Blog 2015
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Next Year
Tuesday 29th December
- Tested an audio amplifier
- Recharged a battery
- Swept the floor
- Talked about this and that
- Wished everybody a Happy New Year
- Attendance tonight = 5
Tuesday 22nd December
- There were chocolates, mince pies and doughnuts
- Model plane build completed the first wing!
- Assistance given with a laptop
- Assistance given with an unreliable iPod docking connector
- Model-making with the laser cutting was planned
- One bin of waste wood was removed -more to go!
- Installed Linux Mint and Ubuntu on the computer connected to the big screen. Problem with Trisquel
- We will be open next week (for anybody wanting a break from the seasonal festivity)
- Attendance tonight = 10
Tuesday 15th December
- Laser cutting continued
- Some Christmas items were made from fabric and a glue gun
- Arthur gave IanB a tutorial on Blender
- Helped out with laptops
- The old laser cutter got moved into the storeroom, without blocking off the letterbox. A magnificent team effort!
- The humungous video screen got plugged into a PC and started showing what it could do
- Model plane build continued, still on the first wing of the biplane.
- helped with a one line bash script that runs a symbian emulator under wine (you can't make this stuff up)
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 8th December
- talked about resources for disabilities: resource India, jasper, mycroft,...
- Kris built the component tester Kit only £13 shop documentation
- There was cider tasting
- Some toy cutting on the laser cutter: Chuggington station with clock tower - designed on CAD in the kitchen due to lack of space elsewhere in little house!
- Construction of the model plane got going, gluing ribs to a wing-spar
- CAD design for more laser cutting for model railway buildings
- Tried the magic System Request button Magic Key
- Helped a visitor with mobile phone microphone.
- Helped a visitor with a PC that mostly wouldn't boot up, and even when it did, it automatically restarted every couple of minutes.
- Tidied back desks to give a bit more space to work - Jon threatens laser removal of vital parts of anatomy from anyone found messing this space up!
- We still have one more broken down laser cutter than the space can accommodate.
- Helped with inception emulation: live puppy instalation, with WINE on top to run a Symbian emulation.
- Helped installing an extra file manager PCManFM on puppy linux.
- Visited a talk on cyber crime on the local Police Liason Group and Neighbourhood watch
- Attendance tonight = 17
-
Replacement Chuggington station parts -
Wing ribs -
Component Tester -
Looking busy
Tuesday 1st December
- The bus countdown was installed in the library. Thank you all!
Buscountdown installed in children area of Ham Library - Some more cider was bottled, there was cider tasting
- (verdict: mixed, but it's the Real Stuff! )
- Some model cutting on the laser cutter
- Paul B doing test cuts using the Openbuild CNC
CNC test - Saw a 6" Newton reflector telescope on an equatorial mount, but saw no stars
- Construction of the model plane got going, gluing ribs to a wing-spar
- Arthur helped solve why a laptop could not work with a Wifi-connected printer
- Discussion about a possible social get-together for Christmas, with a meal
- Attendance tonight = 13
Tuesday 24th November
- Progress with the model plane, cut wing ribs using the laser cutter
- Welcomed some visitors
- Cider-making continues - the half full demi-john was bottled to avoid air-spoilage
- Some giant snowflakes were made using the laser cutter
- Laser cutter fan box:
- It got sealed to the wall (thanks for the mastic, Rob!)
- Vibration was reduced by application of insulation wool
- It's about half as noisy as it was, but that's still plenty! Consider investigating a dimmer switch to slow fan down?
- Attendance tonight = 14
Saturday 21st November
- Put up brackets to support laser cutter fan and built box for same.
- Version 1.0 of Library Project was taken away to install. One of the Cisco Samsung screens were used at the end as Phillips TV was not reliable. Once screen installed all that is left is connect to library wifi.
- Some visitors from NewmanFrancis
- attendance 8
-
laser cutter extractor -
laser cutter extractor -
laser cutter extractor -
laser cutter fan wiring -
boxed laser cutter extractor
Tuesday 17th November
- More laser cutting
- Cider tapped off into demijohns (3 more demijohns donated to HUG/RML) Smells great, looks OK, taste is TBC...
- Attempts to repair old laser cutter
- H's built-from-scratch CNC mill is functional
- Advice given on Thunderbird mail client on a Windows laptop
- Wiring up a high-voltage interface to a 12v PCB
- A visit from former regular Damien. Hi!
