VisiCut is a “user-friendly tool for #laser-cutting” #fabrication #manufacturing. Under the LGPL. Part of Thomas Oster’s bachelor’s thesis.
Thomas Oster’s bachelor’s #pdf #dissertation on the VisiCut #laser-cutter software. Mentions he got about an inch per second (25 mm/s) at 500dpi out of the Epilog Zing cutter he was using, or 8 inches per second with the laser off, and documents the HP-PCL, PJL, HPGL, and LPD interface of the machine in some detail. #2d-cutting
a surprisingly comprehensive overview of electric motor #hardware #history and energy efficiency, from the point of view of Hitachi, in #pdf. Includes overview of metal glass Fe-Si-B super-high-#permeability #materials, which beat traditional electrical steel by a factor of ten in permeability.
A very simple and robust electro-#mechanical absolute position sensor.
#screencasting #video of a guy trying to #reverse-engineer the electronics in my LG KP110 #phone using “miracle box by Gsmcampus Team”, which apparently has an auto-scan feature for finding pinouts.
A blog post about #bootstrapping a #laser-cutter.
#pdf #paper I totally don’t understand at all introducing “a new distributed computational model of distributed systems called the phase web”, based on algebraic topology rather than logic.
#laser-cutter #manufacturing of non-planar #3D objects by softening acrylic with the defocused laser, allowing gravity to pull it into shape. Got Best #Paper in CHI 2013.
Supposedly the Epilog Legend #laser-cutter can do 75 to 1200 dpi, 12.7-micron repeatability, 254-micron accuracy, and 76 to 127 micron spot size. No word on speed. “Our entry-level unit is the 30 watt Zing 16 and that system starts from just” US$8000. But I don’t think the Zing has the same repeatability specs.
super-brief #tutorial on #3D #finite-element analysis of a CAD object before #manufacturing: generate STL, generate a mesh from the STL using NETGEN, export it to DIFFPACK, use dolfin-convert to convert it to XML so FEniCS can read it, and then analyze it using FEniCS Viper.
The Epilog #laser-cutter manual for the Helix series says to make your lines at least .005 inches wide for them to get engraved at 400 dpi or up in Combined Mode, and at least .007 inches wide to engrave at 300 dpi or up in Combined Mode; but in vector mode, even lines of .001 inches will “vector at any resolution”, but precisely those lines that would have engraved in Combined Mode will not “vector”. “Objects and text should be unfilled and drawn with the thinnest possible outline (other than zero)”.
#laser-cutter cutting isn’t quite perpendicular to the surface of at least Delrin (acetal), but rather slightly tapered. Also explains that 12.7mm is necessary for a press fit in metals #manufacturing, but acetal can handle less precise fits.
Delrin (acetal) #materials properties and design guide #manufacturing #pdf
A 60-watt #laser-cutter at 50% power and 300 mm/second (?!) can engrave marble at about 150 to 200 dpi. #materials
Explains that in #laser-cutter design for finger joint #manufacturing, you might want to curve the finger (“tooth”) edges a bit to allow for the kerf. No numbers on how far to curve, unfortunately. Does have Ponoko cost numbers from 2008, and mentions that approximating curves with lines “reduces cutting costs significantly”. #2d-cutting
overview of the #BRL-CAD MGED #3D geometry editor interface, noting that its interface is “not discoverable”, but it’s the primary geometry editor. #manufacturing #CAD
#BRL-CAD doesn’t currently have a #3D geometric #constraint solver, but they’re working on one. As of like 2009.
#Antimony is a #3D #CAD system built in #Python with a dataflow GUI in Qt, supporting both CSG and BRep geometry on top of a functional-representation engine. The author did his thesis on it.
files for #laser-cutter #manufacturing of smooth curves and finger joints for a pen stand. #2d-cutting
#Alexandrescu invented new #algorithms for O(√n) searching and sorting based on a quadratically-growing collection of max-heaps in order to get better locality of reference. Also, shockingly, he hadn’t heard of cache-oblivious data structures until now!
#video describing “FlatFab”, proprietary (but CC-BY licensed!) research software for design for #planar #3D #manufacturing. Doesn’t seem to incorporate flexures, but does do some physical modeling.
FEniCS is #finite-element free software for doing computational fluid dynamics and solid mechanics in Python, among other things. There’s a 732-page book about it under the GFDL.
the FEniCS #finite-element #ebook #pdf.
an #Android app to use your desktop computer over Wi-Fi as a keyboard for your Android.
interesting retrospective on 1999–2015 development of computing by Dan Luu; includes the tidbit that an ARM #ISA instruction decoder is physically larger and more complex than a 386 decoder. #hardware
#pdf Posner #law opinion on Backpage.com #prostitution ads. Explains the business logic behind MasterCard and Visa complying with Sheriff Dart’s demand: “the potential cost to the credit card companies of criminal or civil liability and of negative press...may well have been very high”.
Wiktionary has amazing coverage of basic Mandarin #Chinese, including pronunciations, lots of examples, and classification into beginning, intermediate, and advanced, based on the 汉语水平考试 materials.