..workbench chatter

Melissa and I have been out of town for a little while. I was hoping to blog on the road but it just didn’t happen. That midwest weather is in a nasty way; I don’t miss winter weather at all. So I have a little more work on two posts I’m working on but I wanted to update the blog for if no one else myself. I need a little brain purge… I have a lot of stuff to work on.

When I got home I had a dozen and a half packages or so from China. A ton of fun stuff.. most of it was for the little robot I’m working on. I also brought back a ton of stuff from my house (in a storage room) that I have left behind.

On our travel across county we stopped by our house in South Dakota and picked up a bunch of our items in storage. I brought back a few boxes of miscellaneous electronics including a lot of older projects I built years ago.
On our travel across county we stopped by our house in South Dakota and picked up a bunch of our items in storage. I brought back a few boxes of miscellaneous electronics including a lot of older projects I built years ago.

 

Look at that pile of stuff! A part of one box of old projects I built. Only a few more boxes to go! I got excited about a bunch of copper clad board that turned out to be really cheap; lame!

While out of town a mailbox and a half of sensors arrived from China (eBay)! Time to get building.
While out of town a mailbox and a half of sensors arrived from China (eBay)! Time to get building.

 

Sensors! I guess it’s time to get building. I’m not sure what I’ll use.. I’ll just tinker around until I find what I like.

So I've etched PCBs by sharpie.. I've used the tape and stencils... even photo etching which provided decent results. With all the talk in the IRC chat room I finally decided I needed to try out this professionally built business.
So I’ve etched PCBs by sharpie.. I’ve used the tape and stencils… even photo etching which provided decent results. With all the talk in the IRC chat room I finally decided I needed to try out this professionally built business.

 

“My first PCB”… that I didn’t etch myself. The white stencil isn’t right but I knew it would be that way and I was in a hurry to get it on the way. It looks great. I haven’t checked out all the circuit paths but everything looks good. I decided on OSH Park because he is local-ish and seems like a decent guy. The preview feature is nice on his site.. and the price was reasonable. (yeah, I know.. it’s just a proto-board.. I didn’t build it for any specific reason).

Check out the motor controller heatsink!
Check out the motor controller heatsink!

 

Finally I got these tiny heat sinks I ordered .. (look at the motor controller on the robot platform). The motor controller is the same one I used for my Roomba Sumobot… it got very hot a few times I’m hoping to avoid those issues this time around with this heatsink that comes with some sticky stuff that hopefully conducts heat well. It was a 10 pack.. pretty cheap.

That’s it! I need to get along with my other posts…next week I’m out-of-town for training; maybe I’ll get something done then? 🙂

Author: Chas

I don't know why I blog, because? I have no agenda, just love electronics and want to share. I love to follow other experimenters/hardware hackers just to see what other people are working on. Shoot me a message if you blog.

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