Sheffield Hackspace

Month updates - November & December 2024

by alifeee

What have members of Sheffield Hackspace been up to this month?

Let’s find out!

  1. Nik - window decoration
  2. Nik - an LED device
  3. Alex - a trip to soft lab
  4. James - 3D printer in a backpack
  5. Adam - organised electronics
  6. Tom - darning repairs
  7. A member - silicone D20 mould
  8. Dave - CNC machine calibration
  9. alifeee - CO2 monitoring

Nik - window decoration

Nik has laser-cut a hilbert curve that fits neatly as a window pane decoration. See more on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@nnenov/113380244822759727

picture of a window with laser cut pattern in one of the window panes

Nik - an LED device

Nik has also been learning PlatformIO. They used it to program an Arduino pro micro with an 8x32 matrix and the fastLED library.

It’s the first electronics thing I made which is not a sprawl of cables and just one single cable!

Again, see more on Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@nnenov/113686610988811191

picture of laptop connected to electronics connected to large 2D LED strip picture of circular LED light contraption picture of item on ceiling casting light around it screenshot of Houdini software, showing a 2D model picture of small electronics picture of electronics placed in laser cut container

Alex - a trip to soft lab

Alex has been exploring weaving and knitting structures, coding in knots, textile motifs as symbols, bitfields, rhythm, movement, liveness, and the internet of patterns on a residency in Eindhoven.

See more on Mastodon: https://post.lurk.org/@yaxu/113485978426705451

Also see a paper from a few years ago about a mini version, also by Alex https://zenodo.org/records/3939176.

picture of fabric weave picture of large loom picture of weaved threads picture of heddle loom

James - 3D printer in a backpack

James went to SMRFF 2024, a 3D printer festival in Manchester, for which they made a 3D printer which works in a backpack!

picture of backback containing 3D printer

Adam - organised electronics

Adam has been organising their electronics with 3D printed inserts.

picture of 3D printed organisers containing electronics picture of drawer of electronics, neatly organised

Tom - darning repairs

Tom bought a darning loom and used it to fix a hole in their jumper.

picture of a mended jumper, showing a weaved pattern picture of loom attached to weave on jumper picture of loom attached to jumper

A member - silicone D20 mould

One member designed and made a silicone icecube mould. The mould geometry was designed in CAD and from it, a mould for the silicone was created. This 3-part mould was 3D printed using PLA & PVB. The printed mould-mould was assembled and a 2-part foodsafe silicone was cast into it.

picture of silicone in a jug, containing D20 dice picture of silicone mould of D20 dice

Dave - CNC machine calibration

Dave from Desktop Machine Shop has been rebuilding a CNC machine…

I have just rebuilt the Milo v1.5 CNC machine with some upgrades:

  • new more capable control board running RRF
  • 55v power supply for motors to increase speed and torque
  • new safety wiring so that SSRs are used to kill motor and spindle voltage without running high current through the e stop

The machined star was just me testing out that everything was working after the rebuild. But it will be a Christmas decoration when I’m done. I’ll drill a hole and pop some ribbon through it

picture of machined metal star

alifeee - CO2 monitoring

Finally, I set up a SCD40 CO2 monitor in the space, and attached it to the old train sign.

See a lot more information in the relevant GitHub repositories:

picture of old train station sign, showing atmospheric levels like CO2 and temperature picture of ESP microcontroller with many cables plugged into it

That’s all

That’s all for this month! Remember, you can:

Until next time :)