For production machining, the 3 setps were combined into a single program with a M00 pause to flip the part. Due to earlier tool breakages and poor surface finish, very conservative feed speed were used and the initial machining time was at 18 minute per piece. Gradually the machine time was reduced to 15 minutes per part. Vibratory tumbling will be used to radius the edges and if necessary, secondary polishing.

First batch of bottle opener ready for deburring

First three batches of bottle opener. Machined, deburred, burnished, and electrochemically marked.

tcp-imp was the planned indigenous manufacturing arm of TheCuriousPenguin, which itself is an experiment in using open source software to build a fiscally and intellectually transparent online retail company that gives back to other open source projects.

Idealistically, open source software will serve as a social-economical equalizer that promotes the sharing of knowledge, and competition in a fiscally and intellectually transparent environment will hopefully lead to a richer and freer capitalistic society for all, rather the alternate narratives being pushed by the various nouveau authoritarian capitalists in red straitjacket.

Tux-Lab is the open source hackerspace that has not materialized due to budgetary constraints. However, as more and more open source software are used by tcp-imp for its manufacturing process, the indigenous manufacturing project has slowly morphed into tux-lab, an open source laboratory.

Last week a simple machining project was completed for IORodeo. That project was drawn by IORodeo using open source cad, OpenSCAD, and machined with manually written gcode. This week, a new project was started to help build parts for NullSpaceLab's laser cutter.

As always, Liberty, Equality, & Justice for ALL !!!

Haas open house was an awesome event, complete with plant tour, food, machine demo, and reminds us that manufacturing in USA is still alive and viable. In the 5 years since the last visit, an extra building was constructed, more robots were added, and more, a lot more, Haas machines making Haas parts for more Haas machines.

Beyond the busy sound and motion of a modern factory humming away building and replicating, the most memorable image from the last visit was the machine operator wiping down his machines in between operations. That type of human dedication and pride is not something quantifiable, yet serve as testament to the culture of the company. Impressive, indeed.

Thank you Haas, for opening your door to us and for inspiring us.

More images of the Haas open house can be found at the image gallery.

bypassing the indefinite postponement. . . .

Given the slow pace of building up the physical space, Tux-Lab as a "traditional" hackerspace will most likely not materialize in the near future. However, it is possible to have a "project based" hackerspace where we meet to build a specific project. The current project is to finish building the RepRap/RepStrap.

Tux-Lab is indefinitely postponed due to the unavailability of its physical location. However, work on the facility will continue.

Tux-Lab slowly inches forward. A staging website can be around at Tux-Lab.com. It is powered by El Dorado, a simple Rails based community web application. It will be the place to discuss setting up Tux-Lab and other open source related ideas.

Tentatively, Tux-Lab v0.1 debut is set for May 8th.

PMT 59L - Injection Molding Lab
Continuation of the Injection Molding class from Spring. The lab course last only 9 weeks and focuses more on hands on machine operation. The lab consist of 3 injection molding machines.

• Van Dorn Injection Molding Machine
• Boy 22D Injection Molding Machine
• Nissei Electric Injection Molding Machine

MTT 56 - CNC Shop InspectionThis is an online class that is the prerequisite for the next course which is mechanical parts inspection using Faro digitizing arm, Brown & Sharpe CMM, and Verisurf.

Hackerspace documentation states:

"The rule of thumb is 2+2. You need a partner to get the initial idea kicked off, making two of you. You need two more people in order to get real work done. Don’t start before you are at least four people. From this point it’s easy to recruit more people. Aim for ten people for a start."

Anyone else interested in setting one up in the the Pasadena/Arcadia/El Monte area of Los Angeles, California, USA.

The hackerspace wiki space can be found here