Dealers for Movement Sensor line of products in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu

We now have dealers in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Tamil Nadu for our Movement Sensor Switch product line.

Madhya Pradesh, Vidisha/Bhopal Area

DAWNER ENERGY PVT LTD
4-A&B, Industrial Estate,
Pital Mill Square,
Sagar Road.
Vidisha (M.P) - 464002

Contact person: Mr. Rishi Jain
Telephone: 07592-250475, +91-9425149263
e-mail: rishi.jain@dawnerenergy.com
Website: www.dawnerenergy.com

Chhattisgarh, Raipur Area

DAWNER ENERGY PVT LTD
S-70, Sector-1 Extension,
Avanti Vihar,
Raipur (C.G)-492001

Contact person: Mr. Vikas Singh
Telephone: +91-8889820003
e-mail: vikas.gts@gmail.com
Website: www.dawnerenergy.com


Tamil Nadu, Salem Area

J. SUBBUSWAMI AIYAR AND SONS
For Quality And Value Added Services since 1925
"SRI SANKARA" 75/10-B,RAMAKRISHNA ROAD
SALEM-636007

Contact telephone: 0427-4030448/3295674/2312454
Fax: 0427-4030435
e-mail: vss@jairang.com
Website: www.jairang.com

We are further soliciting dealership inquiries from cities across India where we already don't have a dealer present. Please get in touch with this e-mail id: sales@ideas-unlimited.in if you are interested in dealership in cities where we already do not have a dealer appointed.

Braille Tutor concept becoming a formal product: Prototype 2

A couple of months ago we posted the prototype concept of a Brialle Tutor developed at Ideas Unlimited. The student team which developed it was short of time proved the concept, but it was still far off from being made into a product because of memory limitations and very limited sound storage.

See our related blog post on this topic...

Video of the Prototype 2 of Braille Tutor at work.

Video of the prototype field-tested at SVYM's (Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement) Community Rehabilitation Program output who work with blind people in Jayapura, HD Kote Road.

Now an Investor from Geneva (Rajesh Nair, working in Geneva, Switzerland), is funding this product in personal capacity to turn this concept into a product.  As a first step to making this into a formal product, in this Prototype-2, we have provided the Braille tutor with lots of memory to store audio files of multiple languages. Also the software has been streamline for good performance of both audio and the system as a whole.

Remote control with navigation and mode (Quiz/learn) selection buttons.

Tutor Unit: has six micro solenoids that create the braille characters

The product is useful for teaching of 'Pre-braille'  - teaching braille letters to young children, before their hands and fingers get trained to braille letters. The process of learning such pre-braille and getting used to the braille dots lasts about 2-3 months in the initial stages.With this product we also hope to reduce the learning time, along with reducing the operational difficulties in such teaching.

Tutor with its remote control.

This prototype has support for following braille characters supported along with recorded speech:

1. Kannada (ಅ,ಆ ..... ಳ)
2. English (A-Z)
3. Numbers (0-9)
4. Symbols

There are still many things to be done before this concept becomes a manufacturable product, like:

Add new and more language support in terms of medium of instruction. Current prototype teaches in Kannada medium.

1. Design and build custom made solenoid to suit the application. None of the solenoids available seem to help much. 
2. Build a Quiz mode where the tutor can help the blind student to assess (Quiz and Answer buttons on the remote don't work as of yet!)  
3. Build a headphone interface for private operation without disturbing others.
4. More features that can make this product useful in a typical blind school classroom.

We are actively looking for formal funding for this endeavor. We have already shown this product to some blind people who are in the domain of teaching braille to collect feedback. The feedback was encouraging for us to take this step to make it into a formal product.

DIY: How to build a 'Poor man's milling machine' using a drilling machine!

This is an interesting 'do it yourself' for all hobbyists and 'DIY' people out there.

Milling Machine: A machine tool in which a rotating cutter is moved against the workpiece (or vice versa) in order to cut the latter to a desired shape

Drilling machines are low cost and easy to procure.  But we still yearn to have at least a milling machine and maybe as a luxury a lathe in our workshops/garages...

The lowest costing table top Milling machines we have seen in the market is at least 60,000 Indian Rupees and perhaps a little more at today's inflation rate. Isn't the cost a big deterrent to have your own milling machine in your garage/workshop unless you are doing milling as a profession or doing tasks for production?

Youtube video showing the working machine

This is our attempt to convert a tower drilling machine we had into a functional milling machine! And it works! So far we have tested it on plastic, nylon and wood as raw materials and it did a fantastic job. We will be testing it on aluminum soon and post our findings here as well.

A plastic piece - slot made with poor man's milling machine.

How do I make one?
Here's a simple recipe of how to convert a tower drilling machine into a pretty good milling machine for your prototyping, hobby and fun work!

Ingredients:

	1. A tower type drilling machine - one with a vertical spindle lock capability, and a heavier one preferably. Usually such tower drilling machines come with a belt drive with inverted pulleys of different sizes for speed control. Important: The spindle of your drill should be absolutely vibration proof. It should also have a spindle lock capability. Preferably, buy a local made one, which are heavier compared to the sleek and less heavy imported ones. Note: Most of these drilling machines come with 3-Phase AC motors. Exchange it with a single-phase motor with your vendor. (A 1/4 or 1/2 HP motor should do well for most hobby tasks!)
	2. A 2-axis table - available off the shelf in the market. You can get them in various table top sizes such as 6", 8", 10", 12" and so on. for reasonable costs. Make sure the 2-axis bed you buy doesn't have slack when you rotate its wheels.
	3. A Low-profile drill vice. preferably buy a 5" or 6" open jaw vice so that you can hold large jobs. There are a variety of drill vices available in the market. Just make sure it has adequate mounting facility and has a really low profile.
	4. A suitable mounting plate. This is the only custom made part you will require to get it fabricated outside or make it yourself :-(. We made our mounting plate from a piece of scrap metal from the Gujari (ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಗುಜರಿ = Junk yard). Usually the bottom side plates of the tower drilling machines are not designed to mount off the shelf 2-axis tables. It does come with some slots for mounting large vices or job holding jigs, but may not match. So you have to make a mounting plate that helps mount the 2 axis table firmly on the drilling machine.
	5. Nuts and bolts - Off the shelf. For typical drilling machines for use in your hobby and R&D works, M8 bolts and nuts should do fine.

The recipe:

1. Fasten the mounting plate to the drilling machine base. 
2. Turn away the drilling table that comes along with the drilling machine to the back of the drilling machine. (This you can later use as the stand to keep a torch-light for illuminating your milling jobs!)
3. Once the mounting plate is fastened, mount the 2-axis table on the plate. 
4. Now fasten the drill vice to the 2-axis table using T-bolts. (We managed to do with ordinary bolts too!)
5. Insert a milling cutter (end mill) in the chuck of your drilling machine...
6. ....And it is ready!
7. You will need to get used to setting the right RPM using the belt drive. (Your drilling machine comes with a reference chart). This is fairly easy and you will get it with some trial and error.

 The completed and working Milling Machine!

Feel free to write to us if you are interested in this concept or if you are planning to build one yourself!

And yes... cost of this setup is a lot less than those table top imported hobby.desktop milling machines!

Improvements to do: A 3-axis table if available in the market, one that can do up-down (Z) movements as well along with X and Y ! We couldn't locate it in a hurry.