- Attempt to fix a clock failed.
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 10th November
- There was pizza and choc digestives!
- Model aircraft will be a biplane
- Laser cutting continued
- The Plasma screen was mounted.
- worked on RF id system for the access to the lab.
- Some help with gnu/linux
- Received donations of some good PCs. Thanks Kris! got rid of Pentium 4s and older.
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 3rd November
- Continued work on the model plane
- Laser cutting
- Started to mount the 65" Plasma screen.
- Help given with Puppy Linux.
- Replaced power supply on Core i3 HP PC, it now works.
- Attendance tonight = 12
Tuesday 27th October
- Model heliplane -
- prototype 1 had been made of paper and bamboo, and had been tested for gliding
- the electric motor and propellor was evaluated for amount of lift, against the estimated weight of a model plane
- plans were changed to start with a simple fixed-wing aircraft with one electric motor
- Assembly of a CNC machine continued
- The laser cutter was working again and was used
- Kris donated a huge plasma screen, and there was general agreement where it should be mounted in Little House
- Help given with install of Puppy Linux, and a Raspberry Pi
- Experimented with an A frame sign outside to make it easier for visitors to find us - first week for ages with no new visitors!
- Attendance tonight = 12
Tuesday 20th October
- A big tray of pastries -thanks Kim!
- A vegetarian pizza -thanks Andres!
- Model heli-plane design discussed and developed
- Hard disk problem on a Mac looked at and fixed
- SD-card disk drive problem failed to be sorted
- Ruby installed on a Raspberry Pi
- Arduino experimentation
- Andreas advised on 3D CAD - might defer to resident expert Harriet.
- The library project is complete, waiting for an invitation to install it
- Couldn't fix a broken Roberts Radio -sorry!
- Pair of shoes re-heeled, using a glue gun
- bbc iplayer for linux investigated on raspberry pi but something was wrong with the feed. Andres.
- andres got one workstation fully working it is zooming away with lxde gnu/linux distro.
- Headphones jack plug repaired and then sealed with Sugru
- Hackspace passports were available, Paul B produced a stamp for them
- Jon found something to screw to a wall, and a bit of wall - in this case a kitchen cabinet in the kitchen - all the home brewing stuff now has a home.
- The two batches of cider were inspected - all seems well. We might need some more 'kilner' bottles (4.5l/1 gallon carboys)
- Investigation into items stored in office - can we make more workstations in there?
- commented about rf-id arduino project to keep the keys outside. Seems like a nice and easy project for someone starting up
- Attendance tonight = 20
Saturday 17th October
- some laser cutting of model railway bits whilst the machine was available.
- Working on a new CNC.
- Chopped up apples - probably 80kg?
- pressed apples.
- Drank juice: Children loved it!
- Put ~ 40 litres of apple juice to ferment - two approaches, the first promoted by Andreas is using the natural yeast of the apple skin and very little else, the second backed by Jon is using a bought yeast, with a few chemical improvers - the competition will take until at least Christmas to find a winner.
- The home brewing kit is all currently in use for Cider production, however if you are thinking of becoming a home brewer in the Richmond or Kingston area, but have been put off by the capital expenditure for the paraphernalia required, we have a set that will be available at Little House for you to try your hand (once the current production is bottled off).
- Tried to explain the significance of 'fork handles' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ to Paul - he understands Ronnie Corbets Blackberry problems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
- Discovered that we don't have an outside tap despite the fact we have two long hose reels! Found tap adaptors for inside taps, and then discovered they don't fit the taps in Little House. Improvised.
- Pressure washed the press and crusher for storage until next year.
- Discovered that we in fact have two mops - and applied them to the floor of the kitchen and toilet which had become 'damp' during the 'cleaning'.
- Modified the tap/hose adaptor to fit the taps in little house kitchen, and laser cut a replacement washer (with a further spare left in the 'o-rings' box).
- Sink trap in toilet leaks quite badly - we need a volunteer plumber.
- Hoovered the floor.
- Paul attempted repair of loose slate on corner of Little House - we might need some araldite/epoxy glue.
- Carl investigated the contents of the loft storage space.
- Worked on logo for RML - plan to make a 'passport' stamp.
- Put up a butterfly house.
- Bus countdown working 3 days in a row! Ham Library friends notified.
