On November 24th and 25th Kwartzlab participated in “The G33k Art Show” held in the rotunda of Kitchener’s City Hall.

Posted in Events | Tags: events, g33k art show, timelapse

This week I tried running the board mill while monitoring the serial line using a software-based serial line analyzer app (SerialMon) and found that, as I suspected, the data being sent on the serial line is not what is being traced by the BoardMaster app in its “ComTrace.txt” file. What I am seeing on the serial trace makes much more sense, and is not surprisingly accepted by the mill when I send the same commands directly using Hyperterminal.

We haven’t really got the mill any closer to working but we have more specific symptoms. One is that, when we ask BoardMaster to change tools, we get the error:

You have attempted to stop the tool exchange procedure. Task is aborted!

I have not been able to get any information online concerning this message, but the serial trace reveals that the last command sent to the mill was !RD5 for the HF board (which means Read Port 5), and the response was zero. If we want to determine what else might be expected, we would have to trace the circuit on the HF board and make some assumptions about how “port 5″ maps to CPU pins.

A straightforward interpretation would be that these port numbers refer directly to the CPU’s GPIO port banks, and an examination of the results of !RD6 while we operate various microswitches tends to support this view.

The other anomaly is that, once we convince BoardMaster that there is a bit loaded in the spindle chuck, telling it to spin it up seems to send the appropriate commands but does nothing (i.e. the motor does not spin).

So next week I guess we will be tracing what all the GPIO ports connect to, so we can try to guess what is in port 5 that the software might be expecting.

Posted in The Heavy Lab

After my last session working on this mill, we concluded that the processor on the “HF board” (which controls the spindle) was dead. I ordered a new-old-stock one from Hong Kong and it arrived this week.
Once I installed it things seemed to be responding better, so I powered down again, re-installed the heatsinks on the spindle motor driver MOSFETs and put the mill back together again. It was unresponsive again, but it turned out I had missed re-installing one internal cable during assembly. With that cable plugged in, I was able to get responses from the HF board when using a terminal program to send commands down the serial line. Furthermore, the BoardMaster program would start up properly. It even complained about the cover being open (I did not have the safety interlock switches plugged in).

But I was still unable to get it to spin up the motor or operate the tool crib. The former was likely because it did not know what tool was loaded, but the latter seemed to be getting some unexpected status back from the mill.

The BoardMaster program has an option to trace its serial line to a log file, but I am now quite suspicious of this file’s contents. For one thing, it does not include response data returning from the mill, making it less than ideal for diagnosing problems. Furthermore, at least half the commands I see being sent in the log file are rejected as erroneous if I try typing them directly via a terminal program. They are also not listed in the (albeit limited) documentation for the command set, and one of them does not even follow the overall format for their commands.
I have a strong suspicion that the program has another layer which translates these commands I am seeing in the log file into other commands. Next time I will try using a serial port sniffer program to find out what is really being sent and received on the line.

Posted in The Heavy Lab

For the past few months, there’s been some behind-the-scenes planning to bring a Mini Maker Faire to Waterloo Region. For this to happen, O’Reilly needs to know there’s lots of interest in the area.

(From O’Reilly) Maker Faire is a gathering of fascinating, curious people who enjoy learning and who love sharing what they can do. It’s a venue for makers to show examples of their work and interact with others about it. Many makers say they have no other place to share what they do. DIY is often invisible in our communities, taking place in shops, garages and on kitchen tables. It’s typically out of the spotlight of traditional art or science or craft events. Maker Faire makes visible these projects and ideas that we don’t encounter every day.

To us, Maker Faire has been an awesome experience that takes place in many cities around the world. Kwartzlab has participated in the Detroit Maker Faire in 2010 and 2012, as well as taking the Toronto Mini Maker Faire by storm in 2011.

We’re looking for makers, hackers, tinkerers, artists, friends, parents, former roommates, and pretty much everyone else interested in seeing a Mini Maker Faire happen in Waterloo Region to fill out our Letter of Support form with a little information about yourself, and why you think it would be awesome to see a local Maker Faire happen in 2013. These messages will go to O’Reilly to be included as part of our application.

