Sunnyvale Electronics Flea Market

Last Saturday we were at the Sunnyvale Electronics Flea Market in the Frys Electronics parking lot.  This used to be at DeAnza College for years, but last year moved to Frys Electronics.

This event is put on by the local ham Radio clubs.  Originally it was a way for them to swap equipment, it was a true swap meet.  Now it is a place for old test equipment, just about anything electronic, tools, and excess computers.  One time a vendor was selling 20 Agilent 3G test stations for $100.  At a minimum they were good spectrum analyzers. This event occurs the second Saturday of the month, March thru September. It starts at 5AM and goes to 12PM, but you can always find early shoppers there at 4:30AM looking for the best deal.  You can learn more about it here

https://www.electronicsfleamarket.com/

Why are we here? Good question, well as electronics hacker from way back, I have acquired lots of things.  So we are here to sell of excess stuff that I dont want to end up in land fill and to show our MyMakerTools products.

As the first picture shows we have our normal products (except the Soft Wear since this crowd is not really into that).  Also you can see some of the items we are selling as we downsize my collection of goodies from the past 20+ years.

It is an interesting collection of people.  Ham's looking for the right component for their next project, Makers looking for old equipment that they can re-purpose and  hackers with old computers looking for parts to keep them running. It is always interesting talking to people and the projects they are working on.  There are four more flea markets this year and we will probably be at three of them.  The one in July conflicts with Bricks by the Bay, which we will have more about later.

Soft Wear Design

On another side of the creative spectrum, MyMaker Tools also features fun custom handmade fabric creations, what we call Soft Wear. So far, we have comfortable 100% cotton shirts (inspired by aloha shirts), pillowcases, and a child’s quilt. The shirts range from child (S-M-L) to adult (S-M-L-XL).  All shirtshave size and care labels. These items are machine washable in cold water, prefer minimal drying, and reside in a smoke and pet free environment.

The inspiration for these springs from the fabric that we find. We have gears, monsters in gears, circuit boards, brick toy construction characters, robots, and are constantly on the lookout for colorful prints with fun themes. Here are a few examples of our current stock. The shirts are great for Maker events or whenever you want to stand out in a crowd.

Seattle Motif

Brick Builder Motif

Since our fabric inventory is limited, we only have a few samples made up, but can complete your order with short notice.

Brick Interface

The Brick interface consists of three parts.

1. Motor Control
2. LED Control
3. Input Control

Motor Control
The Motor Control is similar to the motor control in the original Brick Controller.  There are connectors for up to four motors.  In the original Brick Controller the motor control was either on or off, that is it was full speed or off.  In this version, I have implemented Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) control, thus allowing for independent speed control of each motor. I suspect that the first version of firmware and app software will not have this implemented yet, but will be an upgrade.

LED Control
There are controls for 10 LED sources.  LED 1- 9 are controlled by the LP5569 LED controller.  LED 10 is controlled by the PIC32 and is connected to a PWM generator in the PIC32, so it will have some lighting effects.  The LP5569 provides a wealth of capability.  I suspect like the motor controller it will be implemented in stages as the firmware and software coalesce into a working application.  If you want to see what the capabilities are, search the blog for LP5569.  There were 9 entries in the spring of 2018 where I was working on this as a standalone LED controller.

Input Control
While this was implemented in the original version, it was not very clear how to use it.  This time I put some more thought into it.  It is still very basic and it may still evolve.  Mostly I will need to verify that there is sufficient electrical protection on each input.  What I would like to see is a two fold interface.  First is an ON/OFF type input.  The user will connect the input to ground, provided in the connector, which will casue the running script to do something.  Second is to provide a variable voltage, 0 to 3.3VDC again this in the connector, to an input.  As the voltage changes, the running script will do something. The first option was implemented in the in the original version.  The second will take some thought as to how it will be implemented and thus will probably be an upgrade in the future.

Electronics and Soft Wear, Why?

If you visit the Web site or see us at an event, we are easy to find because we always have colorful theme shirts on.  Additionally we are showing theme shirts, unique pillow cases and even quilts.  We are the definition of a Maker.

Gears and Monsters Adult Shirt

Our theme shirts were inspired by aloha shirts. Early in our life, we lived in Hawaii while one of us was in the Navy and the other an accountant in a local (and colorful) CPA firm.  But large tropical prints or iconic beach scenes aren’t appropriate to every occasion. There are times when you need something besides a t-shirt. These shirts are comfortable. They’re colorful. They’re a way to make a statement. They’re fun. They can make you chuckle, like an inside joke or a belly buster to share. They’re a way to say, hey,  I’m unique, I’m fun. They help you stand out in a crowd.

Child's Brick Builder Shirt

For our first Maker Faire event, we wanted a way to show our commitment to the cause….we’re creative and fun and proud of it. I found fabric with gears similar to the logo on the business cards, and the rest is history. We received many enthusiastic comments, so I made a few more for the next event, and even sold a few! And in kids sizes too. 

Large Brick Builder Theme Quilt

At our next event, done forget to stop buy and see the Soft Wear side of what we Make.

Brick Buddy 2 Daughter Card

The Mass Storage and MP3 player card is almost done.  It is still missing the speaker connector.  The picture below shows what it looks like.

The connector on the left is a place holder until I find the correct 3D model.  Instead of the socket shown, it should be a pin connector on the bottom side. The blank area on the right is for the speaker connection. It will either be a standard 3.5mm jack or some type of push down connection. There is a concern with the height as I am trying to maintain the same dimensions as the Brick Buddy 1.

Previously, I was deciding about the amplifier.  While I had acquired 250 of MAX9711 Class AB amplifiers for free, I was worried about heat and efficiency with those.  Looking around at other options and in particular Class D amplifiers, I chose the MAX98306E.  It was small, relatively inexpensive and has been used by other Makers in projects. Additionally, I was able to get a small evaluation board to play with.

Nothing much else has changed.  The board is a simple 2 layer PCB and about as small as I can make it and still assemble in my lab.

Back At It - The Brick Buddy 2

 As always with life, things happen and I have been distracted by work and family.  I have been slowly working on the Brick Buddy 2 platform.  The layout is now complete as the picture below shows.

You can see the TYPE C connector on the right, the Bluetooth module in the center top and the brick interface on the left.

The Brick Interface has four motor connectors using the same style connector as before.  Above that are the four input connectors, using a similar style connector only smaller.  What is good about this connector style is that pre-built  cables are readily available from Digi-Key.  Above that are the 10 connectors for the LEDs.  The first nine are connected to the LP5569 LED controller and thus will have multiple possibilities in lighting control.  This uses the same connector that BrickStuff is using with their LED product line.

In the center left is the connector for the Mass Storage, MP3 player and amplifier, but we will go into further detail about this later...

Finally I changed the external power connector to the same one as the motor connection, since this breaks out to a Power Functions connector.  It allows the Brick Buddy 2 to receive power from any Lego power source. 

In my last post I talked about design decisons that needed to be made.  Here is what happened since then, I went with two spare pins where both are generic inputs and one of them can be an Interrupt input.  If needed I also still have the two programming pins and the Rx pin in the console port.

The motor control pins were complex.  There are only 5 PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) outputs in this version of the PIC32 microcontroller. You could control the motors with one PWM pin on one side of the motor and a static line on the other side of the motor, but I am worried about reliability.  The pins were chosen so that the PWM outputs can be mapped to either side.  Not sure how responsive this is going to be, but I hope it will work.

Next time I will be describing the brick interface in more detail.