Author: Peter Jones

Thinking of how I would build one. Top and bottom rails. Two posts going top to bottom. Inbetween there’d be a carriage with camera, light, and gripper. The gripper would have five fingers. One and five would prevent neighboring books from moving. Three would be a kicker, having the top of the book and rotating it down. Two and four would grip the newly rotated book. I might have to rethink this. Either all fingers have to do all jobs, or I need to move in my books two fingers from the edge of the shelf.
Spatulas.
Spatulas with an ability to rotate a bit.

Has been made. Totally buying a screen soon(tm). Organized the Wif’s books. This inspired me, so now I’m working on mine. Of course that’s the nightmare scenario. I’ve been really antsy lately. I’ve got stuff to do. Do it. We went to Archie McPhee’s yesterday. Totally forgot that they have surplus motors and gizmos. I need to remember that the next time I need motors. Nice big motors for a ten spot. Seems legit. I also finally got a helping hand. Like the tool of magnifying glass and gator clips.
I love mania, but it concerns me whenever it pops up.
Right.
Sleep.
If tomorrow keeps an even keel, I might start doing my final list for building a laptop.

I’m going to get the commercial screen and controller from Adafruit. Not sure which one, but definitely one of them. While I could hook up a controller to the laptop screen I have, and I will for a different project I’m sure, I would be stuck with a 4 amp draw. 4 amps are going to murder any battery pack I can put together. Obviously, this was probably true of the original laptop as well, but I’m supposed to be better than that.
Future endeavours though, first I want to replace the CCFL with LEDs. This alone should probably make the numbers a lot better. Second is looking into my own driver. I just want to see where I can take it.

Last night I totally desoldered enough keys. Out got to be a hassle when the pressure I was pouring on the back of the keys started to bend the circuit board rather than wiggling off the keys. Tonight, or tomorrow, I’ll start looking at the two laptop LCDs I haven’t shattered yet :(…
I kind of wonder how hard it would be to directly drive a hard drive?

I crashed out like a 747 when I got home after some dinner last night. Maybe tonight I’ll finish desoldering that keyboard. I also should start building my keyboard template.

I desolder more keys. Tomorrow the world.
Or I at least start laying out my fifty-plus keys. I should start figuring out my layout.

Teensy
Stick and this

I should probably order a Teensy also…

Started desoldering the keyboard. This was actually quite an accomplishment because it involved me finding my soldering iron and flux. I want even sure I had flux. Successfully removed about twenty switches with another five or so fatalities. I’ll be busy tomorrow night, but I expect to get the other thirty plus I need Tuesday.
I broke the screen of laptop one. This might be a lost cause.
I’m also considering how to add a better storage option. Obviously I could go USB, but I wonder about a more elegant solution.

I think I’ll build my own. It seems that I’d rather build my own, take responsibility for the faults, the fate by its hoary head. I detest the throwaway nature of electronics. If I build my own, I can fix and repair my own.
Soo… desolder keys. I need to make sure I can get a keyboard up and going.
Thumbstick from Sparkfun. I need to look up that part.
Dismantle a laptop or two for a screen. If none of them is up to the task, than I whip on one of the 10″ screens from Adafruit. I do wish that Pixel Qi’s were still being made. I hate the idea idea of tying myself to dead technology, but the description of their displays were dope. I shall divert how hard it is to make my own custom OLED. The funny thing is, I actually kinda want monochrome.
Slave the Thing to the Beaglebone. I want the Thing’s wifi and much more sacrificable gpio pins.
Last, add up the kludge I’ve built, find a battery and power regulation circuit that gives me the juice.