Update

No action here lately… so that’s a quick update…

1) UsbProg

My favourite allround-programmer…

I am still developing (selfless- and restlessly) my reflow oven (5 freely programmable phases and 130 profiles storagable on the oven itself… coming soon). Howsoever I put my reflow-controller PCB on a USB-stick with some metal casing… Which did not kill my reflow controller but the UsbProg instead…

The mega32 used on the UsbProg must have been completely fried; the bootloader flashed some LED helplessly but my PC didn’t recognize the USB-device anymore. I was unable to flash the IC using my STK500 so … with other words… destroyed. So I ordered a new UsbProg and I exchanged the damaged M32 on the old one, which was a success, it works great again!

Here are some pictures of the “birth” of my second UsbProg (click for larger image)…

The re-born UsbProg and the new one…

The UsbProg PCB and all the supplied parts. Just solder these together…

…which then will look like this. (There’s only one rule: “populate everything from top side”).

So I do now own 2 UsbProgs… which can flash each other just using a standard 10-pole-cable

It works…

-> http://www.embedded-projects.net/index.php?page_id=135

2) CNC Vision System

I saw a video by Hossmachine on YouTube in which he used a standard USB-webcam to find the zero-points on his CNC. I liked the idea so I went to ebay…

Searched and found…: EBAY

You get a “12MP USB Webcam” for about 4€ which is not much. I ordered 2 pcs just in case one wasn’t working. But (after some days of patience-training (Hong Kong)) both arrived and were OK.

So we were left with some serious teardown-action. I will mount the cam on the CNC and that case doesn’t look like a lot of protection against water… plus I want to mount an adjustable focus using a servo or something similar.

Intrestingly the cam has more functions than implemented on the casing… If you connect 2 contacts the cam will take a picture. But… 12 megapixels is as far from the cam as a bicycle from a 747…

Pics…

The Cam from China

“Dismantled”

and a macro (ca 2cm distance) …

Joa. Stay tuned.

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