Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026Look at our cat She has been trained (not by me, I would have said it was impossible) to "shake hands" She got a dreamie after - she is a very good cat 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026Looking to take my #penPlotter electronics into a more recent decade I've started looking into FluidNC with a FYSETC E4 instead of the EBB I have used in all of my plotters up to now Things I've learned: - my FritzBox WiFi router really, really doesn't want […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 021 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/08/2026Next weekend I'll be at the BS5 Art Trail (bs5arttrail.co.uk) with my #penPlotter I'll be at one of the community venues: St Ambrose & St Leonard's, near to St George park, in east #bristol bs5arttrail.co.uk/venue/saint-ambro… Last year […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 002 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/08/2026Expressing thanks for the service that old bag has given over the many, many years I've used it. I was trying to work out how many: it might be over 15 years, could be over 20 New bag is not the same style and much more posh but I predict I will miss the […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/08/2026We've had a little vacuum cleaner for a while that gradually became unreliable to turn on or off and then eventually fully stopped working, this was a shame since it's quite effective, with beater brushes as well as suction Based on the way it failed I had a […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/07/2026Commissioning my #EMFCamp installation in the Null Sector My #penplotter is now drawing the paths of aircraft it can see based on their ADSB transmissions - received live, not over the internet :) (Null Sector opens later this evening) 021 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2026For anyone going to #EMFCamp who likes badges and has stickers or other interesting small things to swap: we've seen the sticker exchange but would like to propose in addition a badge barter We'll work out more later and suggestions are welcome. I'll post […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 110 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/06/2026I'm now mostly able to decode ADSB data from dump1090 and interpret them into tracks on the screen - I had some fun getting the data management to work reliably (I have no idea what I'm doing) but it's been running for a few hours Next step: getting the plotter to work with it 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/06/2026Passing on an invitation from my other half who is not currently engaged in Fediversal things: would anyone going to #emfcamp be interested in an informal session to learn about knitting a mitred square blanket? Also generally chatting about knitting? […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 003 3
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/05/2026The first PCBs that I've designed has arrived :) I've been running my #penplotter with a high voltage brushless servo for a while but it was connected with an awful hacked-together nest of wires, perfboard and iffy sockets. This should both be better for me […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/04/2026I do not want a meat tea bag Thanks for clearing up that worry for me, PG Tips 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/04/2026Maybe it's working after all? #penplotter 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/04/2026Trying some new plausibly CMYK pens in a halftone plot. Before where I've found the right colours the pens have had very large tips so they're not good for detail. These (Staedtler ball 4320, 10 pack assorted colours) are ballpoints so perhaps the better […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 21/02/2026Experimental 4 Colour CMYK plot with each colour being built with a different conversion technique: Yellow: fast marching method contours Cyan: strips where lines bunch up in darker areas Magenta: halftone dots made from spirals Black: large spirals where […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/02/2026KLM have ensured that this trip to Montréal is the gift that keeps on giving: my flight to Schiphol today got cancelled so now I have to go to Paris then Amsterdam tomorrow. In the meantime I'm in a totally generic airport hotel armed with meal vouchers But […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/02/2026So I'm in Montréal this week for a work thing and it's amazing. I'm in the ICAO building and it's got lots of fascinating art everywhere. It has also been the coldest place I ever went to, -22degC over last weekend However I made the mistake of flying KLM […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 110 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/01/2026I've debugged the fast marching method code i translated from Fortran and it's working now :) The problem was in the order that the calculations were completed and once that was fixed things seem a lot happier Now that it's minimally functional my terrible […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/01/2026Starting a torture test plot for the new #penplotter brushless pen lift servo; or, as it's known in the household: "What the heck is that thumping noise? Oh. How long is it going to be doing that for?" 020 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/01/2026[Lots of line art eyes] Our youngest just showed me this sketch. I like it but also I don't like it, which was apparently what was intended and I thought I'd share it here (shared with permission) 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/01/2026I have found the 333Hz high frequency servo signal where it should be on the third set of pins along (this shouldn't be surprising but this board does have some things done differently than the base design it's a clone of). This board came with only one servo […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/12/2025It appears that I didn't yet break anything, the big servo is working Verdict: heavy (can be seen in some more wobble in high acceleration parts of a plot) but soooo quiet I think that there should be a high frequency servo signal on one of the sets of pins […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/12/2025I've been planning on doing #penplotter brushless pen lift servo investigations for a while and it's nearly ready for a trial This is a cheap(ish) full size brushless servo which would replace the coreless micro servo I already swapped over to a while back […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 121 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/12/2025My hacked together #Processing Fast Marching Method image converter is not working perfectly, unfortunately It's sort of