Designing 3D printed parts to help supplement a situation.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
Bob showed what he 3d Printed to replace a broken part around the house. Next week, bring examples of things you made (instead of bought) and used around the house.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
What Every Maker Needs to Know About Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries
Check out the March 2, 2021 Workshop 88 Maker Meeting here:
Introduction
If your next project involves portable electronics, this is what you need to know about batteries. Here are slides from Bob Van Valzah’s presentation on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.
Portable projects running on single-use batteries don’t face some of the complexities you run into with rechargeable batteries. Lithium-ion batteries can burn your project to a cinder if they’re mistreated.
You’ll need to know the vast range of sizes available for lithium-ion batteries. Manufacturers use units like mAh milliamp hour and Watt hour to describe their batteries.
Comparison with Other Rechargeable Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries outperform all other battery technologies in power density and energy density. Moreover, they can be designed to cover a huge range of power and energy densities.
Charging, Discharging, and Temperature
Voltage, current, capacity, and temperature are all related as a battery charges and discharges. Curves are presented to show the relationships.
What’s Inside a Cell?
Lithium-ion batteries don’t behave like other batteries and are downright counterintuitive in many ways. Understanding just a bit about them at the level of molecular physics and chemistry helps explain some of the mysteries.
Battery Packs
When your project needs more voltage, current, or capacity than a single cell can provide, you need a battery pack of many cells. You can make your own pack or buy them pre-made. Or 3d print adapters for commercial battery packs:
By far the most common lithium-ion cell in battery packs is the “18650.” Every maker should know why they have that name and be aware of the pitfalls of buying them.
Safety
It’s easy to make mistakes in designing and building your project that end up “mistreating” a lithium-ion battery. In particular, there are many ways to go wrong building serial strings of batteries in the quest for more voltage. Protection circuitry or “brains” watch for and avoid the most common forms of electrical mistreatment. In extreme environments like the surface of Mars at night, batteries must be kept warm.
Battery Voltage Monitoring
If your project has a user interface, the user might want to know how much charge is left in the battery. We show typical circuitry for an MCU to read the battery voltage, along with the charge and discharge curves.
MCU Project Integration
You could charge your batteries by removing them from the project, but that’s often impractical. Modest-sized projects can be charged via USB and built-in charging circuitry. It only takes a two chips if you want to do this yourself.
Battery Holder MCUs
A nice alternative to DIY integration for many MCU-based projects is to use a “battery holder” MCU. Several varieties are available on AliExpress. In addition to holding the battery, these boards provide USB charging, a USB serial interface for programming, and a power switch.
Lithium-ion batteries are well suited to personal electronics where small size, light weight, and long runtimes are prized. But other chemistries are better suited to solar, marine, and other applications.
Mistakes and Summary
I learned a lot from the projects I’ve done with lithium-ion batteries. You can easily avoid some of the mistakes I made. Slides summarize the key knowledge points about lithium-ion batteries and advice for makers.
Chargers and Interconnects
Jim Williams describes more details of lithium-ion battery charging and how he built a generic LiPo charger. It uses a current meter from a cheap “Charger Doctor” and a TP4056 chip. Jim replaced the fixed current programming resistor with a pot for setting the optimal charging current for the battery at hand. He used HF Alumiweld to fabricate a custom heatsink and managed to fit the whole project into a palm-sized case.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
Slicer – the software that generates the G-Code that is sent to the 3D printer.
Check out the February 23, 2021 Workshop 88 Maker Meeting here:
Introduction
The 3D Printing process involves
obtaining an .stl file (custom design or downloaded)
preparing that file for the specific 3D printer to be used (slicer software)
Tonight’s focus is G-Code
3D printing
Slicer Clarification
There are many old web links that still work. But that doesn’t mean it’s the most current version of software. The Prusa Printer software is based on the open source Slic3r. But the latest edition (as of this writing) of Prusa Slicer Software is available on the Prusa3D.com website and it is called PrusaSlicer 2.3.
Slic3r.org – opensource, last release (2018-05-10)
Versions from Prusa (still free and OpenSource): Slic3r Prusa Edition, PrusaSlicer 2.0
Automated Bed Level Hardware Add-On
Demo of BLTouch including what is required for installation on an Ender 3 printer.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
http://radio.garden/ OMG so cool. Hear what’s being broadcasted anywhere in the world. Find out where you end up when given the chance. Make the world feel small and beef up your geography knowledge.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics
AudioMoth – Andrew shared the device that can sit outside and record bird and other animal sounds. Tune in later at an upcoming meeting to hear actual animal sounds recorded.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
Mace provided an update of the Google Earth Map data point project.
Questions addressed: How much data do you really need? What produces the best looking chart? How do you determine which of the data can be excluded? Every 5th element, every 100th?
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
3D Printed Tally system case (more details coming later)
Workshop 88 is a makerspace in Glen Ellyn Illinois. We are more than a workshop, we are a growing community of creative talented people who aspire to learn and share knowledge, experiences, and projects.
Join us! To become a member join at Workshop88 or you can help us continue to share our projects and activities by supporting us via Patreon.
