CNC User Group Wrap-Up

We hosted our first CNC/Makerbot User Group meeting. A special thanks goes out to Brian Dolge for organizing the event and making it a success. We had a great turnout with about 20+ people in attendance. Marty McGuire demonstrated his Makerbot by drawing on Post-Its with a Sharpie. Harford Hackerspace demonstrated their CNC Milling machine by cutting out a wooden Ninja star. Check out the images below.

Getting started with CPLD’s and FPGA’s

Chris has been dabbling with CPLD’s and FPGA’s. He wanted to share some helpful resources with anyone else looking to get started with them as well.

Difference between CPLDs and FPGAs:
- http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-fpga-and-cpld/
VHDL Tutorial:
- http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~ese171/vhdl/vhdl_primer.html
Xilinx ISE Software (Windows or Linux, 32 & 64 bit available)
- http://www.xilinx.com/tools/designtools.htm
Digilent Xilinx FPGA Board:
- http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,790&Prod=BASYS2
Digilent Xilinx CPLD Board:
- http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,798&Prod=CMOD
Xilinx Platform USB Programmer:
- http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=platform+xilinx&_sacat=See-All-Categories
  (you can program through the USB of some of the boards but you can do a lot more with a VHDL interface)
How to install the cable drivers in Linux:
- http://www.george-smart.co.uk/wiki/Xilinx_JTAG_Linux#Using_Xilinx_USB_JTAG_Programmers_under_Linux_.28Installing_Cable_Drivers.29
Opencores.org: (open source hardware modules (“cores”) for FPGAs)
- http://opencores.org/projects They have a lot including multiple CPU designs.

DIY 8×8 LED Array

Like most normal people, I enjoy blinky lights. Although I helped build the ring of lights in the Tron disc, I was not involved with any of the hardware or software used to actually control the LEDs. Prior to this project, I had never done anything more than simple PWM control of a few LEDs directly from a micro-controller, so I decided it was a good time to learn how to control a lot of LEDs. Since this was done for the purpose of learning, I did everything as difficultly as possible, such as building my own LED array on a protoboard instead of just buying an array. I also wrote code to bit-bang the serial data instead of just using the compiler’s built in SPI function. But, I wanted a generic serial data module anyway after dealing with the Nokia 6100 and it’s weird 9-bit SPI. The main point of the whole project was to simply do it myself without asking anyone at the space for help with anything. I’m sure the code could be a lot better, but it does what it is supposed to do (I think). :)

Tron Identity Disc Mod

Over the past several months the members of Harford Hackerspace have been working on modifying a Delux Tron Legacy Disc. The modification uses a Netduino and MAX7219 to increase the number of LEDs from 8 to 33. The project was featured on Microsofts Channel 9 (video) and now there is a complete tutorial of the build on Coding4Fun.

This Friday – December 17th, Disney is releasing a sequel to the 1982 movie. Tron Legacy (Official Site)

RotoFoto Wins First Place

Harford Hackerspace took First Place in the first ever Baltimore Hackathon. It took nearly all 48 hours for us to plan and build RotoFoto. RotoFoto is an automated 3D imaging system that takes a series of 2D images of an object and stitches them into a 360 degree interactive image. This allows viewers to use simple mouse dragging gestures to rotate an object to see if from all angles. Watch the complete build in the below time lapse video. We will demonstrate the build shortly so check back soon.