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BlinkM & Arduino 3D models

Here’s a really quick 3D model of BlinkM, if anyone needs it. It’s accurate to ~0.1mm.

- blinkm.skp — BlinkM SketchUp model
- rgb_led_piranha.skp — Piranha RGB LED SketchUp model

And here it is plugged into the awesomely done Arduino Diecimila model by Jon-Paul from the Google 3D Warehouse.

SketchUp is pretty great, but I found a problem with it if you’re trying to make accurate to-scale electronic parts: it won’t create surfaces with an area of <1mm. Took me a while to figure that out. The solution is to make a 10x or 100x size version and then do a scale by 0.1 or 0.01 when you’re done.

Posted by todbot on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm.

7 Responses to “BlinkM & Arduino 3D models”

[...] todbot writes- Here’s a really quick 3D model of BlinkM, if anyone needs it. It’s accurate to ~0.1mm. And here it is plugged into the awesomely done Arduino Diecimila model by Jon-Paul from the Google 3D Warehouse. SketchUp is pretty great, but I found a problem with it if you’re trying to make accurate to-scale electronic parts: it won’t create surfaces with an area of less than 1mm. Took me a while to figure that out. The solution is to make a 10x or 100x size version and then do a scale by 0.1 or 0.01 when you’re done. [...]

Left by Daily DIY Network - Science Projects Plans Guides » Blog Archive » BlinkM & Arduino 3D models on June 24th, 2008

Great! Be sure to actually put it in the sketchup warehouse though.. so people can access it just like the arduino boards and parts already there. I’ve suggested the “Make Parts” tag, and got Jon-Paul to add it to his when they hit the make blog.

Also, a minor correction, you can make stuff of any size in sketchup (i just made a .05mm box), you may have had a problem with the default snapping behavior. Go to Window | Model Info | Units, and set format to decimal millimeters.. that might help. Or enter any length dimension just after you draw a line (eg .05mm) and hit enter.

Left by Aaron on June 24th, 2008

Good idea, Aaron, I uploaded both to the Warehouse.

And I should have been more explicit in what I meant about drawing small parts in SketchUp: you can draw boxes smaller than 1mm in area, but SketchUp won’t generate a surface. This means you can’t push/pull it or do face-based inferences on it. Others have had similar problems (see here & here).

Left by todbot on June 24th, 2008

I had similar problems with the small parts. Scale is your friend. Thanks for the model!

Left by Jon-Paul on June 24th, 2008

Ah, Yeah.. you’re right.. that sucks! For some reason I never ran into that one.

Left by Aaron on June 26th, 2008

Sorry to nitpick, but you need to comma separate your tags on the warehouse, I think. Your tags on your model are all stuck together.

Left by Aaron on June 26th, 2008

Ah, you’re right. I’m so used to Flickr, Delicious, and other tag-based things that just use whitespace. Thanks, and fixed.

Left by todbot on June 26th, 2008

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