OpenSCAD Tips

OpenSCAD Design Tips: How to Make a Customizable Thing

via Makerbot Blog
You can customize this awesome cube right now!


Blogger and OpenSCAD superuser MakerBlock introduced an excellent template object and tutorial to help teach Thingiverse users how to take advantage of the MakerBot Customizer. If you haven’t tried the Customizer yet — Tony Buser‘s inspiring CloudSCAD project to bring the open source parametric design tool OpenSCAD to the web, now reborn with further development as the MakerBot Customizer — then perhaps learning how you can create your own parametric objects to share will be a great incentive to click through the steps to authorize the Customizer app on your Thingiverse account so that you can play along.

MakerBot has also launched a challenge from now until March 8th to award MakerBot Replicator 2X printers for the best Customizer projects in these three categories: Useful, Wearable, and Artistic.

From the MakerBot Blog:
Chances are you’ve been following along with the newest developments over on Thingiverse and have seen people uploading “Customizable” versions of their OpenSCAD designs. (For the latest information on how to make a customizable thing using the Customizer you’re going to want to check out the documentation for this Thingiverse app. Since you have to authorize the App to be able to use it, there’s no way at the moment for me to provide a direct link to the documentation.)

If you’d like to give the Thingiverse Customizer a shot but aren’t sure where to begin, this tutorial is for you. Before you get bogged down in the details, just know that I’ve created a “Customizer template” you can use as a starting point for creating your own customizable Thing. I would suggest first playing with the settings in this template to see how Customizer changes the object. Then, when you’ve gotten the hang of it, read through this tutorial on how to make a Customizable OpenSCAD file. Finally, download and check out the template itself in your favorite text editor or OpenSCAD. Add your own designs and see how you can make your own customizable Things!

Read more.

APRS iGate

APRS iGate built using a Raspberry Pi

via Hack a Day by Mike Szczys


The hardware seen above is used to bridge a local RF radio network to the APRS-IS network. The APRS-IS is an Internet Service that uses a web connection to communicate between APRS networks in different parts of the world. The Raspberry Pi is perfect for this application because of its ability to connect to a network, and its native use of Linux.

On the software side the majority of the work is done by a Python script. It is responsible for setting up and monitoring a connection with an APRS-IS server. To connect to the handheld radio unit a USB sound card was used. TheMultimon package is used to send and receive audio packets through this hardware.

[Sunny] has a few upgrades planned for the system. The device needs to report its location to the APRS-IS server and the plan is to add functionality that will look of the WiFi AP’s location automatically. It may also be possible to get rid of the radio all together and use a DVB dongle as a software defined radio.

Kindle Paperwhite


How the Kindle Paperwhite Works

via NYTimes.com

Adafruit 961



How the Kindle Paperwhite Works – Graphic – NYTimes.com.

The Kindle Paperwhite uses a unique lighting system to illuminate its electronic ink display. Rather than using a backlight as on LCD-based tablets, the Paperwhite uses a transparent light guide that directs light from four edge-mounted LEDs down toward the surface of the display.

A GUI for AVRDUDE

AVRDUDESS – A GUI for AVRDUDEby Admin



AVRDUDESS is a GUI for AVRDUDE, a tool for programming Atmel microcontrollers.
Some key features:
  • Supports all programmers and MCUs that AVRDUDE supports
  • Supports presets, allowing you to change between devices and configurations quickly and easily
  • Drag and drop files for easy uploading
  • Automatically lists available COM ports

Learn more and download here.

Pi as a Squeezebox server


Raspberry Pi a Squeezebox Logitech Server

via Jacken's Blog






Here’s a tutorial for using your Pi as a Squeezebox server from Jacken:

I love my music playback setup that consists of a couple of Squeezebox V3 players in different rooms so I can listen to music in lossless format wherever I am in the apartment. With the iPeng HD app on my iPad, I have a nice interface for controlling the players with album art and other nice features. But the best part is that I can playback high resolution audio directly on my iPad using the Camera Kit USB adapter and an HRT Headstreamer DAC portable USB headphone amplifier. But I wanted a small, cheap and eco-friendly server for hosting my music files and wondered if I could use the Raspberry Pi. And here’s my findings.

Read more.

Resistor Cheat Sheet


Red Green Resistor Cheat Sheet

Just a little hint for the people with Dyschromatopsie