- August is a traveling/Vacation month for me, so not a lot happening… (Cottage/Dallas/Victoria BC/Vancouver BC)
- I’ve been working on testing out the IO boards for the bell project. V1 and V2 had a couple of issues, but I feel confident V3 will be the one! As I use the boards, we’ve been changing the design as well – dropping an expensive display for a simple 2×16 LCD, for instance. Not as sexy, but works more reliably.
- I’ve also changed the IO board to have barrel outputs to drive motors etc with 12V, and to have 3.5mm plugs for switch inputs. This simplifies things a lot.
- I’ve also been iterating designs for the display and IO card cases. Doing this in Fusion 360, and printing on Prusa 3D printers. It’s worth iterating the design since we’ll be printing a hundred of each, or more.
- Software guy Zeph is Rocking the code for the Bell system! I’m especially happy that we have OTA (Over The Air) updates working for the Bell Control computers – we can update all the 100+ bell control computers using a single script, automatically. Nice!
- We continue working on Bell stands
- We are continuing to work on the Voronoi cubbies as well.
What’s Happening Now – July 2022
- We’ve designed and ordered test circuit boards for the bells project. This is a big step towards implementing the system.
It’s pretty interesting to see it all come together!
The bells project requires:- server software,
- embedded Arduino code,
- mechatronics (electric motors, sensors, switches, mechanical linkages),
- electronics,
- and display mounts and stands for a ton of bells.
- And, we continue to build Voronoi Cubbies. 12 complete so far…
- We have upgraded our fibre laser to use the excellent Lightburn software – they finally released a version that supports fibre lasers on June 30, so there was a frantic few days of checking out the new capabilities of Lightburn, and how best to use it with the fibre laser. It’s pretty cool.
- I’ve been working on a design for something to hold and display a bunch of bells. Fired up the ‘ole plasma cutter, and now making “bell trees.” We shall see!
- Changed up the sign to display an internet meme. I generally avoid anything this obvious.
- And this lead to someone putting it on TikTok…
- And that lead to an article on a news site!
What’s Happening Now – June 2022
- Continuing to run Voronoi cubbies in various configurations. This is a pretty cool project, but a lot of work.
- We’ve hired Zeph to help us out with the software for the Bells Project. He’s doing great and things are progressing well. So far.
- We updated the sign outside our studio to say “WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF PHYSICS” which is appropriate after the big power failure in our city.
- We are getting ready for the Britannia Village Art Crawl, which should be a lot of fun!
- We have working code now which can ring bells! Zeph is doing great.
- The Art Crawl was rained out, and we can’t make the event rain date, so we are not exhibiting after all…
- I am playing with a bunch of mechanisms for ringing bells. It’s interesting since the size of bells ranges from teeny tiny, to huge!
- Continuing to build Voronoi cubbies. Have completed the woodwork for #1-#11. Thinking that 12 or 13 will be enough…
- Had a large event at the studio, hosting 80 people who work for a company I used to work at. So lovely to see everyone again!
What’s Happening Now – May 2022
- We added a Cliprail picture hanging system in the gallery. We have a 60 foot wall, 14 feet high for pictures – so we rented a scissor lift to get the job done safely. We also have two moveable gallery wall segments that each have 20 feet of space for pictures. The Cliprail system is good – it feels pretty solid and will handle the weight of the art we need to hang. And all the fittings are hidden, which is nice. We got it from Lee Valley tools.
- I am continuing on the Bell project. I had planned to use Raspberry Pi 4 computers to control the ringing at each bell, but they have become difficult to find these days, and the price has jumped from $40 to $160. I am looking into alternatives, including Arduino Uno Wifi, and the small and inexpensive node js boards. I need to lock this down in order to finalize the daughter card that will have the relays, sensors and power supply needed per bell.
- We placed a big steel order, and got quite a lot of big, heavy steel. And sore backs for a day.
- I’m continuing the Voronoi cubbies project – I’m going to do a series of these boxes with varying numbers of cubbies: 1, 2, 3, 4… up to 15 or 20 cubbies. It is interesting to see how the Voronoi pattern evolves as more points are added.
- We are planning for a big party for everyone from InGenius – the company I used to own. It’s nice to be doing events in our studio.
- We had a pretty major power failure – power was out for up to a week at some of our homes. We spent a few nights sleeping at the studio, which was pretty cool.
- The first set of Voronoi cubbies came off the CNC Router – but the machine got misaligned mid project, so we’ve ended up wasting a sheet of plywood, which kinda sucks.
What’s Happening Now – April 2022
- Working on Voronoi Cubbies. I really like the Voronoi pattern, as used in nature by the patterns on a giraffe and the wings of a dragon fly. It’s an interesting mathematical solution for filling a space. I designed a square shelf unit, and then filled out the shelves using a Voronoi pattern. I cut the top and bottom plates on the CNC router, and then cut the dividers by hand, carefully fitting them into the slots provided by the CNC router. It’s been an interesting project. I’m considering making a bunch of them. The cubbies will be painted.
Fitting dividers for the cubbies 
Fitting dividers for the cubbies 
With the top plate fitted.
- While cutting the Voronoi panel, I had an error in my cutting tool path, which ended up with a loose piece of wood being in the path of the 1/2″ router bit. As the cutter passed by, the piece of wood was thrown from the CNC router, and exited the building via a window in the garage door. It was slightly exciting.
Hole where the CNC Router flung a piece of wood - I am continuing to work on the bell project. I have shifted focus to the design of the IO electronics board for a while. I’m planning to use a Raspberry Pi 4 as the control computer, and the IO board will connect using the 2×20 pin bus. The IO board will have relays, inputs, power supply, servo connections, etc. It has to be adaptable to power all the different kinds of mechanisms that will be required to ring bells, from thimble size, to church size! It will ring bells via solenoids, stepper motors, and dc gear motors. The inputs will be used for limit switches and user buttons.
- We’ve been installing a gallery picture hanging system with rails, and cables that hang down.
- We are upgrading our dust collection. Our current dust collector is a Laguna system, and it’s not meeting our expectations at all. It was pretty horrible to assemble, and just doesn’t work well. We are planning to relegate it to about 1/2 of the shop and are trying out a Harvey Woodworking G-700 for use with the table saw and jointer. Why don’t dust collector manufacturers provide more than one remote? Or even the option to buy multiple remotes??
- Looking into making more Voronoi cubbies.
- The main shop air compressor is failing. It could be the motor or the relay that controls the motor. We are looking into it!
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