I took a couple of hours tonight to put together the Software Defined Radio PCB, as the parts arrived a couple of nights ago.  Software development has already started — check out the git repository for the progress so far.  Be sure to watch the project in the forum to stay abreast of project progress!

Introduction:

Ah, Halloween. Next to Ramahanaquwanzmas, one’s birthday, and a handful of other possible days, is there a better day of the year? Not only is it socially acceptable in this small time window to walk around in public dressed up as a robot, vampire, etc., but if you’re maker-savvy you get to build something fun! I enjoy Halloween a great deal, and have gone to some pretty impressive lengths in years past to get a kick out of the holiday, and this year would be no exception!

I’ve always had a thing for Iron Man. He’s often hailed as the engineering superhero, and any super hero that can be seen on the big screen holding a soldering iron is grade-A material in my book. With this in mind, I set out to build an arc reactor, like the one seen in Iron Man.
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Another year down! On this day 2 years ago, George Hadley and Ben Laskowski set out to create NBitWonder, a website which could serve as an online platform for displaying their projects. In the time since then, we’ve made tremendous strides in our efforts to create one of the best open source hardware communities on the web. Below we highlight some of the major advancements that came about in NBitWonder’s 2nd year:

Documentation and Sharing:

Unless you have good documentation, and share your efforts in an easily accessible way, an open source project is little more than show and tell. Year 2 saw significant progress in our ability to share our work. We joined github, and actively maintain git repositories for all of our projects there. We explored what it was to have good documentation on projects, then proceeded to follow through, setting up a modular, versatile directory structure and open source documentation templates, first in LaTeX and later in OpenOffice to detail our projects as thoroughly as possible.

Website Improvements:

Year 2 saw the addition of many new features to the NBitWonder online platform. We joined flickr and began sharing many more photos of our work with the world. January saw an attempt to push the website to NBitWonder v2.0, and while that wasn’t a complete success it saw the addition of the NBitWonder forums and wiki. Near the end of year 2, we even opened a small, provisional NBitWonder store, to begin selling some of the things that we made.

New Projects and Capabilities:

Year 2 of NBitWonder’s existence saw several new NBitWonder original projects, including the Class-D audio amplifier, DC Motor Driver, and our brand new software-defined radio (SDR) project. In addition, a RepRap Mendel was successfully constructed and some homebrew circuit boards and art were constructed, adding 3D-printing and circuit board etching to NBitWonder’s list of capabilities.

NBitWonder Members and Staff:

Year 2 saw a number of important changes in the lives of the NBitWonder staff. Chief Technical Officer Ben Laskowski graduated from Purdue, as did our IT liaison Sam Mussmann. They stayed on as NBitWonder members, and in addition we brought Rob Swanson on board as a guest blogger to help write about interesting issues in the realm of open source hardware and hobby electronics.

Maker Faire:

Year 2 saw NBitWonder’s first participation in Maker Faires across the United States. We debuted at Maker Faire North Carolina and continued our exploits at Maker Faire Indianapolis and Maker Faire Fort Wayne. We had a wonderful time at these events and met many new and interesting people.

Looking Forward:

NBitWonder has come a long way in the past year, and the look ahead is every bit as exciting and interesting. Expect to see new projects, commercial products, and valuable research in the year ahead. Come check us out, we’ll be here!

The latest revision of our Software Defined Radio project PCBs arrived the other day.  While we wait for parts to arrive, be sure to check out the progress over in the forum!

This is the 14th post in a series detailing my efforts to construct a RepRap Mendel, an open source 3D printer.

Introduction:

The RepRap Mendel is a complex machine, that is quite challenging to build and calibrate. However, there’s nothing quite like the finished product, and the satisfaction of having completed one of the early generation rapid-prototyping devices makes the challenge and effort worthwhile. In total, the RepRap Mendel Build took 3 months and 14 blog posts, which are listed below for completeness:

1. Part 1: Prologue
2. Part 2: Awwww Nuts
3. Part 3: XYZ
4. Part 4: Toil and Trouble
5. Part 5: Extrudapalooza
6. Part 6: Electronics Testing
7. Part 7: I Love it When A Build Comes Together
8. Part 8: Calibration
9. Part 9: Fix It!
10. Part 10: Calibration (Part 2)
11. Part 11: Build Platform Blues
12. Part 12: Fix It! (Redux)
13. Part 13: Victory!
14. Part 14: Lessons Learned

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This is the 13th post in a series detailing my efforts to construct a RepRap Mendel, an open source 3D printer. For the rest of the build series, see here.