doing the right things but there are artefacts either in the calculations or the isoline render - I'll need to do some more debugging before I know which 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/12/2025I've wanted to get the Fast Marching Method working in Processing for a while so I can avoid using Python (which I don't really understand) to make some nice line drawings from photos for #penplotter art I found this paper […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/12/2025Second batch of mince pies of the year, some standard and some with crumble tops - which I can recommend 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/12/2025Had an idea for a concealed lithophane model that I thought I'd test. After I'd adapted some #OpenSCAD code from a more complex past project I realised I'd just rewritten something that can be done in one line with a standard function The code makes a […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/11/2025I'm attempting to use the 50p unicorn biscuit cutter I bought today in the hope of making it (and some biscuits*) part of an office secret Santa gift Can you tell which end of the series I started at? * These are not the biscuits, these are experiments. I'm […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2025I saw this while waiting for the bus in #bristol today and was very puzzled as to what it was until I looked up the website on the side of the truck pulling the trailer (not shown) So here's your Sunday challenge: what is this thing? 202 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/09/2025There was a spare ball of dough left at the end of the family's appetite for pizza and so, behold! The Cornish Calzone 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2025I've been using the heck out of my 3d printed desk fan recently in the heat and an impulse buy of a cheap USB power bank yesterday means it's not tied to the mains any more :) I printed a bracket for the power bank and the nifty 4 pin fan speed controller […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2025This Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th I'll be showing my pen plotter and things I've made with it at the BS5 Art Trail in East Bristol: bs5arttrail.co.uk I'll be at the Greenbank (bs5arttrail.co.uk/venue/the-greenba…) and there are lots of […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/08/2025Heck yeah plum jam! The tree (mainly used for shade) hasn't been as productive this year as in the past but it's still more plums than we can eat so: jam it is 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/07/2025Well it's out: I think it's cooked and probably isn't scrambled eggs underneath 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/07/2025@Tusky I'm having trouble with the reading order setting: sometimes "load more" correctly keeps the old message in place and loads new messages above with "oldest first" selected. However sometimes something flips, the setting is no longer respected and it […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/07/2025Today we are visiting Twiggy (foreground) and her brother Bowie #caturday 040 4
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/07/2025Playing a little more with contour-based image generation: a bit more Python got me a 5Mb text file of the surface data and a line of #OpenScad got me an STL It's very cool that because edge lines are a different colour in PrusaSlicer they act as contour […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 100 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/07/2025I've been trying to get this style of plotter image to work since before 2012: representing brightness with isolines of a function with higher gradients where the image should be darker so the lines are closer After getting something close but not very good […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 201 2
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 31/05/2025Back on my servo bullshit again: I found a brushless servo that was under £30 so I thought I'd have a go to see if it might be a #penplotter option for increased durability It has more firearms on it than I'd like (which is to say it has some, I'd like zero) […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/05/2025Looks like our oldest had a good night last night 000 0
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/05/2025The (very old) pen ran out in a really weird way on this plot, it almost looks intentional. It wasn't, but I'm going to go with it because I think it might look interesting (The style of the plot is based on one I saw in the Drawingbots Discord, I really […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 030 3
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/05/2025I'm behind on #mayke so here's a couple: cherry cake (because I wanted cake) and a #penplotter portrait of Parsnip the cat (which I suppose makes it also #caturday) 041 4
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2025Excitement: new coreless pen lift servo arrived So far it seems much quieter than the cheap micro servos I've been using. I was never super happy that they're basically consumables either so hopefully this is a bit more long lasting #penplotter 110 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/04/2025I don't often do purely decorative prints but I was never happy with my previous attempt at a "suspended" model and I wanted another go This is the ship "Limiting Factor" from the Iain M Banks book "The Player of Games", the geometry comes from one of his […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/04/2025Did some Monday evening plotting: very minor changes to the wave equation rendering code to experiment with a much denser set of lines than I've done before I had hoped for a less moody in-progress photo but the spotlight I have set up is better for eyes […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/04/2025Belated #caturday - someone got excited and decided to jump up on the door but then was nervous about jumping down Will this be a lesson learned? Hahahaha no 0110 11
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 11/04/2025Bring me my fighting trousers! #CatsOfMastodon 011 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 30/03/2025Suddenly realised that I had all of the bits laying around from other projects to make a knife sharpening jig if I printed some parts The 2020 extrusion was a plotter offcut, the 1515 was a top/bottom rail of my old mini kossell 3d printer, the steel rod was […] [Original post on mastodon.social] 010 1
Chris Lynas @fastness.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/03/2025My contribution towards afternoon tea: focaccia with rosemary from our hyperactive rosemary bush and (sort of) cherry and almond cake (when I checked we only had 4 cherries) #cooking #baking #food 020 2