3D Printing is additive process of melting your printing material and layering it as per a CAD design and producing something that otherwise wouldn't exist. It is this process that enables you to print forms that would otherwise be difficult or unachievable by tradition methods of fabrication. 3D printing has enormous potential for the future and has already been implemented within the biomedical sphere to produce medical implants and robotic prosthetics. 3D printing gives back power to the consumer by letting the user decide how they want something to look function and feel. It is this power that is driving the maker movement and producing innovation like no other area.
Mr Mackie's blog
A place for ideas and projects.
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Connecting the Pi to WiFi
Purchase a WiFi
dongle and make sure that it is compatible with the Pi using this list of compatible
products.
Connect the
adapter into one of the Pi's USB slots. Boot up the Pi, login to the pi and go
to the Pi's GUI. Navigate to the Pi's start menu on the top left corner of the
GUI. Select the application settings and then click on the WiFi configuration
program. With your internet ssid and password handy you should first press the
scan button then select and double click your network as it comes up. You will
be prompted to enter in your password, after you have done this you can click
connect. The WiFi application should then set up the connection and tell you in
the status bar that the internet is connected.
If this doesn't
work or your ssid isn't coming up your WiFi adapter possibly has some compatibility
issues with the Pi. To solve these problems it is a good idea to look up your adapter
on the Raspberry Pi's list of compatible accessories and then follow the links
to the find the available drivers for your adapter.
Setting up the Pi
So first the basics of setting up the Pi are as follows.
Get a Micro SD card
Choose your flavor of linux from the downloads page of
the Raspberry Pi website
And use the installation guide link from the downloads
page to write it to your Micro SD card http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md
Find and connect these into your Pi:
5V 1A Micro USB wall charger
HDMI cable
Monitor with HDMI input
Computer mouse
Keyboard
Connect all of the hardware up to the Raspberry Pi and
then once this is done connect the power cable up to the Pi. The monitor should
come up with the first time login loading all the hardware drivers and then
take you to the config menu of the Pi. In this section you can mess with it as
you choose but make sure to select make the entirety of the Micro SD card
available to the operating system. Once this is done select finish and wait as the Pi reboots. Once the command line has finished loading and
checking everything you can log in off the command line.
The default username is: pi
The default password is: raspberry
Once you enter this in type into the command line startx
to load the gui (graphical user interface)
My Pi
The Pi I am using is the Raspberry Pi B+. The advantage of
having this particular version of the Raspberry Pi is the upgrades from
previous version the Raspberry Pi B. In this revision the amount of USB slots
has been increased from 2 to 4 giving you greater flexibility with the number
of things you can connect to the Pi. The number of GPIO pins has increased from
26 to 40 pins giving the user the ability to give the Pi more options to sense
and control more things. The addition of the Micro SD card has given the Pi a greater
form factor, reducing the level the card sticks out from the board which in
turn reduces the chance that the card will be knocked out or damaged. The audio
circuit has been upgraded with a low noise power supply to improve the quality
of the audio out with the 3.5mm jack.
At the present time the Raspberry Pi B+ has been superseded
by the Raspberry Pi 2. The Raspberry Pi 2 is an exciting new extension to the Raspberry
Pi family, with higher specs that basically bring it up to date with tablets
and phones. It will be interesting to see how far it will drive future projects
for makers. I will continue to use the Raspberry Pi B+ as for the moment it is adequate
for what I need.
The Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi
What is it? how is it used?
The Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized ARM based processor,
similar in size to the Arduino uno. The Raspberry Pi provides more processing
power and is used primarily for graphical applications. Using Linux as the
operating system the Raspberry Pi allows the user to adopt a trial and error
method to programming and computing, as the cost for the card is low and the
operating system is free. The Pi allows the user to break the system and fix it
by either purchasing a new pi or for the less serious software faults reloading
the system image. Raspberry Pi is a good introduction to bash commands and the
Linux terminal giving the user greater control and understanding of how
computers work. The possibilities for modification and control for the Pi is
exciting as you can add things such as Bluetooth and WiFi making the internet
of things accessible to the novice user. With these features the Pi can become
an integral part of many mechanical, electrical and software projects. The
Raspberry Pi often features in game console emulators, 3d printers and wireless
systems the Pi is an invaluable tool for makers everywhere.
Raspberry Pi B+ (source) |
Friday, 23 January 2015
Getting through the code
The last couple days I have been figuring out how to program
the pitch, yaw and throttle on the quadcopter. Currently I have completed the
throttle and the yaw for the machine, figuring out how to do the floating point
values and the equation for the yaw has slowed me down but now that I've
figured it out I should have the pitch done within the next week.
Also having done some research I may have to upgrade and possibly modify the motor drivers and the motors. The motors will have to be upgraded to brushless motors and the motor drivers may have to be upgraded to esc's, or I am thinking that the addition of a transistor to amplify the signal may be necessary to provide the amperage needed for the motors to operate correctly.
Also having done some research I may have to upgrade and possibly modify the motor drivers and the motors. The motors will have to be upgraded to brushless motors and the motor drivers may have to be upgraded to esc's, or I am thinking that the addition of a transistor to amplify the signal may be necessary to provide the amperage needed for the motors to operate correctly.
Friday, 16 January 2015
Remote control has arrived!!
I now have the ability to remotely control my motors with the controls on my transmitter. Videos are soon to follow I will be posting them on my youtube channel at: Mr Mackies channel.
Next step is speed control.
Next step is speed control.
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Arduino control of individual motors
This is the entire assembly so far |
I now have control of the all of the individual motors. To demonstrate this I have included a video of my works and the program I am running to this moment. Once the battery has been turned on at the switch the motors spin one after the other, this now means I can have start programing movements into the quadcopter. Flight will come very soon.
Code can be downloaded from:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwxn2sTbc_zDOVdaeUkzNEpneDA/view?usp=sharing
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