Concept The GuilleAcoustic's mindstorm

[GuilleAcoustic]

Hello,

this is a real mindstorm up there and since I can't make a thread for each idea, unless it is active project .... I'm opening my ideas dump there.

This place will hold all my ideas, thoughts, designs.

Stay tuned !

Work in progress:

• Project keyputer (Amiga reborn)

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Wacom Intuos 2 mod

I've owned my faithful Wacom Intuos 2 A4 since 2003. Opened it up recently, out of curiosity, only to realise how much space is wasted.

The actual enclosure is 456x361mm, with only 387x322mm being the PCB.

I'd like to use my tablet without using a keyboard. The idea of this mod is to build a custom enclosure with the following features:

• Buttons for shortcuts
• High resolution hall effect rotary encoder
• Vesa mount

The buttons will act as shortcut, an LCD will display the current software mode (krita, inkscape, etc).

The magnetic rotary encoder will act has an high resolution scroll wheel for:

• Canvas zoom
• Canvas rotation
• Brush size
• Opacity
• Etc.

The vesa mount is to mount it to an articulated arm if I fancy it.

Hope you like the idea.

Project log on post #1 when started.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Mobile high gain 3g hotspot

A year ago, I bought a Domino Pi, with single USB & Eth tile, as well as a Domino core.

During vacations, the house we rent was using a basic 3g hotspot as an Internet source. Signal was weak and connection slow, as always in the country side.

Since my smartphone subscription offers 20GB of data and a 2nd SIM fora 3g device, I decided to put the Domino Pi to good use.

A 3g USB stick with external antenna will be plugged to the USB port of the Domino, then the Domino's Wifi will be setup as Hotspot and a power bank will provide juice.

Project log on post #1 when started.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Magnetic trackball

Anothet old project of mine. After making my trackball firmware, to resurrect a vintage CH Products Trackball Pro, I thought about doing my own one from scratch.

As always with me, materials will be raw wood and metal.

The sensors used will be high resolution magnetic encoders. It outputs quadrature signals like optical rotary encoders but uses hall effect instead.

Four metal levers act as mouse buttons. They can be pushed or pulled, resulting in 8 actions. Left push equals left-click while left pull equals left-click lock...for example.

An ARM Cortex-M will be in charge of the logic.

Project log on post #1 when started.

 

[Phuncz]

Very interesting ! I like the idea of the dual-action levers, quite original.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Chording keyboard

This one is related to the trackball, with the ideal to never lift a hand.

The keyboard has 20 keys and has a gaming, non-chording, function.

The top metal plate acts as switches mount plate. It also extends toward the user to make a palm rest, with a leather pad.

Project log on post #1 when started.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Nomad Wav player

Originally planned to use an Omega 2 plus, but I'll use the Domino Core I already own instead.

It come with interesting features in a tiny package:

• WiFi with eternal antenna
• I²S for digital audio
• SPI
• I2C

My idea is as follow:

1. WAV/PCM -> I²S -> DAC -> Cmoy
2. SPI -> LCD
3. WiFi to manage the library

I'll be making my own WAV player frontend. Why WAV ? Because this is the only really lossless audio format and I have hundred's of CDs lol.

Link on post #1 once the project starts.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Amiga reborn

This is a project I've had in mind for years, but the lack of decent and affordable Single Board Computet put it on hold.

I'm a big fan of keyputers, started computing on a MO5, then moved to Atari and Amiga.

The idea is to bring this form factor back in my house, as a portable Linux laboratory computer.

Features:

• Multi-cores SBC (ARM or x86)
• Mechanical key switches
• Expansion slot
• 220mm x 310mm

The breadboard / breakout expansion is to illustrate one of the possibilities.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

CH Products Trackball PCB

I just bought a second CH Products Trackball Pro, Mac version this time.

(Photo of my Bus Mouse one)

(Ball suspension mechanism)

The idea is to keep the case, trackball (which is a phenolic cue ball) and ball suspension.

With those parts, I'll make a drop-in replament PCB that everyone could use to restore or upgrade a CH Products Roller Mouse, Trackball Pro or DT225.

Here are the features:

• ARM Cortex brain
• SD card
• Through hole components
• High res magnetic encoder option

The SD card is a feature I'd like very much. It would allow the trackball to load it's firmware upon power up or reset, thus enabling easy upgrade of the firmware.

The high resolution encoder is a quadrature based encoder, just like the original slotted disc ...

... But 65K cpr (count per revolution) versus 400. This would allow dynamic resolution based on rotation speed.

Link on posr #1 once the project start.

 

[Phuncz]

Quite the project, very interesting ! Are these mice and trackballs still available for purchase that you are designing it as a drop-in replacement ?

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Quite the project, very interesting ! Are these mice and trackballs still available for purchase that you are designing it as a drop-in replacement ?

DT225 are still made and sold.

Trackball Pro is its former name, from the late 80's to when they went OEM with the DT225. It was available in serial, PS/2, Bus mouse, Access.bus Sun Microsystems and ADB.

They are identical to the DT225, except for the old protocols.

Both have a 5 million ball rotations warranty

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Crypt of the Necrodrumer

Started playing Crypt of the Necrodancer a few days ago


This is a rythm dungeon crawler, with only four inputs: UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT. Special actions are tirggered using 2 directions at the same time, and UP + DOWN or LEFT + RIGHT makes it impossible to play with D-PAD. I mapped the actions to my SNES gamepad buttons (A, B, X and Y), but it still feels like something could be done ....

Had the game music buried deep inside my brain this whole day at work and was playing the drum line on my desk. Eureka, lets make a piezo-drum to control that game ! A quick search for piezo-electric drums shows plenty of results, basically:

• 4x piezo sensors
• Foam of different density
• an Arduino + a few lines of code
• 2x drum sticks

(source: http://www.electronicpeasant.com/projects/ssdrums/ssdrums.html)

Pringles cans midi drum:


What do you think of it ?

 

[Solo]

I'm going to make one of those Pringle things but have it only do the Wilhelm scream.