Category: Making

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Getting Text into a Catia Part

Catia doesn’t really handle adding text to it’s CAD models very well. There is a way to do it with a little bit of creativity though.

We first start out with a new CatDrawing. In this we’ll create the text object, set the font/size/etc as needed. Once thats all set, save it as a DXF file.

Example Text in CatDrawing

Next up we want to re-open the DXF in catia. This will have the text as raw vector objects rather than as text now. We want to copy that object so we can paste it into a drawing in the CatPart that we want to add the text into.

Copy the Vector Object
Pasted Text

With the text pasted into a drawing, we can do anything with the text in the same way as any other drawing, like extruding it.

Extruded Text

Resources:

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Roomba Brain Surgery

After learning that the original Roomba models have an open serial port with a fully documented API, I just had to try out using it. I pulled the lid off my old Roomba 670, trying not to break any plastic clips and right there it was, the serial port ripe for the hardware hacker. What can it be used for? Just about anything related to driving around the roomba, running the vacuum, and reading sensor data from the robot.

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Circuit-Diagram-CLI

I use the circuit diagram editor from this site for all of my circuit diagrams for my projects. It generally has all the elements I want to use easily available, at least until now. I wanted to add an 8 pin din connector to my diagram so that I could include the pinout for the connection, however it wasn’t available in the default package, you needed to use the extended symbols, which are not available on the Web version.

In order to use the symbol, I had to install the desktop version (which is fairly old). The desktop version however doesn’t support the newer XML format provided in the repo, so we need another tool to do the conversion.

We download circuit-diagram-cli, and use the arguments below to do the conversion, drop that into the desktop tools folder, and restart it for everything to finally work.

C:\Users\steve\Downloads>circuit-diagram-cli.exe component mini-din-8.xml -o mini-din-8.cdcom --verbose
Mapping resources as key-file pairs.
Input is a file.
Starting 'mini-din-8.xml'
mini-din-8.xml
Starting binary generation.
Compiling C:\Users\thest\Downloads\mini-din-8.xml
Icon minidin8_32.png not found.
Icon minidin8_64.png not found.
Compiled to C:\Users\thest\Downloads\mini-din-8.cdcom
binary -> mini-din-8.cdcom
Finshed 'mini-din-8.xml'

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Finishing Old Projects 2 – Bioshock Pistol

This second project is the pistol from Bioshock, it is primarily 3d printed with some extra materials thrown in. I picked up a toy pistol, cleaned out some old cans, and printed off some of the pieces to mod it into the fully upgraded pistol from the game. Except the problem is I never got further than painting a few of the printed parts, no assembly was ever started, so now it’s time to fix that.

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Finishing Old Projects 1 – Adafruit Gas Mask

I have a number of old projects I started years ago and never got around to finishing. Some of these have electronics in the plans, others are just 3d prints. Many of them I purchased parts for, or printed parts of them, but I just never managed to finish them. So I plan on getting them done, cutting a few corners to do so, but it’s better than not doing them at all.

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RC Mini Bot

I’ve been watching some YouTube videos featuring 3d printed battle bots recently. One of the form factors that looked neat were the antweight robots (150g), due to their small size and small price for components. I decided to design and build something similar (though no weapon) just to drive around for fun, tormenting the pets, and practicing some design work. I figure I’ll design it so a tail can be tied on with feathers for the cat to chase (the dog will chase it just because it makes noise).

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