- Attendance today = 14
Tuesday 13th October
- Children designing their own helicopter/plane with Katrina and Ian
- Laser cutting ahead some wood flooring crafty!
- Picked up fermenting bucket for you know what. First attempt at cleaning was moderately successful. (re)Discovered how hot water in kitchen works.
- Andres moved the broken hdmi screen outside.
- Wood cutting with a radial saw outside
- Harriet working on her self-designed cnc machine.
- Screen taken inside and Jon opened the back cover to expose electronics, no obvious dry joints. Set the back cover on again an it is fixed!
- Andres helped with a live instalation of Damn Small Linux (50Mb!)
- More help with an HP printer.
- Some arduino tutorials done in a corner
- Some tutorials about resistance and experiments with resistors .
- Rechargeable drill did in fact take a charge, BUT switch faulty - only screws in, not out. When dismantled switch is unusual design, and batteries in poor condition, the switch alone might be worth fixing, but not if it needs new batteries as well - propose dismantle for the motor/gearbox. We still need cordless drill/driver. There is a larger bosch drill that only has dead battery.
- Bus countdown complete only test for long term use. (Update: works for 48hrs in a row).
- More on robot building
- Attendance tonight = 18
Tuesday 6th October
- Laser etching wood
- 3D printing Apple Watch charger station
- HP Laptop partly disassembled and fan intakes cleaned as was overheating
- Electronic conference badge from EMF Camp 2014 (Link) replaced surface mount charge controller
- radio control robot
- switching LED on via internet using arduino
- CNC router emergency stop switch
- More shelving put up - Jon is still looking for shelves and twin slot system parts, but is running out of walls.
- Extra workstation between kitchen and cloakroom was commissioned - a lot tidier than it was.
- Ian cd rom on laptop
- We were visited by a number of Kingston University students to have a look at what we are up to - see you again soon?
- Investigate donated electric screwdriver reported as 'not charging' - requires further thought next week.
- re-advertised computer desk on freecycle - its now a bit in the way...
- HUG apple collection/pressing and juice/cider making scheduled for next Saturday.
- Paul G (Founder) visited
- Attendance tonight = 17
Wednesday 30th September
- Green cinema! We saw Freedom Fry and Karen Sandler's unchain my heart
- We later visited Littlehouse
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 29th September
- The robot car got some front wheels and ran a great distance through the car park. Something eventually became disconnected and the car ran around in circles. The robot car needs a name, but nothing has yet been decided.
- Jon had brought 4 eight-foot shelves, and heroically replaced the shelves on the west wall. The east wall shelves can now be put up, but that's for another week. Jon's also bought more uprights on Ebay that should complete the east wall, but we could still do with some 305mm/1ft wide shelves of 4-5ft length.
- We still have a good condition surplus computer table 1400x800mm available for free if anyone wants to take it away.
- Hello again to Briony and Harriet who dropped in but didn't stay long.
- Kevin has done a successful repair on a Dell laptop.
- Dan is looking at new uses for games controllers with 15-pin D plugs. One could be a handy remote control for a robot car, another might be an X-Y axis controller.
- More laser cutting took place - we need to fix the exhaust, and longer term move the extract fan outside, or build some soundproofing around it.
- Coolant for the CNC router arrived and the tank was plumbed in.
- Some epic washing up occurred - the kitchen is now looking a lot less like an out of control microbiology experiment - please can we keep it that way.
- The worst mugs were disposed of, and replacements donated by http://www.hamptoncourtmrs.co.uk who have been using the laser cutter to create model buildings for their layout.
- We need to get into the habit of taking photos for this blog.
- Attendance tonight = 14
Tuesday 22nd September
- The robot car is fully operating now. Arthur is designing a pair of wheels for 3D printing. The third wheel/castor is not yet resolved.
- We had some further donations, electrical goods from the charity shop, and a bunch of pens and pencils from one of our long-standing members
- Shelves and storage is still an unfinished issue. The metal shop-rack was disassembled and stored.
- Many thanks to Rich for introducing us to the Hackspace Passport. Paul B is getting some passports and will probably produce a rubber stamp for RML
- Rich holds the record of the visitor who has come from further away Hackerspace Connecticut
- Andres brought pizza (!), also took a big step forward in setting up a Raspberry Pi for the Library project.
- Cut some acrylic windows for model railway on the laser cutter.
- Paul B's daughter continued soldering the AM radio kit.
- Four new faces this week, visitors who came along to see what we do. Hope you will each join the mailing list and drop in again whenever you can.
- Attendance tonight = 22 Wow - that breaks all records so far!
Tuesday 15th September
- The remote control car is now ready for the radio remote control. Same as the car, it is a home-brew remote (not something you get from a model shop)
- Soldering practice for another member involved starting the assembly of a pocket radio set.
- Paul B got the CNC milling machine doing some practice cuts, with Kris on dust extractor.
- The new laser cutter was operational, and some work was done on it.
- All the cables were removed from the window frames, and were packed in easy-access cardboard boxes.
- The metal shelving was cleared and moved, and a new table position was created between the cloakroom and kitchen doors. This will become a work station for soldering, construction and testing, with hand tools on the wall and a shelf for power supply and scope.
- We have to dispose of one 80cm x 140cm table, and the metal shop-rack.
- Attendance tonight = 16
Tuesday 8th of September
Media:Tmp 22760-IMG 20150908 215754567909920.jpg
As planned it was mainly moving things around and putting up shelves.
Thanks to all that attended, specially Jon who had loads of fun setting up the shelves. All the uprights are installed, but we remain short of shelf material - donations of 8ft (2440mm) x 1ft (305mm) planks would be very welcome, otherwise we will have to buy some more. If we can replace the 6ft shelves with 8ft ones, then the shorter ones will be installed on the right of the main room.
Next phase: create a new work bench location between the doors to kitchen and cloakroom, and put up the tool racks.
An area was allocated to RHP for their stuff with the hope that it will not acumulate in the rest of the room.
We have a surplus table which we have offered on freecycle, one chair was scrapped, and one recycled, which between them gave up spares to make a third fully operational again. We had a potential new member called David who even donated some stuff, including a PC which we may use for the new laser cutter when it arrives.
Sorry to all the people we could not help, Mark, Chas, Dannielle, Richard and Jean. Special sorry for Jean as we could not find her bee frames.
Students at Kingston University - we are your local Makerspace/Makerlab or Hackspace, you are very welcome to join us during term time, we require no long term commitment, just a donation of about £1 per week.
Apple pressing (and cider making? ) in association with the London Orchard Project http://www.theurbanorchardproject.org/ using the HUG apple crusher and press is timetabled for 10th October.
We need a volunteer to work their way through the donated PC's and work out: what's serviceable? what needs parts to re-commission? and what can be stripped for parts and the shell re-cycled?
Members - have you signed up for the email list? instructions on the inside of the front door of Little House.
- Attendance tonight = 11
Saturday 5th September
- We cleared away a lot of the accumulated rubbish outside, starting at 8:00am
- Paul B kindly provided the transport, to the Townmead Road centre
- Amazing what we can achieve when we choose to do it!
- Attendance = 4
Friday 4th of September 2015
Some of us got together for a pub discussion what follows are minutes:
Issues on which all the others depend on: tidy up the space inside and outside
- Meet tomorrow (the 5th) 8 am
- Make a visit to the Townsmead disposing of servers, glass separation desk, camera/microscope thing, plastic toy (dora the explorer), microwave shells, leaflet dispenser, worst chair in the space (peg leg), bins (wood, metal and electronics)
- Move laser cutter to Paul's car
- Take a picture of one of the desks (middle one under the window) for freecycle or other method of giving away.
- Meeting for next tuesday: tidy up inside (we need help bring drills, screwdrivers, screws, etc).
- Move round table into the space so that we can work in the front part of the space.
- Get rid of the white shelf to the right of the space (near office door) classify what is on the shelf as useful or to be disposed of.
- Move brown shelf to the left of the space to where the white shelf was. As the shelf is emptied classify what needs to be useful or disposed of.
- Disassemble middle table (under window) located on the left of the space. Carl will take it away for donation.
- move drill table to the space where the disassembled table was.
- Put up extra shelving
- Leave space for new laser cutter on trolley
- Find space for noisy CNC.
Other issues
- The future of little house if redevelopment or no redevelopment
- improve website
- Discussing other means of comunication other than groupMe and wiki
- Health and safety
- Attendance tonight = 5
Tuesday 1st September 2015
- Motors on the CNC mill were connected up and all axes were moving
- Helped find out where 30 Gb of storage of an over fully laptop hard
drive. It was a hidden folder in the user/apps (a single windows outlook file)
- The robot car build continues, the two motor drives are working.