If you have a few minutes, please send a letter of support to help us get the ball rolling on what will be an epic addition to great local events in 2013. When do you, make sure to let @kwartzlab know on Twitter!

Again, the form is here: http://www.kwartzlab.ca/mfwaterlooregion/

Posted in Member Blogs

Posted in Events | Tags: hacky halloween, kick, THEMUSEUM, timelapse

For the Kwartzlab third anniversary party I put on a “laser show” featuring some of the things I’ve been working on over the past few months.

The “laser” is an LCD Projector (thanks Don!) pointed at the audience. I wrote a program in Processing using the Minim library for beat detection. By applying filters to the input audio, you can extract the beat in real time and use that to control a number of variables, such as timers, colours, sizes, rotations, etc. This however proved unsatisfactory. The “show” it produced looked random and uninspired. I then recorded the output to video, made loops out of the animations, and then used a video editor to try to figure out what looks good and why. I ended up treating the video loops like breakbeat drum loops, chopping and slicing them up, laying them over each other, and keeping everything tight by quantizing to the audio channel. I also used some video effects to create transitions. This was eventually presented as the “laser show”, and now I’ll go back to Processing and see if this type of manipulation can be automated.
In order for this to work, the room has to be filled with smoke. A projector is much to bright to look at, even if projecting nothing but black. The smoke takes the glare off the projector, and gives the beams some volume. Smoke is generated by a small “Halloween” smoke machine (thanks Agnes!)

I also built a chipKit powered “dowser” to flip a flag over the lens with a servo whenever nothing was being shown, but this was unnecessary in practice. Eventually this as to tie into the VGA cable, and whenever the RGB lines went low the flag would flip down covering the lens. There’s provisions for two dowser flags, and one VGA control line, so that two projectors can be used for the show, but only one will project at at a time.

There was going to be another projector used for this show, in sync with the main projector using VLC’s network-sync feature. However Kwartzlab’s wifi was saturated and I wasn’t able to get a stable connection. Next time I will use a wired network. In hindsight I think this would have detracted from the show, so no loss by not having it.

  Thanks Karl for the pictures!

Posted in Member Blogs | Tags: Arduino, beamer, chipKit, laser, Processing, projector

Posted in Events

As usual, our next open house is on Tuesday, October 23. Everyone is invited. Come on in and have a cup of awesome!

Posted in Member Blogs | Tags: bellpeppers, open house, Tuesday, tuesdayisopenhousenight

Kwartzlab will be joining the Kitchener-Waterloo Central Art Walk next weekend!

‘Labbers Bernie Rohde and Agnes Niewiadomski will be exhibiting, as
will Cherie Fawcett, our current artist in residence. We’ll also be
hosting three community artists: Ralf Wall, Elizabeth Sylvain and
Glenn Smith.

Also on the tour are former Kwartzlab artists in residence, Nik Harron and Jennifer Gough.

Come by the lab next Saturday or Sunday to meet these artists and
maybe even buy some of their work. Then walk around the neighbourhood
meeting some of the other fantastic artists in this community.

Photos after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Events

On October 1st, 2009, Kwartzlab opened it’s doors and have been making & hacking ever since. Come celebrate Kwartzlab’s 3rd anniversary on Friday, October 19th with a night of fun and music from ARGYLE SPEEDO, AURALPLANE and SCHEMA FACTOR!

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online:

Tickets will also be on sale at the door.

7:00 – DOORS OPEN
8:00 – ARGYLE SPEEDO
9:30 – AURALPLANE
10:30 – SCHEMA FACTOR
1:00 – LAST CALL

Kwartzlab is located at 283 Duke Street West, 1st floor. You can reach us either by the front foyer (door straight ahead) or via Breithaupt St. (red double doors). Parking is available on Breithaupt St. or in the GO Train lot across the tracks on Duke Street.

Hope you can make it out to help us start off our fourth year in style!

Posted in Member Blogs