10/2/2012 meeting agenda

[Sam Harmon]

We are meeting tomorrow at 7pm! Meeting should be up in the front of LaunchHouse by the front door.

Agenda items I see right now:

I- It's a new month, dues are due! Cash, check, Credit Card (via Square at the meeting), or Paypal (du...@makersalliance.org should work now)
-Google checkout still busted. working on it.
-Things we need more than usual:
--a few LCD monitors would be nice. We have one right now, and we're probably going to be using several desktop-type computers at some point.
--an ordinary corded hand drill (this has been mentioned a few times at the space, might as well get it in writing here)

II- Projects
a) CNC machine(s)- making progress on the MaxNC. Going to try to make more progress after the meeting, so let's keep this quick :-)

b) 3D Printing, Part I:
-some of us are of the opinion that the Prusa design maybe isn't all that...
-Leaning towards towards the Aluminum Mendel: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16076
-complete cost should be well under $500 (even less if we pull some parts from the Prusa or elsewhere)
-Print parts at Thinkbox, LCCC, library, wherever...
-For extra fun, it might be interesting to make some of the normally printed parts out of aluminum on the CNC machine!

c) 3D Printing, part II:
-If someone wants to try to rehab the Prusa into usability, go for it. If you need parts, come up with a BOM, and we'll try to fund it.
-suggestions for those wanting to try:
--replace the electronics with RAMPS - while I'm proud of the Gen7 board we made, it's a little fiddly and has issues. RAMPS is a bit more standard. And silkscreened :-)
--find a good extruder design that fits the MG Prusa X-Carriage and/or replace the X-Carriage
--replace the 5/16" smooth rods (they're getting rusty?)
--replace pulleys and belts?

d) other projects?

III- moving within the LH space
The current thought is for us to move to the northwest corner of the garage. This seems to offer several distinct advantages:
-Close proximity to 3-phase power (for the robot arm!)
-Access to the west side garage door (provided it ever gets repaired) - this would help considerably for access on open nights.
-Closer to a wireless access point
-Shorter ethernet run (if we actually do one)

The main disadvantages I see right now:
-That area may take a while to clean up- it's really cluttered with debris and random stuff. Not impossible, though.
-we haven't figured out what the borders are other than the walls, or made any measurements, so it's unclear if it's bigger or smaller than what we have now (maybe a little bigger?)

Things to consider:
-Wherever we move to, we're going to need even more storage space and work surfaces than we already have, especially if we keep receiving and building useful tools (such as CNC machines and the like)


IV- Anything else?

See you there!

Sam

[Joe O'Donnell]

I brought in a second low resolution LCD monitor late last meeting, but we could use a couple additional higher resolution monitors. I'm coming in at 9 tomorrow, and participating in a previous project until 10, but here are a couple additional projects that some one may find interesting to work on, and would also be very useful:

1-download and burn a copy of the systemrescue cd, and use it's windows password changing tool to change the password on the windows xp desktop we are currently locked out of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2t3Bi-AoB0
http://www.sysresccd.org

-This live cd also allows booting FreeDOS, which may be useful to run the CNC DOS programs if ever needed.

2-Acquire a wifi router, and set it up with a diy cantenna pointing at the distant access point, similar to one of these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMQfl20giM4&feature=related

There is a wifi usb stick in the xp desktop that may be useable for this purpose. Find a usb extension cable to put the usb stick into the cantenna, an ethernet hub to attach to the desktop, and update the windows network settings or boot a linux live dvd: http://www.livecdlist.com/pfsense But don't overwrite the windows xp OS because we need that for the Stellaris robot software.

If you have a question with a project just ask, we have many experienced,friendly people.

Cheers,
JoeO




--- On Mon, 10/1/12, Sam Harmon <samuel...@gmail.com> wrote:

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