This week, I have been mostly working on… — Laser Harps, Tesla Coils, and Killer Space Robots

…making some initial cuts with the CO2 Laser

October 4, 2011

Yes! Finally, after several iterations we have the installed, aligned and focused CO2 laser wreaking some serious havoc on a piece of MDO. There are still many tests to run and various safety mechanisms to install, but the system works, and is aligned over a 24″ x 24″ area (at least). I can think of [...]

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…installing the laser tube

September 28, 2011

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I finally got the tube installed in its new home. However I’ve now realized that it’s 4″ too short and I need to build a new base and position it correctly . Still, I hooked up the cooling system, and thankfully there are no leaks – I gave [...]

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…building my Destructor(tm) beam

September 25, 2011

More progress in the laser/CNC saga. I built a cage from steel and MDO for the laser tube – fits really nicely. Next step is to add the first bounce mirror which will turn the beam straight up – into a PVC tube attached with plumbing flanges (The sales assistant at Menard’s asked me what [...]

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…fixing up a Roland Juno 60 synthesizer

September 18, 2011

A couple of years ago I bought a Roland Juno 60 from eBay. It was in “fairly good” condition but was very dirty and the faders did not work properly. There also seemed to be a sticky (beer?) substance on all the keys that was less than attractive. Additionally the programs weren’t being saved correctly [...]

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Laser Cutter 2.0 : That is one big *ss tube…

September 10, 2011

Good news! The laser tube, power supply and cooling system arrived yesterday. The 80W tube is *MASSIVE* – even though I knew the dimensions before I ordered it, I guess my subconscious had chosen to ignore the fact of exactly how long this thing was going to be. Hmmmm… I might have to move my [...]

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…an update to the laser cutter / mill saga

August 30, 2011

It turns out that the laser tube I have will not work with the generic PSU units on E-bay. Not entirely sure why this is, but I did notice that the insulation on the tube is starting to *melt* so maybe it’s time to move on. So… it looks like my only option right now [...]

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…quite possible the most complex thing I’ve ever built.

August 24, 2011

As part of the “Great Create” I was challenged by my buddies at Make magazine to complete a set of projects only using parts from Radio Shack. For my first project they tasked me with reproducing the rather excellent 555-timer “Whack-a-Mole” game created by Jim Chen. This one was tough… oh yes… very tough. Eventually [...]

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…fixing “Plugged in, not charging” in Windows 7

August 22, 2011

I had to dust off an older laptop recently and found to my dismay that the battery was not charging under Windows 7. Apparently this is a common problem – my laptop is an HP DV9730US, but many makes and models all seem to have the same issue. I tried the fixes that involve removing [...]

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Adding a laser cutter to the BlackToe CNC Mill

August 6, 2011

It’s time I took the CO2 laser from the Chinese cutter and attached it to the gantry of my BlackToe CNC mill. Effectively increasing the size of the cutting bay from the tiny 5×8″ to a whopping 2′x 4′ – the small size of the cutting area was starting to become annoying – and it seemed ridiculous [...]

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At the Maker Faire in Detroit

July 31, 2011

Spending the weekend up at the Maker Faire in Detroit. Check out the Maker Faire Daily stream for more info. UPDATE : Just got back from the Faire – always a pleasure to go to these, and nice that they’re more local than San Francisco now… Wow lot’s of stuff to see and do. The [...]

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