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Automation!
08/21/2016 at 21:31 • 0 commentsFrom the beginning, we have seen Mechaduino as a way to make motion control for automation accessible. Industrial motion control systems are pretty far outside of the budget of most makers and small businesses. By creating an open source servo motor that is affordable and programmable in the familiar Arduino environment, we hope to give makers a powerful tool to design their own automated systems.
As a simple example, here's how we used a Mechaduino to help us automate the assembly of (you guessed it!) Mechaduinos! For each motor, we need to replace the stock screws with our custom screws/standoffs. This fixture helps to streamline the process. Though simple, we estimate that this fixture saves us about 10 seconds per motor... that adds up when you have to repeat a process 1000 times!
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Kickstarter PCBs Arrive at Manufacturer!
08/18/2016 at 23:16 • 0 commentsOur manufacturer, MacroFab, was kind enough to send us these photos of the PCBs!
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Mechaduino Google Group and "Getting-Started" Info
08/18/2016 at 22:58 • 1 commentWe've created a Google group to facilitate the sharing of technical information relating to the Mechaduino:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mechaduino
For those who have built there own boards, we posted some general getting started info in the readme file on our firmware repository:
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Mechaduino Pre-Order?
07/31/2016 at 16:52 • 1 commentRight now our main focus is getting the Kickstarter rewards delivered, but we will be making the Mechaduino available for pre-order on our website soon (next week or so... I'll make an announcement here on hackaday.io). The delivery time will be just after we get the Kickstarter rewards delivered: around late September/early October.
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Firmware Documentation
07/31/2016 at 16:50 • 0 commentsWe've started to post firmware documentation in a readme file over on our github repo. Here are some preliminary instructions on how to get your Mechaduino up and running. We will continue to improve this documentation in the coming weeks...this rough overview is just to point anyone who is curious in the right direction!
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A couple updates
07/12/2016 at 01:03 • 0 commentsHere is a wiring diagram showing how to connect a Mechaduino to a step/dir interface:
And here is a photo showing how we mount the encoder magnet and PCB:
We also recently pushed a bunch of improvements to the firmware on github... more documentation and examples coming soon!
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Kickstarter Fully Funded!
07/02/2016 at 10:56 • 2 commentsWow! That was fast! Thanks everyone for helping to make this happen!
Of course, the Kickstarter will continue to run until July 20th. If you are interested in getting your own Mechaduino(s), this is the place to get one.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tropicallabs/mechaduino-powerful-open-source-industrial-servo-m
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Kickstarter is Live!
06/29/2016 at 22:37 • 0 comments -
Latest Documentation
06/29/2016 at 04:52 • 11 commentsHere's some updated documentation:
We've also posted files for our 3D printable NEMA 23 adapters on Thingiverse:
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Upcoming Kickstarter Announcement!
06/16/2016 at 04:40 • 4 commentsDue to popular demand, we've decided to run a Kickstarter for the Mechaduino! We will be launching the campaign next week. Stay tuned for the announcement!
We have reached a point where we're really happy with the hardware, and we think it's time to get Mechaduinos into the hands of as many makers and developers as possible!
We will be offering two options: 1) a fully assembled, plug-and-play, Nema 17 Mechaduino with all the required custom hardware, and 2) just the Mechaduino board (including special encoder magnet).
The response to this project has been incredible! Thank you all for your feedback and support!
-Joe