Motors and wheels were assembled.
- More soldering practice.
- Search for a laptop that could be assigned to the new laser cutter
(it's coming). Most of our laptops are missing the mains power supplies. Why?
- Configuration of Raspberry Pi for the library project, not quite
completed missing kiosk mode on boot up.
- Discussion about our website, (it needs to be livened up a bit).
- Attendance tonight = 15
Tuesday 25 August 2015
- Paul B continued assembling his CNC mill
- Laser cutter is still not fully recovered
- Construction of a remote-control electric car
- Assistance given on a laptop with boot problems
- Another soldering lesson
- Discussion of a planned CNC mill design
- Found the problem on an old sewing machine
- Attendance tonight = 18
Tuesday 18 August 2015
- 2 young members soldered DC motor controllers for the robot wars robot, with Arthur's guidance
- Arthur showed some simple Arduino circuits to two new members (flashing LED and servo control)
- Paul B and Jonathan installed a new laser tube and power supply into the laser cutter
- A Raspberry Pi was setup with Raspbian
- Attendance tonight = 8
Tuesday 11 August 2015
- Nailed redevelopment option of Ham Close to the outside of Little House: Andres
- Soldering practice for 3 young members, supervised by Harriet and Arthur making a square wave generating circuit (555 timer with buzzer and LED)
- plans for brio train helix
- work on robot wars robot creation
- Attendance tonight = 12
Tuesday 4 August 2015
- Soldering practice for 3 young members, supervised by Ian B and Harriet
- Rob had a monitor for pulse generator project, we sorted out a 12v power supply for it
- Paul B started to assemble a CNC milling machine Openbuilds
- Arthur had the motor control working and started on the wiring board design
- Carl got his Joule Thief circuit working
- Attendance tonight = 13
Tuesday 28 July 2015
- Andres took apart the recently donated microwave, for transformer and
other useful parts
- Rob and Ian B continued to work on pulse generator
- Arthur assisted Ian with getting an R Pi going
- Arthur breadboarded a motor drive for robotic project
- The laser cutter needs attention. Paul B and Jon worked on a tension
bearing that had seen better days
- Dan added some more items to the equipment database
- Attendance tonight = 8
Tuesday 21 July 2015
- Carl's been experimenting with giant bubble mixture. He's found little
difference in performance in our climate, on a sunny day, between J-Lube based bubbles and Guar Gum bubbles. One J-Lube recipe makes a very convenient concentrated form of bubble juice, namely egoo. The popular Guar Gum recipe worked well for me though seemed better with 3 grams per litre. You can buy Guar Gum quite cheaply on ebay though you don't need much of it. Guar Gum definitely needs to be suspended in a slurry as part of making it, I used glycerin but I suspect rubbing alcohol works better. Finally, Fairy Platinum is supposed to be the best surfactant (soap) available in the UK for giant bubbles - just bought some, not tried it yet!
- The laser cutter was back in operation and was cutting well
- Bit of progress with Rob's project
- Attendance tonight = 6
Tuesday 14 July 2015
- The laser cutter isn't working. Paul took out the PSU and checked it
out.
- A couple of younger members were given some instruction in how to
solder.
- The WiFi is still pretty unsatisfactory
- Some assistance given in 3D design
- Rob and the Pulse Generator continued to make progress.
- Attendance tonight = 13
Tuesday 7 July 2015
- two new potential members
- used UV box for special UV glue to glue the screen back on to phone
but glue had dried up before. Screen was replaced anyway and works.
- lasercutting for last day of school
- laser cutting for train station
- talk about free as in freedom software f-droid repository for Android
and derivatives
- app that send localisation information to other parts of the world
- found link in hackaday about wood burning fractals sent to youtube
video of how to do it which in turn sent us to imgur image set and later linked to Jochen Kronjager website. Ring a bell? If anybody has another microwave let us know 4kV as Jochen shows in his web can be managed. It really works, though we really needed to soak it and add 3 spoonfulls of baking soda to the water. Hopefully others can post their videos and pictures. Fire extinguisher was at the ready the whole time. Electrons
were inconvenienced during this exercise.
