Tag: soldering

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Welder repair

An ancient proverb says that power tool failures occur in threes. During the same week that the lathe motor burned out and the compressor wire meltdown has turned it into a scary noise machine, we also had a mysterious malfunction in one of our welders. It didn’t release any smoke, didn’t make weird noises. It just didn’t weld. 0 volts across the output.

Inside of the welder (top view) before the repair attempt. Note that a large number of similar – but not identical – top boards can be found on Aliexpress.

This machine, a small 180A TIG/MMA inverter welder, has recently been repaired. It was not used heavily, as TOG has only so much use for welding. In fact, it was only used by a couple members to practise their welding skills.

On one hand, this machine was 5 year old, has been used extensively in the past and could have been written off as death of old age. The cost of a commercial repair would probably exceed the value of the welder. On the other hand – why not try to repair it ourselves before scrapping it?

Continue reading “Welder repair”

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Hackerspace @ Electric Picnic

Members from hackerspaces all over Ireland will be forming a temporary
hackerspace at Electric Picnic this year.

We will be in Mindfield area on Saturday and Sunday from 6pm to 8pm. Our home for the weekend will be the incredible inflatable Ignition Stage. We will be running  drop in workshops. Details of the workshops below. Come on by to learn, share, create.

Soldering Workshop

Learn how to solder. Make a pocket LED touch (Might come in handy
finding your tent) or a Flashing LED badge.

Origami Workshop

Origami experts will be on hand to teach you the art of paper folding.
Sit down and let your troubles fold away. Flapping Birds and Paper
flowers are waiting for you to fold them.

Craft Workshop

Do you fancy yourself a bit crafty ? A bunch a friendly crafters will
be ready to help you create your own unique LED bracelet or necklace.

To find us, check out this site map for the Mindfield area.

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Soldering Workshop

Workshop Description:

This hands on workshop will cover various aspects of soldering; from the basic techniques of soldering, to soldering electronic components to make simple circuits. Participants will learn how to solder and finish off the workshop with a kit they can bring home. Check out some photos from previous workshops in our gallery.

Cost:

General Public €15.00, Students/Unwaged €12.00, TOG Members €10.00

When:

Saturday 19th of February.  10:30 to 14:00

Where:

In TOG. See our location page.

No electronics skills required. Participants must be at least 18 years old. Workshop open to ALL Places are limited.

Sold Out

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Building it!

During this day-long workshop, you will be walked through the process of designing an interactive electronic device: from an initial idea right through to the working device.

We will start off with a presentation covering the whole design process. Next we will demonstrate the necessary steps and tools in more detail. And last but not least you will assemble the finished device.
The device we will be building will be a Mini Mood Light. Consisting of two multicoloured LED’s, a small micro controller and a number of buttons which will allow the user to selected a suitable colour which reflects their mood. We’ll be demonstrating each of the steps including schematic capture, PCB layout, PCB fabrication and programming the micro controller.

You should have a basic understanding of electronics and the C programming language. The workshop is targeted at makers and amateur inventors who want to use open source tools to create open hardware devices.

The workshop will be run three times over the period of Science Week and Innovation Dublin Festival. Each workshop will run from 11:00 through to approximately 17:00, with a break for lunch. Food will not be provided, but we have a full kitchen and there are shops/takeaways nearby.

The cost of the workshop will be 40€ waged, 30€ unwaged and 20€ tog members.

The numbers are going to be limited to eight adult/older teen participants per workshop, but we also hope to video stream and record some of the last workshop.

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Dublin 8 is Great!

Last Saturday, four TOG members participated in Dublin 8 is Great!‘s Pop Up Party by running tables on creating electronic bracelets and basic soldering.

The party was organised by local teens with support from mentors, volunteers, and staff from The Computer Clubhouse, to thank the local kids for helping during the Big Clean earlier in the day. Even though the weather was wet they all seemed to have had a great time and even accidentally met President Mary McAleese.

From the Clubhouse website:

The Computer Clubhouse provides a creative and safe after-school learning environment for young people from under-served communities in the south west inner city area of Dublin.

It’s almost a hackerspace for kids. We were very impressed with everybody involved and we hope to be able to participate and collaborate on events in the future.

Cheryl also provides lots more information on her blog. We took some photos after the kids went home for the evening because we were too busy to get any earlier.
Cheryl and Meg working on some homework.

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Trip West to 091labs

Last weekend members headed west to visit the new 091labs hackerspace in Galway. They moved into their space only four weeks ago. They’re making great progress growing their members and setting up their new space. They have a community night on Tuesdays and a projector night on Sundays. They have loads of ways to contact them, on their website 091labs.com, on boards.ie and there twitter feed. While in 091labs the TOG members helped out running two soldering workshops for the people of Galway in the space. The workshops were well received with all involved learning to solder to a reasonable  level. If your in Galway check them out, they’re a great group of people.