California Eclipses the Sky; The Space Race Begins Now!
My fellow desert creatures, for a few gripping minutes, a new moon rose over the skies of the People's Republic of California to do what all things Californian do and look down on everything else. A near-space weather balloon devised at the clandestine* Noisebridge hackerspace reached the edge of space, bringing back pics because it did happen.
This may seem like a playful act of sportsmanship, launched in preparation for Workshop 88's Annual Space Blimp Contest and for teh lulz, but be warned! This show of one-up-ness is but the first of a new arsenal of Californian space power, no doubt a scheme from the office of Premier Schwarzenegger himself to accelerate the neo-colonization of our beloved Grand Canyon State. Will the next spacecraft stay confined to Californian skies? Or will it ascend to the Final Frontier only to descend south and east, bringing with it unknown terrors? Will our children, pets, or stray javelinas and jackrabbits who tear up our prickly gardens be safe from this invasion from above? I dare not ask that question--but I will dare; I will dare our own hackerspace, newborn babe it may be, to pull together its resources and Sonoran ingenuity to build its own craft to add a copper star to their western skyline.
We must unite, for all our shared culture is at stake; The polygamy of Mojave county, ghosts of Jerome, power crystals of Sedona, trailer parks of East Mesa, valium-vodka cocktails of Scottsdale, hot-dogs-with-bacon-around-them of Tucson, and yes, the light roasted coffee of Tempe, all face the specter of San Francisco's dominion. Ready your will, your skills, and visit our Nearspace Balloon wiki page to see how you can contribute in our effort to boldly go where no Arizona hackerspace has gone before!
* Well, it's really hard to find just walking down Mission street because of all the fruit stands.
This Week: Two Thirds Into Three Dimensions of Plastic Printing
Photo by .dh. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
We're inching closer and closer to victory on our RepRap 3D printer. Earlier this month, we completed assembling virtually all circuitry, although there were some setbacks and some ICs have to be reseated. The X carriage components are also nearing completion. We've also worked on the RepRap on off-meeting days when our Board members happened to show up on a whim. If you'd like to join us on our sporadic adventures at Gangplank, keep a close eye on us on Twitter.
At our meeting this week, we plan to continue constructing the X axis, the extruder, and begin the construction of the Y axis components. We also need to reseat the aforementioned ICs (WANTED: heat gun). To keep track of the status of our progress in between meetings, check out the project's wiki page.
Meeting starts at 7pm at Gangplank on February 18th and runs until the last person leaves.
Gangplank is located on the southeast corner of Elliot and Arizona Ave at:
325 East Elliot Rd. Suite 34
Chandler, AZ 85225
Hacking a Honda Tail Light
Editor's Note: As part of my position as Editor at HeatSync Labs, I get to put on a reporter hat and take the spotlight of the Information Super Highway on our local Arizona makers, hackers, and tinkerers. If you or anyone you know is building something pretty awesome and they're within driving distance, leave a comment and I'll see if I can follow up on it. This $timeFrame's features maker is Nate Plamondon, who is creating a home brew tail light for his Honda motorcycle.
Here in the MC we're known for having some pretty bad car drivers running the streets. Nate rides a motorcycle, so he knows this first hand. Since cagers auto drivers are sometimes too busy discussing the latest episode of LOST on their iPhones while smacking their kids around in the backseat for spilling Cactus Cooler on the upholstery, they don't always notice the bikers they share the road with. Nate wanted to try to fix this problem by making his tail light brighter, but The Man wanted to charge him between $60 to $300 for a conversion kit, and he thought that was “a little excessive for a flashing friggin' light.”
“This one is about $10 in parts, although that's also with $50 worth of new tools and failed prototypes.” Nate showed me his latest prototype, the third version of a series of prototypes. “The first one just failed, the second one used 50 LEDs and far, far too much power... and it didn't fit.” The current model was sketched out first, and ExpressPCB (on Windows; Sadly they don't yet have a Linux client) was used to design the circuitry.
Photo by .dh. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.
This model contains 26 red LEDs for running and brake light as well as 2 white LEDs to illuminate a license plate, which is right below the tail light housing. The three-line cable connecting it to the bike's lighting system brings two different voltage sources in; One is always on (normal running light) and the other one is applied when the brakes are hit. The power in a bike tail light socket is made to handle a 5-watt running, 21-watt brake bulb, and since this uses LEDs, they draw a lot less power. The combined 26 LEDs on this draw ~2 watts running and ~4 watts brake at full power with all LEDs active.
This Week: Two Meetings for the Price of One!
Photo by .dh. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License.
This is the month we move back to our original meeting schedule--the first and third Thursday of the month, that is! Same bat time, same bat place. That means that Arduino night, which takes place on the first Wednesday of the month, and the next HeatSync Labs meeting, which takes place on the first Thursday of the month, will be back-to-back this week, like peanut butter and jelly nutella and bananas. Can't decide which one? (PROTIP: Do both). Here's the scoop on each:
Arduino Night (Wed) 7:00 pm|az @ Gangplank - Conference Room
If you have any interest in learning about the hottest thing to come from Italy since Monica Belluci, check out Arduino night. Whether you're just getting your feet wet in microcontrollers or are a closeted PIC controller programmer, you'll have the company of a wide skill range of Arduino hackers to collaborate with, as well as some HSL laptops with the Arduino software preloaded.
HSL Meeting (Thurs) 7:00 pm|az @ Gangplank - Commons Area
We're working full speed ahead on our RepRap printer. At this point, over 50% of our plastic parts have been printed, thanks to Jeremy, Karl, Rene, and more. At our previous meeting, we wrapped up a lot of dip soldering, reflow soldering, and got more than half of the cables made. This week we'll be testing and programming circuit boards, building the extruder, and wrapping up most of the wiring. As always, you're welcome to bring in your own project and work on it with us too.
At both events, we'll have t-shirts for sale and subscription forms for Make magazine available if you prefer not to do it online. You can also give us cash if you'd like!
About
Memberships and Donations
HeatSync Store
Your shopping cart feels empty inside!Visit The Shop
Connect
