Here’s what I’m thinking for the next version of Niftymitter – a bit of a rejig, with the sleeve rotated in relation to the contents so that one can slide things back and forth to gain access to the increased number of controls (tuning, volume, on/off). Signified here by pinboard pins.

Am making a start on a nifty radio receiver. First pics below:

After two failed attempts with Maplins kits (my advice: don’ t bother), have hacked open an existing radio with basic controls: tuning, combined on/off and a volume, band select  (AM/FM) and an extending aeriel. To be packaged in a cardboard cube. Will keep you posted.

If anyone has any insider knowledge on existing open radio designs, do chip in. Andrew initial suggested these but they’re a bit basic functionally and yet I don’t have time to make one up – so am on the lookout for kits really.. Not even anything on Open Circuits..

Am gathering some info on the options for build-your-won CNC machines, with a view to perhaps building one for the studios. So far:

• DIYLILCNC, 1′ x 1′ x 2′
• The bizarrely named BlackToe, 4′ x 8′ – license unclear
• Several dozen Instructables..
• .. including Oomlout’s excellent looking offering, 10″ x 14″ x 4″

Somewhat ironically, I was checking out Fab@home’s new site this morning, and have been having trouble opening up their 3D models -Though supplied in Solidworks format, it is Solidworks 09, a version someway beyond my own, so about as useful to me as a bananaskin. Would have appreciated a choice of a more common format..

The rest of the site makes good browsing however – they have the bulk of their mechanical data in a wiki (which is how I’d love this place to develop), a whole other CMS for software development and then a store selling kits and assembled units. At $1500 – $3700 everythings a darn site pricier than, say, a Makerbot, but you get what looks like a bigger build area and a more flexible/more labourious tool system (depending on your point of view). Their emphasis seems to be slightly more towards compound material prints, which is certainly an area lacking in most other 3d printers.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been spending some time here. The main reason, I won’t lie, is because I’ve been ill at home and its about the only project of my many that I can really do whilst sitting around in my dressing gown feeling slightly queasy. So that’s why.

Why 3D now?

In other news, I think its high time there were some 3D files online to aid development, this being meant to be a industrial design sort of project and all. I haven’t had any need fro them personally as yet, having had easy access to the laser cutter in Dundee, and doing all the tweaking directly in Illustrator. However, all my prototypes currently being at the Futurecraft exhibition in Dundee, and holding off on doing the replacement til I’ve worked out exactly how to implement the added controls, I have nothing in 3D to play with. And there may be others out there who would appreciate some 3D too so they can have a play around without actually making one yet..

What kind of file?

Which has led me to an interesting other occurrence of the question ‘how open is open?’, as discussed briefly before by me and by ladyada. Initially I did do a mockup in Sketchup, that being the most accessible of 3D packages both in terms of finances and intuitivity (in my opinion). However, being an experienced CAD modeller, I still find sketchup limiting, so immediately reached for Solidworks this time. So I could just share my solidworks files happily in the knowledge that I am being as open as my own processes allow, right? I don’t think so. Solidworks is a beast of a program to learn for the novice (I do want to embrace the novice in this project. not like that..) and at $150 for merely the student edition its not really something that the average hobby maker or user/hacker is going to buy. I can, however, alongside that share the .stl files. STL is a nicely common 3D format, essentially being a wireframe and is the preference of many 3D printers. So exporting it out of Solidworks, one loses all one’s careful parametrecisation (ooh) and linked geometry, but then Sketchup can’t do much with that anyway.

Another note of interest: Sketchup doesn’t by default support .stl files. But, because it is open to the extent of having an API that user developers can write plugins for, one can quite easily find a plugin to import .stl files for you. Bob’s your uncle.

from Solidworks..

.. to Sketchup

Be generous

So I guess my point is, you can operate an open methodology in product design at no discernable extra cost to your normal working practices, by simply sharing the files you’ve got. However, if you want to go a step further and engage with an audience greater than yourself, one really needs to think about making one’s source accessible in a more generalistic way (which is where the need for better standards come in). Hence alongside my illustrator source file, will be an .svg file readable by all sorts vector art programs, alongside an eagleCAD schematic is a .png viewable in any image reader (not ideal I know), and alongside Solidworks files, .stl files viewable (and, of course, editable) in most 3D programs. None of the software I initially use for these is open source itself, but they do all output common, if not open, formats. With all of them, the common formats mean you lose all sorts of levels of detail and editability, but hey, you can’t have it all.

So I think there’s open design, and then there’s generously open design. For the pedants out there, both are equally open, but only the latter is going to help in bridging the divide between users and designers, for the benefit of the product. And conversely, using open software to create your open design is not necessarily generous to the user, hence my loyalty to MS Office. xls files for the parts list thus far – there is simply nothing better nor more ubiquitous. That’s what I mean by generosity..

Download niftymitter’s 3D models (very rudimentary at first) here.

