Category Archives: Workshop 88 Stuff

CNC machine emulator for grbl

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Jim

I don’t have a CNC machine at home, but several times I’ve wanted to do some kind of testing that sort of needed a machine to see what was happening.  Not particularly to print or cut – just to watch … Continue reading →

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Shapeoko 2 cutting tests

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Jim

Now that the W88 Shapeoko 2 (graciously donated by Inventables) is mostly working, we tried some test cuts in various materials.  All were done with my old Dremel and a 1/8″ upcut end mill (WRONG: downcut; see update at end).  … Continue reading →

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But I marked it so that wouldn’t happen!

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Jim

Yeah, I use unpolarized connectors.  Good old 0.1″ headers are cheap, small, plentiful, and I’m pretty comfortable using them.  For the power/I2C bus in the dollhouse, they were an obvious choice.  But because they’re unpolarized (OK, unless you make them … Continue reading →

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Adventures with the Workshop 88 Cupcake

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Jim

Driven by both my desire to be able to 3D print stuff for myself and desperation at needing to be able to do reasonable 3D printing demos for the schools and libraries that are asking us to do them, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Cupcake 3D printer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Arduino 301 class post mortem

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Jim

The 301 class went well, but far from perfectly.  Despite scheduling the class for 3 hours instead of 2, I was once again overly optimistic about what I could get covered, and left a lot undone. Of the original outline … Continue reading →

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Tiny85 ISP cable mini shield for Mega

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Jim

Well that was embarrassing.  I thought I could knock out a quick mini-shield for an Arduino Mega to use as a programmer for Tiny85s (or most any other AVR chip).   I did, and it works, but only after two iterations … Continue reading →

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Tiny85 class

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Jim

I finished the second run of the Tiny85 class Saturday (1/25/14).  It was pretty good, but as before | always there was room for improvement.  I’ve been using Freemind for the official repository of ideas, todo lists, lesson plan etc, … Continue reading →

Posted in Tiny 85 stuff, Workshop 88 Stuff | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Laser level teardown

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Jim

Workshop 88 was given a box (maybe 100?) of as-is laser levels.  I tore one apart for the goodies inside (as I expect several others will do).  Here’s what I learned. The levels were pretty high quality Keson LL150 commercial … Continue reading →

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Supply voltage brinksmanship for sound modules

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jim

I’ve been working on two “3 volt” sound modules – a micro SD card module for the dollhouse and a from-scratch flash memory sampled sound playback device for the starter’s gun.  Neither one actually works on 3.3V.  So begins the … Continue reading →

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Dollhouse net with ATtiny85s

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Jim

(This is one of a pair of unrelated Tiny projects that seem to be going on in parallel.  I don’t think I could have chosen two more confusable projects if I’d tried.) These are the first steps in implementing a … Continue reading →

Posted in Tiny 85 stuff, Workshop 88 Stuff | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments