microcontrollers

[neon turret]

It is working

Can you help me with python code

When i run this code i get this error

[spiral sandal]

try camera with guvcview -c read and guvcview -c mmap first

also some cameras may need codec decoder that may require contiguous memory for frame * number of frames buffer for unpacking

[neon turret]

Error

[neon turret]

What should i do

[spiral sandal]

try another camera this is not working for you, try UVC cheap one maybe

[neon turret]

It works when i do rpicam-hello

I get issues while running a python script

[half junco]

does python work on arduino?

[neon turret]

It is raspberry pi

[elfin sphinx]

You should follow a tutorial online

From what I could see online , it seems that u need to install some extra packages to get opencv to work in raspberry pi

[elfin sphinx]

Not really , no. You might wanna give the message over here #microcontrollers message a read

[cloud hinge]

https://paste.pythondiscord.com/D5VA not sure what to do. cant get my code to go in counter clockwise for some reason. im using the robojax files from robojax website and my own code i been working on for a plant watering system. using robojax library and .ccp file the paste codes a set of all three codes. here is the original code i worked from

[cloud hinge]

when i use original code reverse works correctly for both motors from this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JTMqURJTwg

[cloud hinge]

was wondering if there is someone that could help by chance, this project really means a lot to me, trying to rebuild the code from the ground up but im limited to chat gpt for the most part due to not knowing c++

[neon turret]

Can you show connections and code

https://discord.com/channels/267624335836053506/1234801582793818142

Can anyone help with this problem

[neon turret]

https://discord.com/channels/267624335836053506/1234801582793818142

[sterile urchin]

Am trying to get plugged into any online dev communities locally in New Delhi and Bangalore, with expertise in IoT development (RaspPi, Linux, Python).. does anyone know of any? Or any IoT developers in India?

[neon turret]

Can anyone help me with opencv problem. The window for camera opened is too large that it extends my desktop display

[atomic spoke]

#career-advice please

[hallow igloo]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[cloud hinge]

maybe its a long shot and not prefered option if availiable but can u perhaps bring the screen resolution higher to help bring in the window thats overlaped out of the screen? ive seen some plantcv coding but i dont understand the coding yet

[neon turret]

Can anyone help.continously getting this error. Even tried different versions

[elfin sphinx]

hi , what is the issue ? what are you trying to do ?

give as many details about your problem as you can , dont leave out anything

[neon turret]

I am trying to install anaconda on raspberry pi

My os is 32 bit

Pi4

Bookworm

I am able to download anaconda from these commands. But when i try to create an environment i t asks to update

And as soon as i update it gives error conda command not found

My main aim is to run yolov7 on raspberry pi

[elfin sphinx]

i cant see anything in those images with that angle

neither do i have experience with conda

so , good luck ig

[elfin sphinx]

why do you need conda for that ?

just follow the installation instructions given on the official guide

i dont see requirement for conda on there

[fresh surge]

i dont think so

[half junco]

bit late mate.

[half junco]

again, bit late.

[covert summit]

wassup

[cunning lance]

hello everyone

[elfin sphinx]

which arduino board specifically ?

[cunning lance]

Mega 2560

[elfin sphinx]

it cannot run python

[cunning lance]

Thanks a lot for help btw

[elfin sphinx]

you will have to use arduino C++

[cunning lance]

ok man

Cool

[elfin sphinx]

IDE supporting a language is not the issue

the issue is with the board itself

[cunning lance]

ooooo ok

understood

UNO?

[elfin sphinx]

the board itself does not have enouhg juice to run python

[cunning lance]

juice?

what is juice?

[elfin sphinx]

i suggest you read this #microcontrollers message

it will answer most of your questions

[elfin sphinx]

power , resources

[cunning lance]

i guess its a pretty powerful board, anyways

[errant blaze]

Hi, I've gotten my hands on a Pimoroni Badger 2040 W and am getting started with MicroPython, however I cannot for the life of me seem to figure out how to get a satisfactory IDE setup. All I'm looking for is:

1. Autocomplete / intellisense
2. A way to flash my code onto the chip

Step 2 is probably easily accomplishable with just a CLI tool which I can throw into a run configuration, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how I can get proper autocomplete support so my IDE doesn't scream at me for every import being nonexistant. I've tried using micropy-cli and Micropython-Stubber, but they error out no matter what I do - I suspect it's running out of flash memory as the pi 2040 only has 2mb flash.

Is there any other way I can accomplish this?

[elfin sphinx]

well , not enough to run python

[cunning lance]

ok

does uno work?

[elfin sphinx]

no

read the message i quoted , it will answer your questions

[cunning lance]

ok

[elfin sphinx]

what did you have in mind to do with the arduino board ??

there could be a way to "control the board" using python

but the board itself will not run python

[cunning lance]

which is too compicated to make in C++

[cunning lance]

hmm, ok...

[elfin sphinx]

what sort of automation project ?

give the details

[elfin sphinx]

C++ is the language for the arduino framework , so we cant do anything there

[cunning lance]

DHT11 sensor, RFID, Flame Sensor, Water Sensor, LCD, Dot Matrix 8x8, joystick, servo, stepper motor

[elfin sphinx]

for rp2024 chips running micropython / circuitpython

i find thonny to be a particulary good IDE

[cunning lance]

majorly door lock and home situation monitoring

yeaaaaaaaaaa

got it!

[elfin sphinx]

will the project be connected to a computer with a USB cable 24x7 ?

[cunning lance]

yes

Serial Communication, thats why

[elfin sphinx]

for the third time , can you read the message i am telling you to read ??

its a 2 minute read and will give you a good knowledge of what is going on

[cunning lance]

okok sorry

i am reading

got it

so i can use MicroPython

on Arduino Mega 2560

[elfin sphinx]

in that case , you can take a look at pyFirmata

it is a way for you to write python code that will run on your PC ( it needs to keep running on the PC as long as you want your project to work ,AND your board needs to be connected to the PC )

[cunning lance]

ok

cool

nice

[elfin sphinx]

i dont recall saying that in my message

[cunning lance]

ok

[elfin sphinx]

the Mega or UNO or Nano CANNOT run python , micropython or circuitpython

[cunning lance]

ok

cool

Any arduino which can?

[elfin sphinx]

pretty sure there are some versions

maybe the UNO R4 , or NANO 33 BLE , not sure

but it will be overkill and expensive for your project

you are better off using ESP32 which supports C++ , micropython , circuitpython

and is relatively cheap

[cunning lance]

ok

thanks a lot @elfin sphinx ! Helped a lot!

[opal forge]

Whats other way than using docker to deploying my apps to raspberry pi ?

[elfin sphinx]

what apps are we talking about here ?

[opal forge]

Object detection

Using onnxruntime

[elfin sphinx]

it seems like just a python library , cant you install it normally with pip ? where does docker come into this ?

[opal forge]

Ye I can, because docker gives you better way to controll your enviormemt

[elfin sphinx]

sure

so to answer your origianl question , you can directly set up the python libs on your PC and start from there ?

but why would you want to give up the docker tech ?
you have stuff like portainer for docker that makes it easy to manage docker apps

[opal forge]

Problem with big img size

[torn stump]

hey my dc motors with l298n driver is not turning counter clockwise properly even though it works clockwise properly.. any clue?

const int in2 = 1;
const int ena = 3; // pwm

const int buttonUpPin = 5; // Pin untuk tombol naik
const int buttonDownPin = 6; // Pin untuk tombol turun

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(ena, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(buttonUpPin, INPUT_PULLUP); 
  pinMode(buttonDownPin, INPUT_PULLUP); 
}

void loop() {
  // Membaca status tombol dan memanggil fungsi sesuai kebutuhan
  if (digitalRead(buttonUpPin) == LOW) {
    Serial.println("Button Up Pressed");
    press_up();
  }


  if (digitalRead(buttonDownPin) == LOW) {
    Serial.println("Button Down Pressed");
    press_down();
  }

}

void press_up() {
  digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
  analogWrite(ena, 190);
  delay(700);
  digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
  analogWrite(ena, 0);
  delay(700);
}

void press_down() {
  digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in2, HIGH);
  analogWrite(ena, 190);
  delay(400);
  digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
  analogWrite(ena, 0);
  delay(400);
}

[hasty zealot]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied timeout to @fervent stratus until <t:1715715850:f> (10 minutes) (reason: duplicates spam - sent 4 duplicate messages).

The <@&831776746206265384> have been alerted for review.

[surreal sparrow]

hey ive been running into a problem for sum reason in rp2 micropython the access point function doesnt allow u to use a auth option

[placid rapids]

have an interview at EDA company, did an intern in embedded system a while back
I didnt do anything in that intern, so, didnt wrote those bullet points in resume
very breifly wrote embedded system with c++ on esp32 for welding machine

what to say in interview if interviewer focusses on that?

good thing is, it is mentioned very briefly, and was only for 2 month
any programme or anything that I can look into in a day?

[elfin sphinx]

what board are you using ? what is your code ? what error does it give you ?

[surreal sparrow]

raspberry pi pico w i dont have the exact error but it was like

Attribute Error
authmode=

it was correctly used

but for some reason it was giving me an erro

and when i set it to like authmode=0 it gave me unkown config i think

i searched all around the internet and there was nothing on it

[elfin sphinx]

what are you trying to do exactly ?

what do you want to do with authmode

also , show your code

[surreal sparrow]

i dont got it

im at another house

import network

wifi = network.WLAN(network.STA_IF)


wifi.active(True)

wifi.config(essid='MyMicroPythonAP', authmode=network.AUTH_OPEN)

print("Access Point configured.")

[surreal sparrow]

example

authmode=network.AUTH_OPEN outputs a variable error

[elfin sphinx]

network.STA_IF is for station mode , not access point mode

use network.AP_IF instead

[surreal sparrow]

still doesnt work

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 12, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'AUTH_OPEN'

import network
import time

ap = network.WLAN(network.AP_IF)

try:
    ap.active(True)

    ap.config(essid='MyMicroPythonAP', authmode=network.AUTH_OPEN)
    print("Access Point configured.")

    while True:
        print("Access Point running... Press Ctrl+C to stop.")
        time.sleep(10)  

except KeyboardInterrupt:
    print("Stopping Access Point...")
    ap.active(False)
    print("Access Point stopped.")

[elfin sphinx]

have you tried just leaving the password field out ??

like just do ap.config(essid="MyMicroPythonAP")

[surreal sparrow]

yes

and it just creates a ap with a password

for some reason idk

[surreal sparrow]

.

[dusk plank]

hey can some one help me inhttps://discord.com/channels/267624335836053506/1240466137913757747

[elfin sphinx]

How about password="" ?

[elfin sphinx]

thread seems to be locked , if you still have questions , you can ask here or open a new thread

[surreal sparrow]

same thing

its still locked behind a pass

[elfin sphinx]

k ,i checked online but it seems to lack good documentation

do you mind doing help(network) in a REPL and showing the output ?

[surreal sparrow]

this?

  __name__ -- network
  country -- <function>
  hostname -- <function>
  route -- <function>
  WLAN -- <class 'CYW43'>
  STAT_IDLE -- 0
  STAT_CONNECTING -- 1
  STAT_WRONG_PASSWORD -- -3
  STAT_NO_AP_FOUND -- -2
  STAT_CONNECT_FAIL -- -1
  STAT_GOT_IP -- 3
  STA_IF -- 0
  AP_IF -- 1

[elfin sphinx]

is there more to this or this is it ?

[surreal sparrow]

nope this is just it

[elfin sphinx]

k , now do help(network.WLAN)

[surreal sparrow]

object <class 'CYW43'> is of type type
  send_ethernet -- <function>
  ioctl -- <function>
  deinit -- <function>
  active -- <function>
  scan -- <function>
  connect -- <function>
  disconnect -- <function>
  isconnected -- <function>
  ifconfig -- <function>
  status -- <function>
  config -- <function>
  PM_NONE -- 16
  PM_PERFORMANCE -- 10555714
  PM_POWERSAVE -- 17

[elfin sphinx]

huh

so as we can see , there is no AUTH_OPEN constant defined in either of the classes

[surreal sparrow]

yea

[elfin sphinx]

i honestly dont know much about this since i havent done it myself

i would try and look online / dig up the source code for this and check where the function for this relies

[surreal sparrow]

yea

ive tried finding it but cant

[elfin sphinx]

you cant find source code ?

[surreal sparrow]

yea i can

but i cant find the exact file for sum

damn i cannot read c

[shy zenith]

https://discord.gg/XURqrU7U

[elfin sphinx]

XURqrU7U

here is the invite code of micropython discord server , you should join it and ask there

[elfin sphinx]

thanks

[limber field]

does anyone use python to create assembler code for a MCU ?

[echo wagon]

em

[limber field]

Expectation-Maximization Algorithm on Python ? @echo wagon

[nocturne widget]

You might need to check for conflicts between your chip and micropython.

I tried Python and Go before I had to go back to C to do the functionality I was trying to achieve on the ESP32 WROOM-1's

for my specific chipset, the frameworks like micropython had one feature or another they had access to within the ESP32's. The caveat is the project is dependent on both so I had to drop them, one being the ability to mount as a browsable filesystem /usb, and the other the ability to act as an access point. While I could always get a socket layer working, I had issues with micropython with the AP's and a few other things that I forgot, its been a few months now

[surreal sparrow]

hey i went on the micropython server and i found a workaround

[nocturne widget]

Interesting what did they say?

[surreal sparrow]

oh it was just security instead of authmode

[opal forge]

How can I open circuit from my raspberry pi GPIO pins

Im using 11 and 13 pins and I connected them to outside controller which needs to have closed circuit to be triggered

It gets trigger when I connect to Gpio wires to board and than i dont know how can I open circuit and than close it one more time using python

[sterile urchin]

Anyone lives and works locally here in India? Am trying to build more of a local network of folks here

[elfin sphinx]

a lot of them are , hang around in chat to get to know them

[stiff shale]

Is this one related to Embedded systems and this kinda thing?

[elfin sphinx]

yes

you can read channel descriptions for what the channel is about

[pulsar notch]

Hey, it's my first time to developing a PID controller in a python, so could anyone suggest me how to code it to perform a specific task??

[errant shell]

What exactly are you wondering about? What do you mean by specific task?

[pulsar notch]

Ahh, i mean that PID controller would be used in a heater which would control it's power outage, hence manipulating the Surrounding Temp to a Fixed Value

So, how would i go for the main loop here (the loop governing the PID controller)

in python

[woeful tundra]

is implementing PID itself the thing that you're trying to figure out? or connecting it to hardware stuff?

[pulsar notch]

I am just asking how to code the main loop of PID

should i send the question

[woeful tundra]

I haven't written one myself before, so I'd probably just use the pseudocode on Wikipedia or any other source as inspiration and then adjust to specific usecase

[pulsar notch]

Hmm

Also the question was to develop a heater which would heat its surrounding to gain the Set Value

So, should i make a sensor first to detect the surrounding temp and set it to the temp parameter.
in gpt, it had directly assumed the initial temp to be 20

[woeful tundra]

this is what they have here, as I'd translate it to Python plus some notes
||```py

ALL_CAPS are consts

previous_error = 0.0
integral = 0.0
while True:
# <setpoint should be updated here>
error = setpoint - measured_value
proportional = error
integral += error * DT
derivative = (error - previous_error) / DT
# this is the main PID output expected to cause side effects:
output = KP * proportional + KI * integral + KD * derivative
# <output should be used here>
previous_error = error
time.sleep(DT)

(I've put it inside a spoiler if you want to figure it out on your own)

[pulsar notch]

Yeah, that's what the main execution would look like

[woeful tundra]

are you working directly with hardware or via some abstraction? or is it just a model?

[pulsar notch]

Actually, we had given the coding of this PID controller firstly

As its our summer vacation, they said u should code first

and then when u would return, we would give u the hardwares to assemble

[woeful tundra]

did they tell what hardware it'd be/how to access hardware from software?

[pulsar notch]

They didn't

I think i only had to write the python code for it

[woeful tundra]

hmm

ig you can just assume some abstraction layer on top of it that you'd later integrate with hardware

[pulsar notch]

Also, I really don't know much about PIDs

As i am only a sophomore, they are literally jargons to me

[woeful tundra]

which would also allow you to test PID itself in isolation (without hardware)

[pulsar notch]

okay?

[woeful tundra]

the general idea for PID, as I understand it, is to interactively reverse some function that takes output and returns setpoint

[pulsar notch]

Also, should i make a sensor first, or directly give the input temp as an example??

[woeful tundra]

make sensor as in?

[pulsar notch]

Yeah, eventually turning the error to Zero

[pulsar notch]

In question it said to make a heater, which would heat the surronding to the Set Value

So first i need to know the initial temp

The heater is to be controlled by a PID controller

[woeful tundra]

since you don't have hardware yet, you'll be simulating how sensor value depends on heater output, right?

for first tests, fixed initial temp and fixed target temp are okay

[pulsar notch]

Yep

[woeful tundra]

later on you can swap fixed values to random to measure how efficient it is

[pulsar notch]

Okay, but first the initial temp should be parametrised as the temp given by the sensor right

?

[woeful tundra]

it's just the first measurement that the sensor gives
and in case of a simulation it's just one of many parameters of that simulation

in a real scenario, there wouldn't be an initial temp as something important

[pulsar notch]

hmm, I thought firstly we have to code for a arduino sensor to measure the initial temp

[woeful tundra]

.

so it's actually an arduino?

yeah, if you know if that's the board/family of boards you'd have, then starting with finding how to query its sensors is useful

[pulsar notch]

No i am just giving an example

See, like GPT is giving for Rasbery pi

[woeful tundra]

it depends a lot based on specific hardware, so not sure if it makes any sense to write it upfront for any reason other than to be aware of various boards you can implement it on

[pulsar notch]

Hmm, its okay

I also don't know what i am doing anymore

[woeful tundra]

ig looking up how Arduino does it is useful, since there do exist Arduino emulators that you can test your code with

[pulsar notch]

Hmm, okay

Btw, had u worked on Open CV?

[woeful tundra]

only occasionally and not in embedded setting

[pulsar notch]

Actually, I have an strong interest in Computer vision and Open CV

and i want to develop some projects in it

But, As i had just started Coding, I didn't studied DSA of any language

Soo, Is DSA is there in CV projects??

[woeful tundra]

algorithms for computer vision are somewhat specific to that field, as far as I've seen
(#data-science-and-ml and #media-processing stuff, mostly involving operating on matrices/arrays and focusing on parallelism)

[pulsar notch]

How so we set the weighting factors for a PID controllers??

Like what values should be taken for Ki, Kp, Kd?

[errant shell]

Look up "PID tuning" online. There are many strategies, from heuristics to model-based

Since you do not have access to any hardware, one good way to test would be to write a simulation of the system being controlled, and then combine that with your regulator.

It is important to note that the output in case of a PID regulator is conceptually a continuous value - say from 0.0 to 1.0 to mean 100%. In practice on real hardware, for an electronical heater, this would likely be done using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) - manipulating the dutycycle

[true cradle]

are there any open source alternatives to ros

if so what are few popular ones? few i have heard of are yarp and orocos

[errant shell]

By "ros" do you mean ROS = Robot Operating System? That is open source

[true cradle]

yeah and ik it is open source lol only my issue is ros itself is kind of outdated and ros2 community support and packages is still not at a level ecosystem what ros originally had

[errant shell]

Yep - incompatible changes like that tend to suck a lot, and take years if not decades to recover =/ What kind of robot are you looking to build? There might be more specific solutions available depending on your needs

[hallow igloo]

Hey! I want to jump ship to working with them form doing webdev for 3+ years, and I'm in analysis paralisys if I should go with micropython or other language counterparts, because I've been told that micropython is relatively slow compared to the others, and it can be feature breaking

[elfin sphinx]

C/C++ is very widely used in embedded world , you should go with that
its also not like learn one language and you are done , you will have to experiment other languages , tinker around with micropython , circuitpython etc
the big thing about micropython is that it takes up more resources as compared to a compiled file and since it is dynamically typed interpreted , it is relatively* slower

however , modern microcontrollers are very fast and powerful , you might not need to worry about it too much. I have made lots of cool stuff with microcontrollers and circuitpython.

circuitpython being dynamically typed offers lots of advantages like doing more by typing less

it just all depends on what you are making. If you want to make a career in this , C/C++ should be an almost "must know" language at least to some level.

[hallow igloo]

thank you for the advice

[cloud hinge]

Such great info, thank you. I been working a lot with c c+ trying to understand the code in arduino ide. I love how fast it is. Wondering for robotics using mpython how much slower it is compared to c/c+, can you give an estimations on some differences in that scenario. Wondering if you can expand on the " relatively " statement. Are we talking seconds, half seconds, milliseconds or more? I find this to be a great topic cause I hear there's a speed difference but haven't seen same situations or type of code directly compared yet. I've used python in HA and it seemed fast as can be normally even over wifi. Was slight delay sometimes but my previous thoughts were that it was the WiFi but now I'm having seconds thoughts. I've done testing on rpi4 with pygame but I think that's different than what mcu would do I'm guessing such as esp32

[elfin sphinx]

well , when you compare it for embedded hardware , its pretty slow compared to C/C++

i dont have exact figure , but i would say that it is very noticable , can be on the order of more than 10x or even 50x ( ⚠️ i have not run these tests myself , so these numbers are just based on intuition , not computations, BUT there are loads of online results that will confirm this with tests and proof )

https://www.reddit.com/r/esp32/comments/t1de1p/how_fast_is_python_micropython_versus_c/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qym-P4GTdIU

I never really bothered with doing tests since i could see the noticable sturggle ( i was trying to make a project where i had to poll an input, do some computatinos on it, and display the results to a display , and finally do some custom painting on the screen and it was struggling visually to do that )

if you really wanted , you can write efficient python code and optimize it to run very fast , but i just didnt bother to go into depth

i was happy to use C++ in those places.

There are places where it doesnt really make much difference , like delegating stuff to DMA , direct hardware manipulation etc

[hallow igloo]

Hey there! How would I create a MIDI function in MicroPython that connects to a LoopMIDI port?

[cloud hinge]

Thank you for the info, a general area and ranges is what I was looking for and you nailed it. I think that's been my attraction to arduino ide c/c+ cause the speed is incredibly instant from my tests in most code I've worked with. I now code mainly rpi4 with arduino ide compiler cause it seems faster that 3ghz 8gb ram old i7 pc and way less power for the compiling part or about equal at times

[elfin sphinx]

i think we are comparing apples and oranges here

a raspberry pi 4 is INSANELY more powerful and INSANELY more capable than a pi pico or arduino or esp32

you can use python just fine on a raspberry pi

[cloud hinge]

wish there was ways to speed up compilers. One huge issue I have and in need of solution is to be able to program while esp32 is in expansion board.

[cloud hinge]

So true, I mainly just program esp32 these days from rpi4

[elfin sphinx]

wish there was ways to speed up compilers

are you talking about the time that takes to convert your code into a compiled file ? or the actual execution speed ?

in the first case , nothing much can be done since C/C++ is like that , it has to pre process , compile , link all the individual files which can take some time

in the second case , compilers have nothing much to do

[elfin sphinx]

ahh ok , thats cool

[cloud hinge]

Compiling in arduino ide code to be uploaded

[elfin sphinx]

One huge issue I have and in need of solution is to be able to program while esp32 is in expansion board.

it depends on the expansion board

ESP32 needs to have certain GPIO pins in certain states for it to successfully boot or to go into flash mode , if the board directly shorts those pins / uses them in some other way , there is no way other than to unplug and replug

[elfin sphinx]

yea , unfortunately , we cant do much about it

[cloud hinge]

Faster cpu, faster ssd? What's the bottleneck? To make compiler faster in arduino ide

[elfin sphinx]

a faster PC using a fast SSD will speed it up to some extent

but compiling process involves compiling loads of small individual files which take time in itself

for example , try to copy and paste a simple node project from one location to another , it will take A LONG TIME even if you have a very fast PC and a very fast SSD (even though its like few tens of MB or few hundred MB at the best)

because , it has to copy lots and lots of small bits and pieces files , its not one big file that you copy

now , try and copy a big movie of 1 GB , you will see that on a fast PC it takes merely seconds

why ? because the movie is one big sequential file , and that can be copied very very fast

[cloud hinge]

Can I modify esp32 and expansion board perhaps. Testing and uploading code takes much longer having to remove expansion board. I think if proper solutions are made it could help a lot of folks with these cheap.expansion boards. I been pondering some ideas

[elfin sphinx]

what "expansion board" are we talking about here ? do you have a link to it ?

[cloud hinge]

@elfin sphinx these ones are very inexpensive

[elfin sphinx]

i havent worked with this one before so i dont know much about it
but it looks like the expansion board has a USB port , does that not work ?

[cloud hinge]

not when in expansion board

[elfin sphinx]

what does that mean ? what is that USB port for ? only power ?

do you have a link to where you bought this from ?

[cloud hinge]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/ESP32-Development-Board-ESP32-DevKitC-32-ESP-WROOM-32-NEW-Board-Expansion-O2M1/1483294884?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101533886&adid=222222222281483294884_101533886_14069003552_202077872&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=42423897272&wl4=pla-295289030566&wl5=9031332&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=5298927391&wl11=online&wl12=1483294884_101533886&veh=sem&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpNuyBhCuARIsANJqL9NaLoW0aLeZ705JpdaA_7tlsT6sH5LdMgt3kAFBG6kexRa56967xA0aAqYoEALw_wcB

[elfin sphinx]

even if the board's USB port is only power

you can just plug your USB cable straight into ESP32 and program it that way

you wont have to remove it from the expansion board as long as the stuff connected to it doesnt manipulate ESP32's pins in some way like pulling them low or high or such

becuase ESP32 has some requirements to boot properly / go into flash mode , and having those pins stimulated in wrong way might stop it from working

here is a guide for those pins - https://lastminuteengineers.com/esp32-pinout-reference/

this guide will tell you what pin needs to be in what state at the time of boot

[cloud hinge]

I got from eBay but link is much longer

@elfin sphinx I prob have or had some weird pin manipulation going on. I can try again as it could be sorted out now. Some things work perfect now but haven't tried in a while

[elfin sphinx]

yea , this might not support USB data for those ports from the looks of it

but no worries, you can use ESP's USB port directly

[elfin sphinx]

yep , that can be the reason

[cloud hinge]

I could block pins or hook pins up to a switch when hooked up to USB perhaps

[elfin sphinx]

you could , but its too much extra wiring you will have to do imo

[cloud hinge]

ill try again today. Issue is USB power back feeds into expansion board and other things like motor controller

[elfin sphinx]

yes , thats the expected behaviour from the shield

[cloud hinge]

so maybe not enough power to program

if I could block power and a certain pin maybe that's the workaround

[elfin sphinx]

you should just take it out and program it outside

[cloud hinge]

I do that already

100s of times but wiring is always a concern and the prototype box I have I want to put everything in and program

its an extra step that adds like 30 seconds of manual labor each time and kinda tedious

[elfin sphinx]

when you do this , you will have to consider other things like making sure all switches are turned on and off each time

instead of all of this , just taking it out and putting it back in sounds easier

[cloud hinge]

I think if we made a module to handle it correctly then could make some money on module to

[cloud hinge]

Yes true. Just seems like with today's tech we should be able to solve it. Maybe there's a better expansion board

[elfin sphinx]

making money off of such modules is insanely hard

firstly , it will be priced very high since you will be makign relatively small batches
secondly , if it starts to gain popularity , 100s of clones will start to flow in from china who will make a better version of it and sell it
thirdly , i dont thinkl people really want this very overpriced expansion board

but , it can totally be a fun personal project for you to work on

[cloud hinge]

That makes sense. To be the original seller maker prob give ya clout but if u teemed with adfruit then maybe

[elfin sphinx]

why cant an adafruit engineer make the same thing or make it even better within a weekend ?

[cloud hinge]

your right

[elfin sphinx]

not every project needs to be a product , some projects are good as personal projects , they dont need to be a product

write a blog about it , show it off on your website , make posts on instructables, hackster , hackaday , see if it gains popularity amongst makers , see if they like it , see if they want it first

[cloud hinge]

I guess its more like a feature that needs to be in the expansion board and cheap as heck

[elfin sphinx]

i agree its a good feature to have

[cloud hinge]

Trust me 10 times no prob but unplugging and plugging 300 times for one project gets old

[elfin sphinx]

a button that disconnects the whole ESP32 from the board and you can use it as isolated ESP32

but the complexity needed to implement it and the lots of extra circuitry needed to implement it

compared with the beneifts it offers

is not worth it

[elfin sphinx]

why are you plugging and unplugging it 300 times ?

[cloud hinge]

To test code on my plant watering system. Editing c code testing functions with each update

[elfin sphinx]

usually it takes few iterations of code to get it "working"

[elfin sphinx]

you need to do that 300 times ? a few times should be enough

you gotta invest time in writing good code in the first place. code not working as expected is inevitable , but it shouldnt take 300 times

should take few attempts usually speaking

also i dont really have problems flashing to my ESP32 directly in the breadboard attached to external components

its just in very few cases that i have to unplug it

[cloud hinge]

Thank you for pondering with me. Might be a simpler way perhaps. Unplugging it is indeed the best way yet. If I had hard drive like ide cables without back and forth every other wire type setup could use ribbon cable to put esp32 outside of case to easily remove esp32 without having it in a little box with tons of wires to get accidentally unhooked

[elfin sphinx]

yea, those pins do look a little close , might be a problem during unplugging

[cloud hinge]

dupoint wires won't do to unreliability

[elfin sphinx]

for prototyping , i mostly use breadboard

more space, more stuff to plug into ....

[cloud hinge]

I like bread boards but pins fall out sometime too when tinkering for me. I love the wire wrap for solid connection on data. Take longer but seems more reliable esp for this when everything needs to work in sync for many functions. Putting breadboard in a box prototype can fall apart when moving around things

originally everything was breadboard on above pic

@elfin sphinx I know it looks a mess but the wires that need to be solid pin connection such and screen and motor controller are on on side of expansion board and stuff for removable testing is mainly on other side that can be plugged and unplugged at will with good connecting dupoints.

[elfin sphinx]

if pins just fall out from the breadboard without any reason , you might need good breadboards , its not supposed to happen

and yes, a breadboard , or such dupont cable setup is not meant for a working product , its mostly for prototyping. once you have finalized the circuit , soldering it onto a PCB board is the way to go

also justt chcking all the modules in the box is not a good idea
because when moving it aorund , certain exposed parts of one module might touch another module and unwanted stuff can happen

fasten the modules down

[elfin sphinx]

yea but duponts arent really meant for this kind of stuff if its going to be moving

use a pcb board (or also called perfboard or zeroboard) for soldering your circuit up

if you have modules , use screws and mount them on the PCB board itself

just a slide of he box and that 12V exposed contacts of motor controller might short with pins of ESP32 and boom , its ruined

messy wiring is not that big of a deal here

[cloud hinge]

Sorry for late reply, had to do some errands. Modules will get glues or may e double sided sticky tape if its none conduct perhaps. Wires will be better organised. Much easier to route 30 awg wires than dupoint. Kind of been more or less experimenting getting a feel for how the differ. Your right, I should do the screws thank you for that idea. I've been using perfboards. I really like them alot and I used one perfboard for six buttons on this project but I should incorporate more if possible. Your so right on the modules being close together sliding and shorting

[cloud hinge]

@elfin sphinx I have an issue with c code and every time I add reverse motor feature to the.esp32 for the motor controller after a few other functions everything does not work right anymore. Could u take a look by chance? I seem to not be understanding the brackets for closing out code very well. Thank you for all the insight yesterday, highly appreciated!

// Control motor2 based on weight and time
int currentHour = timeClient.getHours();
int currentMinute = timeClient.getMinutes();
if ((currentHour == convertTo24Hour(triggerHour, isPM) && currentMinute == triggerMinute && timeClient.getSeconds() >= 8 && timeClient.getSeconds() < 16) && !buttonPressed) {
// Turn on motor2 for 8 seconds starting at the trigger time
unsigned long motorStartTime = millis();
while (millis() - motorStartTime < 8000) {
robot.rotate(2, 100, 1); // Start motor2 at 100% speed in CCW direction
// Update weight while motor2 is running
weight = scale.get_units();
updateDisplay(weight); // Pass weight only to updateDisplay
}
robot.brake(2); // Stop motor2 after 8 seconds
} else if (weight >= target_weight && !buttonPressed) {
// Start motor2 in CCW direction if target weight is reached
unsigned long motorStartTime = millis();
while (millis() - motorStartTime < 8000) {
robot.rotate(2, 100, 2); // Start motor2 at 100% speed in CW direction
// Update weight while motor2 is running
weight = scale.get_units();
updateDisplay(weight); // Pass weight only to updateDisplay
}
robot.brake(2); // Stop motor2 after 8 seconds
} else {
// Stop motor2
robot.brake(2);
} want to add reverse for 10 seconds right after brake

This is how I reverse with button 32 normally // Check if button 32 is pressed
if (digitalRead(BUTTON_PIN_32) == LOW && !buttonPressed) {
// Button 32 is pressed, start motor1 CCW for 10 seconds
buttonPressed = true;
unsigned long startTime = millis();
while (millis() - startTime < 10000) {
robot.rotate(1, 100, 1); // Start motor1 at 100% speed in CCW direction
// Update weight while motor1 is running
weight = scale.get_units();
updateDisplay(weight); // Pass weight only to updateDisplay
}
robot.brake(1); // Stop motor1 after 10 seconds
buttonPressed = false;
}

[elfin sphinx]

can you post your code as correctly formatted code ? ( as a codeblock with correct language )

also is this the whole code ? if its not , please post the full relevent code

also explain what is currently happenign , what you want to happen instead

[urban junco]

Hey, could you guys please suggest me good project based on Arduino ot resp pi

[elfin sphinx]

there is practically countless possibilites

i suggest you go to a project showcase site like hackaday.io or instructables.com and checkout the projects there. Usually there are very interesting and cool projects on there

[urban junco]

Hmm...lemme see

[cloud hinge]

Also searching YouTube for arduino, esp32 or and raspberry pi. I change the search results based on hour, day, month or year to get more up to date projects

[cloud hinge]

Ok my apologies. Ill gather the code up and put in a pastebin or something in a bit. What I posted on here was just a section and formatted incorrectly. The formatting is what confuses me the most like bracket placement begins and endings of code sections

[eager dagger]

wow, i had no idea there was a microcontrollers section

hello everyone!

[eager dagger]

i will probably lurk here a lot from now on. im a controls engineer by trade and i love/work with this kind of stuff all the time

anyone got something interesting they are working on? im stuck in an ice cream factory "supporting the site" all week

[cloud hinge]

glad to have you onboard, this channel is amazing! im working on a different type of plant watering system that does not rely on moisture sensor to check moisture. im curious to what type of control engineering you do? sounds like a awesome job

[eager dagger]

i build/program industrial automation in the food industry - plcs, IO trees, allen bradley, electrical wiring, etc. Its fun but the travel sucks. All of our software and panels are built in-house, so its all custom

[cloud hinge]

Awesome! i been learing 3d modelng, arduino and esp32 for a couple years now but im still not a self coder. i use ai a lot but still learned a ton working with it. im getting much better with libraries. do you use c/c+ mostly?

[cloud hinge]

would it be ok to dm you?

[eager dagger]

mostly its ladder logic, some python/sql/vba as far as programming goes. arduino/esp32 and raspberry pi got me interested in this kind of career mostly. feel free to dm me

@cloud hinge sounds like you're on an early path down the same field lol

i will write in python if i can lol - i havent tried micropython and arduino, im trying to avoid it and get better in C

[cloud hinge]

nice! i have a rpi4 and love it. i use it as my main desktop for coding these days with arduino ide and web browsing. i made a sql database that linked to esp32 to be able to control a led from a website online to a esp32 connected to my wifi. worked like a charm but took a while to implement

[cloud hinge]

im not so good at python or c but im understanding the structures in c much better these days. im better at editing some things than writting the whole code

somehow i messed up the whole formatting on me c code but it still works correctly and now i need to format better.

[eager dagger]

those are some real world skills that will translate into a career if you want them to!

I wish i had some more time to work on projects. I want to make an automated birdhouse and drone eventually. but that drone probably wont happen for years with how much im working lol.

send me your code and ill format it

itll make me look like im doing something at work

[cloud hinge]

ok sweet

[shadow wraith]

r

[weak basin]

@shadow wraith What's up with the rs?

[shadow wraith]

so i can talk in the voice channels

[weak basin]

Did you read the message in #voice-verification carefully? Especially the bold sentence between the ⚠️ emojis

[shadow wraith]

no lol

[ashen hollow]

hi

[eager dagger]

hows it going

[eager dagger]

anyone messed with the arduino opta?

[elfin sphinx]

Too industrial for me 😅

[pulsar notch]

Hey did anyone worked with ros here??

Recently, we have been asked to study ros and make some projects from it

[knotty escarp]

The robot OS?

[pulsar notch]

yep

[knotty escarp]

ros.org has a ton of examples that folks are using it for i think

[pulsar notch]

okay so it is a open source software from where we could download different robots algorithms??

[errant shell]

Yes. And a platform to develop your own algorithms or subsystems

[wheat elbow]

i created an open source firmware (micropython on a raspberry pico w) for smart sit stand desks.
https://youtu.be/PKzvHBzcGJ4
https://github.com/waliori/RP-pico-sit-stand-firmware
https://github.com/users/waliori/projects/1

[hallow igloo]

would yall recommend arduino or pi for micropy dev

[elfin sphinx]

pi pico

arduino UNO , nano , mega etc dont support micropython

[hallow igloo]

cool just ordered a pico

[knotty stratus]

Hello there,

i am new to programming microcontrollers and embedded programming, and i have a small project at hand that will most likely include some arduino chips.

Is python the right language for the job or is it more recommended to learn embedded programming in Rust or C?

[spiral sandal]

Nim/C , but python is very good for scripting from remote procedure call in embedded case ( see telemetrix project ) and if you need something more than bash for tooling it will also fit nicely

[elfin sphinx]

Since u r a beginner, I suggest u learn c++ and Arduino framework since it has a huge community and insane amount of libraries and other resources

Python , circuitpython , micropython can't run on the basic Arduino boards anyway

[eager dagger]

i just put the john cena "ru sure about that?" on a confirm display for an hmi

i might leave it in and see who catches it first

[hallow igloo]

hey everyone, my rp pico came in the mail today and im trying to get it set up, is there anything like the arduino ide that handles all the dependencies and installation stuff or is that all manual? i cant really tell if im following correctly

[spiral sandal]

vscode-platformio is not bad

[elfin sphinx]

to get started , you can check out the getting started guide from circuitpython https://learn.adafruit.com/getting-started-with-raspberry-pi-pico-circuitpython/overview

if you want micropython , you can check out the official guide here https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/getting-started-with-the-pico

as for the IDE , try out thonny
its a very nice IDE for people starting out (dont get me wrong , it is capable too , its not a "beginner IDE" )

you can use both micropython and circuitpython on it

[hallow igloo]

i've figured it out since then, thanks to you and @spiral sandal anyway, i'm using mu editor

[elfin sphinx]

mu editor is great too 👍

[eager dagger]

you guys use ide's for pi?

[elfin sphinx]

yes ? you dont ?

how do you write micropython/circuitpython ?

[eager dagger]

I think idle or neovim just import io libs

You’ve got me curious now - I’ll look when I get home

[eager dagger]

Neovim it is

[elfin sphinx]

and what about uploading code , managing filesystem , serial monitor etc ?

thonny does it all in 1 place , thats why i like it

[grand shore]

Hi, im not looking for python help specifically, but because there doesnt seem to be a raspberry pi discord community (if there is a (better) one, let me know).

But basically, I have a 3ds and I want to emulate the streetpass functionality using a raspberry pi (zero or 3) and I am wondering if that is something thats possible to do.

Appearently, the 3ds sends out a 802.11 probe request with an ssid of "Nintendo_3DS_continuous_scan_000". If another 3DS is in range (Which I want either 3ds 1 or 2 to basically be a pi), the second 3DS (#2) will respond with a Probe Response, to which the original 3DS (#1), and of the receiving device with every frame thereafter, will respond with an 802.11 Acknowledgement.

Is it possible to capture these packets with the wifi chip in the pi and actually do things with it?

Please ping me

[eager dagger]

That code is on the pi, so I just run it natively. RPi library has documentation for almost everything you need.

I just went to the documentation and that was enough for me to write the code for a temp sensor with lcd output (in my screenshot).

I’m not knocking it, just genuinely surprised to hear about an ide. I’d like to play around with micropython but I don’t have much spare time.

Here’s the docs I use for I/O
https://pythonhosted.org/RPIO/#documentation

[eager dagger]

It’s definitely possible and more than likely is pretty simple. The 3ds is more than likely well documented - although I’m not sure how you could emulate it.

[grand shore]

Ah, but I just googled it and it says the pi doesnt support monitor mode, so I would need another wifi dongle?

[elfin sphinx]

ahhh so you are talking about micropython specifically on a raspberry pi ?

i am talking about a general development environment like , to develoope circuitpython or micropython app for lets say a pi pico or an ESP32 board

i very rarely use micropython on rpi board

i mostly use it for pi pico and esp32

[elfin sphinx]

also this just looks like a regular python package

we are talking about micropython , not python

[eager dagger]

I’m sure a cheap WiFi module or an esp32 would be capable of what you need if you wanna try writing in c. You can bend any system if you’re determined enough lol

[eager dagger]

My apologies, never tried micropython. I don’t really see a need when you can do what you need with gpio

[grand shore]

Okay, thanks

[elfin sphinx]

because we cant install python on an embedded system like pi pico where resources are extremely low (raspberry pi is not really an "embedded system" in these terms, its a full fledged computer just shrunk down in size )
so there exists micropython that can run on those small resource systems

[eager dagger]

I came into the conversation while at work yesterday so I didn’t read above lol my bad

[finite hull]

micropython or circuitpython ?

c is working 🙂

blink bllink !

[hallow igloo]

would any super dope awesome micro python rp pico programmers help with some button code

[lethal mountain]

What you need

[hallow igloo]

add me back

[elfin sphinx]

just ask your question in the server , we dont prefer DM help

more people that see your problem , more potential helpers for you , its a win win

[elfin sphinx]

dont ask to ask , just ask the question

[eager dagger]

im trying to skirt my hmi project

what u need

[lethal mountain]

Your question is not a question lo

[brisk gyro]

Question, what do you all know about Flipper0?

[elfin sphinx]

that its a fun tool

[shadow skiff]

umm should one use adguard or pi-hole on a rasberry-pi to stop ads ?
and any good tutorial on how to do so ?

[urban junco]

Could you guys suggest me some good projects related to hardware security

[spiral sandal]

half joking but no really https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man's_switch

[hallow igloo]

oh great, i will test this thing on myself!

[wind stone]

using a pico and have the code for a joystick:

from machine import Pin, ADC
import utime

xAxis = ADC(Pin(27))
yAxis = ADC(Pin(26))
button = Pin(16,Pin.IN, Pin.PULL_UP)

while True:
xValue = xAxis.read_u16()
yValue = yAxis.read_u16()
buttonValue = button.value()
xStatus = "middle"
yStatus = "middle"
buttonStatus = "not pressed"
if xValue <= 600:
xStatus = "left"
elif xValue >= 60000:
xStatus = "right"
if yValue <= 600:
yStatus = "up"
elif yValue >= 60000:
yStatus = "down"
if buttonValue == 0:
buttonStatus = "pressed"
print("X: " + xStatus + ", Y: " + yStatus + " -- button " + buttonStatus)
utime.sleep(0.1)

This works with micropython but I also want to have keyboard/mouse input to the computer which I can do with circuit python. How can i both read the joystick and have keyboard outputs?

[fervent patrol]

What could be the problem ?

Esp32 c6 wroom 1 n16

[main nacelle]

I'm planning using microcontrollers any suggestions that I need for having to work with python specifically

[tulip mauve]

Hey guys,
I need to control a motor via my raspberry pi and a sangaboard.
Any help greatly apreciated

[light vector]

Don't ask to ask, just ask

[errant shell]

Buy microcontroller with good MicroPython support. ESP32 is a good starting point

[main nacelle]

Thank you my apologies for taking you away from your work my apologies

[hasty zealot]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied timeout to @real notch until <t:1719545145:f> (10 minutes) (reason: duplicates spam - sent 4 duplicate messages).

The <@&831776746206265384> have been alerted for review.

[main nacelle]

Sometime diving into this do I need something specific for micropython my apologies

[elfin sphinx]

firstly you need to understand that micropython and python are similar only syntax wise

librarywise ,they are very different

a microcontroller like ESP32 cannot run full python

it can run micropython

you can buy any board like ESP32 , ESP8266 , Raspberry Pi Pico etc to run micropython

i recommend buying ESP32 + pi pico , they are cheap ( i think $4 each )

and other stuff like LED , breadboards etc that you might need

[main nacelle]

thank you

[thorn dragon]

FT232H - cannot find any mention of this on here. What it does is allow you to use any Linux, windows or mac-os computer as a micro-controller. It plugs into any usb port. It provides I2C, SPI and GPIO. It allows you to use the micropython or circuitpython modules directly from the python you have on your PC.

See https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264

[limber field]

I like the concept ... burp

[errant shell]

Is there a MicroPython driver for the FT232H ? I have not found any...

[spiral sandal]

maybe port https://github.com/jmbattle/pyMPSSE

[sharp idol]

What are the basics needed for hardware for the pico? Like if I’m just getting started, what else will I need outside of resistors, buttons, and LEDs.

[elfin sphinx]

breadboards , jumper cables for breadboard
would be in the necessary category

soldering gear ( even a cheap $5 soldering iron is better than nothing ) , PCB boards , pin headers for that PCB board , etc are very cheap and would be in the "highly recommended" category

multimeter and power supply are the two things you need in terms of tools

you dont have to buy those expensive power supplies , for pico stuff , just buy a nice 5V 2-3A power brick , cut up a USB cable , and solder wires to its ends to make it a 5V power supply (or a 12V adapter with some voltage regulator boards like LM2596 , get the most ampere one you can get)

and it would be handy to buy common voltage regulator ICs

if you are going to be doing microcontrollers tuff , i think you should buy an LM317 , AMS1117 (3.3V version) and a buck converter module (like lm2596)

and other than this , its all aobut , what you want to do

you can buy different sensors , display modules, motors , etc etc

[sharp idol]

I already have the tools aspect of it e.g the iron, breadboard and buck converter. Just making a workshop and wanted to stock on the bare minimum and work up towards the sensors and such as I make my own PCBs that require them. Thanks! Kinda going overboard but hope it pays off eventually. I already made a Simon says board, just need to promote it better.

[limber field]

remember the Radio Shack , experimenter kits ? @elfin sphinx

[elfin sphinx]

i assume you have tools like wire cutter , nipper , etc

[elfin sphinx]

we dont have a radio shack here 😅

but i do remember assembling kits

[sharp idol]

I miss RadioShack. Glad I live within 40 minutes of a micro center.

[limber field]

its called , The Source now

[sharp idol]

Yep.

[errant shell]

Yes, or pyftdi which is pure Python. Apparently what AdaFruit Blinka uses, which implements I2Cetc for CircuitPython. https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Blinka/blob/main/src/adafruit_blinka/microcontroller/ftdi_mpsse/mpsse/i2c.py

[elfin sphinx]

great , then you have a bit of stuff to get started

also buy a capacitor kit if you can

and few common transistors

and some mosfet

[sharp idol]

Soldering assembly kits is my goal with this workshop . Currently looking at about 250 bucks worth of parts so when I’m ready, I can just package and ship. Gonna revisit my Simon says game first and expand my components from there.

[elfin sphinx]

then buy some extra PCB boards , practice implementing your breadboard designs on those

pro tip : you dont have to solder your expensive components onto the PCB board direclty, meaning , if you have 1 pico , you made a project with it , nad you want to make a PCB for it , dont solder the pico directly on there , solder those header pins , and then plug your pico into that
so when you dont need the project or feel like moving on , you just take the pico out from that socket and use it normally

[limber field]

modular is a good way , and make lots of notes on what you did

[elfin sphinx]

keep notes

and save your code on github

[limber field]

lots of scribble books and pen / pencil / eraser

[sharp idol]

I will when that step comes. Currently I’m using actual components and wokwi simulator.

And yeah, I’ve learned from last time that I should use male pins on my board instead of female since you don’t need to scrap a 39 pin segment lol.

[sharp idol]

I actually already started a repo for it since I have the code for the Simon say game. That was 2 years ago though and I’m just now getting back to revisiting the project.

[elfin sphinx]

no ? you usually solder female pins to the PCB board and then plug your pico that has male pins on it into those female pins

[elfin sphinx]

good luckk 👍

[sharp idol]

Yeah, but if I’m selling kits with the header pins in them, it would be more cost effective to do it the other way around so I can sell them for as cheap as possible.

I’m aiming for accessibility over profits.

[elfin sphinx]

you still need one set of male pins and one set of female pins , i told you where usually the male and female pins go
you can do it other way around , but it will be super awkward (since lots of modules / controllers come with male pins soldered onto them directly)

and both approaches would pretty much cost the same

also , if you are going to sell the project to regualr people , you should ditch the modularity and solder the controller directly on the PCB anyway

[sharp idol]

The pico has pinless options.

[elfin sphinx]

yes , thats a good thing

[sharp idol]

I’ve thought about that, but then that’s just an addition 5 dollar cost for every board I sell and if I have 10 in my collection, then I would be expecting the end user to have an extra 55 bucks for all the boards.

[elfin sphinx]

i am sorry but that makes no sense to me

if i want to buy 1 board , i will buy 1 board

why do i need to buy 11 extra boards ?

also you are saving money , not spending extra money ( you save money because you dont have to buy the female headers pins seperately)

[sharp idol]

Say I have the Simon says board, an RC car board, and some third board. If someone wants all 3 but they are set up to solder the pico to the board, then they need 3 picos.

[elfin sphinx]

yes , thats the intended use case for a regular person

a normal person does not want to deal with elctronics and swapping out microcontroller , setting up his computer to flash pico with the stuff

[sharp idol]

Also, this doesn’t matter as much, but I do prefer the look of the board with make pins lol. The pico and nano look better than say the uno or banana imo lmao.

[elfin sphinx]

if you want to sell it to tinkerers , then you might as well just sell the PCB because there is a very high chance that they already have a pico

banana ?

[sharp idol]

I will have that as an option too.

[elfin sphinx]

ahh the arduino bnana , i c

[sharp idol]

I’m confusing it with another fruit but I can’t remember. I just realize the banana pi is a rpi clone.

[elfin sphinx]

what is this simons game / what does your project do exactly ?

[sharp idol]

A clone of this

[elfin sphinx]

i have never used that thing lol

yep , not gonna happen , tiktok is banned here

[sharp idol]

Sorry, I guess I missed that.

[elfin sphinx]

no worries lol

but it seems a good simple project 👍

in future you can try to incorporate some digital logic ICs , and ditch the pi pico completely ( assuming this is a relatively "simple" game)
that will reduce your cost , by a lot

74xx series ICs are like few cents

[sharp idol]

I do want to revisit logic gates (worked with them in high school) but with the popularity of the pico and such, figured more people are likely to have heard of it and be more interested.

[elfin sphinx]

fair point
good thing that pico is not that expensive

[sharp idol]

I’d like to incorporate the chip on my board and skip the “third party” part, but I’m not privvy to how all that works yet. I know it’s open source and the company explains how to make your own board, just haven’t had time to sit down and go through it.

[elfin sphinx]

well its not a beginner's project , thats for sure

you will need some extra equipment to solder that IC onto the board , like a SMD rework station , not to mention lots of complementry SMD parts required like capacitors and reisstors and diodes

( aside from the fact that you need an actual custom PCB board that you will have to design in a CAD software and then get it manufactured )

[sharp idol]

If I’m getting to that point, I will have the SMD work done prior to shipping it out as a tinker board from a manufacturer lol. Last thing I want to do is work 10 hours a day to come home and hand solder SMD parts.

[elfin sphinx]

thats gonna be expensive ngl

but it can be a fun project

i guess there are some quantity of buyers for everything

[sharp idol]

I figure I’d cross that bridge when I get there. If these smaller boards even justify the venture.

[elfin sphinx]

sounds good

and good luck , let us know how it goes , and dont hesitate to ask for help

[sharp idol]

Thanks. I think I’m going to dust off my discord server and start using it as a hub for these projects. Made it for video game development but haven’t don’t that in half a decade lol.

[thorn dragon]

It uses board to allow you to access all of it's functionality from your regular python through the associated micro python modules

[eager dagger]

just an interesting read about how board/gpio works at a system level
https://bob.cs.sonoma.edu/IntroCompOrg-RPi/sec-gpio-mem.html

I thought it was an interesting read if you like knowing how things are working at a deeper level

[lilac pecan]

I'm not sure if this is the right channel for this, but I have a question. I am doing some coding for the GPIO ports of a raspberry Pi, and am using the gpiod library. This has been working great. My dev workflow is to do the coding on my Mac in VS Code, then transfer the python scripts to the Pi, ssh in to the pi and run the code from there. The problem I am having is that I don't have the gpiod library installed on my Mac, because I wouldn't want to run it there, and so I don't get the intellisense in VS Code. What is the best way to get the intellisense for the library onto the dev box?

I figured it out. I downloaded the whole library into my projects folder and then added these lines to my settings.json for VS Code:

"python.autoComplete.extraPaths": [
    "/Users/[whatever]/Projects/libgpiod/bindings/python"
],

[spiral sandal]

@errant shell are you interested in generic python wasm or just micropython wasm ?

[spiral sandal]

you can do the same with arduinos from browser with telemetrix project

[proud ember]

Hey guys, I'm having a bit of trouble with micropython developping on a m5stack device with its uiflow2 web ide.
It's giving me an error that I'm honestly having trouble locating.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 21, in btnA_wasClicked_event
  File "<stdin>", line 14, in die_display
TypeError: unsupported types for : 'int', 'int'

Code is here https://sourceb.in/O2BrokZtSY

[main nacelle]

Is there a sensor that can detect a specific chemical like sugar liquid or ammonia

My apologies

[cloud hinge]

I hybridized some code to make esp32 use a rotary encoder with bluetooth and as a mouse wheel for scrolling in windows, Linux and android if anyone is interested maybe I can try and post the code later

Works like a charm!

[coarse cave]

Anyone know how to get a 7 segement display module for microbit working? I got the TM1637, but i can't seem to get it working.

[cloud hinge]

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Use-the-TM1637-Digit-Display-With-Arduino/

[coarse cave]

I just need this for the micro:bit

[cloud hinge]

ok my apologies, im not familiar with micro:bit

[coarse cave]

nah it's all good

[coarse cave]

it has been quite hard to find well made documentation for micro:bit in python, i'm definitely thinking of getting a raspberry pi/pico

[cloud hinge]

Bt mouse drivers for the wheel of mouse in rotary. Made the code with gpt for it today. Can scroll webpages and volume easily on bt to Windows , Linux and android

[cloud hinge]

What's micro:bit about?

[coarse cave]

it's basically a dumbed down arduino

i got it when i was much younger

it mainly uses block coding

[cloud hinge]

so its a product and a website?

do you have a link to the product?

[coarse cave]

this is mine

[cloud hinge]

ahh ok, i seen something like that, is there a pic of the other side? do you have to use the website to write the blockcode?

[coarse cave]

you can use the microbit module in any python ide, i got it running on pycharm

its hard to get different modules working such as that display

[cloud hinge]

awesome man, i mainly use c++ but trying to get into python more. been struggling getting it to work right in vscode platformio

[coarse cave]

ah yeah

i love pycharm, and i have the professional version because of student access!!

[cloud hinge]

Nice!

[elfin sphinx]

https://python.microbit.org/v/3/reference

their online IDE seems to be very well made along with nicely laid out API documentation within the IDE itself

https://www.101computing.net/bbc-microbit-counter-using-a-7-segment-display/ here is a tutorial where tehy explain how to use a raw 7 segment display with the microbit

[elfin sphinx]

https://github.com/mcauser/micropython-tm1637 here is micropython driver for your display

[desert axle]

could i make a gameboy emulator on a raspberry pi pico with micropython

i know its silly :3

[errant shell]

Emulators can be quite CPU intensive. You will likely need to drop down into C code, at least of parts of it

There is an emulator here, which runs on Pico, https://github.com/deltabeard/Peanut-GB

And another 😮 https://github.com/Pardok/RP2040-GNUBoy

[coarse cave]

Thank you

[neon turret]

https://discord.com/channels/268162480369303554/1259735341041193000

Can somebody help me with this problem

@neon turret @elfin sphinx

[elfin sphinx]

i cant help you if i dont know the question

it shows me no access

[neon turret]

How can i give you access

I am getting no output. Trying to run ultrasonic sensor with pi4

[neon turret]

Kindly help

[elfin sphinx]

hi i cant see the wiring of your pi

can you post a circuit diagram as well as the photo of your wiring ?

[neon turret]

I dont have 2kohm resistor so used 1kohm in series

[elfin sphinx]

your wiring is still not clear , i dont see your pi

[elfin sphinx]

also according to this circuit diagram , the wire coming from sensor should go at the start of the 2k resistor and the wire from the pi should go in the middle , but your sensor wire goes to middle and pi wire to the top , which is the exact opposite of what is shown in the circuit diagram

how am i supposed to see what pin you have connected to what wire from this ??

please post clear pictures that show your wiring clearly , i must be able to see your raspberry pi gpio pins , the breadboard , the sensor , all in one frame , without any wire overlapping with any other

so that i can see if you have connected everything correctly

if the wires wont stay in place, tape down the sensor or smth , just make sure that we can understand your wiring @neon turret

[neon turret]

Thankyou for your precious time. The problem got solved

[neon turret]

I am trying to remotely access raspberry pi4 with ubuntu 22.04 using vnc but i get this blank screen

[eager dagger]

you can do a lot of things with conductivity sensors or turbidity sensors

[eager dagger]

(hopefully its this easy) are you running the client side on your rpi?

[main nacelle]

I am sorry I'm trying to figure out how to use a spectrometer if such a microcontroller works because I want to search for something that might be underground and if I have some type of spectrometer that could look for that specific resource in the soil or even as a rock then it would be easier

[eager dagger]

https://github.com/leswright1977/PySpectrometer

[main nacelle]

But is there a microcontroller that works that's a spectrometer my apologies

[eager dagger]

there are no spectrometer microcontrollers commercially available that i am aware of.

Engineering one from components and programming it with a rpi would probably be more effort/time consuming/even costlier/impossible to part out than just buying a spectrometer.

some use x-ray, some use magnetic fields. are you prepared to fully engineer a project of that scope?

my guess is probably not - respectfully

if you really HAVE to do it, find the type of spectrometer, read technical manuals, figure out how the type that suits your need works, then spec out parts and electrical and maybe even get a custom pcb made.

[neon turret]

I have run the command vncserver on pi and then using realvnc viewer i try to access.

[eager dagger]

If you are using a RPi4 without a HDMI monitor attached then you need to set a fixed resolution using sudo raspi-config. Choose anything other than default monitor.

[pseudo night]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1085980871418462279/1261065501644292156/VID_20240712_012500.mp4?ex=66924305&is=6690f185&hm=4cb6c50ac9b4728120151671355b51e8401dab7a62ce3decbba2159b4f3c641b&
tried running bad apple on an i2c ssd1306 128x64 display through an arduino uno.

The video was encoded, and sent via serial by python.

It could be a bit more optimized for stable frame rate

[limber field]

nifty !!!

[mental jungle]

is there an alternative to the device simulator express? i want to get into hardware programming (or whatever term you use) but obviously, dont have the money to buy the hardware to experiment with

[elfin sphinx]

@dreamy wasp the code you write on the arduino is written in c++ , i dont see how thats related to python

anyway , in this channel you can ask microcontroller questions that are not related to python directly

[dreamy wasp]

i do my Arduino code in python not c++ thats how.....

[dreamy wasp]

and thank you, i did not see that this is here

[elfin sphinx]

using what framework ??

the code that you flash onto arduino can only be C++ code thats compiled

unless you are using something like pyfirmata ?

[dreamy wasp]

ya, im using pyfirmata.

[hallow pollen]

hi guys

arduino uno or raspberry pi 4 8gb ram

which is better

?

I've got the RPI 4 8gb but I am getting an error while using the camera

it is not working

[errant shell]

Arduino Uno is a microcontroller with 2 kB RAM. Raspberry PI is a single-board computer. Two completely different devices

[elfin sphinx]

you can in no way compare an arduino UNO to a raspberry pi directly, those are two very different things meant to do very different things
anyway
show code , show error , show connection diagram , show photo of your setup

[hallow pollen]

uh

I am not into that mod anyway

BTW I am new to this

I have aproject to do soo

[hallow pollen]

Is sophia made with RPI or ARDUINO or any other microcontroller

(Sophia robot)

[hallow pollen]

BTW thanks

[elfin sphinx]

the main brain of sophia that does all the thinking , visual recognitino , understanding surroundings , deciding what actions to take would be done by a computer like raspberry pi ( except a much much more powerful one )

then that computer will decide what action has to be taken , ex , moving a hand , then it will command a microcontroller like arduino to move the hand motor , then arduino will listen to that command and will move the motor

but understand that it probably wont be using an arduino UNO or raspberry pi itself , they will be using an industry equivalent of those two

raspberry pi and arduino boards are used more in the hobby market , they are not used that much in industry

[hallow pollen]

hmm thanks for the info buddy

[ocean helm]

what are some of the interesting microcontrollers people have tried using?

I've used MSP430s and Arduinos

but I'm curious what kinds of cool things people have done with Jetson Nano's and STM32s

[errant shell]

ESP32 (or RP2040) with MicroPython is fun. Lots of RAM/CPU/FLASH, good connectivity

Jetson Nano is not a microcontroller, but a single board computer, completely different class of device

[elfin sphinx]

yea pretty much what said above

arduino UNO , nano , etc are base class micrcontrollers , moderately powered (stuff like ATTinay85 would fall in the same category if not one class lower)
then there is stuff like RP2040 , ESP8266, (maybe samd21) which are better , faster , more powerful than above
then there is ESP32 range (wroom , wrover , S2, S3 , C3 , C6 and so on) which is even more powerful and capable
then there is stuff from nordic semiconductors like nrf52840 which is just as capable , but its a little bit different from ESP32
STM32 range is known for its reliablity and power , they are better than arduinos in almost everything

8051, PIC micrcontrollers are ancient technology (well , pic is not exactly ancient , but old) , but still used in the industry for suitable applications because of their proven reliability over decades , they are usually very very very underpowered compared to a modern day microcontrollers like ESP , rp2040

there is also a very high performance range of microcontrollers by teensy , they are very very powperful in a microcontroller form factor (not quite as powerful as a SBC maybe , but very powerful when compared to other microcontrollers)

then there is SBCs like raspberry pi zero , 3 , 4 , Jetson Nano , etc
SBCs are basically a computer shrunk down in size , so they are insanely more powerful than microcontrollers ( with a heafty price )

[mental jungle]

I've just bought now the adafruit circuit playground express (no bluetooth though thinking about it, maybe I shoudve XD). never done anything with hardware and python. what are some good beginner projects once ive grasped the basics of circuit python?

[elfin sphinx]

https://makecode.adafruit.com/courses/maker/projects

https://makecode.adafruit.com/examples

https://hackaday.io/search?term=adafruit+circuit+plaground+express

just browse around in any microcontroller based project forum , find stuff thats interesting , ask on here if its possible to make with your thing

since your thing has temperature sensor , IMU , addresable LEDs you can probably do some pretty cool stuff

[ocean helm]

Awesome! Thank you!!

[mental jungle]

Im going to keep it super basic (as in no additional attachments). Dont really have that much more money to do anything advanced-ish

[elfin sphinx]

huh
i am not sure what your module consists of

can you specify what all sensors and features does your model have ??

[mental jungle]

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-circuit-playground-express/overview

[mental jungle]

Its this model I got

[elfin sphinx]

yes i was referring to same thing

the things i listed above are built into that thing

this all is built into your board , you dont need to buy anything seperately

[mental jungle]

Ive not had a proper look at the specs till now and im surprised its got that much features packed in for a decent price

Ive got a raspberry pi 3 model b with the tablet screen (bought circa 2015). Never did much with it. Is it possible to utilise both modules with each other?

[elfin sphinx]

is it possible ? sure
should you ? depends on the project

usually a SBC + microcontroller means a pretty involved project

your rpi 3b can be turned into loads of different stuff , maybe even a small tablet

there are practically infinite project options you can choose from

so it just basically boils down to "what you like to do / a project idea you have in mind / what you would like to make after browsing around on project forums / youtube "

[mental jungle]

Just want to for the future. For now, to get started Ill play around with the circuit express and then once i get my paycheck, ill get using my rpi 3 again

Spent around £200 for rpi 3 due to certain issues and since then, did fuck all with it 💀

[elfin sphinx]

OOOOOOOOOOOF

[mental jungle]

I know 🥲. I short circuited 2 rpi 3 by just touching the metal parts of the motherboard (dk what you call them) so had to buy another one

At least when I built my pc last year, it all went well (booted it up first time, with no issues)

[wraith ravine]

Hi guys, I'm actually building a voice assistant using an external esp32s3 microcontroller. I am running it locally on a platform io project. Now I want to transfer it to cloud. I am confused between aws ec2 instance and aws iot core in combination with a lambda function and s3 for storage. Any suggestions?

[dreamy wasp]

Is there a why to tern on/off the GND on a arduino uno?

dump question nvm

[elfin sphinx]

we cant help you decide if we dont know what your project does and how it requires external services

[wraith ravine]

It's a voice assistant system. It takes in audio recording through an imnp441 mic and saves it as a recording.wav file. This recording.wav file is further processed with speech to text, then a LLM to generate response, finally a text to speech

[mental jungle]

Just got my circuit express playground. Just need to find a micro usb cable 💀

[mental jungle]

quick questiona about the CPE; does it only work if you load only one python file onto the circuit?

