Birmingham Area Technical Events

Current Events

  • BOSS logo

    • Date:
      Tuesday, November 26, 2013, 11am
    • Location:
      Coffee-ol-ogy Hoover Public Library
      5502 1st Ave North
      Birmingham, AL, 35212
    • Sponsor:
    • Details

      Anthony Crumley and a bunch of other folks get together on Tuesdays for a couple of hours to hack on open source bits. Join them!

  • Red Mountain Makers logo

    • Date:
      Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 6:30pm
    • Location:
      Woodrow Hall Maker Space
      5502 1st Ave North
      Birmingham, AL, 35212
    • Sponsor:
    • Details

      Make a matrix of RGB LEDs with scrolling letters and images in a 6X29 res glass block wall above the storefront.

      Arduino currently in use has 14 output pins. It is theoretically possible to drive 182 LEDs by using all 14 of them by using charlieplexing, but there are 522 LEDs to drive (6*29*3).

      Current plan: Use 29 WS2803D LED Drivers to drive all LEDs individually, with one chip hooked to the LEDs in each column.

      Bare-bones WS2803 library for Arduino (written by Chris and untested; Chris has no Arduino): http://zenthought.org/tmp/led_brick_driver.zip

      Uses hardware SPI with 1st WS2803D’s SDI pin hooked to Arduino’s MOSI, and CLK pin hooked to Arduino’s SCK.

      Other bits needed:
      11 AWG wire or thicker (needs to handle 11A) to go directly to all chips (1 wire, for ground), 14 AWG or thicker for upper/lower half +voltage (2 wires + smaller wires coming off for each LED’s anode), or smaller wire if we run a whole bunch of them.
      wire for data/clock/vcc (low power, but needs to run at 2MHz+)
      29 resistors for current calibration; the datasheet seems to indicate 1.25kOhm, but unsure if that’s with Vcc at 1.25V or if IREF is always 1.25V due to an internal regulator.
      Possibly a ceramic decoupling capacitor to put between vcc+gnd; depends on how stable the power supply is.

  • Red Mountain Makers logo

    • Date:
      Tuesday, November 19, 2013, 7pm
    • Location:
      Woodrow Hall Maker Space
      5502 1st Ave North
      Birmingham, AL, 35212
    • Sponsor:
    • Details

      Join us for a night dedicated to crafting and hacking! Bring anything you want to craft (ie: sewing, knitting, needlepoint, wearable electronics, art, etc) and hack (circuits, code, robotics, etc)

      6:30 Makerspace Planning
      7:00 Hack or Craft
      8:00 Demonstration

      As always the meeting is free to attend and participate in, but if you would like to be a full member please bring cash, check or credit to pay your monthly dues and bring us that much closer to getting our own space.

  • Red Mountain Makers logo

    • Date:
      Saturday, November 23, 2013, 9am
    • Location:
      Woodrow Hall Maker Space
      5502 1st Ave North
      Birmingham, AL, 35212
    • Sponsor:
    • Details

      In this weekly meet we will continue ‘stratogizing’ our Stratoglider project. A UAV using the 3D Robotics APM + a Zagi HP glider to be released by a weather balloon at 100,000+ feet above the Earth’s surface into the Stratosphere; and, then return to a programmed landing location using the Arduino’s autopilot feature with specific instructions on how to fly, and where to fly.

  • Red Mountain Makers logo

    • Date:
      Saturday, December 3, 2013, 8pm
    • Location:
      Woodrow Hall Maker Space
      1819 29th Ave. So.
      Homewood AL, 35209
    • Sponsor:
    • Details

      The B.A.L.U. currently meets up at 8:00pm on the first Tuesday of every month at Dave’s Pizza in downtown homewood (Directions). The meetings usually last for about 2 hours and basically we just talk, eat and drink. We usually have a sign that will let you know who we are. Though it shouldnt be that hard anyway just look for the geeks in the back corner of the room.

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