Month: April 2015

Stamp It

There was a small, determined, and succesful combined effort at the Lancaster Space this week.

Stamps

Those of you familiar with the MakerSpaces will know that there is a MakerSpace Passport. This is a copy of a traditional passport with the idea that you fill it with stamps from the various hackspaces you visit.

Hackspaces themselves are encouraged to make stamps for the visitors.

We at LAMM took this into hand and made a collective effort amongst some of the members to make a stamp for the Space and for the LAMM people.

Make It

  • Darren provided us with some laser-ready rubber from which to create the stamps.
  • Claire checked online for the details and did the organising of data and information.
  • Mark designed the logo in Inkscape.
  • Tom designed the handle and performed the Laser and 3D printer duties.
  • Ian drank coffee and cola and made jokes when we forgot to reverse the first cut.

The end result is something we are proud of and also means we have now costed the time, effort, process for creating custom stamps, which is another service we can provide or that we can teach to local people.

The Wonderful Chaps at Andrews and Arnold

andrews_and_arnold_ispStarting a Hackspace is a daunting task, there is the finding of a space itself, the tools, members, and then the inevitable bills to pay. Hackspaces tend to be run as businesses, as such they are liable to pay rates, they usually have rent, there is power and then the associated costs. There is little left over for luxuries such as Internet, which is a shame as the Internet and connectivity is an essential need in the modern world.[1]

We discovered that our budgets would likely suffer if we had to get an internet connection, however we approached some providers for their rates and explained our situation. That’s when those wonderful chaps at Andrews and Arnold came through for us.

Andrews and Arnold are renown in the community as a professional internet provider. They are not the cheapest service, and there is a reason for that, they focus on quality and not cutting corners or reducing customer service or satisfaction. For the Lancaster and Morecambe Makers they have generously agreed to provide us with a year of internet provision to help us establish ourselves.

We at LAMM and the Space in Lancaster are humbled by the generosity and it will help us settle and establish in our first year. We will raise a merry toast to our Internet Sponsors at Andrews and Arnold.

[1] This is especially true if you are trying to be a digital/creative hub and work space.

Bedside lighting

I am new to the whole hacking, making, playing, soldering and generally hands-on construction and so my time at the hackspace is always a steep learning curve.

One of the projects that I have been tinkering with was to take a couple of old, well toys really – but toys for me as an adult, and make them into something new. What i decided to do was build a bedside light with two switches, some ultra-bright LEDs and a blue LED. The toys were a Doctor (model of David Tennant’s doctor) and a TARDIS safe (that had stopped functioning).

I basically ripped the electronic guts out including the microchip board, added a bit of lego and Sugru’d LEGO in the TARDIS and to David’s feet so he would stand upright, and then made a board for the 5 lights in the doorway. A little tinkering with a drill got me the holes for two switches, a push button for the decorative lights and a two stage switch for the main ultra-brights, and we were done.

I have re-used something and made a useful light for my bedside. It is hardly on the same scale as the hacked sensors that have appeared on this blog in the last week, but I am still moderately pleased with the result.

Is there anybody there? Click once for yes!

So following on from my previous post about switches, let’s talk about Passive Infra Red (PIR) sensors.

Loxone Presence Sensor

Cost: OMG HOW MUCH?!
Summary: No way in hell I’m buying one at that price
Supplier: Loxone

loxone-presence-sensor_0

Wow, the price of this is staggering. It’s got a light level sensor and a PIR in it. I’m not going to buy one, but I’m including it here without much comment.

Manufacturers site – http://shop.loxone.com/enuk/presence-sensor.html

Generic presence sensor

Cost: Low (£10)
Summary: Not quite what I’m after, but I can hack this.
Supplier: Low Energy Supermarket Ebay shop

generic-pir

I purchased this with the thought that I would place them in some rooms outside of the automation system like the toilet and possibly the kitchen. I ran it in the kitchen for a while until it finally started to annoy me. There’s an adjustable timer and light level sensor which means that once the light drops below a certain level the PIR will activate the light until no presence is detected and the timer runs down. It’s 240v mains, which isn’t great for working with, so having gotten annoyed with it and removed it (Claire nearly cut herself after the lights in the kitchen went out) I took it apart for a looksee.

generic-pir-insides01

So what’s the black tube? It’s a fuse, that’s a good thing. Otherwise not much of interest.

generic-pir-insides02

Oh hello! That’s a 24v relay. That means that we’re looking at a 24v DC supply. *grin* The Loxone kit is 24v DC, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned so far. The two circuit boards are a mains power supply and the combined PIR and logic board with the two variable resistors on. Removing or modifying the back board *should* give us a board that we can power with 24v and will trigger a 24v line when activity and suitable light level are detected.  We don’t actually care about the light level or the timer so we can turn both right down. Now we have something we can connect directly to a Loxone digital input and feed into a lighting controller block for a fraction of the cost of the official presence sensor.  This I like 🙂

Purchased from Low Energy Supermarket Ebay Shop –http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230776895665

Hacking the generic PIR

Some time after writing the top half of this post, I got to the testing.  Tests on the generic PIR revealed that indeed it was 24v as expected. A simple full wave rectification circuit with four 1N4007 diodes, a couple of capacitors, a signal diode and a couple of resistors.

Turns out the signal diode was mostly redundant as far as I can tell, it’s included to eliminate back EMF but that’s actually dealt with by one of the power diodes without need for it. Eh, I put one of the power diodes back in and removed the signal diode.

2015-04-08-19-38-26_1

So testing! Lets see what the current consumption is like on this after the modification

generic-pir-current-off

generic-pir-current-on

Huzzah! 24v DC PIR with low current consumption and low cost. Our terminals are now switched 24v DC, 0v and +24v DC enabling us to use this on an input as suggested above. The input can then be mapped to the sensor input on the lighting controller and programming via the Loxone as documented.

I’m very happy with this money saving hack and will be buying a few more of these sensors in the very near future!

Sponsors Page

Yesterday we added a new page to our website at Lancaster and Morecambe Makers. This is the Sponsors page and it is to recognise all those who have made a contribution to our group and our hackspace.

The sponsors page is about the companies who have given us support, services and advice to help us come into existence. But we think our sponsors are also individuals and the first group we want as a permanent roll cal of honour on the site are the Founder Members who gave us funds to help us get off the ground.

Take a few moments to have a look at all the people who have helped so far, and if you can help, or know someone who might be able to help us make more services or grow, then please point them at us as well.