Sunday, December 25, 2011

3D-Printed Mouse

So, I was looking, just for fun, for a mouse in stl or some other useful format and found this:

http://web.media.mit.edu/~mellis/mouse/

Pretty cool. The idea is to be able to print some kind of mouse "add-on" for my device too as well and thought someone already must have done it. And I found the above... Anyway, I will see if I use that design, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1056, or something else that may show up...

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Blender 2.61 Released!

This is the coolest release of Blender by far! So many new goodies in here!

* New Render Engine (Cycles Render Engine)
* Motion Tracking
* Dynamic Paint
* Ocean Simulation

Check it out here!

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-261/

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

TreadGaming Black Enclosure

So, I've been working a lot on the enclosure, and I have had this kind of design for a while now. Since I received new PCB's with headers too, I updated the design. Basically, adding holes for the headers. So, so far I have done this (made in Blender of course):



I've used ABS plastic before, and now I decided to try using PLA instead. I basically used the same settings I used for ABS, and just changed a few parameters. It ended up not bad, but still needs some tweaking. Anyway, here are some photos of the 3d print. Note also that the camera really sucks at close ups, and I was seriously thinking investing in a better one...

Base and Lid with PCB inside base:


Closer image of base, lid and PCB inside base.


Enclosure assembled with PCB inside.

So, it's a quite perfect fit! What is missing though is a hole for the smaller header, which I will add next. Also, the LED's are harder to shine through black, so I'm not sure what to do about that. Using white color for the plastic naturally solves that, but would be nice to be able to use black too... I will probably add holes for it or something.

In the end though, I will probably have a few different enclosures one can choose from, depending on what one want to do with the device. For instance, I was also thinking making a "mouse" add-on plastic part where this will transform into a mouse, fitting nicely into one's hand...

Oh, and also, I will probably add some logo on there somewhere. And maybe experiment with some other designs, as I have almost reached the practical goal, where the enclosure is finished enough to be useful. That includes distance from lens to surface, headers available, and the lid good enough to stay in place... Also, I was thinking adding stripes or something so it will be easy to use strings to tighten the whole thing onto whatever surface one want to use.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

10 TreadGaming PCB's Have Arrived!

So, 10 new TreadGaming PCB's arrived the other day! This time around, I let them solder the headers and the ADNS-9500 too! What also is new, is the updated silkscreen, where I moved a few names around for easier read and larger text. The buttons with the "Reset" and "HWB" are now more easier to read. I hooked one up, uploaded my current firmware, and it worked!

A Box of 10



Close-up:



Sorry, the camera sucks at close-up.

MyRO PCB was little slower this time around, and late about 1 week. However, I'm not really in a rush. I got it all really nice wrapped up, so a lot of care taken there. Also, I got 2 calendars with both Canadian and Chinese red days marked on it...