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05/05/201706/05/2017

Electronic “Build-It” Workshop

Back by popular demand, it’s our electronic “Build-It” workshop in TOG on Saturday 20th May from 15:00 – 18:00. Many visitors to TOG tell us that they would like to get started with electronics, soldering or assembly, but they are unsure how to do so. This workshop will help. You get to build (and keep) an electronic kit. The kit that we have chosen is a line-follower robot car. It will follow a black line or any line where there is reasonable contrast. You can see a video of the kit in action, from our previous workshop here.

The kit comes as a complete set of mechanical and electronic parts including a bare circuit board. You do all the electronic assembly and soldering as well as the mechanical assembly. If you’ve never built an electronics kit or soldered before, then this workshop is ideal for you. We’ll show you everything that you need to know. No previous experience at electronics, soldering or kit assembly is needed. We’ll explain the circuit and how it works too. All tools and equipment are provided. The workshop will take up to 3 hours, which is plenty of time. All proceeds from this event go to support TOG.

You might like to stick around afterwards for our regular Open Social evening which is happening on the same day.

*** You must be 18 or older to take part in this workshop. Please do not book places for children ***

20/04/201706/05/2017

Lathe Surgery….update

This is a tale of going to TOG to do one thing, but ending up doing something completely different. The intention was to write some code to talk to some electronic hardware. Actuality was taking the lathe apart. You can’t get more different than that.

One of our members reported that the lathe was unusually noisy and also a faint burning smell. We thought that it may be splashes of oil burning on the hot halogen lamp, but soon ruled that out. We disconnected the drive belts from the motor. The motor turns freely by hand, but seems to be hesitant in starting. It’s also drawing way too much current. Needs a bit more troubleshooting. Hopefully just a bad capacitor or something else simple.

Update…. so its bad news. One of the motor windings is burnt out. But it’s no big deal really. We’re sourcing a new motor. They’re not that expensive. A nice project will be to add some overcurrent and thermal monitoring to it, as well as an RPM readout. Sounds like a job for an Arduino!

15/04/201715/04/2017

TOG April Open Social

Hey All…… Sorry for the very short notice but…. this month’s Open Social evening takes place this evening, Saturday 15th April at 7PM.

If you’ve never been to our Social, you’ll find it a great alternative Saturday evening in town. Come in and look around. If you’ve never been in before, we’ll give you the grand tour of the space. Talk to members and visitors about projects or things you’d like to do. Ask about our our new brew room and photography darkroom that we’re getting ready to build. If you like what you see, ask about joining as a full member.

Hopefully there’ll be, caint, ceol agus craic as usual. The space stays open until the last member is left……usually the small hours of Sunday morning. The evening is free to attend for members and visitors alike. No need to book…. just turn up. You can drop in for 10 minutes, or stay the whole night. We have parking available. Bring beer, food, gadgets! Our doors are open from 7PM. Hope to see you there.

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07/04/201712/05/2018

More Ebike Fun

We’ve posted before about our tinkering around with Ebikes. One of our members had a faulty Ebike battery. Opening it up, the battery management circuit was found to be toast. We sourced a new one online from China, fitted it, and the battery is back up and running. We are thinking of making some spare batteries from old laptop batteries. We’re also thinking of having a TOG loaner Ebike. If you have any old laptop batteries that you could donate to us, we’d be interested. If you’d like to take a look at our Ebike works, drop in to our regular Monday evening Electronics night.

26/02/201712/05/2018

Pizza Oven Rev 3

Back in our Chancery Lane days we made a very successful pizza oven. It became a regular feature of our monthly Open Socials. In late 2015 we moved to our fantastic new space in Blackpitts. One thing we don’t have in Blackpitts is our own dedicated outside yard. We can do things outside, but it is a shared car park so we can’t leave things out there. This means that we’ve had to build our oven every time and take it down again, for special occasions like our annual birthday party or summer post-Dublin Maker BBQ.

So its been on the to-do list for some time, to make a portable version that we can wheel in and out as required. We started the process yesterday to build a molded dome from lightweight concrete. There are lots of plans on line for this using a gym ball as a former. We’ll be working on it over the next few weeks. Drop in and have a look.