Admit it, you have always wanted to build a penny sized dinosaur

Well here is your chance! LVL1 is raising money to buy a laser cutter for the space. With a laser cutter you can do all sorts of neato things like this…

http://www.epiloglaser.com/sample_club.htm

Scroll thought the link and think about what you want to make. Then donate to the laser cutter fund. The sooner we make it to $2500, the sooner we can get a laser cutter for all to share. IT IS GONNA BE SO AWESOME!

Here is the Laser Cutter we are going to buy.

http://www.fullspectrumengineering.com/co2laserv2-40w.html

and a video of it in action…

As you can see, you want to give to this fund! Watch the progress bar on the right side of this blog to see how much further we have to go!

By using the donate button below you will be taken to Paypal to make a donation to the laser cutter fund. When you use this button the donation is earmarked for the laser cutter fund, not the general fund.

DO IT FOR THE DINO!

Another day, another repost from another project I’m working on. This time, from White Star Balloons, the world’s lightest quad helix antenna.

After the scrub on the launch pad for flight attempt A, we went back to the books, to try and figure out what we could do to improve our odds the next time around. One of our biggest setbacks was the inability make an antenna suitable for our use: We needed an antenna tuned for 149 MHz, not needing a ground plane, weighing as little as possible.

After 4 tries, and some expensive test equipment, the end result was a Quadrifilar Helix antenna weighing only 80 grams!

Our ground test antenna was a 5/8ths wave whip antenna, which works well, but unfortunately needs a ground plane. Tests with both a quarter-wave dipole and a J-pole antenna were lackluster. Documentation from our satellite service provider implied that a quadrifilar helix antenna would provide the best coverage at all. While these antennas are pretty, their design and construction was voodoo magic at first.

Thanks to some design documentation here: http://jcoppens.com/ant/qfh/index.en.php and some help from the balloon community, we had some baselines for creating such an antenna. We still went through *quite* a few revisions.  We went through 3 revisions that didn’t work, and one which works pretty darn well!

Here are the antennas which didn’t work:

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally posted on my personal blog, Meat and Networking.

LVL1 is great.  A place for creative and motivated people to get together and goad each-other into doing more creative things.  It’s also a great gathering place for tools, as well as knowledge.  A few months ago, the spoiled electrical engineer that I am, I never would have considered making my own PCBs.  Any project worth taking off the breadboard was worth sending to China to get made “right.”

Of course, there isn’t always time and money to send something to China.  Today’s installment is the Sumo-bot board I’m trying to put together for the Hive13 sumobot competition.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like poor Snoopy bot will make it to the ring, but the board making process itself is worth talking about.

Laying out a PCB using software like Eagle is beyond the scope of this post.  If you can follow the appropriate Sparkfun Tutorial, it’s pretty easy to pick up.  Something to note:  for single sided home-made PCBs, put all traces and surface mount components on the BOTTOM layer.  Put any necessary jumpers on the top layer.  When you’re ready to print, just turn off all the layers you don’t want turned into copper.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dale Dougherty, Make Magazine publisher did this nice Ted talk on Makers. If you are ever looking for a good way to tell people what LVL1 is all about, have them watch this video. BTW, Dale is from Louisville and visited our Hackerspace last summer.

We are having a Car-B-Gone workshop at the space this afternoon. Sorry we did not get the Eventbright announcement up. Just show up to build your very own Car-B-Gone tonight at 8-ish. If you do not know what a Car-B-Gone is… it is another fine Mitch Altman project. Read about it here

Following the Car-B-Gone workshop will be the ever popular Beer-B-Gone workshop. Hope to see everyone there.

Brian

A son of one of LVL1′s members got a little too close to a bandsaw over the Christmas break… Remember, safety first! But what started as a lesson on what *not* to do (i.e. don’t be too cavalier with a bandsaw) turned into a nice lesson on DIY stitches. Why would you stitch yourself up? His explanation was “something something waiting rooms something something scar tissue.”

Remember if you can’t fix your body, you don’t own your body.

Just in time for the holidays! Build a small & simple, but very powerful USB charger for your iPod, iPhone, mp3 player, camera, cell phone, and just about any other gadget you can plug into a USB port to charge! Perfect holiday gift! Only $35 – cheap!

Sign up for the class here: http://wiki.lvl1.org/MintiBoost

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1000984973

The LVL1 Hackerspace will be hosting a Surface Mount Soldering

Workshop on Saturday, November 20th, 2010 from 1 to 5pm.  This
workshop will teach you the basics of soldering surface mount
components with a standard soldering iron, using a standard soldering
iron tip.   You’ll be given the tools required to build your own
surface mount projects, and during the workshop, you’ll work on
assembling your own Open Balloon CPU (A design of LVL1′s own White
Star Balloon Team).  You’ll solder 0805 Resistors and Capacitors, 1206
LEDs, and TQFP Microcontrollers, among others.  You’ll learn about the
packages  which can be hand soldered, and the packages which cannot,
along with the techniques required to assemble a working board.

At the end of the workshop, you’ll walk out with the knowledge and
skills required to build any reasonable surface mount project, along
with your own Open Balloon CPU.  These tools include small-gauge
solder, flux, non-magnetic tweezers, and a magnifying loupe.  The Open
Balloon CPU you’ll be assembling is a VERY general purpose sensor
platform, which can be used for a variety of projects which aren’t
related to Balloons or UAVs whatsoever.  Aside from the form factor of
the PCB, everything about the electronics design is generalized for
whatever development the user sees fit.  We will be outfitting the
Balloon CPU with a temperature sensor and Microcontroller, along with
all the passive components required to burn code onto the chip.  If
desired, workshop attendees may add additional sensors (a Real Time
Clock and/or a Barometer) for additional cost.

If you can read newsprint, and have a reasonably steady hand, you can
solder surface mount components!  We will also be doing demonstrations
of hot-air soldering and hotplate reflow soldering, to provide a small
taste of even more advanced soldering techniques.  We can provide
soldering irons, but if you would prefer to bring your own, feel free.
We also recommend you bring a laptop.  If you’ve got an FTDI cable
and AVR programmer, you can start hacking at your balloon CPU
immediately!

For a preview of the skills we’ll be teaching, watch this Youtube
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NN7UGWYmBY

Note:  If we do not fill at least 12 seats by November 10th, 2010, the
workshop will be cancelled, and all tickets will be refunded.  Sign up
early, and sign up often!  Any questions, feel free to send them to
bradluyster (at) gmail.com

Sign up early, and sign up often!  Seating is limited.  Buy tickets at eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1000984973

Circuit-bending rock band CMKT 4 will be in town for a workshop on contact mics. They manufacture and sell bottle cap contact mics and plan to show how they do it. Bring cash if you want to purchase materials.

From CMKT 4:

We are circuit-bending rock band CMKT 4. We manufacture and sell bottle cap contact mics. We teach workshops about the process we use to make our microphones.

We price the workshops at $15 per person, which includes materials and instruction. Additional DIY kits are available at $10 apiece. We’ll also have finished mics for sale. We encourage people to bring instruments to which to add a piezo pickup or they can make a stand-alone model for use on various instruments.