- Carl managed to back up and factory reset his Moto G phone (now fixed)with a bit of help from Paul
- Carl has been making giant bubble making kits for a kids party, now on Instructables - http://www.instructables.com/id/Giant-Bubbles-in-Bulk-wand-and-juice-for-kids-part/
- Attendees tonight = 10
Tuesday 30th June 2015
- A new member visited with faulty headphones. We showed how to take
them apart and re-wire them.
- Some problem with the Pulse Generator took much of the evening for two
members
- The Laser Cutter had a lubrication and clean-up. Much better for it.
- Unable to give any tuition to the younger members due to time limits.
Better luck next time.
- Attendance tonight = 12
Tuesday 23 June 2015
- New young members.
- Andres dropped off bird feeder
- Rob asked about DIY temperature loggers
- Attendance tonight = 5
Tuesday 16th June 2015
- Work on the Pulse Generator
- Work on the wildlife monitor. Installed noobs on raspeberry pi.
- Setting up a computer for the you fix it you keep it project.
- Work on the laser cutter
- Some 3D printing
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 13th June 2015: Ham Fair
Demonstration of 3D printer, Laser cut Twickenham station, showing insides of wild life monitor and welcome to new members!
Tuesday 9th June 2015
- Further work on Raspberry Pi
- Ian changed the hard drive on a Dell laptop, to get it working
- Dan was working on the equipment database
- Arthur looked in and showed progress on the Pulse Generator
- Joel donated many components and a small laptop. Thanks!
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 2nd June 2015
- It's too cold to be summer!
- Much laser cutting
- The WiFi wasn't working well, though the Ethernet LAN seemed OK
- A bit of work was done on getting pulses out of a Raspberry Pi
- Ian reported an unidentified object in the sky
- A bit of a quieter evening in all
- Attendance tonight = 7
Tuesday 26th May 2015
- Dan started entering data into the equipment database
- Jonathan was using autocad
- Paul B used a 3D scanner connected to an i-pad
- Andres was working on the bird watcher TV system
- Ian and Rob got a Raspberry Pi working
- Imi found a bit of help with another project
- Carl had an IP camera with connection problems
- Attendance tonight = 8
Tuesday 19th May 2015
- Dan and Ian still stuck over the label-printer configuration
- Rob set up a R Pi, but still needs NOOBS
- Ian covered servo-motor control in his basic electronics session
- Terry & Jonathan had a session on the laser-cutter
- Andres brought pizza and kept busy with wild life monitor
- Attendance tonight = 8
Some time before 19th May 2015
- Installed cyanogenmod on nexus 7. This is an alternative to the
default Android (you need to wipe your device): works great for when tablets and phones are running slow.
Tuesday 12th May 2015
- Resolved a problem concerning the radio range for the buggy emergency
stop
- Andres made progress with the wild-bird camera, and showed it to a
visitor
- Dan worked on the RML equipment database
- Laser-cutting by Jonathan and Terry continued
- Paul B gave everybody help with everything, as he always does
- Arthur spent some time on setting up a new R Pi for Rob
- We had an x-box donated to us
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 5th May 2015
- RHP had not remembered to clear the round table
- Jonathon and Terry did more laser-cutting
- Arthur has made progress on pulse controller software
- Ian did some more basic electronics teaching
- Dan and Ian continued to be puzzled by the label printer
- Helped a visitor with a peculiar browser problem
- Rob connected up a mains transformer safely
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 28th April 2015
- The electric vehicle charger had components replaced, but it blew up
when switched on.
- Ian did some more basic electronics teaching
- Arthur demonstrated motor-control using Arduino
- Carl worked on his prize-winning virtual-whiteboard
- Jonathon and Terry did more laser-cutting
- Kris arrived with 8 good VGA screens on indefinite loan from Cisco
- Arthur helped with installing Scratch on Linux
- Attendance tonight = 12
Tuesday 21st April 2015
- Chas brought an electric vehicle charger, needing repair
- Ian did some more basic electronics teaching
- Arthur, Rob and Ian discussed a pulse generator based on R Pi
- Jonathon and Terry did more laser-cutting
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 14th April 2015
- A busy evening, many visitors
- Penny visited us to see how we are doing
- The laser cutter was busy with modelling experiments
- Kevin put up more shelving
- Andres had the laser cutter software running on Zorin Linux under Wine
- Attendance tonight = 16
Tuesday 7th April 2015
- Andres brought a First-Aid kit for Makerlab use. It will be located
in the kitchen.
