Blog 2024

2024-10-28 Tuesday

• Andrew was measuring his cauliflower!
• Steve was testing his Snapcircuits audio amplifier and radio receiver modules and salvaging batteries from a handheld vac
• IanM was soldering wires onto 10K, 100K and 1 Meg pots for electronics breadboarding.
• Leo was moving the Pi Octoprint camera to the end of the Prusa's X gantry.
• David was on the laser cutter.
• Andy was *again*!

others?

2024-10-22 Tuesday

• Andrew was printing a cauliflower calibration to test the dimensional accuracy of the geetech
• Steve was fixing various electronics including a battery charger which may need new diodes
• Paul was testing various environmental sensors and helped Andy's sanity with a script for the router
• Elizabeth returned to work on her code for room customisation
• IanM helped Steve and was on the lathe helping...
• Mike and Anna who wanted help turning down a piece of metal for a 3d printer
• Andy just was

2024-10-15 Tuesday

• Paul was investigating why his latest temperature sensor was working
• Deborah came to introduce Elizabeth to us and kindly went back to try to find a cable that was needed.
• Elizabeth came for some help with her pi; which personalises the experience for an ID room
• Haysam came to take the zombie to the new home, nice to see him after a long absence
• Andrew was battling with the geetech
• IanM was being generally helpful to Elizabeth and others
• Andy was battling with routers and trying asking for help with a dead motherboard

2024-10-08 Tuesday

• Leo kindly came to setup octoprint with the prusa printer he kindly donated
• Mark came to prototype some cases for some interesting dev boards on the laser
• Kevin was looking at refurbishing some speakers with new speaker cloth, with a little help from IanM, getting the old sticky stuff off
• IanM was wrestling DLL hell on his Win10 netbook to find out why Python wasn't working with pyusb and Adafruit Blinka to talk to a CJMCU-232H on his main PC - Solved 2024-10-19 - move %SystemRoot%\system32 to near the beginning of the PATH so libftdi doesn't try to use an out of date libusb0.dll instead of the libusb-win32 v1.4 one installed with the filter driver!
• Andrew was playing with the geetech, getting the software working on the new ubuntu install
• Andy was battling with various bits of tech

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2024-10-01 Tuesday

After a hiatus, we're hoping to start the blog again, when we remember

• IanM installed a 3D printed housing part into the lathe to help prevent swarf getting into the control box and blowing up the control board
• Feargus was cutting some intricate card designs on the laser and getting his speeds and power dialled in
• Andy was rebuilding the laser PC and the Geetech PC with a newer version of Ubuntu on the Geetech machine (3dprint.rml)
• Andrew was getting Prusa Slicer working on 3dprint.rml
• Nicholas and his dad, Tom, came to learn to use an oscilloscope, with IanM's help

2024-05-21 Tuesday

• Ian did a lathe induction for....
• Sencer C, who has ambitions to get a mini-lathe and convert it to CNC
• Andrew was trying to improve the Geetech 3d printer Z axis, so far unsuccessfully

2024-05-07 Tuesday

• Andy did an induction for....
• Tim who wanted to learn the lasercutter to make some architectural
• Jon came to lasercut some Austrian good sheds but and
• Ian was helping people
• Hazel was cutting some polarising film for an art project
• Andrew was helping the 3d printers
• Pierre was tempting at temperature sensor to sense some temperature
• Paul was working on a theatre radio transmitter
• Vic came to help move the CNC fix on
• came to visit us from Japan and have a look around
• Steve came and went but I didn't get to see what he was doing.

2024-04-30 Tuesday

Seems we have some missed weeks but here we go. A fairly quiet night

• Andrew was giving the Geetech 3D printer's power supply some attention
• Jane was making a table
• Ian was helping her and looking at the lathe
• Andy was catching up on some RML admin
• Joe came to do some lasercutting of some personalised key tabs
• Odd and Zhaleh nipped in to lasercut some pronoun badges

2024-04-23 Tuesday

• No one captured what we were doing this week sadly

2024-04-16 Tuesday

• No one captured what we were doing this week sadly

2024-04-9 Tuesday

• No one captured what we were doing this week sadly

2024-04-2 Tuesday

• No one captured what we were doing this week sadly

2024-03-26 Tuesday

• David came to visit us for the first time and printed a case for his LORA device
• Andrew was looking at 3D printers, helped David and looked at his Pi Camera
• Steve was fixing an alarm clock/radio successfully
• Ian was ably helping Steve and later, diagnosing the blown lathe speed control board
• Paul was coding
• Andy popped in after shooting but went home to get dry

