Archive for the ‘Fabrica’ Category

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This most recent weekend

Thursday, June 30th, 2005

Did nothing really.
Started paying more attention to atjoburg.net Trying to become a more regular contributor to this art-tech-south-africa information point.

I’ve been working on the Virtual Glowbits – a Ann and Mark went off to Amsterdam for a little … er…. well for a little break from the Italian language I guess ;-) So I was given the responsibility of watering their babies. And so far they’re still alive!!! (By babies I mean plants, by the way)

::BEGIN DREAMER COMMENT::
A friend of mine, Gaia, from the Fabrica Administration building helped save 2 little baby birds that had no nests or momma’s that wanted them… Its so damn good to see people being so free of their time and effort to help others (no matter how small or inhuman.)
::END DREAMER COMMENT::

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Giavera – the unexpected festival

Thursday, June 30th, 2005


daniel’s flickr library.

Last weekend:

So the plan was to do one of the two ‘capoeira spectaculars’ over the weekend. For reasons totally unknown to me, i chose to go with option number 1: Saturday. So I met up with some of the cap-crew, and got a ride to a place called Giavera (about 40 mins from Treviso… I didn’t expect very much… just a quick dance, and drum and then get back into treviso where I would better manage my throbbing hangover. What I got was a full-on ethnic festival of racial groups from all over the world with communities in the veneto district of italy.

We were supposed to be a large portion of the Brazillian contingent. And after the 30 minute parade through the streets (Which I genuinely wasnt expecting) we were joined with a few more unlikely looking brazillian’s who were playing mad samba style instruments and made our little attempts at song into something with REAL umpf… You know what I mean…

So we did a little ‘playing’ in front of the massive crowed. (and there truly was a massive crowd!) After which it was the senegalese’s turn. After the parade / show was over the ethnic festival actually begun! So we did a whole range of things including eating some indian food (my first in Italy); playing LOADS of capoeira; dancing to Italian folk music from the South. (Goooood times!) And finally MORE capoiera at 1AM… We only stopped because the heavens chose to wet us quite thoroughly. It was a fantastic – totally unexpected excursion into the lives of people who actually live in Italy permanently – and not with the same liminality of those of us at fabrica.)

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general update

Friday, June 10th, 2005

Whats been happening the last few days?
Well theres been a lot of thinking / planning / thinking and rethinking! (DAMN) Mainly about Glowbits (which needs to have a little more time dedicated to improving its website!) and whats gonna happen with them in the future… So the plan is to build a decent live video demo using Max/MSP/Jitter OR Quartz Composer (Similar to Jitter, uses Core Video in Apples new Tiger operating system. Hot stuff!).

Last weekend I moved out of my little dingy unhomely apartment into a newer BIGGER apartment a little way outside the center of the city. (Think Bedford stop on the L-train – which is the first stop in Brooklyn from Manhattan… … WTF am I talking about? Check this out: MTA Subway map) Enough sidetrack. So yes, moved apartments. I am now living in a fantastic place, with one Thai and one Italian roommate! Its all very exciting. In fact, I am even doing a whole lot of cooking! (4 times in the last week) All the jewish momma’s out there would be so proud.

This weekend, Mark and Ann and I are going to see the TOM IGOE! WooHoo! We’re all very excited to be seeing him. The grandpappy of physical computing…
Therefore it looks like Daniel’s weekend will include many hours driving – in Italy – on the wrong side of the road – in Benetton’s car! I love saying that… Watch this space for a review of the Ivrea show. And to all – Buon Weekend!

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LED Testing cont…

Thursday, May 12th, 2005

TEST: Temparature at peak performance conditions
Results:
- The peak operating scenario is like this:
COL V I(mA) P(Watts)
R 2.2 385 0.847
G 3.5 355 1.2425 (Too high!)
B 3.5 355 1.2425 (Too high!)

To ensure the correct current draw: The system was 5V, Tip120, 4.7Ohm in series with R, 2Ohm in series with G, 1 Ohm in series with B.

The peak operating temperature is supposed to be 105 C, BUT at 70 C the Red channel fades…
SO: Heat sinking == SUPER important, OR lowering the current draw. (increasing resister)

UPDATE: Using R=9.4 Ohm; G=3 Ohm; B=4.7 Ohm I can limit Current to btw 170 & 200mA each. The lack of heatsink is apparent, cause each channel is hot to touch. As heat increases, so too does the total current draw. (all together = too hot to touch.)

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LED Testing

Wednesday, May 4th, 2005



Prolight_Pink

Originally uploaded by danielhirschmann.

LED Testing Begins:
Conditions: Using a 5mmX5mm Grid on A3 paper. Grid = 65mm away from LED. Lighting = daylight indoors.

Comparing 5 RGB Superbrightleds versus 1 Prolight RGB led:

Overall the 5 superbrights seemed brighter. However this test is unsatisfactory due to the simple fact that the superbrights were running at the normal forward current, while the prolights were running well below their norm. The solution is to test with a constant current sink circuit.

How to create a constant current sink: (Thank you Ohms law ;-) )
1) Identify the required current
2) Identify the expected load used by the LED (voltage)
3) Subtract the LED load from the supply voltage, and then identify a resister with the result and the required current from (1)
Ahhh now we know!

Details of the outputs / loads / etc are found by clicking the photo


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budget = ALMOST complete!

Thursday, April 14th, 2005

Yesterday was our final mission into the wonderful world of spending fabricas ‘physical computing department budget’. And what a wonderful day it was! We spend EURO 40.00 on boxes for all the fantastic components and hardware that we’d bought over the last few weeks. The funnest day was on Tuesday. We spent EURO 450.00 on powertools! (and tools that require elbow greece instead of voltage!) It was so cooool. Spending money on drills and jigsaws and a table vice, and drill bits and screw drivers and rasps and files and wood and nails and screws and and and glue and duct tape (my sweet sweet duct tape) etc. It a day of macho tool weilding. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA… oi)

One of the memorable moments was in my favorite store: “Botter”. They sell all the pro hardware. (You know, the kind of drills you just don’t see in the laymen hardware stores) Its obviously a family run business… The first time we went there, the man at the counter introduced us to his english speaking figlio (son), Francesco. He was fantastic to chat to. This time though, he wasn’t in! So we were forced to chat to another son who had VERY little english. He was allowing us behind the counter and showing us all the goodies that people are OBVIOUSLY not intended to see (like BOXES and TOOLS!). The result? MOMMA came out of the office and decided to start dealing with us directly. If you thought the son couldn’t speak english – well then the mother was a mute (with a metaphorical baseball bat). It took us about 10 minutes to totally eradicate the momentum we’d achieved with the son – and a further 30 minutes to generate the last few items on the list.

When it was all over though, she gave us the satisfied smile of a momma who just single handedly protected her family from the evils of foreign influence. (and who pay in EURO CASH).

Good times shopping in Italia… gooooood times.

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