From steve at chalem.com  Tue May 13 15:35:02 2008
From: steve at chalem.com (Steve Chalem)
Date: Tue May 13 15:35:53 2008
Subject: [dorkbotsebastopol-blabber] Cat 5 cable as motor wire?
Message-ID: <3606B5BAD467A349AC94B0D05164DBD60424FA50@EXVBE014-13.exch014.msoutlookonline.net>

I'm wondering whether Cat 5 cable could make good motor power wire for
EasyDriver-scale (<= 750mA) applications; and if so, what would be the
best way of hooking it up.

Ron wrote that we should use twisted pairs for motor power to minimize
radiation.  So I'm thinking we'd wire each pair as V+ and Ground, e.g.
all the white wires to ground and all the non-white wires to V+.  But I
don't know if that's the best way.

Most Cat5 has 24awg wire, which is officially rated for 3.5a in "chassis
wiring" (in air, intermittant current) and 0.577a in "power
transmission" (bundled, continuous current).  So four pairs, I figure,
should carry 2.3a (.577 * 4) under the most conservative assumptions.
For comparison, the power-over-ethernet specs allow a maximum of 1.44a
over all four pairs of a Cat5 cable, but that's allowing for cable
resistance over much longer cable runs than we're dealing with.

For bigger motors I'm looking at 16ga twisted speaker wire. 

--Steve
From steve at chalem.com  Tue May 20 15:59:40 2008
From: steve at chalem.com (Steve Chalem)
Date: Tue May 20 16:00:20 2008
Subject: [dorkbotsebastopol-blabber] Meeting This Wednesday Evening
Message-ID: <3606B5BAD467A349AC94B0D05164DBD6042C98CF@EXVBE014-13.exch014.msoutlookonline.net>

We'll be meeting at my shop as usual.  I'll be there by 6p.  Please
email for directions if you haven't been there.

I don't have anything new and exciting to present, so if anyone has
something to show, etc., please post to
dorkbotsebastopol-blabber@dorkbot.org

--Steve
From steve at chalem.com  Tue May 27 15:34:02 2008
From: steve at chalem.com (Steve Chalem)
Date: Tue May 27 15:34:25 2008
Subject: [dorkbotsebastopol-blabber] Can't Host this Wednesday (tomorrow)
Message-ID: <3606B5BAD467A349AC94B0D05164DBD6043400FE@EXVBE014-13.exch014.msoutlookonline.net>

I'm not going to be able to host the regular Wednesday-night meeting at
my shop tomorrow night.

If someone else is able to host a meeting or has other ideas for a
meeting, please post!

--Steve