The Great Shoe-String Budget 3D Printer

Alright alright, so I never posted those CAD models. I have them all, except maybe the fans, and I even got started on designing the case for Project Abraham! However, I ran into one small hiccup: 3D printing the case would cost more than double the entire rest of the project combined.

That's kind of a problem.

So, among other things, my new most important project is a dirt cheap 3D printer. Anybody who's done even a little research knows that 3D printers aren't cheap, and even if you try to build one it requires all sorts of hoity-toity stepper motors, thermocouples, and thermal-barrier tubes. This is most certainly not a student-friendly pursuit--that is, not until today. I, along with my friend, mentor, local-deity-of-rapid-prototyping and penny-wise designing engineer Harry, have decided we will embark on the noble quest of bringing the thought of household 3D printers within the budgets of John Everyman. After chatting over Steam for less than an hour, we already have two major ideas: one to replace the usual stepper motor, and another that is actually a whole different spatial representation of a 3D printing model. Simply put, we're off to a good start. I'll see you all again when we've got some working prototypes!

K

Don't Tell Tom

The full wiring diagram is finally finished!

I'm going to ignore the bit about the Wavebird transceivers.  And the small incongruities. And the lack of all external buttons and switches needed for a Wiikey. 

Speaking of the Wiikey, I suppose I must finally admit defeat in the face of tiny soldering. The one that I had ordered was one that was ten dollars less expensive than the least I could possibly pay (I know, I'm too extravagant) because the connecter had superglue in it. To make a long workday short, I thought I could get the glue out. I couldn't. Thought I could solder straight to the board. I couldn't. So now I'm ordering another, with all the things I have to order.

I have also come up with a completion "deadline" - Sunday, two week's time from today. Deadline is in quotations because my real deadline is Thanksgiving Break, as that is when my nerd friends get back from University of Wyoming. Also, it is very possible that shipping will delay things far beyond two weeks, but it should still be close.

I'll try to get pictures of all my CAD models up tomorrow, and I'm ordering everything but the plastic for the case tonight.

Until next time,

-K

They Said it Could Not be Done

And they were wrong. Because I have a fully wired prototype.

Teh-dehh

Or rather, almost fully wired. I'm still working on the WiiKey, as the connector was messed up and in an attempt to fix it I broke the whole thing off, meaning I now have to solder directly. And soldering directly is freaking hard.

Anyways, lots of big developments since my last update. This is all moving along quite quickly, thanks to finally finding someone to invest in it. Also, the lab in which this setup currently resides was a recent addition to my school (details below). In order to put it in, they had to tear out a computer lab, and of course all the monitors were given to the robotics team to sell. And of course, we took the best ones for ourselves, cannibalizing a few others for their speaker bars. Now, there were a couple leftover--everything to the right of the Gamecube motherboard is what was inside. Sound quality is decent, it comes with a built-in volume control/power switch, two 3.5mm headphone jacks, and runs off of 12v.

Now on to the fun part: everything you see above took me about two hours altogether I think, possibly less. At first I was having some issues with the LCD control board (the tall one sticking straight up) as I would plug it in and the connector would just get really, really hot. Turned out to be a simple mistake, the connector was in upside-down and was shorting out. Easy fix. In pleasant news also pertaining to the controller board, I hadn't realized it came with a ton of goodies, such as HDMI in, AV out, a remote control, and a USB port that allows me to play things off a flash drive. All of these things, I intend to leave in the final product. I do intend to re-solder some things on the board, laying down capacitors and removing non-NTSC ports, but other than that minimal work needs to be done. My only complaint is that the board takes about 30 seconds to warm up before you can actually turn it on.

Next I shall tell you that I have decided against the built-in Wavebird connectivity, though the sold item will still come with a customized one. I figured that between the switches, the transceivers (very hard to buy independently), and the extra space, it just wasn't worth it.

For power, I have also decided against a custom regulator. the Wiikey will run off the Gamecube's 3.3v line. as I'm told, using a custom set for a 12v (really 11.1v) battery just wouldn't give me enough of a boost, again, thanks to cost and space. However, since it will run on three of these batteries, connected by this protection circuit and charged by this charger, I should get between one and two hours playtime. I'll probably still need a 12v regulator, but thats all. My final comment on the batteries is that since this is mostly intended for long car trips with friends, there will be a port for an external battery pack, likely of the same nature as the aforementioned LiPo cells.

Before you leave due to boredom, I give you the one, the only, the long awaited...

Video of it booting up.

Yes, I know. It's late, I'm tired, and I don't want to bother editing it out. It happens to be the teacher who runs that lab, and who immensely enjoys spooking me because I'm jumpy.

Speaking of that lab, it's called the FabLab, short for Fabrication Laboratory. It features three Makerbot Replicator 2's, two 60 watt Epilogue Laser Engravers, a CNC machine, a vinyl cutter, its own computer room (complete with tons of CAD and programming software), some very nice soldering equipment, a whole host of miscellaneous tools, and enough Arduinos to play Portal 2. 

And guess who's the technician for it.

See him majestically survey his domain.

