The Renaissance Engineer

I put my second product up on tindie.com as a fundraiser.  It’s a breakout board for one can use to make custom Analog style gauges.  The actual drive is a stepper motor – the same model used in GM cars and trucks.    The breakout uses an arduino library written by Guy Carpenter, who has a great blog over at http://guy.carpenter.id.au/gaugette/

So far things have been going great, I was able to make my funding goal in less than 24 hours!  Needless to say I’m very happy.  I’m sure the US Postal Service is going to love me too when I start shipping out the gauges ;-).

Here’s a link to the fundraiser : http://tindie.com/shops/TheRengineer/analog-gauge-stepper-breakout-board/

Time flies!  Things have been busy for me lately.

Once the Sharp lcd board was launched, I had a great time at Open Hardware Summit and Makerfaire.  A bunch of folks got to see the LCD and library.

The last couple of weeks have been occupied with my “day job”.  In fact, today finds me posting from a hotel room.

Knowing I’m going to be cooped up in a hotel room with nothing to do for a few nights always makes for a hard time packing.  Which projects to bring?

I was driving for this trip, so I didn’t have to worry about TSA questions about dev boards and jumper wires in my luggage.
So what have I been up to?
Some work on the LCD documentation and library.   There are a ton of undocumented features in there that aren’t covered in the demos  – like support for multiple variable spaced fonts.  Tonight I finally began toying with the Raspberry pi i got a few weeks ago.
I have it set up with a motorola Atrix webtop “laptop” computer.  I was finally able to sit down and figure out the wireless settings tonight.   I have never been so happy to see a hotel wifi login page.
The Raspberry Pi is an exciting platform – especially with the upcoming camera board.  I’m excited at the prospect of getting some machine vision software running.   Hopefully we’ll see some vision enabled robots in the next few months.

Sharp Memory Lcd Breakout and Library

Hello?  Anyone home?  Echoooooo?
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately in Rengineer land.   I’ve been letting this site sit for too long.  However, this is going to be a big week.- Makerfaire is coming to New York!  The Open hardware summit is here as well.
Today is a little different though – today I’m bringing out a a project I’ve been working on for the last few months – my first open hardware product, a Sharp Memory LCD breakout, and an Arduino Library to run it.

A wise man once said “Bringing a product to market is like having kids and kicking them out of the house all at once”
I’ve definitely found this to be true!
I’ll try to document the process over the next few weeks – but right now, I’m proud to show off the fruits of my labors.
Sharp makes a number of interesting LCD modules.  This particular one is part of the “Memory LCD” series.  What makes it special is that it doesn’t use polarizers.  That causes it to have a really interesting “reflective on cloudy” effect – unlike any LCD I’ve ever seen before.
So – Check out the LCD module.  I have two videos of it up on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HByt0v0cPLQ&feature=plcp

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lDsZzq8tLw&feature=plcp

If you like it, the breakout (with LCD) is available for purchase on tindie:

https://tindie.com/TheRengineer/sharp-memory-lcd-breakout-and-library/

As always – this is an open source release – everything is on my github here:

https://github.com/theRengineer

I’ve finally gotten my Amateur Radio license!

A bit of background is in order here.     As a teen, I spent many a Sunday in the parking lot of New York Institute of Technology, the local tech school.   Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club (LIMARC)  would have their hamfests there.   What started as buying a few things here and there turned into an all out addiction.   This was the late 80’s and early 90’s –  pre-internet, pre-ebay.   These hamfests were my chance to stock up on projects for the next 3 to 6 months.  Eventually a few friends and I started getting tables at the ‘fest.   I’d sell some of the things I had worked through and figured out, and use the money to buy new projects.   I still wish that I’d held on to a few of those old apple computers – especially a Commodore Kim-1, which now probably worth a lot more than the $30 I sold it for back then.

Fast forward to today – College set in, and then a career.   The hamfest memories of my youth are now just that – memories.   I hear there are still great electronics fleamarkets and hamfest around in other parts of the country.  Things here are much smaller.

Once in a while I would think back and wish I’d gotten my ham ticket – but never long enough to take the test and get it.    Enter the Tymkrs, one of which (Atdiy) has been studying to get her tech ticket for the last few months.

I was curious to see how much studying it would really take me to get the ticket – Most of this stuff is electronics and radio theory, so it should be a breeze.    I took two practice tests, and did ok on them.   The local radio club site said the next local test was on Saturday.  I dutifully headed down and handed over my $15 testing fee.    The Hams there were very serious about the test.   I was the only one test taker that day, and the tables were set up with me facing a group of older men.  I felt more like I was about to defend my thesis than take a multiple choice test!   My girlfriend even had to wait outside during the test itself.

I’m happy to say that I passed, and am now a “Technician” level ham.    I was going to take the general test as well, but the older hams seemed to be in a hurry to get on with their Saturday activities.

I don’t have my call sign yet – still waiting for the FCC ULS to show me what my call will be.

I’m heading off to the Open Hardware Summit in Queens, NY tomorrow.  I’m looking forward to meeting some of the folks I’ve been conversing with on the irc, twitter and various other internet sources in real life.

When I started this blog I had a basic idea in my head.  I wanted a somewhat anonymous and “semi professional” setup – where I would concentrate on issues and leave out personal preferences.

Of course, as happens with many of my projects, life got in the way.  This time in the form of a major crunch at my main job, followed by a move from an apartment to a house.   That’s not to say that I didn’t try to post.  I sat down at least a dozen times – but the words didn’t flow.  What I’ve found is that the whole “keep it non personal” didn’t work for me in this particular blog.   Don’t get me wrong – I can write articles, test procedures, and reports with the best of them.    What I couldn’t do is a blog entry I was happy with in that format.

So, I’m going to try again, this time without the fourth wall I was dancing with before.

I should start with a bio –
My name is Adam, and I’m an electrical engineer.
(I feel like I should say I am a friend of Bill Hewlett or something here)
I’m currently 35, and have been in the field in a professional sense college.   In a hobby sense, I’ve been designing circuits since I could read (and have the dog eared first edition  of Forrest M. Mim’s Getting started in electronics to prove it)
Over the years I’ve worked for large and small corporations.   I’m currently at a medium sized aerospace company.  Professionally, my focus has been embedded systems – both hardware and software.  This has ranged from 8 pin PIC based systems all the way up through flight qualified VME systems running on more than 40 separate PowerPC processors.
In a hobby sense my interests are many and varied.   Robotics has always been a love of mine – specifically autonomous robotics and vision systems.  I also spend quite a bit if time with Radio Controlled planes, helicopters, quadcopters, and cars (the last two of which roll back into robotics).   Photography is another big hobby. .
In my non-electronics life, I live in New York with my girlfriend Dory, two Cats, and two birds.  Dory has been nominated for sainthood due to her putting up with my projects cluttering up the small apartment we lived in until earlier this year.  You can find me on twitter as @ajfabio, and on various IRC channels as VayaConQueso.
So that’s it for a quick bio – expect to see more posts from me in the near future.