Jake’s 2021 Machine Class Page
This is a tracking page for my term’s work in Rapid-Prototyping of Rapid-Prototyping Machines: How to Make Something that Makes (almost) Anything. More aptly named: machine class. I’m Jake Read and you can see my about page here on the CBA site. It will tell you that for me, every day is machine class.
This year I am ‘TA-ing’ the class but will be merrily playing along as well… I’m going to try to give myself weekly assignments, you can find those in the sidebar on the left.
Here are my term plans and a review of how they went.
What I Have Done
- fab light as #2 of a two-person design team
- rndmc early dataflow experiment
- tinynets robust embedded network experiment
- an actuator parameter space exploration
- rct gantries early parametric gantry attempt
- clay 3d printer
- Machine for Playing Music for Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich by Jake Read
- displacement exercise aka ‘baby instron’ stress / strain machine
- little rascal machine testbed
- platonic gantry design more parametric gantries: this time laser cut, higher quality motion, easier to fabricate
- lug-capstans another hardware experiment, for higher performance linear axis using capstan drives and laid-up-gantry structures in composite materials
- squidworks second dataflow experiment: graphs all the way down
- clank-lz machine kit designed / developed / deployed for htmaa 2020
- innumerable circuits in support of machine hardware
- various end effectors, poorly documented
- a reflow plate not of much note, but maybe of some use to fellow home-labbers
- have coordinated three (!) versions of machine week for htmaa
Ongoing / Current Work
- maintaining / updating mtm, the website
- hotplate (not yet public) high(er) stiffness, easily fabricated tool changer
- clank small scale machine platform
- ratchet aspirational ‘zund’ scale and quality (4x8’) multi-tool machine platform
- [redacted / undiscussed new networking angle: osap]
- makes up the subsystems of all currently active projects
- undocumented / hidden in source codes
- a wicked-fast SPI based PHY, spi-phy
- my workhorse PHY, the ucbus, that makes all of my machines work at the moment but is undocumented / hidden in source code
- a fab-lab-able stepper driver single-layer / easy-to-mill barebones motion control block (unbuilt / untested)
- various ‘going’ / active circuit designs at various stages of completeness:
- a closed loop stepper driver
- a network / bus module to quickly implement new modules with
- a network head / host (any circuit listed here can do the same thing if built with different firmware)
- esc / spindle breakout board / network drop
- heater module
- loadcell sense module
- heated print bed based on aluminum PCB fab, and associated heater module
- hobby servo breakout board
- eternal recurrence of a desire to build a BLDC controller, currently on a long pause in action
- various end effectors, all in various stages of completion / abandonment