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The resistors and capacitors are to improve noise immunity. The internal resistors values are very high. P4 and J3 are just a way to make a connection between the proto-board and the stepper driver.

We always operated the MACS on its own WiFi network, isolated from anything else for security. It can connect to a maintenance network that is internet attached for firmware upgrades to the Photons through the Particle Cloud. This is done by using a special maintenance badge which causes the unit to disconnect from the MACS network and connect to the maintenance network. The information on Github is a bit out of date, but it would give you a good idea of what is involved.

The MakerBarn has been using the MACS system we designed for over two years. See the youtube posting at:There are two videos, one for the hardware side, the other for the software side.The system is detailed on Github.

In Mill-Spec soldering the joint must not have any exposed copper, so the hand soldering technique is much like shown here. We had a flow solder machine that flowed a layer of wax on the solder side of the board to hold the components in place. Then a lead saw cut all the leads to length. The board was then brought over the solder wave and soldered. It produced perfect solder joints, but like most flow solder machines, there was a lot on maintainance.

I think it was one of those things brought to Earth by space aliens.

Table saw arbors are usually very simple devices. Many do have a square thread for the blade mount, which is tricky to machine. There are many very skilled Model Engineers in the UK that could make new arbors for their woodworking brothers.

With this type of jig, the fingers and the slots must be identical widths. So for 3/8" wide cut, the fingers must also be 3/8". In practice, the fingers are made a tiny bit less than 3/8" to allow for glue and easy assembly.

If the width of the piece is a multiple of the width of cut, all fingers will be even. If the width of the piece in an evem multiple, the fingers will apear centered.

Good idea about the chamois, but I'm afraid El Distructo would tear off the chamois and feed it to the dog.

I talked with others about this restriction. It seems that it originated with the mandate the all spindles and arbors stop within a specific time. The fear was that a heavy dado stack would come loose if the arbor stopped too quickly. Some rules are made without the benefit of actual experience, I think this may be one. I made thins Instructable at The MakerBarn, which is a non-profit makerspace near Houston, Texas. In my own shop I usually cut boxjoints with the Freud box joint set, which is two blades that are swapped for 1/4 and 3/8" joints. A very clever design. Ironically they are made in Italy, an EU country, as is may Freud dado set.

You can use the top edges, or the bottom edges as a reference. The main thing is to always start the cuts on the reference edge. If, for instance, you used the top edge to do one end of a side, then when doing the other end of that side, used bottom edge, the side would not fit properly.

That brings up a good point. I have a jig I made for cutting box joints with a normal combination blade. I typically use a Freud LU-84, which has a 1/8" kerf. So I made a jig for cutting 1/8" box joints. It works well and is the best choice fro thinner material. This would work for those in the EU.

I agree. I do like box/finger joints better than machine cut dovetails. But for pure class, it's hard to beat hand-cut dovetails.

You should find the carrier in the low end of the FM band, around 88Mhz.

No, I believe the 9014 is designed for much lower frequencies.

Soder-wick works well for removing single components, but it's too expensive and tedious to use for cleaning off an entire board. The small butane torch produces a gentle flame that is much like a heat gun. The heat is spread over a large area and components release as soon as their solder melts. So the exposure to heat is not much greater than the melting point of solder. If you have ever worked with flow solder machines or reflow ovens, you will get a better idea of how much heat electronic components are designed to go through. It's amazing.

For the hobbist, I think you are correct. But the fact is most router lifts are designed for hobbist use. I have a Bench Dog lift which is very heavy duty, but it still gets jamed with sawdust and requires a special tool to change the height. This router table is being used in a makerspace with about 80 members, of various experience levels, using it. So it has to be tough. Geting out a special wrench to change the heigth, or having to clear dust from a mechanical readout can be a problem. Pressing an UP or DOWN button and looking at an LCD readout is much simpler. Remember how cars used points and condensors for the ignition systems, and changing them out every 5-10K miles? Remember how much people whined about going to electronic ignition? Which do you prefer? Just a thought.

For the hobbist, I think you are correct. But the fact is most router lifts are designed for hobbist use. I have a Bench Dog lift which is very heavy duty, but it still gets jamed with sawdust and requires a special tool to change the height. This router table is being used in a makerspace with about 80 members, of various experience levels, using it. So it has to be tough. Geting out a special wrench to change the heigth, or having to clear dust from a mechanical readout can be a problem. Pressing an UP or DOWN button and looking at an LCD readout is much simpler. Remember how cars used points and condensors for the ignition systems, and changing them out every 5-10K miles? Remember how much people whined about going to electronic ignition? Which do you prefer? Just a thought.

The marshmallow is put in the top tube. Then you blow into the tube. The marshmallow will follow the path of the air and shoot out the front. It's amazing it will go through the two elbows, but it will.

The blower was part of a 60 Watt laser engraver. We have a large fume extraction system at The MakerBarn, so we connected the laser to that system rather than the smaller blower. I would guess it's a 1/2HP unit. I don't have any other specs. I tested it using some smoldering paper. It did a good job of extracting the smoke from all areas of the table. I don't think it needs to get any more complicated than that. If I didn't have the blower on hand, I would have used a blower from a Harbor Freight dust portable collector. Those blowers move a lot of air.

Surface mount LEDs come in several sizes. These are 1210 (3528 metric) size. They come individually in a strip like package, just like many other SMT components. Search for 1210 SMT LED on eBay and you will find many available.

Yes, when a laser engraves, the head sweeps back and forth in the X axis while stepping slowing in the Y axis. The 300mm/sec is only 1 foot per second, not all that fast (about 0.68 mi/hr).

My personal machine is a 60 watt laser with a 600x900mm working area. They get a bit pricey. We have two Chinese built lasers at The MakerBarn. The smaller is a 60W machine with an 18"x24" work area. These can be purchased for about $2400 (with water cooler) on eBay. It would be best to find a makerspace in your area and use their machine.

I see your unit uses two LEDs in series. I use 3, but I still think it would work on 9V, but probably the ballast resistors should be about 100 Ohms. It was interesting designing the package since it has the weird Dremel threads printed in the plastic case.

Almost any schematic program will do. I used Eagle, and did a screen capture on the schematic. Then I used photoshop to crop the image and sample it to the proper size. Most schematic symbols are too small, so you need to enlarge them a bit.

We have a makerspace, The MakerBarn. Out of our 100 members, about 80% are woodworkers. I was preparing some sandpaper the other day and one of the more experienced members asked me what I was doing. It was then I realized not everyone knew about the technique. So the instructable was born.

Wow, what a neat project. A trip to Home Depot and I could build an entire Air Force.

I guess I wasn't clear about why I was doing this. At The MakerBarn we have an electronics lab that is well equipped with instrumentation, but building up a wide variety of components for the members and kids to use for experimentation takes time and a lot of money. This is an excellent way to stock up on a wide range of parts without breaking the bank. The MakerBarn is a 501c3 non-profit. If you have a stash of electronic components you would like find a home for, contact us through our web site: themakerbarn.org or our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/theMakerBarn/. Companies like PCBway have already made donations and we certainly appreciate it.