L̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶r̶t̶i̶e̶s̶, Early Fourties, Tools, Electronics, Life
Been reading way too many maker blogs. Here's my contribution
Not much of an update, I put a shorter USB cable inside so thought I’d take some pictures of the top of the USB cable wiring…..
I’ve not installed heatshrink yet on the sticky-outy USB Pins – this WILL be needed to provide strain relief – being truthful, I hadn’t expected it to work first time so didn’t bother 🙂
Showing the complete wiring –
Joystick USB port -> USB Hub ‘output’
Keyboard -> USB Hub ‘output’
C64Mini Circuit board -> USB Hub ‘input’
There’s two free internal USB sockets now!
Spent a few hours this week adding an internal USB Hub, getting ready to start on a basic instruction sheet for the kits
As can be seen – you can’t see it’s modded externally (well, other than the keyboard). Both external USB ports still work and internally there’s a free USB port for a USB Stick 🙂
Continue reading “C64 Mini Keyboard – ‘Invisible’ fitting mod”
The inserts arrived – and they look fantastic
I hand soldered them using 2 year expired solder paste and a hot air gun
Continue reading “Spectrum Next Light strips – more! – FIRST LIGHT”
Had a little bit of a play with the daughterboard to see if there’s any possibility of putting a ‘push push’ SD card inside…
Unfortunately it isn’t without chopping at a couple of supports inside. I’m trying to keep my Next case fairly minty – untill it’s possible to get another, i’m going to avoid this mod.
The reasons it won’t fit – The case was designed with two ‘helper’ guide rails for the SD card – shown in yellow in the images above. Those rails stop any push-push mechanisms from working – there’s just not enough mounting depth for the card reader.
Now, if someone were prepared to snip those rails off….then it’s entirely possible to knock up a new daughterboard……I’ve already done most of the EDA before I thought to take the next apart and check 🙂
Bit of a change of pace from the electronics, onto the CAD…Here’s a first draft of the first key on the C64 Keyboard – the Left Arrow!
Done at full scale, then at 50% scale
Continue reading “C64 Mini Keyboard, 1/2 alive and Some CAD”
Here’s the Money Shot!………….
And some of the journey so far……….
Not much really – Shift Lock keys just arrived off the slow boat. The pinouts are confirmed, I’m going to hit ‘go’ to manufacture after another quick check on the PCB
Also, from a bit of researching, i’m not so sure the Diodes are needed.
I may have to make two batches of board, one with, one without
After a loooong weekend and sneaking in a few hours – Success with the keyboard layout dimensions!
There’s few tweaks here and there remaining to align things perfectly and also to add some nice Silk Screen artwork
And, how I got there!
After spending a while lining up the buttons and generally making the PCB layout a bit tidy, I figured I’d print a 1:1 and see just how well it aligns….
Oops…
Continue reading “C64 Mini Keyboard mod – More Electronics Part II – OOPS”
There’s Plenty of Volume – But what switches can be used to put inside the keyboard?
I’m not too worried about the electronics side right now, there’s plenty of Arduino keyboard emulator tutorials out there.
It’s been a busy personal and work life for the past few weeks so it’s been difficult to ‘tinker’……….I have however made something new!………….. Continue reading “Wanhao Duplicator 9 – New X Axis parts coming”
I’ve designed another thing that solves some more problems with the D9 – a Belt tensioner!
I’ve posted this up on Thingiverse……….
It’s been printed at least 10 times by guys on the facebook group and provides an immediate and cheap improvement over the stock……..
Everything’s gone superbly up to now…The printer’s levelled all lovely like.
The bed moves back and forth as it should.
So, lets try a first brand new print , as I already have one printed months ago, which I broke due to not enough infill…It’ll be a good ‘benchmark’
Wanhao D9 Idler mount from Thingverse
Err, doesn’t look great does it….The first layer went down lovely, then at some point during these first 6 or so layers, a shift happened, there’s some blobbing, and, well, it ain’t too pretty.
First thoughts are many expletives, followed by a ‘ah well, that was a fun experiment’ resignation.
The rails aren’t perfectly frictionless in their moving, but they aren’t bad either..I’ve seen worse on automated production lines….Could I be experiencing STICTION????
If so, that’s gonna be some mechanical engineering stuff i’m going to have to figure out…Whilst ‘fun’ trying to calculate stuff with excel, wikipedia and various internet forums (are the MGN12 ideal for this job? – who knows?)…..I don’t fancy being bored, typing crap out on a computer (yes, i’m blogging, typing stuff out on a computer, hopefully not crap), I want to get stuck into tinkering, printing…..
I try another print and just stand and watch……
I luckily and quickly notice an odd ‘cyclic’ type of motion happening with the pattern laying down, almost a tiny figure of 8 type of motion happening on the print head with respect to the bed…..
I have a look underneath to see what’s causing it, maybe the bearings are wobbling, or i’ve not tightend the rails properly?
In summary –
Tighten the belt holder holding nuts when you re-assemble the thing! these ones shown below…..
Ok, the rails are on and working a treat, kind of…
The right angled fittings I purchased to secure the 20×20 extrusion to the 40×40 have some little tabs on them, I can’t find any readily available way of securely making this connection with off the shelf parts so i’ll have to grind down one side’s tabs…
The slight amount of pressure this tab is putting on the extruision is enough to twist it and stop the MGN rails from running smoothly!
View from below…if I add a little drop down to the right hand carriage, it’ll be easy to re-use the existing limit switch by mounting it on the side of the 2020
Close ups of the existing limit switch and the protrusions on the right angled mounting block.
Overall, minor things , but shows you should plan things a little in advance and test fit stuff before ‘going for it’
Fortunately this is nothing a quick angle grind and carriage print can’t fix….which means re-assembling the original printer to print a new bit, D’oh!
What’s more sensible than spending $9USD on a basic, possibly non working chinese no-name bearing block?
……..Spending hours and a few quid trying to do ’em up!
Parts I’ll need…
After a few minutes with the calipers and Tinkercad, I give you………. Continue reading “MGN12H crappy linear rail bearing blocks”
As you can gather, I get a little sidetracked, this thing’s a 3D printer and, well, I’ve not done a huge amount of 3D printering yet……….Ah well
Lets go back to DWIN.com.cn
The T5 Processor on the back of the LCD
Continue reading “Wanhao Duplicator 9 – D9 – Technical ‘stuff’ – Part Deux, the LCD Part number!”
Getting right into the guts of this thing, there’s a few basic discoveries
There’s two names on the market –
Monoprice MP Maker Pro Mk.1 is an alternate supplier of this printer – Externally they look identical!
Main Board
Continue reading “Wanhao Duplicator 9 – D9 – Technical ‘stuff’”
During the unboxing, a bit of an oddity showed up, the build plate didn’t look level at all
taking a picture from the front, looking in, it’s clear that the height between the plate and that block thing is quite a bit more on the right, than the left