- Arthur and Ian helped Rob with a power supply
- Jonathan and Terry experimented with using the laser cutter for a
project.
- Kevin brought an amplifier with faulty reverb unit - identified the
problem, we couldn't fix it
- Ian discussed with Andres about the colours used in national flags
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 31st March 2015
- Andres showed a 5 yo girl how a drill does different size holes in a piece of wood.
As Featured in Laurie's Blog - Andrés helped a 7yo girl do a blinking LED and then made it work with a button. Later we failed to add another light.
- 14yo boy learnt how to use a soldering iron thanks to Arthur
- Installed zorin OS for laser cutter computer. Has wine installed but not the control software yet.
- Talked films for green cinema: citizen 4, internets own boy, Martha Lane Fox Lecture on BBC yesterday.
- Openhub web that can tell you recent activities of free libre open source software.
- checked zone minder project is still very active it is a software for clever security monitoring
- Talk about UK government for open formats. Search gov.uk for 'odf'
- reddit physics game?
- Kris, Arthur and Joel did some other stuff.
- Discussed about installing USB on stuff that was manufactutred before usb existed
- Attendance tonight = 11
Wednesday 25th of March 2015
Document freedom day 2015! Shared pizza and cake and had very interesting conversations!
Tuesday 24th March 2015
- We had a visit from a volunteer with Cambrian Community centre, a local group providing help and tuition using computers and smartphones on Wednesday mornings (11.15 - 1.00pm).
- Rob put up a pair of shelves
- The 4-channel scope arrived.
- We got a look at the wildlife camera for the Library Garden project
- The equipment database on our own in-house server is demonstrably working. Needs a few wrinkles ironed out
- Demonstration of Google Cardboard virtual reality viewer
- Attendance tonight = 10
Tuesday 17th March 2015
- Laser cutting front of a model building
- Continued learning of electronics for beginners
- Mine-test presented instead of minecraft. Some quick modifications
where done Thank you Joel. One young hacker and his dad left happy
- Non-working servers identified
- Reflow oven looking good
- Cut some bars to hold up more shelves in other areas.
- Attendance tonight = 10
Tuesday 10th March 2015
- Visit from Friends of Ham Library
- Discussed about projector to be installed in library.
- Discussed about the wildlife monitor and bus countdown to be
installed in library.
- Might have some artist coming our way ask for help on their
instalations.
- Andres did a bit of tidying up & discussed more shelving
- Damon visited and gave a talk on the Open TRV project. He left us a
room controller and actuator.
- A bit of progress on clearing up redundant servers
- Joel donated a box of self-build AM radio kits - good for learners.
- Joel will be leaving soon and will be missed!
- Introduced a young hacker from CoderDojo and his dad to arduino and
the internal components of a workstation.
- Attendance tonight = 13
Tuesday 3rd March 2015
- Looked at a crash helmet with broken visor hinge. Made a temporary
repair. Not really our field
- Accepted three working PCs and a UPS. Great!
- Gave an impromptu lesson in Ohm's Law.
- Helped Carl get started on building a Joule Thief LED driver
- BUT, most importantly, Re-legged and moved tables to make much more
space. Moved the laser cutter into the corner.
- Next - Gotta de-clutter!!
- Attendance tonight = 7
Tuesday 24th February 2015
- More new tools available. Fixed up magnifying light. Magnificent!
- Bit more tidy up. Got bins for wood, electronic waste, metal waste
- Video surveillance camera still refuses to be controlled. Looked
inside, using newly acquired Torx drivers.
- Tried to check out some transformers, not very successfully
- AMD workstation seems to be fubar (**beyond available repair)
- Saw a neat way of using a LED as an illuminated push button
- Kevin drilled out a bicycle pedal
- Carl is collecting parts to build a Joule Thief. More on this next
week.
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 17th February 2015
- A member from Streetlife C. has donated loads of IT equipment:
workstations, cables, switches,... thank you!
- Working on the motor of the surveillance video camera: perl scripts
standards
- Bit of tidy up
- installed a gnu/linux distro to give a life to an old laptop. UPDATE:
removed Old Mint for a light weight Mint in present version
- worked on AMD workstation: ethernet, USB not working. New power supply
seems to work OK.
- Hard drive did not work
- Discussion about Train station facades for a Twickenham train station
replica. Between 3D printing or 2D laser cut. The latter was chosen.
