Monthly Archives: February 2012

CNC future developments

Now that the milling machine is under PC control, I need a road map of what further changes I am going to make to it.

– E-Switch
– Continuity switch for detecting edge of parts (and determining the height/location of the tool)
– Limit Switches
– Spindle Control (both speed and on/off)

Book printing

Book printing out of china.

http://www.diyausa.com/

Got a quote for a 100 page book (same paper as Blurb basic paper), hard cover, bound for $13, based on order quantity of 300. In quantities of $100, the cost is $33 per book.

And speaking ob making books, I’d be needing other software to design books other then blurbs Book Smart software.

Scribus is a free open source package. To insert folders full of images into the layout, read this.

UPDATE:

Doing some number crunching, and even though the individual book cost is pretty cheap (at 300 pieces), at the end of the day the the offer is not that much more attractive then the cost that Blurb charges per book.

AF Assistant v3.2 development

Work has been progressing on a newer version of the AF Assistant. The next incremental version (v3.2) will be made using surface mount components, and extra safety precautions have been added to protect the camera from any unwanted electrical signals.
Both inputs from the camera are isolated using buffers, and the ground is protected against reverse voltage.

Testing on this new design should start soon, and once complete all new AF Assistants will be built using this process.

 

AF Assistant news

I’ve decided to use the version 3.x set of identifiers for my AF Assistant as the one battery, line laser based system. Plan is to also develop a near IR version of this tool, and that will be version 4.x.
So for now all current development of the one battery, line laser model will fall under the 3.x naming designation.

Installing EagleCAD 6.1.0 on OpenSuse 12.1 64bit

First try I did not get eagle to install in a 64bit linux OS.
Gave up and installed it on a Win7 VM instead so I could start using it.

Tried again today, and figured it out.

The error I was getting initially was

/tmp/eagle-setup.16234/eagle-6.1.0/bin/eagle: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The reason this message came up was because I needed to have the 32bit version of libjpeg-8 library installed. By default I guess opensuse only installs the 64bit version (since I’m running a 64bit OS).

Just had to go in the Yast -> Package Manager and search for libjpeg, and select the 32bit version of the libjpeg-8 libraries.