It's usually pretty nice, though stuff keeps breaking, so I'm pretty busy most of the time. The only downside is dealing with students. Nothing reminds you of your loathing for people like sitting in a room a noisy, sweaty kids. 

That's all for now. Photography is courtesy of my lovely assistant Stephanie, who will be appearing in many posts to come. 

And on that note I must say good night. I hope to see you again next post, when Abraham shall not only play games, but do it without a power socket.

-K

I Can See

Almost. Well I've had a productive day at least.

After an hour and a half Carefully trying not to strip screws or lose any parts, I finally pulled this beautiful thing out of my brothers 2009 Macbook:

It's a 13.3 inch, LED backlit piece of awesome. it also has a near 16:9 aspect ratio, which I like very much. And, after a bit of shopping, I decided that I will be running it off of this controller board.

This project now has a real name as well. From this point forward, it is

*dramatic pause*





Project Abraham.



I think I have decided on the battery stuff I'm going to be using, and as you read this I am working on the proper, final wiring diagram, the one that includes all the stuff about the things.

My next step is to finally order and test out a WKF. Wish me luck!!

Leap!

I just signed up to become a Leap Motion Developer! I'm picking simple things to start out with, soon I'll be playing the most realistic game of Minecraft ever.

If you dont know what leap is, check leapmotion.com for a really cool demo.

Wii are Having Some Trouble

Amazingly enough--or not, based on Nintendo's previous record--my Nintendo Wii has

finally

FINALLY

after seven years of hard work

hours gaming, being left on, tantrums and power outs

had an issue.

It's okay girl, I'll have you all better soon.

Symptoms: Patient arrived saying owners were attempting to give her a gamecube game, which she had trouble accepting. After several attempts to insert the disk, they tried inserting it a little off center, at which point the disk was not returned, but also not recognized. Owners went to watch pokemon movie.  Suggest immediate diagnostic surgery.

With minimal help from the internet, I got the top off.

If you look closely, you can see the orange bit is my Conflict: Desert Storm disk. A little more poking around and I had the disk drive free.

Soon after I had gotten the game out. Blowing off some dust, I couldn't determine what was causing the jam. So, I reassembled the important parts, and wired it up for a test.

Now for the fun part: I put a wii game in, gave it a little nudge like I always do. That worked fine. Eject. Next, instead of putting Conflict back in, I stuck it in just enough to get things moving, and noticed that the main roller looked like it was going up and down. Put the game in, jam. With a Sienfeld moment in mind, I nudged the game out and determined my issue: a worn down disk drive roller, the gout of the gaming life. Now I make a call to my brother (co-owns the console) to find out if he just wants a replacement drive or a J-tag type addition. He decided on a replacement drive, and I'm going to make that order so we can keep our trusty Wii.

A long post for a simple problem, but I'm trying to make the blag look....established so that people are more likely to take interest.

Until next time. -J

Food

I give you:

Inter-Continental Breakfast

(shown here as a midnight snack)

Fry bacon, turkey or pork. If pork, drain some of the grease from the pan before continuing. Next throw some fully cooked pasta noodles into the remaining bacon grease, over medium-high heat. Pour some Roasted Garlic and Herb Prego or marinara of choice (about 1.5 times the normal amount you would use for that serving of pasta) over the noodles. Immediately crack two eggs over as well. Stir thoroughly until egg is fully cooked. 

Serve with a cherry-based juice.

This is frankensnack that was created due to the fact that no one had gone shopping in about 2 weeks.  Despite this, it turned out to be very good, having a mild flavor  where you first get the egg and then the spice of the marinara. All in all one of my better experiments.

A Different Project

So, a friend of mine wants me to help him out with a project he's working on. So far we think it'll be comic, and if i get my way it'll go full animated at one point.

Wish me luck!

Yeah

Also, excuse the messiness of the blog, still working on all the graphic design stuff.

The Very Second Post

Enter the GCScreen. (title pending)

A first attempt for many things: a console mod, portablizing something, making an original case, and others. But that's not why you're reading.

Components:

WiiKey Fusion (replaces disk drive with SD card)

Gamecube revision C motherboard

4 Wavebird controller receivers (optional)

Cellular phone speakers

10-inch (I hope?) LCD screen

Lithium-ion batteries

Some kind of custom-made case

Features/Capabilities:

Will play all Nintendo console games up to Gamecube

Optional AV out to play on larger screen/speakers

Minimum 1 hour battery life, rechargeable

Built-in Wavebird connectivity

1 custom-made Wavebird controller

That's about all I can confirm right now. I have already begun prepwork on my mobo and working on pinouts, and am now shopping around for an LCD and a pair of portable speakers I can cannibalize. More updates will come as things develop.

The Very First Post

Hello, and welcome to Contents Explosive, a blag I have created in order to document various ideas and concepts, as well as actual physical projects that I work on. Hopefully you'll be seeing a lot of starting content, as I have quite a bit built up already that I will be uploading. 

It is worth noting that this site has a sister blag, "Lights, Camera, Duct tape", that will be used for more technical details of the same content, where applicable.