Camera Guided Drill Press

[unfy]

While looking up other stuff, I came across this page:

http://kavionic.com/blog/Building_a_camera_guided_PCB_drill_jig

And this one is same concept:

http://www.turtlesarehere.com/html/pcb_drill.html


The idea is to mount a (cheap) USB micrscope under the relief hole of a drill press and use the camera to position the peace to drill.

Built one myself.

The dremel drill press thing itself sucks for PCB work - it's got too much play / slack / etc.  I'll be fixing this later or just building a new mounting plate on it.

Anyhoo below is my results.

The box is 3/4" ACX plywood.  9" x 11" x 6" tall.  Was a single 2'x2' panel, chopped up.  The "T" inside is some 1x4 medium quality pine.

It's a 15 year old dremel and "drill press" kit for it.  I'll prolly replace this with something smaller and quieter since only doing PCB work AFAIK.

The webcam is a cheap $15 webcam off ebay.  Uses some closed cell foam "work mat" or tool mat as it's padding.  Attached via some 1-1/4" conduit straps.

Software is some free stuff (including cross hair thing).

[bkoenig]

Cool!

[tstuart34]

Very cool!  We are just entering the camra world at work. We are using it to give us width feed back on a sheet width. It's a neat thing and the quality continues to improve. Over the last 5 years since I've been in the industry imaging has made huge advancements.

Can you measure finished hole size? Or a more partical shooting application can you take measurements on a shot group to find out group diameter?

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[Mali]

Can you measure finished hole size? Or a more partical shooting application can you take measurements on a shot group to find out group diameter?

Might be something that this product could be modified to work with: http://www.lasrapp.com/
I know it it designed to work with the laser in practice but they do have the ability to have modules written.

[tstuart34]

Might be something that this product could be modified to work with: http://www.lasrapp.com/
I know it it designed to work with the laser in practice but they do have the ability to have modules written.

There is software packages out there already but unfy is a DIY guy. Thought maybe he could have some fun developing his new toy.

here is the software its only $12

http://ontargetshooting.com/index.html

[Mali]

There is software packages out there already but unfy is a DIY guy. Thought maybe he could have some fun developing his new toy.

Of that I have no doubt.

[unfy]

Can you measure finished hole size? Or a more partical shooting application can you take measurements on a shot group to find out group diameter?

The particular software I'm using at the moment is "MICAM".  Apparently produced by some Dutch students for lab work or something.

http://science4all.nl/?Microscopy_and_Photography___MICAM

I have on idea if I will continue to use this software, but it does seem like a pretty light weight generic directshow / webcam viewer (VLC player on the other hand is pretty heavy and buffers a bit more etc).

Anyway, with this software it has a 'basic measurement' feature. 
* You stick a known ruler under your camera
* You tell the software to "to measure" (takes a still frame and opens it in another tab)

Now you need to calibrate stuff.
* click on the 'calibration' check box
* draw a line on your ruler

It will then ask you what the length of the line is (hence using a known ruler).  It stores this as a pixels per micrometer (or whatever).

From here, you can draw whatever lines you want on this measurement pic and it will use the pixel count in the line to determine the length of the line.


The above concept is dead simple and easy enough to write in your own code (if you have any graphics experience at least) and works in any form of "arbitrary vs known" measurement systems.

For something for measuring group size and similar, you'd prolly wanna actually do something a bit more complicated with OpenCV and such because of it's shape recognition and other ease-of-use-stuff. 

Or use the inexpensive software that's already out there.


Annnnnd for what it's worth: I'll only be using this for drill targeting.  Have no real desire to get more complicated with it.  Weird for me, I know .  The most I might do for making it more complicated is adding a pcb holder sled that is moved by some stepper motors and controlled by a joystick.  Not gonna go about doing full CNC for this - it's only intended for one off boards / prototyping.

I got the base glued and screwed last night.  This morning I got everything sanded for staining and poly.  I'll be giving it a stain job here in a few min.

In other news, the LED based UV exposure box in "dumb mode" (just a three way switch instead of smart controls) is assembled and works fine for curing solder mask resin on PCB's in just a few minutes.  Not useful for anyone here in it's currently smaller size (computer boards)...

A simple electric guitar pedal board was assembled and experimented with using black gorilla tape as a covering material.  It's interesting and seems to fit the aesthetic goal of 'pedal board'.  It's decently tough.  Kinda pasticy but a bit rubbery as well.  I'd prolly suggest a thin coat of primer or poly on wood though (for better bond etc).

[unfy]

Sanded and stained.  Pic below.

Added some bungees and a shim to help take out some of the wobble.

Started designing a new shuttle and stuff for a new spindle - ended up splitting the wood on first go.  Putting 1/4" t-nuts into the thin edge of a 1x4 is a bit "ha ha!".  Grabbed a decent 2x4 from menard's value wood / junk pile.  Also grabbed some 6-32 and 8-32 t-nuts "just cause".

Also have some 1/2" EMT conduit to use as the rails themselves, etc.

[tstuart34]

Check out ebay they have cheap roller slides. Come from Hong Kong so take a couple weeks but cheap!

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk

[unfy]

Check out ebay they have cheap roller slides. Come from Hong Kong so take a couple weeks but cheap!

That they are.  8mm and such are very easy to find and are relatively cheap.

I'll be heading that route eventually, but I really wanna get some practice on this other DIY system first.... it scales up in size relatively inexpensively etc.

Decided on a different mounting system for stuff.  I'll get pics when assembled.

[unfy]

And here's the new shuttle for the quieter spindle.

It is WAY overkill for what I'm doing.  The quieter spindle is only a few ounces in weight and is like 2-3 inches by 3/4 of an inch.

1x4 wood, 6" in length.

Struts are 1" wide by 8-1/4" flat stock (1/8" thick).

Bearings are skate board bearings (8mm).  Bolts are 5/16ths.

Pipe is 1/2 " EMT conduit.

[tstuart34]

Fancy

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk