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Accidental Miniature Guggenheim
A little spring I made out of acrylic:
Acrylic Spring
Cad.py circuit cutting tutorial
A while ago, I created a very detailed PDF tutorial on how to use cad.py to cut a Hello World circuit on the Modela mill. I thought some people may find it useful, but did not have a good place to post it until now. Here is an example page:
The enitre tutorial can be download from here: Modela_cadpy_circuit_making_tutorial
Please comment with corrections, suggestions, etc.
how to add a new post with images
First, log in with your user name and password. For those of you who participated in the “Hello World Kit” workshop in Pune, I probably sent you an email with your username which for most people is your first name or last name. It is not your entire email address. Email me if you have any problems with this.
Once you log in you are taken to the Dashboard.
The Dashboard
On the left hand side of the Dashboard screen you will see a panel called “Posts”. When you click on “Posts” it will expand and give you several options. You want to “Add New” post.
Add New Post
This takes you to a new page called “Add New Post“. Here you type in the title of your post entry as well as the main text of the entry in the center section. You can use all the formatting buttons to make the text look exactly how you wish. When you are finished you just hit the blue “Publish” button on the right and the blog will automatically insert your name and the date.
Add New Post page
Now if you want to add photos, put the cursor where you want the image to to go and click on the little rectangle-in-a-rectange right next to the words that say “Upload/Insert”. Do you see that? It is in the center column and under the title of the post. If you hold your mouse over it (no clicking) and wait a little bit it will pop up a message that the icon means “Add an Image”. Click on the icon.
Add New Image icon
Clicking on the icon will pop up another window on top of the post editing window. Here, you can either select the images from your hard drive using the “From Computer” tab or if you have already uploaded the image or want to reuse one that someone else has uploaded, change to the “Media Library” tab where you will be able to select all the photos that have been uploaded on to the server already.
Add an Image / From Computer
Add an Image / From Media Library
Now select the picture and it will be inserted where you had your mouse. If you don’t like that, just drag it to where you want it to go. When you’re all done you can hit the blue “Publish” button on the right side column.
All done! Happy blogging…
Help With JTAG’s
Okay I know that this blog is for hello world circuits. But then I guess debugging the circuits is as important. I wanted to use JTAG’s to debug my circuits. I cannot find enough literature about JTAG’s. I will be using OpenOCD with JTAGs. Can anyone help me?
Gautam Akiwate
Hello World circuit examples
Several different example Hello World circuits:
A picture of me in our newly expanded Fab Lab
Hello World Circuits
Here is a PDF document that contains screen captures of each of the Hello World circuits along with a listing of which components are needed.
Cad.py configuration help
Window size, editor width, height – control how CAD.PY software interface is displayed on screen.
x min and y min – define distance from bottom left corner of machine plate to the bottom left corner of part.
x width and y height – defines the size of the part
zmin, zmax, nz – used to define depth of cut (zmin), height of clearance moves (zmax), and number of cuts (nz).
Intensity min and intensity max – used to adjust thresholds for grayscale conversion. Valid range is 1 to 255 (black = 1 and white = 255)
Inches per unit – used to allow for other unit of measurement (e.g. mm). Should be 1.0 for inches.
invert image – used to invert image (make negative). Black becomes white and white becomes black.
input – source file. Either *.cad format (text programs written for cad.py – e.g. alien.cad) or *.jpg (jpeg bitmap graphics)
render – displays results of above setting. Be sure to re-apply if you make changes.
cam – open options relative to different equipment (modela, laser, roland, etc.)
maximum vector fit error – should be 0.75
tool diameter – size of tool you are using (1/64 = 0.015625”, 1/32 = 0.03125”, 1/16 = 0.0625”, 1/8 = 0.125”)
tool overlap – how much to overlap between tool cut passes. Typically 0.5 for half the diameter of the tool.
# contours – how many contours around geometry. Typically 1 for an outline or -1 to make all passes need to remove material around profile.
xy speed, and z speed – defines cutting speed. Differs depending upon material, depth of cut, diameter of tool, etc
x and y – used to immediately move machine to a location on the table. Typically used to manually set tool height.
send to machine – send the program to the machine so it cuts the part. Once it is sent you can’t do anything else with CAD.PY or the Modela until it is done.
