Local Assistance
Pre academy was exciting and it excited me more about the Fab academy. I took the responsibility of being the Local assistant of the fab lab Trivandrum. Initially I communicated between all the participants of the fab academy and conveyed important information from our remote guru Francisco, every time after having a chat over the MIT video conferencing unit.
I wrote a piece of introductory note to benefit people taking fab academy and had little idea about it. Most of us had done prefab but we were taking a couple of participants from outside the prefab participant circle. This note was based on the talks I had with my remote guru and based on his recommendation. Eventually Franc put it as an official note in his supernode site here. Other notes from Franc which are useful throughout the course can be found here. All these notes were accumulated and created by Franc and it was very handy during the course.
I also arranged for hangouts on air every week with Franc. The archive of our interactions can be found here. The most chatty person other than Franc would be me.
Lab Setup and video conferencing.
I set up the lab and made arrangements for video conferencing and for accommodating the 14 participants in the lab. This included setting up the lightings, audio and arranging furniture and their seating arrangements for the participants, Wifi and LAN .
For setting up the system for the video conferencing I refereed this page on the supernode site. The quality of the MCU(multi-point conferencing unit) depends on the bandwidth of the Internet used. 1MBPS is minimum and 10MBPS is a decent speed to have. It is recommended to have connection through fiber optic cable. Through out the fab academy we faced minor issue including not being able to mute properly or mic functionality malfunctioning and the most irritating of all linphone crashing. The most stable configuration(which is really not that stable) was found to be in a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04 and linphone installed, no other system connected to that line while the MCU is running through either LAN or Wifi and using the recommended settings mentioned in the supernode site. The settings might also need some tweaking depending on the Internet connection you have. The linphone available by default in the software center of the Ubuntu wont be sufficient for the job, you will have to follow the exact instructions on installation on the supernode site mentioned earlier, involving adding the ppa repository link to get the latest release of the linphone. Linphone also worked well in windows 7. A common issue with linphone is getting the multimedia settings right and remembering the settings. We used the logitech speaker phone and camera recommended by Neil for video conferencing which also had come together with other equipment to setup the fablab. It takes a little bit of effort to figure out proper settings. Linphone crashes I think when it tries to send data at larger bandwidth than the connection can provide and it gets overloaded and goes out. We had problems even when using windows. We had a stabler connection when lesser people are joining the MCU(when our final project reviews were going on). Ekiga doesn't crash as much but there's a lag of few seconds if we tried to communicate over the MCU.
Material Management.
Throughout the course you would also require some special materials relevant to some processes of each week. I managed to source them from from local sources and Indian e commerce website the following are the materials and the useful links where to get them.
1. Epoxy resin- http://www.amazon.in/MurtiSil-Transparent-Epoxy-Resin-911133000750/dp/B018TRE1K0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A3EK6JTDAYRF6J
This epoxy resin had issued with setting hard. The recommended proportions were mentioned as 2:1 of part A and B respectively. It always set to rubbery consistency. It set hard when it was heated to 150 celsius which is not viable for fablab processes. The proper proportion has to be figured out.
It came with no material and safety datasheet which was a cause of concern to me. However I didn't find any toxic pungent fumes when we worked with it and the supplier too told us that it was safe to use and doesn't require professional protection gear.
2. Silicone rubber- http://www.amazon.in/MurtiSil-1010-Silicone-Rubber-911110100001/dp/B012GGYKCY/ref=pd_bxgy_236_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1VN9464A5K1T2GK5NR5X
We had enough silicone rubber with us from the time we setup fablab but it wasn't at its best. We make the purchase of this product but another lab in Vigyan Ashram employed it in their projects and results were good.
Smooth-on Sorta clear-37 was still active and set fine but we had a feeling it had grown in viscosity.
All our OOMOO-25 was had become useless and as they didn't set properly.
Sorta clear 37 and Omero 25 had shelf life of about 4 months and 6 months. But Sorta clear remain active even after the shelf life period had expired.
3.Header pins
http://www.amazon.in/REES52-Single-Breakable-Connector-Arduino/dp/B018K9981E?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00
We had run out of header pins at the time of prefab. We had more need of the single row header pins, unfortunately the SMD mountable version of these aren't commonly available. This is a link to through hole mounting component which can be SMD soldered too with a little effort.
