project completed!
Documentation is now located here:
Table for Electronic Dreams
May 11, 2008
April 14, 2008
connected
connected all the boards together, powered up and tested using my mobile phone. seems very sensitive! perhaps too much so. its a bit hard to tell without the acrylic. it seems like signals from one board start to affect other boards nearby and in the same row. also the board receiving the power seems to lit up more.
currently building the table frame out of aluminum. needs to be reinforced. with luck will be done with construction this week!
April 08, 2008
standard tables
Most tables designed for writing or dining should be 28" to 30" high (29" is common) with chair seats 11" to 13" lower. The higher the tabletop, the more uncomfortable and formal the table feels. Provide about 24" of leg room below the table (height from floor to bottom of table rail) and at least 12" for knee clearance (projection of table top beyond table leg).
on three of the boards, there was a problem: the bottom right coil seemed to be very insensitive. I think there was a cold connection with GND. i think while soldering I burnt the connection. I was able to correct one of them. I will see how to fix the other two tomorrow.
April 06, 2008
boards finished, green acid
I finished soldering all 15 circuit boards. before the boards arrived i also etched a tiny circuit to regulate to 5V. the indomitable Tom Jenkins is a chemistry wiz and whipped up some cupic chloride. it is fizzy green like some kind of green apple soda. it worked great, but you have to mix it fresh, is what we learned the hard way.
now to start building the table!
April 03, 2008
timeline
TITLE
Table for Electronic Dreams
Electroceptive Surface
Platypus Table
Hertzian Dreams
Electronic Dream Table
URL
http://sheepish.org/table/
http://sheepish.org/electroceptive/
http://sheepish.org/es/
http://sheepish.org/platypus/
DESCRIPTION
Table for Electronic Dreams reveals the invisible workings of electronic devices and the limits of human perception.
TIMELINE
April 3 - electronics finished, circuit boards soldered
April 10 - build table. final TITLE, URL, DESCRIPTION
April 17 - playtest, documentation.
April 24 - final draft of paper.
May 1 - paper due
May 8 - thesis presentation
March 28, 2008
another prototype
barebones circuit worked great! I built a prototype to see what it would start to look like with many sensor/LED pairs, figure out optimum distance of acrylic surface, etc. circuit boards due to arrive Monday from Goldphoenix.
two videos, one of my cellphone receiving a call, another with iPhone. I forgot to take stills.
March 13, 2008
ordering things off the internet
Found a cheap(er) source for telephone coils. Ordered two to see if they worked, they work great! So I ordered 60. Actually the cheaper ones are better because the casing comes off very easily... I was struggling to remove the casing on the Radioshack telephone coil.
Later the same day inductor coils from Electronic Goldmine arrived. I had forgotten about these! Haven't tested yet... but I have working coils.... should be worth testing anyway.
designed a board using Eagle. Sent it to Barebones PCB to test. Due to arrive Tuesday. Hopefully it will work fine!
I also ordered all the components from Digikey and white LEDs. I ordered so many things my credit card company called me to make sure I wasn't a victim of identity theft!