What’s been happening at the Space…

We are in the middle of spring cleaning and over the last few months a few projects and tasks have been done. These are the ones I know about

  • Zeller terminal installed for processing payments via any card. We love the Zeller.
  • Exit Light near roller door reinstalled
  • Power cables above door tidied up
  • Yellow door – Handles have been attached and a guide at the bottom
  • Power board on outside edge of tables so you dont have to reach across to wall side
  • Working Sewing machines
  • Non working Black laser gone and replaced with one (Named “Zappy”) that will soon be operational
  • Fun with Robots event completed (one of our Grant projects)
  • Swept & Vacuumed floor (August)
  • Bunnings BBQ raised much needed funds, $2000. This money goes straight towards paying for 5 Kent Lane.
  • Shopping list board in snack area
  • Relocate “Zappy” to shelving
  • Move some shelving from toolbox end to laser end to provide more storage
  • Weeds down side path have been dealt with
  • Old tech is being accumulated for an e-waste run
  • Members laser materials has been tidied up

Current Projects

Garage Door ProjectAndy to working on a garage door opening system
Laptop consolidationIf you pop in the back room you will see the laptops in various states. William is working through the stack of laptops making a pile for e-waste, harvesting parts and we will be left with some decent i5’s with more ram & hd space than they had before. These will be used for Bessie, 3D Roland scanner plus more throughout the space.
Parts Drawers LEDLED component library strips update with Will and Hank:
Picking up an old project and hoping to organize the electronics area, Kerrin, Will and Hank poked around the back of the component drawers and found the needed wiring (Kerrin vacuumed, big thank you). Each row of drawers has a strip of three-wire LEDs above it. A breadboard, three jumpers, and a Rasberry Pi Pico were near to hand, but will likely not be used in the final build. After a few false starts* the drawers lit up! An easy copy-and-paste job of a few example programs brought up some ‘Ooo’ patterns.

The next tasks are:
• Cataloguing the library in the first place,
• Assigning a dedicated microprocessor to control the lights,
• Working out how to store/interface/edit a component library, and
• Building a search function, perhaps via a dedicated laptop
(*such as finding out that the strips are directional, wired inconsistently, and that the actual wiring was not labelled correctly by an errant tag (and – even worse – GND, +5V, and DOUT were shared across orange, yellow, and brown wires (or was it more of a red?)))

Go see your yourselves https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7tlolegzcabl25W5Z1oWWKvNR42ExA4Q
Zapp Laser CutterThis is a WIP to bring it up to specs for the space. It will use different software Meerk40t (not Lightburn). It needs Ventilation/filter, materials library plus more. William will get back to this project after laptops are finished

Projects List

Soon there will be a list of all projects waiting for someone to get involved.
In the meantime save the date of Saturday 26th November for our next Bunnings BBQ.
We are always looking for people to help. Even if you came down at 4pm for 1/2 hour to help with pack up and returning supplies back to the space.
Please sign up here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aFRbsH8mHl2LBoujz-a3p1wnFIRCtoCSaBOAgZb1ZX8/edit#gid=0