: Surface Mount Circuit Board Soldering (Scott Dixon, Jim Larson

Announcement: the rules for the new PARTS Indoor Challenge are posted. Get your robots ready for the April 3rd Meeting!

After the main meeting, the group build of the BrushBot controller will take place.  Those not participating in that may want to go watch the rest of the Autodesk Oregon Regional FIRST competition at the Memorial Coliseum.

Owing to the lack of meeting space (TechShop closed, bRainSilo being renovated) as well as the fact that Monty won’t be ready for us to do a group build of the BrushBot PCB, we’re going to cancel today’s meeting.

Instead, this would be a great time for people to contribute to the Wiki and start writing code for the BrushBot.

If you are active in the group project, please sign up for an account at http://colab.portlandrobotics.org. We’ve been tweaking the permissions for new users, so hopefully you will be able to edit and contribute to existing group project pages. If you have trouble, please contact me.

The BrushBotComm boards and parts have arrived and the first couple boards are blinking their LEDs!

One is shown with the battery holder board; the other has a connector for external power.

Yesterday I got together with Scott and Jim, the guys behind the “Extreme Surface Mount Soldering” Instructable, and we soldered a couple boards up using their IR-thermometer enabled PID-controlled hot-plates.  This was a test run in preparation for the group build that will be happening soon, but not next Monday as originally planned (more on that in a bit).

We had most of the parts for yesterday’s hot plate soldering, but I didn’t get the Mouser parts until this evening’s DorkBot meeting.  So, I came prepared with soldering iron and tweezers to add the MOSFET’s, IR receiver and battery holders right there in Backspace.  Unfortunately there’s still one missing component — the catch diodes for the MOSFETS.  Looks like I left them out of the order… doh!

The boards powered up and programmed using ISP and Atmel’s AvrStudio with no problems.  The hot-plate reflow worked great and no rework was required.  I’m excited for everybody else to try the hot-plate method of soldering — it really opens up what you can do with surface mount on your own.

Originally the plan was to assemble all the boards at this coming Monday’s project meeting, but the logistics aren’t going to work out.  The bRainSilo is undergoing some work to fix it up, so I’m not sure what state it’s going to be in next Monday, and as it is now, I’m not sure there is enough usable table space to do the assembly.  There’s also a bunch of parts preparation that’s not going to happen by then.  So, I’m thinking either the following project meeting, or maybe even as part of March’s general meeting.  The latter would be nice because there’s more table space, but I’m not sure what Pete has planned for that meeting (Pete?), and the different time (Saturday morning versus Monday evening) might not work for all…  What do you all think?

Meanwhile, consider coding up some routines for the tiny44 to have ready to try out:
IR remote control receiver code (i.e. light up an LED when a remote control code is received)
IR transmitter code (i.e. modulate the IR LED at 38kHz and encode a command to turn off a TV)
IR message-passing code

Monty

Tomorrow’s group project meeting (Mon 2/8/10; 7pm) will be held at bRainSilo — a newly opened hacker-space by the Rose Garden arena.

The reason for this and the late notice is rather unfortunate.  TechShop is getting evicted and is not available as a meeting place.  Open Tech Space, who’s resources we were using, is still very much alive, but homeless at the moment.

As bRainSilo is brand new, the space is still a bit rough, and there is no sign out front yet.
The entrance is in the alley way off of N Kerby Ave between N Tillamook and N Thompson streets in front of parking spot 50 or 51.  Google Map
I’ll put a sign out on the door.
Come check it out and let me know what you think.  It may be an option for future meetings.

Monty

I’m starting a summary of experiments we’ve done with the $2 brushbots.  Please contribute here.

Looks like Monty got two versions of the simple brushbot controller ordered through the Dorkbot PCB fab group order.  Can’t wait to try them!