My favourite thing about the recent religious festival that is the first distribution of iPads has definitely been iFixit’s teardown which has been recorded meticulously and with amazing speed on their blog. If you don’t know, a teardown is basically a documentation of someone taking apart an object, normally for the purposes of hacking or repair, but mainly out of curiosity.

Its been a very DIY weekend all in all. A similar type of teardown came in handy when I wanted to get into my phone to clean the back of the screen but couldn’t work out how to do it. One quick Google search of the model name/number and the word ‘fix’ quickly brings up myriad sites explaining how to take the thing apart (turns out you just need the deft application of a credit card, and not in a consumeristic sense). Meanwhile my sister was replacing the battery in her iPod thanks to yet more teardowns. It dawned on me how so many of those shops can exist in Glasgow that can offer repairs of all sorts of devices whilst clearly running on a shoestring.

As is the case with iFixit, the great thing for the teardown documenter is that alongside that information you sell the parts and mods for the product in question, direct to the fixer.

So it is that despite never having seen an iPad outwith of my computer monitor, I know exactly what one looks like on the inside, how it compares in architecture to an iPhone, and some of the ins and outs of the brand new A4 processor it runs on.

The whole thing brings into stark light how futile it is becoming to pursue a proprietary attitude in physical products. What do Apple really gain by being so secretive beyond generating hype? Any competitor worth its salt will be doing the exact same reverse engineering that iFixit have done, and now have the benefit of others on the web contributing to that collective of information. Would it really be that terrible for Apple to publish all the specs and details of their products at the same time as launching the product? It’s as if the practice of planned obsolescence in products has now gone beyond the physical realm: To guarantee market share, the product is deliberately rendered obsolete first by not having any information published about its makeup and then by having all that information ripped out of the physical object within a week of release. There can be no secrecy, so why bother? Within a few months there will be competitors and by that time the inevitable generations of subsequent Apple releases, desperately seeking to stay on top. Which would all be fine if the whole thing didn’t put the user squarely below the shareholder in terms of importance.

It is often said that buying a Mac is like buying a car with the bonnet welded shut. Only now we’ve got a web enabled angle grinder. (Allow me one laboured metaphor at least..)

As you may have noticed, I’ve given the site a much needed spring clean, hope this makes things a bit clearer, and colourful!

Jonny has sent in these pictures, and some more information about his setup:

“Here’s some pics of the nifty meter in action. We use a yamaha mixer at our gigs. We plug our mics and guitars into it and also an ipod with our ‘bossa nova’ backing tracks.
The outputs are sent to powered speakers and a monitor.
I used the 2 track phono ‘record out’ to send the complete mix to the nifty. This transmitted the signal to an FM radio that was plugged into the venues house system.”

In light of the results from some of the testing, I am considering diverging niftymitter into two families: one for portable/home use, and a more robust version for use with PA and musical equipment. Both will have an improved retuning process and the portable version will have a input volume control, as described by Andrew. Tester Nathaniel mentioned he has a Makerbot, which correlates with my plan to give the robust version a printable ABS housing..

Any thoughts on names for these varieties welcomed..

Have been updating the parts list for v0.25, including trying to find a better trimcap that can actually be adjusted by hand, or hacked in such a way as to make that possible. Found this one on rapid that might be more suitable.

Have also ordered in some hand adjustable 50k resistors to implement Andrew’s attenuator suggestion (will mean that we can adjust the volume going into the transmitter to reduce the amount of distortion).

“Ask an Engineer” chat @ Adafruit.com – 03/20/10 from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Limor Fried and Phil Torrone were mentioning in their last engineer’s chat (over at adafruit), the complications of defining open sourcing in hardware – ie, there are so many varying levels and processes, it is much more difficult to define standards than in software. Well, I find the same if not more problems in finding standards for mechanical design: Basically I am going as far as publishing a parts list that goes to a certain level of specification for each component, and in the next version will put up the part numbers and links for one supplier, namely Rapid online. It would be great to do things in such a way that others can flexibly choose the same components from other suppliers, but its just too much work. As it is, I don’t particularly like any of the component suppliers: RS are overpriced and terrible at delivering to me, Rapid are cheap but I rarely order enough to offset the £5 delivery effectively, Farnell’s catalogue seems to have some significant omissions, and don’t get me started on the myriad failings of Maplin..

You do your best. I am enjoying using the Thingiverse parts management platform, although it could do with opening up the supplier side of things.. Anyway, the point is there is no clear definition of what consititutes being ‘open’. On the other end of the scale I could simply sell niftymitters that are easily openable and have hand scrawled vague parts list with them, and it would still be open to me, but just bad! The more we can do to raise the bar of good practice the better, but the bar can’t be in such a place that we have no time to make anything anymore!

In the same way, I would like to offer the board layouts in Eagle or perhaps Fritzing but just don’t have the time and inclination to learn them right now (hence my beloved illustrator .pngs). If anyone would like to aid in this respect that would be much appreciated, and if you are in Glasgow I will happily buy you a pint or two for your troubles!