Back to the market. Today I have been teaching basic weaving using the mini-frame looms to a wide range of participants. There is something satisfying about passing on a skill and seeing people grow in confidence with a technique in such a short space of time (it has never occurred to me before how we use words that describe space to describe time).
There have been some major issues with the large loom however. This is an example of very rapid prototyping in public but I have some ideas of how I will change it next time – the main change being the use of some sort of heddle! stick weaving just does not work well on this scale.
The slightly more alarming and frankly baffling problem is that the cap sensing doesn’t seem to work at all. I couldn’t see the problem in situ so I brought some of the parts back to the studio to try and trouble shoot.
Found I had no problem when the micro controllers were powered from the mains but that they failed when powered by batteries. I searched a few online forums for similar problems and discovered that the circuit needs to be grounded when running on batteries (capacitive sensing works by registering drops in current). So, not being able to redesign the circuit at this stage, I have to do a simple hack running wire from a ground pin to the floor.