Project – Page 9 – Tog Hackerspace

21/06/201624/07/2016

Lathe up and running

lathe Last night we had our lathe up and running for the first time since we moved to Blackpitts. We were using it to centre-drill some rollers that are part of a 100 year old mangle. One of our members is restoring the mangle to use as a printing press. Keep an eye out here on our website for details of the project.

If you’d like to take a look at the lathe, drop in sometime. The other major piece of equipment that we are almost ready to restart is our laser cutter. We’ve already had the laser firing and are working on alignment. Watch this space.

30/05/201624/07/2016

Project: Fun with a GPS Tracker

Checkout some pics here of a GPS tracker we got to play with. This is nominally a vehicle tracker, but it could also be considered for other tracking applications. The unit is small and is powered from 12V. It draws up to 100mA. A regular SIM card is inserted. The unit has an external GPS antenna and a mobile phone antenna. It has a few other inputs and outputs too.

When power is applied, the unit is ready after about a 1 minute startup. When the number is called, the unit replies with a text message containing latitude and longitude as well as a Google maps link. Opening the link takes you to the location. If you would like to tinker with electronics or stuff like this, drop in to our regular Electronics, Microcontroller, IOT and CAD Evening every other Monday. Check the events section of our website for details.

17/05/201624/07/2016

Line Following Robots

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We recently ran a Electronic “Build-It” Workshop. We have twelve build a line following robot. The little robot was an all analog device, not an arduino insight. Check out the photos from the workshop in our gallery and the video below of them inaction.

Join our mailing list to keep upto date with our workshops over the summer.

15/05/201624/07/2016

Featured on Hackaday : Taming A Variac With A Thermistor

We are delighted to have one of our member’s projects featured on Hackaday,

TAMING A VARIAC WITH A THERMISTOR

The folks at TOG, Dublin Hackerspace, have a large variac. A variac is a useful device for testing some fault conditions with AC mains powered equipment, it allows an operator to dial in any AC output voltage between zero, and in the case of TOG’s variac, 250V.

Their problem was with such a magnificent device capable of handling nearly 3KW, it presented an inductive load with a huge inrush current at power-on that would always take out the circuit breakers. Breakers come with different surge current handling capabilities, evidently their building is fitted with the domestic rather than the industrial variants.

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Read the full story over on their website. http://hackaday.com/2016/05/15/taming-a-variac-with-a-thermistor/

This is not the first time we have been featured, the Twitter Knitter got the Hackaday treatment too. http://hackaday.com/2013/08/20/twitter-knitter-combines-40-year-old-hardware-with-modern-social-media/

11/05/201629/03/2017

Project – Green Screen in Tog

There is now a green screen on the wall in the back. Please feel free to use it.
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It’s basically some sheets of plastic, painted with matt green paint that was lying around in the space. It has been tested with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 camera and iPhoto and it blends seamlessly. No shadows or marks blended into the final product.

To get the best results use a good quality digital camera that doesn’t bleed colours. Using an old JVC DV tape camera from 2004 which bled around the edges left a halo in the final product. A still camera with movie facility with automatic exposure settings totally messed up the green screen effect.
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