Kontraptioneering!

550 more “cores” for the second of two giant scale core memory arrays, threading begins NOW!

Core memory array module 1 progress…. SLOW. Looks amazing though, and once I get the “sense” wire in there, it’s going to reall look cool.

Core memory panel progress - we successfully strung up a whopping 22 bytes of RAM tonight. 1 donut (core) to one bit, 8 bits to a byte, 1 byte to one row, 22 rows. The good news is it’s going faster and faster. The bad news is that it’s less than 1/6 complete.

The beginnings of the 550 bit core memory module. 50 bits down… THIS antique technology will make you appreciate modern RAM. Each bit of memory - each 1 and 0 is stored in its own little metal(ish) donut, eight of them making one BYTE, which is exactly one key press, one character, one letter on the screen. Do the math and you’ll realize that the entire array would theoretically store less than one single SMS text message. Wow for modern computers.

37,000 tumblr followers just now! 

Here are some steel frames I’ve been working on. We’re at the blackening and sealing stage at the moment. These are going in to a hotel in SF. These are cool, but not even close to being as cool as some of the OTHER things I’m working on for this project… Stay tuned for more, like the giant (replica) core memory array - tipping the scales at 200 lbs and storing a mere 137 bytes. 

R.I.P.
4 horsepower CNC router motor (AKA the spindle)
The front bearings started to degrade and fail over the past few days, and now it sounds like a bad set of skateboard wheels. When we finally called it, the collets and collet nut were getting hot enough that it was impossible to hold on to with bare hands. You’ve given many years of good service. Now its time to get rebuilt.

Teeny tiny soldering! I think these are 0805 size surface mount resistors, 330 ohms, used as current limiters for the equality tiny green LEDs that correspond to each of the 32 relays on the new control board.

The 32 channel Kontraptioneering relay board for Arduino or anything else. Natively connects up to the ICSP port on pretty much any arduino, or any set of 3 GPIO pins. You can daisy chain many units for massive installations. There are a few design issues with rev.1 that make it annoying to assemble that will be corrected in upcoming versions. Projects to follow.

Assembly time! The relay board prototypes came in and now its time to get soldering. 32 channels of high power daisy-chainable goodness for the Arduino.

Got to CNC route this thing out of 4# urethane foam this weekend. Yup, that’s Alex Gray, the famous visionary psychedelic spiritual artist. Trust me, you’ve seen his work. The amazing and talented people at 1028 Designs in Los Angeles called the Kontraptionist in to play robot jockey for a marathon foam cutting extravaganza, followed by a painstaking all-night finishing job by their crew of dedicated craftsmen to deliver an amazingly complex job in record time from some very gnarly files. And this is only about half of the piece… it wraps around to form a very fancy DJ booth, along with a pair of 6 foot angels and a great big banner. Well done to everybody involved. I feel privileged to have been a part of such a challenging project.

robbgodshaw:

Little mistakes made in high school and then uploaded to oblivion manifest themselves physically years later. In 2009 I painstakingly traced the face of an Oreo cookie and uploaded to Wikipedia. Today the freshman girl unknowingly gave me my own file to CNC cut in foam. All the corners I cut in 11th grade become apparent. Look at that R. It’s easy to forget the Internet is a real place. Forgive cut quality, serious hurry.

I don’t reblog often, but when I do, I reblog Robb Godshaw. Nice work Mister. 

There are a lot of relay boards out there for your Arduino, but none of them are this awesome.  Featuring 32 channels of “normally open” relays (that is, simple on/off switches) with each handling up to 5 amps of 250VAC current. They are linked in to four groups of 8 relays, with the common pole for each group connected to one of four hefty screw terminals. But wait… there’s MORE! You can daisy-chain multiple boards together for 64…96…128 relays or more all controlled from 3 IO pins, WHICH conveniently connect to the ICSP / ISP port on an Arduino with a nice clean 6 pin ribbon cable - the same kind of cable you link them end to end with. No messy break-out boards, breadboards or wonky wires. Imagine the ridiculous holiday display you could make!

Specs:

SPI Control via ICSP port (or any 3 output pins)
Daisy-chain multiple units
32 Channels, 5A each, 20A/Group, 4 Groups/Board
250VAC rated N/O relays
Jumpers to allow power pass-thru to the Arduino

The first round of boards should be ready for testing in a couple weeks. Want one? Let me know! The more interest there is, the bigger the production run, the lower the price I can offer.

I don’t fancy myself much of a computer nerd… but with all noise about Bitcoin in the news lately, I figured… “Hey - Let’s see how fast an Arduino can process SHA256 bit hashes. Other people on the internet have wondered this too… and here’s your answer:

SLOW AS DEATH.

But how slow exactly? And how efficiently?

I ran the code on an Arduino Pro with a ATMEGA328P chip, 8 bits, and clocked at 16 MHZ.  At that speed, we’re generating 10.154 hashes per second, and using a paltry 0.09 watts of juice. I didn’t desolder the power LED from the board before taking this measurement, so technically it takes even less power than this.  SO, where does this leave us?  Well… about a million times slower.. No really… actually more like 1.2 million times slower than using the chip on your 3D graphics card to calculate these hashes, which it can do at a rate of 10-15 MILLION per second. Granted, the GPU takes a LOT more power than an Arduino, but almost 110,000 watts?  Nope. Try 60 watts. 

The take-away from this? It was a fun exercise, but Mining Bitcoins on an Arduino, while technically possible, is incredibly inefficient and slow. And those are the numbers to prove it. 

Geek out.