2024-03-19 Tuesday

• Phillip came the first time and was shown how to use the Laser
• David returned for his second visit to finish his branch lopper
• Alfia and Raff come alongs to look at engraving some metal with mixed results
• Ananth was looking at a CO2 sensor ably aided by
• Paul who was sharing electronics knowledge as always
• Mark popped by to say hello and be frustrated by his fiddly electonics
• Ian decided to blow up our lathe for fun, but has a plan to fix it as always
• Andrew was working on the 3d Printers
• Andy did an induction and wrote this, all errors mine
• Kevin came to trying lathing but was sadly out of luck
• Vic was using the drill press to create a frame for his home CNC

2024-03-12 Tuesday

• Andy came to see us after a long time away to say hello
• Steve was playing with batteries again and also with an alenco set.
• Pierre was seeing if he can get his PTZ camera to move
• Paul was getting frustrated at LED strips online
• Andrew was playing with an LED Matrix on Pi Pico
• Mark came to display hardware that wasn't needed and is currently flummoxed over.
• Ananth trying to get a C02 sensor working and trying understand what Mark is talking about
• Ian was teaching the lathe to...
• Kevin who showed his machining chops on our little lathe
• Andy came to say hello after shooting

2024-03-05 Tuesday

This may be a lost week but we had some regulars and some new people coming after an article in a Ham magazine.

2024-02-27 Tuesday

• Steve was rescuing batteries from discarded vapes to use in projects and helping...
• Andy working out the hand plane and welcoming people
• Ben was doing some trying to remove some components from an electronics board
• Elliot was designing and lasercutting some pieces for gaming

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• David came to visit us for the first time with a branch lopper that was in need of repair ably helped by...
• IanM who also helped with general advice and looked at the wood CNC, conclusion is shielding the mains to the spindle is a good first step
• Janet is visiting the UK for a few months and came to visit us, looking at programming a FGPA board with a pico
• Rich was attempting to get Rust onto some lora boards
• Andrew was making more progress with the geetech 3D printer.
• Pierre continued to make his PTZ camera

2024-02-20 Tuesday

• Pierre continued with his PTZ mount build, with a laser cut frame on top of a 'Lasy Susan' for rotation and an axle turned down at the ends to fit the bearings which eventually carry the tilting part

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• IanM was helping people again and introduced Pierre to turning steel on the lathe
• Steve was working on some faulty DC-DC converter modules
• Ananth was examining his previous soldering and making some improvements
• Andrew was helping people with 3d printers including
• Mark came to print a mount for his diving project
• Mat came to 3d print a clasp and do some more designing for the next thing
• AndyH was helping

2024-02-13 Tuesday

• Pierre is designing a PTZ camera mount
• Mark has joined the throngs of the laser cutters
• MarkQ came to do some laser cutting
• Andrew journey to fix all the 3d printers continues
• IanM was helping people and doing some lathe work
• Steve continues fixing his light
• Andy opened and did some marquetry

2024-02-06 Tuesday

• BenF was laser cutting some signs
• Steve is repairing a shed light powered by a solar panel
• Andrew was fixing 3d printer
• AndyH opened and ran before the road was closed
• ChrisN was 3d printing some more train pillars
• Ian.M was
• PaulE was coding

2024-01-30 Tuesday

• Andrew was learning how to setup a raspberry pi, assisted by Andrew
• Chris was continuing some 3d printing and working with Fusion 360
• Mat came to see us and started learning Fusion 360
• Pierre came to learn the lasercutter
• Steve was mending a light and looking at fixing a battery, also helping...
• Kev with some soldering
• Andy did some inductions on the laser for 3 people and gave some limited hints on Fusion
• Andrew was looking at 3d printing and helping setup the Pi
• Paul was coding

2024-01-23 Tuesday

Regulars: Paul E, Andy, Andrew, IanM

• Garret came along and was good to see him, looked at fixing a calculator
• Andrew and his son came along for the
• Chris came for the first time and we showed him some 3d printing

2024-01-16 Tuesday

Regulars: Paul E, Martin, Andrew

• Anand - CO2 sensor
• Mark - intro to laser cutter
• David - laser engraving, kartcher cleaner that doesn't run
• Cath M - dehumidifier that needs fixing

2024-01-09 Tuesday

• Andy opened
• Regulars: Ian M, Andrew, Martin, Paul E
• Steve - assisted a soldering task
• Peter - came for inspiration on a project
• David - laser cutting plywood for a box
• Wendy and Deborah - had a steam cleaner that needed fixing
• Anand - soldering headers on more boards
• Lucas and Zac - introduction to 3D printing
• Catherine - introduction to 3D printing

What we have been doing at Little House

Previous years blogs are available from the Main Page