- 3 projectors now at makerlabs. Two currently on loan to green screen
to test which is better.
- Attendance tonight = 14
Tuesday 10th February 2015
- Organisation of the shelving, bins for things, needs more time spent
on it
- Further assistance with a custom-build Windows computer
- Received a donation of a RS485-controlled surveillance video camera
- Received a donation of two 5-way switched IEC power outlets
- Discussion of Health and Safety issues -mostly resolved now.
- Attendance tonight = 7
Tuesday 10th February 2015
- Organisation of the shelving, bins for things, needs more time spent
on it
- Further assistance with a custom-build Windows computer
- Received a donation of a RS485-controlled surveillance video camera
- Received a donation of two 5-way switched IEC power outlets
- Discussion of Health and Safety issues -mostly resolved now.
- Attendance tonight = 7
Tuesday 3rd February 2015
- Replacement of the screen on a Nexus, not completed
- Cleaning the fans in the noisy Ethernet switch, improved
- Installed Linux on an old computer
- Completed work on the receiver-amplifier. All working except one
channel
- Discussion of projects, priorities and ballpark estimates of costs
- Dan was appointed Health & Safety officer
- Attendance tonight = 7
Friday 30th January 2015
History
Little House is Leased to Ham United Group (HUG). Richmond Makerlabs is but one of many projects of HUG. Other users of the space are SWLEN (South West London Environmental Network). Mid summer a manager from rhp contacted HUG to ask if the caretakers for
the Ham Close area could use the space as a break point. Currently they had a very small space where they could barely sit to have their lunch
or tea break. HUG said that it was fine as long as they were aware that the space was mainly for community projects. Richmond Council made an agreement with rhp. rhp now pay a monthly fee for use of the space during the day. This continued fine until rhp raised some H&S concerns in before Christmas. Richmond Makerlabs acted on them as soon as they knew about them: last week.
Today
Rhp Myles and Joel (from rhp) have been around and left and are very happy with the state of little house. They are going to come back and use the space. Things agreed are:
- We will both clean up after ourselves. Rhp will even do a log for
bathroom. I said the latter was excessive but Myles insisted.
- We will both turn off equipment, lights when not in use. Temp Heaters
will be plugged into mains and not extension leads.
- rhp will request the council for extinguisher checks, appliance checks
and basic h+s kits.
- Richmond Makerlabs will probably look into PAT testing. We have an
certified electrician in ham close and maybe leads on parents in local schools. If not rhp said they might be able to work something out. They charge £1 per plug. Andres will work on it but if anybody has any leads (pun) let me know.
- rhp staff is only here to eat lunch and maybe tea. No 'hanging about'.
- they have no issues with Paul or others coming by during the day.
- We should still expect a visit from Richmond Council H&S
- Attendance today = 3
Tuesday 27th January 2015
- We saw a very interesting, but broken, bicycle-powered blender
- PaulB identified what was wrong and gave advice on repair
- Some discussion on the H & S report, Andrés attended to some
matters arising
- Review of the cash box and Dan recorded expenses on a spreadsheet
- Kevin donated some drill bits
- Imi labelled and stored a selection of resistors for RML stock
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 20th January 2015
- Some laser-cutting
- Carving a bicycle gear cover from acrylic
- Continuation of the home-build PC
- Fault-finding a high-end receiver-amplifier
- Analysis of a MOSFET circuit board
- Assistance with resonating chokes
- Assitance with getting some flash disks, SD cards working
- Installing a children focused distribution: *SUGAR on TOAST* is aimed
for children age 4 and up.
- One brave volunteer did some much-needed cleaning
- Attendance tonight = 11
Tuesday 13th January 2015
- Dan, IanB, Arthur & Imi moved a shelf from cloakroom to meeting
room
- RHP are using the MakerLab as a store-room -this is not acceptable
- PaulB assisted a home-build project
- Ian and Dan looked at converting an Astaro unit into a small server,
with help from Joel
- Kevin has a 3D print project in mind
- Hoped to try out a Multicast device, but couldn't fit it into any
available HDMI socket
- Hello and welcome to two new members
- Attendance tonight = 9
Tuesday 6th January 2015
- Looked at a Dell computer with reboot problem
- Accepted a donation of a Label Printer (needs attention)
- Reverse engineered the control panel of an Audiotron
- Laser engraved onto a rolling pin
- Attendance tonight = 10