4. Female header pins
http://www.amazon.in/Header-Female-10mm-Relimate-Connector/dp/B00RUNYE66?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00
I figured these also would be immensely useful.
5. ESP8266 ESP-12E transceiver module SMD.
http://www.amazon.in/Transceiver-ESP8266-ESP-12E-Serial-Wireless/dp/B00RJJHWLA?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
more for project specific and personal use
6. FTDI breakout
http://www.amazon.in/FT232RL-Download-Serial-Adapter-Arduino/dp/B00M1K412U?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00
A must have if you want to work on electronics communication using ftdi at home also. Its cheaper than the cable and offers more functionality by trading user friendliness and also you need USB to mini usb type B cable to connect to the computer. The USB to FTDI cable is also available but is way more expensive.
7. USB 2.0 Cable - A-Male to Mini-B
http://www.amazon.in/Storite-Cable-External-Camera-Readers/dp/B00GGGOYEK?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00
A good deal available on this one
8. Vacuum bag for Composite week
http://www.amazon.in/Real-Space-Bag-Storage-Clothes/dp/B00MA6Q5WY?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00
In
Trivandrum lab we had somehow received a humongous Quincy 200
compressor with the fablab setup instead of the standard Dewalt
compressor. It also had some issues in internal wiring which made its
fuses fail and it became useless for us.
We had to make alternate arrangements. I have documented the use of this in my composites week.
I made special attachment through which a Shopvac can be used to for
vacuuming process. This didn't fare well and failed to hold the vacuum
for long, so I don't recommend it
9. Smooth Rods
http://stores.ebay.in/ASHAPURA-HANDLOOM-AHMEDABAD/M8-SMOOTH-ROD-/_i.html?_fsub=10136704016
Cheapest available, the quality was also great.
10. GT2 Timing belts
http://www.ebay.in/itm/3d-Printer-GT2-open-Timing-Belt-6mm-width-2-meter-/112006572386?hash=item1a141ca962:g:p-4AAOSw~gRV6tAr
11. Bearings (8mm ID)
http://www.amazon.in/Roller-Bearings-Skateboard-Scooter-Wheels/dp/B01FWB3RS8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00
Not sure of the quality because I am yet to use these, but these have a decent price.
12. PCB milling bits.
-60 deg V grove router (G846) http://indsphinx.com/product/v-grove-router-60-g846/
-PCB 2 Flute Router_P820 ø 0.80mm http://indsphinx.com/product/pcb-2-flute-router-p826-0-80mm-1-00mm/
Indspinx is an Indian vendor I found when right at the last moment when in the last few weeks we ran out of PCB endmills.
Though Ideally we would require
0.4mm(1/64inch) pcb router for trace isolation and
0.8mm(1/32 inch) endmill for cutout of the PCB we had to stick with 60degree V groove or
since this particular vendor manufactures the bits according to our
requiremnt and manufactures them based on order. It would take 3 months
for the manufacturing. But the
30degree V groove was in stock so we immediately took. I contacted the
sellers and convinced them to wave the minimum quantity of 10 pieces
order and made sure the bits arrived to us as soon as possible. The V
groove gave us an excellent quality of trace isolation.
This is a useful page which gives us the feedrates for endmill which I found going through the Indspinx website and their catalog. For long term relation this vendor seemed ideal and I was impressed with the quality of the produce.Fab Academy Graduation.
I submitted my final works, my fab academy documentation website, for evaluation on July 8 and after an eager wait for a week the results slowly started pouring in, Vishnu was the first one to graduate from our batch and I soon followed.
Helping out on reviewing.
After I was done submitting my works for evaluation I also helped out my friends at Vigyan ashram by reviewing their works. This was a busy time in Vigyan ashram instructors could spare little time with the students for reviewing.
From July 12h onwards I closely worked with Pradnya one of the local instructors and the students Akshay, Supriya and Yogesh, reviewed their works and suggested improvements so that it they are don't face any trouble with the evaluation. I read their works in detail and notified each of them where the did not meet the criteria of evaluation as listed on the assignment and assessment document. These included, missing files, broken links, assignment work not meeting the requirements etc
For me I feel it awesome to be able come across innovation of any kind on daily basis and to be able to help these ideas foster gives me a great feeling. So being a manager of Lab, as instructor or fab guru or in some kind of advisory board for entrepreneurs all these job profiles would be godsend opportunity for me.
