The birth of a new cottage industry

Back when I was a kid, desktop publishing was all the rage. If you had the money for a laser printer, a binder, and a workstation, you were in! Of course, the advent of cheap and available inkjet printers put the kibosh on desktop publishing, and yes, I have a black and white laser and colour LED based printer.

Of course, the new rage is, yup, you guessed it, 3D printing. It will take quite a while, I'm guessing, for auto calibrating 3D printers, up till then, they are not toys for the faint hearted. A 3D printer will absolutely work you to tears and frustration in its inability to not do its job. And its usually an easy fix. Now, you could say "But Shane, couldn't you be a printer mechanic?" Uh, no, I have enough trouble fixing my printers!

However, where the printer will need endless adjustment and tuning, the end product, the model, will not. The end product, the model, will be received by the public as the "posterchild" of the movement - something they can easily understand, and integrate into their lives. Yes, I will sell the end product, not the machine that makes it.

I have been in some lengthy discussions with some people who gave me contracts in the past in my professional area of engineering related concerns - for one I made a sensor driven audio player that could be hidden in an 1832 colonial homestead. For another I've developed software for embedded devices like the Kindle.

They are looking at this impending capability of mine, to scan in, work with, and reproduce a 3D object, with much abated breath. Of course, with a powerful enough workstation, the right input and output, you can work with the 3D form quite easily. To that end, a passive stereoscopic 3D monitor is in the post, I will be getting a 3D mouse and a serial port Spaceball, and in the meantime, I have built an AMD A10-6800k workstation, which will eventually run Linux - most likely Linux Mint.

The A10 APU has AMDs HD3D capabilities, but I'm hoping this will lend itself to OpenGL stereo 3D - I don't see why not. I have a book on stereo 3D with OpenGL on embedded devices. I've found a WebGL plugin for Chrome that allows for (active) stereo 3D. And workflows to go from object to web presentation by WebGL or reproduction have been defined.

I am, in other words, off to a good start.

In two months from now, I plan on having a 3D scanner based on the PrimeSense Carmine 1.09 close range 3D sensor made. At that point, I will start to demo "to web" and "to reproduction" workflows, as I suspect I will have a modified Prusa i3 3D printer available for use as well. The SLR printer will follow in short order.

I've also decided to get a little "closer" to trains, and volunteered as an electricians assistant at the local heritage railway workshop. I bring my wealth of knowledge in rail safety, communications technology, and modelling technique, as well as basic electrical and electronics knowledge.

Additional to all of this is my continuing education, as I try to finally obtain my Higher School Certificate in preparation for an entry to university next year. I have found out I will need to do bridging courses in the areas of math and physics, but I'm ok with that - it has been 13 years since I visited the hallowed halls of a high school, leaving when I have a severe mental breakdown. The UWS campus opening in Lithgow is doing a particular bridging course of interest to me, I hope to be in it next year!

As you can see, it is all happening for me. Add to this people now asking me to fix their Apple Macs, and finding themselves blessed there is finally someone local to fix their specialised computers, a definite under represented segment of the market. Certainly, everyone fixes Windows, who fixes Mac, or better yet, who fixes Linux?

It appears I fix Mac and Linux. For me, thats a good thing!

One ending, one beginning

A couple of days ago, I decided it was time I pulled the proverbial finger out, and get some kind of engineering certification. But what stream to choose? Ack, I was aghast at my choices. Could I do electrical? Too simple I thought. Electronics? Too much specialisation, and I could specialise in something that didn't interest me as a pattern of my research. Telecommunications? What a mugs game - thanks NBN!

Then I saw the light: mechatronics engineering.

In fact, if I were to do mobile IP connected autonomous robotic systems, I could combine the best of my telecommunications engineering and the absolute best of mechatronics engineering.

Of course, I am working on a Selective Laser Reactive 3D printer - a RepRap alike robot to print 3D objects from UV curing resin. But this is a static, sits on your desk, looks cool, does stuff, practical kind of robot.

What about some fun?

Enter stage left, Turnigy's "Heavy Aerial Lift" (HAL) platform. Jason got this as a "cool toy." I admit, it is a cool toy. But its also something else to me - a research project. Andrew did a Software Defined Radio UHF repeater for his engineering report for his electrical engineering bachelors degree. He used an Ettus USRP. Oh, but I have plans...

Theres a shot of the HAL on Jasons kitchen bench. As you can see, average Turnigy quadcopter. Jason tells me those are 7 inch plastic rotors, 1,000kV motors, an ESC on each strut (one with power for the computer), a HobbyKing Arduino based computer and 2.4GHz R/C system, and not much else.

Theres some big plans - stay tuned. But these plans won't be happening fast, in fact, it'll be rather slow. Some of the hardware is just now becoming available, and the software is nowhere near developed enough to use. But keep with me, I want to fly this sucker, under complete mobile IP control...!