Wednesday, September 24, 2014

mixit - slow progress

We keep making progress with our little MixIt, there is still not much to see. But a lot of work is going on and we are sure to make our deadline.

as you can see it's missing a base and a faceplate

so we ordered a CNC as a KIT and started assembling it

it's mostly assembled, but still waiting for the spindle controller and tinyg to arrive
So last week we started assembling the order CNC router, to help us create a nice looking face plate. Sadly our 3D printer was not really up for the task and things kept warping constantly.

We are still waiting for a handful of parts, but hopefully by the end of this weekend everything arrived and is assembled. We can start milling the faceplate and move on the fabricated the prototype circuit boards.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Busy, Busy life

So the last weeks have been a touch stressful or in other words, my wife forbid me last weekend to touch a pc or think about anything related to:

  • cnc research
  • cad drawing
  • pcb design
  • electronics
  • programming
  • 3D printing
  • general work
  • c++
  • swift
  • soldering smd parts
  • some other things
And to just grab a book, some beers and relax.

Thinking about my workload, yeah I overdid it a little bit, between working during the day at the lab and working at night on Kickstarter project, I barley slept more than 2-3 hours on average since we have come back from germany. 

I guess I should take a break.

Anyway current accomplishments:
  • bought a 3D printer and using it for 'rapid' low cost prototyping
  • rediscovered my CAD skills and designing parts. Yay for free cad, I do would love to have solid works and better CNC/3D Printer integration
  • researched and ordered a CNC router, which we will spend the next couple of days assembling. Thinking about machining parts out of acrylic and aluminium to make things look oh so pretty
  • assembled a prototype more or less, still need's finishing touches
  • wrote a partial iPhone application, it's boring but does the job
  • assembled a working and awesome team to actually build this thing
  • spend tens of hours of soldering and starting to order SMD parts for the next step, cutting PCB's on the CNC and SMD soldering
  • researched hot air rework stations and reflow ovens.
  • wrote the firmware
And last but not least, organized an amazing 10 year anniversary party with my wifey. Well she organized everything and I was brewing 3 amazing beers.

Now how to mill acrylic and where to get a 12V DC Motor with enough torque to crush ice. We are really trying to get away for 120V AC.

Next weekend, we will finish up the prototype housing and wrap it in aluminium with a nice scotch brite finish. Looking forward to playing with the laser table.