Introduction:

Previously, I built the printer, broke the hotend (twice), tore this thing apart and retooled it a half dozen times. It was not clear if this build would ever be done. Still, the hotend was working, electronics were working, everything except the printbed was working, and I seemed closer to victory than ever before…

Heated Printbed 2: Electric Boogaloo:

The problem with the printer was fairly simple: everything worked, but the plastic would not stick to the printbed. Originally, I used an aluminum printbed covered in Kapton tape with power resistors mounted to the bottom, a heated printbed. However, when testing the original heated printbed, one of the power resistors began to boil and give off smoke, prompting me to switch to an MDF bed covered in blue painter’s tape. Further discussion and analysis revealed I had inadvertently wired one of the power resistors in parallel with the other 3 in series when I constructed the original hated heated printbed. Oops…
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This is the 12th post in a series detailing my efforts to construct a RepRap Mendel, an open source 3D printer. For the rest of the build series, see here.

Introduction:

Last time, the RepRap Mendel was nearly working, with the exception that plastic was not sticking to the build platform. After attempting a variety of build platform materials and options, an astute IRC channel member noted that the heater block on my hotend was screwed all the way up the nozzle threading. As such, the plastic had a couple of centimeters and seconds to cool before reaching the printbed. In order for 3D printing to be done successfully, this issue was going to have to be resolved.

Not Again!

Last time I broke the hotend on my printer, I redesigned a bracket plate for the printer that improved the hotend mounting for my extruder considerably. As such, the hotend was considerably easier to remove this time around, and even didn’t require me to completely disassemble the X-carriage this time. Unfortunately, due to thermal expansion or a number of other possible explanations, the block was secured to the threads of the nozzle and would not budge. In attempting to unscrew the heater block, I broke one of the leads off the power resistor. Craaaaaaaap.
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The blog and forums have been somewhat quiet for the last week, and some of you may have been curious what we were up to.

NBitWonder is an open source hardware website and community, with a number of projects in development, by multiple developers. When you have multiple developers, things get written and thought about in different ways. This is fantastic when tackling problems and proposing solutions, but can make things nebulous and incoherent for end users and developers interested in your project. So what do you do? Standardize!
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For years, man has lived with the 8-bit micro-controller world.  And while endless amazing projects have been created with these humble chips, eventually the torch must be passed to the new kid on the block.  I’m talking about ARM processors.  Capable of running the most basic LED blinkers all the way up to powering your cell phone, the ARM processor with its 32-bit core has been making great strides in the world.

And right now, STMicroelectronics is helping you get into the world of ARM with their STM32F4 Discovery development board.

The STM32F4DISCOVERY helps you to discover the STM32F4 high-performance features and to develop your applications easily. It includes everything required for beginners and experienced users to get started quickly.

Based on the STM32F407VGT6, it includes an ST-LINK/V2 embedded debug tool, two ST MEMS, digital accelerometer and digital microphone, one audio DAC with integrated class D speaker driver, LEDs and push buttons and an USB OTG micro-AB connector.

The best part is, STMicroelectronics is currently allowing you to pick up one of these development boards for free.  Dangerous Prototypes first broke news of this offer, but didn’t know if boards were actually being sent out.  Well, just yesterday my personal Discovery development board came in the mail, and I can’t wait to start experimenting with it.  If you have any interest in tinkering with the 32-bit ARM world, make sure to head over to STMicro and request your own development board.

Day 2 of Maker Faire Fort Wayne was a good time, and warmer than day 1! Day 2 featured a number of interesting attractions, and some photos of the event are shown below:

The Fort Wayne Lincoln Pavilion, where Maker Faire Fort Wayne was held.
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