AZIZ! Light!

In an earlier post back at the beginning of this month, I described the beginnings of my DIY microscope illuminator project, dubbed Project AZIZ.  At that point…

More Microscope Hacking: Camera Output!

[singlepic id=405 w=600] Apparently hacking around with my microscope has turned into something of an obsession.  The other day, I wondered if I could easily add a…

Project Aziz

My recent acquisition of a stereo microscope for the electronics lab has brought about a couple of side-projects.  One of them is the custom boom stand that…

Epic Builds: Articulated Stereo Microscope Arm

[singlepic id=391 w=640 h=480] I’ve wanted a stereo microscope in my home lab for ages.  In the last couple of years, it’s become an increasingly urgent need…

Embedded Hacking Weekend

I’ve gotten back into the ARM Cortex M3 embedded stuff (yes, again), specifically with the NXP LPC1768 chip.   I’ve had this Blue Board development board hanging around…

In-Depth CNC Conversion Electronics Overview

I converted my milling machine over to CNC back in late 2009.  For most of the time since then, I’ve avoided the project of properly finishing up…

CNC Electronics Enclosure Work Commences…

Santa’s workshop was busy today.  I finally got some motivation and time to continue work that I started a year ago, but really, has been a nagging…

Back from Summer Break: Droid Razr Maxx Car Dock

Summer is long over here in New England, and with snow falling from the sky, naturally my thoughts return back to the machine shop, the electronics lab,…

Magnetic Rotary Encoder Video

I found a little bit of time today to make a video showing the assembly and first test of the magnetic encoder board that I designed.  Check…

Magnetic Rotary Encoder PCBs!

Sparkly purple packages in the mail always bring good things from Laen inside.  These are the magnetic encoder eval boards that I designed about a month ago….

Magnetic Rotary Encoder Eval

I got some samples of the nifty looking AS5040 10-bit magnetic rotary encoder IC from Austria Microsystems.  I want to do some experiments with these chips to…

10lbs of Junk in a 5lb Box?

I’ve been slowly working to model the components that go into the CNC milling machine electronics package, and fitting them into an off-the-shelf rack mount enclosure.  I…

Epic Hardware Hacking Weekend

It turned out to be quite an epic weekend of building boards and getting things up and running.  It’s good to be back in the groove with…

Custom PCI Express Riser

One of the other boards I had in the latest order is an oddball PCI Express 1X riser card, which I could not find commercially.  In trying…

Machine Breakout

I populated the machine breakout PCB this morning.  This board will actually be installed inside of the CNC milling machine, and the various homing and index sensors…