The upcoming open Saturday (Saturday 17th September) will see a change to the hackspace.  While we busy ourselves with preparation for the Lancaster Fun Palace (October 1st and 2nd), there will be something spongy, crispy, something with a lovely crumb or maybe a good snap. Yes that’s right we will be holding an informal bake off.

If you watch the BBC, you’ll be no stranger to The Great British Bake Off which started back on the telly last week. Quite a few of us seem to be keen bakers, so for a bit of fun we’ll be taking our best bakes into the space for a bit of a competition.

There will be three prize wining classes

1.  Biscuits or Cookies
2. Bread
3. Cake

Please feel free to bring your best bakes and join in

Prizes will be given for the best in each class chosen by those there.

(Please note we will NOT be baking in the space)

Okay so that’s the fun part.

We do need peoples help to prepare for the Fun Palace and there are, as always, jobs to be done around the space.

Hey All,

This is not going to be a short message, however I will get straight to the point: We need more members. Without any more members, then there is a strong possibility that we will not be here in the next few months. So, if you are already a paying member, well done! Continue being awesome. If you are not a paying member, or know someone who would like to become a member, then please join up here: LAMM Membership Request

We have two payment levels, which depend on your circumstances.

The first one is the Standard Membership – this is £25 a month, and will get you full access to the space, meaning you can come and go as you want to work on your own projects.

The second one is for the following:

• Young Members  – for those under 16, and will require a guardian present.
• Student Members – those who are still in full time Education, at University, College, or another education establishment.
• Supporting Members – for those who want to support the space.

This payment level is £10 a month, and in the case of the Young or Student member, will get you full access to the space as you would in the Standard Membership. The Supporting Member is meant for people who are not close enough to Lancaster to make use of the space, but would like to support us to allow us to keep doing awesome things.

To join, please go and fill in the following form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible with payment details!

LAMM Membership Request

Thanks,

Tom and all the Board at LAMM.

As part of the continuing Manchester MakeFest preparations, and in particular the Amazeballs challenge from Manchester HACMan tonight I completed the next step of my marble (well pinball) run drop.

This is a large version of the version 2 Lammballz. So essentially a Version 3 Lammballs and is 555mm by 300mm made from a combination of perspex and birch.

Big thanks to the ever-wonderful Tom Bloor for help with the setting on the laser cutter, design done as always in Inkscape. Images of the unfinished (needs lots of glue/fixings) version with business card for scale, below.

So last night I made a thing at the hackspace and although it is relatively simple and small I am inordinately proud of the thing that I made.

You may, or may not, have heard that there is a Makers event in Manchester (Manchester MakeFest, I believe this to be a faire or carnival of makers) that is to be held at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) on the 11-12th August. For that event the folks at Manchester HackSpace have created a AmazeBalls challenge and we at LAMM are trying to create something for it.

My small part in this is to create a small pair of ball drops. One of which I am cutting out of wood using the laser cutter and the other I am making from scratch (predominately) using a 3D printer. This challenge is a great way for me to start to play with both Laser and 3D printing.

Last night I designed a simple rail in Inkscape.

I then took the simple rail and extruded it in OpenSCAD with a lot of patient and generous help from Tom Bloor (who guided this old duffer through the openSCAD way of doing things).

And then I sliced the resulting stl files in the 3D printer softare.

Then I printed and played with them as they seem to work 😉

It was a great achievement, I said it was small, for me and it was another example of how a place like the Lancaster Space can inspire you to create using a variety of tools even if you are new to them or an ‘old duffer’ like me. Thanks all for the pointers and help, a big thanks to Tom for all his gentle tutelage.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!