John Edgar Park, one pixel at a time
Usman and I will be demonstrating the Rail-O-Graph in the mornings at the Make: magazine booth. We’ll do a talk at 2pm on Saturday and 12:45 on Sunday on the project. On Sunday at 2pm, Mark Frauenfelder and I will talk about coffee hacks. We’ll have some fun stuff on hand, including Mark’s modified espresso machine, the Florence Siphon brewer I built, a new, miniature version of my hydraulic espresso tamper, and more. Can’t wait to see you there!
The Railographic Apparatus uses a train to deliver messages between terminal stations. My first tests were with HO scale trains. These were very helpful in testing the Arduino + Adafruit MotorShield, but proved to be a bit to small and unstable to lug around all the gear we wanted to use.
Usman Muzaffar and I are working on a telecommunications project called The Rail-O-Graph. It’s a re-imagined Pony Express that passes messages between nodes using a microcontroller on a train. (Initial tests conducted with snakes on a plane did NOT go well.) I’m posting progress videos here as we race the clock to finish by Maker Faire. I previously posted a video of the simple switch > relay > solenoid > switch system here.
Here’s my exploration of solenoids and switches tapping at a constant rate:
The rate wasn’t so constant, until I put a protection diode across the solenoid leads. This was Tod Kurt’s suggestion. Once again, Tod as saved me from putting the project into a little pile and setting it on fire.
I’m working on a project with my friend Usman Muzaffar that involves solenoids. Here’s my first test of a little relay board I built sending 12V to the solenoid based on a 5V signal coming from the Arduino.