[fallen fractal]

Bro who know how to connect pc to laptop

[willow star]

Wow I just found out about wokwi which lets you play around with simulated microcontrollers in a browser.
This is a gold mine

[round nimbus]

Salute,

I’m an undergraduate in E.E and I have some bg in python… basically, I’m interested in embedded systems, microcontrollers and smart things..

Can anyone help with load of materials (free ones helps better) to get started.. i was researching and saw stuffs like micropython, circuit python, Arduino, Ada fruits, etc.. I need pointes to clear roadmaps, courses, simulation labs to get me started here.

Thanks.

[errant burrow]

hey im texting from wio terminal

[rugged sonnet]

Hi mate, honestly python won't get you far with actual embedded. Get your self a cheap like $0.02 stm and a $1 controller from aliexpress. Theres virtually no way you'll ever in the field of embedded know exactly how much of anything your gonna need cause you actually will learn the limits of your projects as you start expanding it. Learn memory management, quite simple but its an important aspect to learn what this whole junk about low level languages not being safe is, and it'll teach you good programming skills as you will have to make sure your code is both efficient and secure. It'll teach you about schematics, reading them, making them etc.... Aswell as different designs in microcontrollers. It'll give you a small but useful insight into the field of electronics aswell as electricity, and low level system languages. It'll teach you how to read documentations and actually how to research for products you wanna buy as there are soo many trashy stuff out there. Its honestly one of the best things you can do with your time. Take it from someone that has dozens of hours waisted on esps, arduinos, stms, arms, etc...

[round nimbus]

Thanks RYN, do you have any recommendations for courses online where I can get started with this

[rugged sonnet]

I honestly don't prefer courses like this, in the world of microcontrollers not a lot of useful ones exist and the best way to go and learn is by starting with no idea of what your actually doing which forces you to adapt. This is honestly not motivating and isnt fun but embedded Dev is one of the hardest jobs (I've been programming for 7 years and have worked with a lot of stuff in different areas). I feel like you starting out and tryna continue with guidance is one of the worst things you could do for this job cuz there simply isn't any tutorials . ofc you will find some here and there but nothing that will ever guide you completely. So just look into mirocontrollers, sensors, programmers, etc... And find stuff out on your own which will in turn teach you adaptation in a field which is constantly like none other developing , as for help one of the most professional and best servers is the official arduino server

That's gonna be your best bet as users there are usually very experienced

[ornate prism]

Hey im trying to execute this idea I have for a macro board / steam deck idea using a raspberry pico pi. Would anyone help me with this? im not sure what exactly I need, i'll list all the supplies I currently have: Raspberry pi pico, switches, keycaps.

[main nacelle]

Is there a converter from python too many mini python

My apologies

[median pewter]

Guys, does anyone have some experience with using sensors for solving real world problems at a professional level?

[rugged sonnet]

yes

[elfin sphinx]

can you elaborate ? its not really clear what you want

[elfin sphinx]

did you have a question about it ?

[median pewter]

i am doing a project on thermistors which will be used for determining the temperature of a lithium ion battery

[elfin sphinx]

cool , sounds straightforward

but i still dont understand what your question is

[median pewter]

i want some doubt clarifications and suggestions

[elfin sphinx]

then go ahead and directly ask the questions that you need help with , dont just say "i need help with this stuff" or "has anyone ever done this X thign ?"

[median pewter]

Yea. do phones these days come up with automatic warning alerts which can prevent lithium accidents?

[elfin sphinx]

lithium battery safety is a very vast topic , temperature is one of its components.

phones have a dedicated power management IC that manages lots of aspects about the lithium battery in the phones.

and with the help of main controller IC communicating with the power management IC , the phone for sure can give you alerts when there is something wrong with your battery , like if the battery is overheating.

is that all you wanted to know ?

[median pewter]

Yea. but how do those things work? Like they directly use a thermistor kinda thing or something else

[elfin sphinx]

yes , they use some sort of thermal sensor , either thermistor or very small thermocouple ( i have seen both being used in different kinds of batteries but thermocouple will be costlier as it will need extra components and whatnot)
it mostly depends on the application , costs , what the IC supports etc

but the concept is the same , monitor for the battery temps and if it goes too much , cut off the battery from circuit

[main nacelle]

I work with resin and I want to make a dispenser to dispense the proper amount of resin and then mix it so I can add colorant by hand and make it so that it's equal parts because that's what resin has to be equal parts of hardener and the resin itself so I want to make a machine that can properly make it down to the gram my apologies

[elfin sphinx]

okay , you just totally changed the subject from your original question

but , it is still not clear what help you want exactly ?? like , what is your question ?

[weary lagoon]

Hopefully microbits fit under this category..
I was wondering if there is a way to read radio broadcasts or other data from a microbit using python. I know about BlueZero however it seemingly only works on Linux (based on what the PyPi says). I already have a script that works with reading serial. But I would like to be able to receive data wirelessly. (Without the use of 2 microbits).
If anyone knows anything that can help that would be great :D

[errant shell]

When you say radio broadcasts, what exactly do you mean? FM radio? DAB? BLE? Or something else?

[weary lagoon]

BLE I believe. I just need something that can recieve data from the microbit.

[errant shell]

So the MicroBit sends data wirelessly, and you want to receive it onto your PC?

[weary lagoon]

Mhm exactly that

Just thought it would be nicer than having to have it usb connected and using serial

[errant shell]

BLE is the way to go. There should be examples for the MicroBit/MicroPython side. What OS do you use on the computer?

[weary lagoon]

I'm using Windows 11

Sadly I ain't the best at linux 😅

[errant shell]

Bleak is a decent cross-platform BLE package for Python. I have used it on Linux, but should work fine on Windows also https://github.com/hbldh/bleak

[weary lagoon]

Aaa I saw this before. Tho how would I descern the different addresses?

[elfin sphinx]

does the microbit support wifi ?

[weary lagoon]

I don't think so

[elfin sphinx]

but it supports ble ? huh

[weary lagoon]

So that it can connect with your laptop and download data. I think it is probably to expensive to add wifi support or something

Because at that point may as well be using Rasberry Pi XD

[elfin sphinx]

esp32 chip costs like $2 , and it supports both wifi and ble

so its not expensive

what microcontroller does the microbit use ?

[errant shell]

MicroBit has nrf52. Do you have a MicroBit v2? Otherwise BLE is going to be ... painful - v1 had too little RAM

[elfin sphinx]

ahhh nrf52 , now that makes sense

[weary lagoon]

Yep I got V2 thankfully

[elfin sphinx]

looks like BLE is the only viable option if you dont want to add extra hardware

[weary lagoon]

Hmm I might just have to test all the different addresses until I get a hit then I guess

I'll come back if I can figure something out. Thanks for the help guys :D

[errant shell]

Huh? BLE has advertising - you can set a name for your device, to be included in advertising packets. Then you can monitor for BLE advertisements on your PC (or phone)

[weary lagoon]

Hmm most of my packets recieved has None as the name. Maybe I didn't set the name of the microbit..

Now how would I go about doing that 😅 ..

[main nacelle]

Is it possible for python code to be translated into mini python

[elfin sphinx]

what is mini python ? i have no idea what you are talkin about

[main nacelle]

Mini python is used for microcontrollers from what I've heard

[errant shell]

MicroPython is a separate implementation of Python for microcontrollers. It supports a decent amount of the Python language, but not everything. Also a fair bit of the standard libraries, see micropython-lib git repo. Third party libraries are completely different. So if you have code that works with CPython you must expect some manual porting effort

[elfin sphinx]

i think you are referring to micropython (which is not mini python )

and no , you cant directly just translate your python code to micropython

mostly because micropython librarywise is different from regular python

[weary lagoon]

Oh my gosh.. I'm so stupid. I didn't put the microbit in pairing mode thats why it hasn't been showing up...

[rugged sonnet]

i mean it doesn't matter anyways, even with lower level languages like rust you'd need a good amount of memory to have your application running on it

thats why c/cpp is prefered

or more or less most languages can't be used

i mean you always have alot of more expensive microcontrollers that can do it but your limited in a sense

and in the world of electronics 5$+ is actually quite expensive so that'll put into prespective what im tryna say

[elfin sphinx]

we cant say , it all depends on the code in question

micropython works pretty good on modern microcontrollers like pi pico , esp32 etc

which are like $4

[rugged sonnet]

you have a thousand esp32 versions

[elfin sphinx]

and ?

i dont see how thats a problem

[rugged sonnet]

different stuff meant for different things, don't see how all of them will supports micropython

[elfin sphinx]

what

[rugged sonnet]

recommending something generic like esp32 can be misleading

and yeah no shit sherlock ofc the pi pico supports micropython

[elfin sphinx]

i am not recommending anything to anyone , i am giving you examples of microcontroller where micropython runs pretty well

[elfin sphinx]

what the fuck is your point then ? you are saying that "you would need a good amount of memory to have your app running on it "

and i am showing you how a cheap pi pico or esp32 can run your micropython app just fine , and how you dont need to worry much about memory

[rugged sonnet]

maybe for a tinkerer a pico or a esp32 is cheap

but not for anything beyond that

i mean maybe you could get some cheap esp chips in a huge bulk

any yes you do need to worry about memory

[elfin sphinx]

what even are you saying

we are not setting up a factory to produce 1 million products by shaving off every bit of cent

most people asking here are hobbyists
its a pi pico or esp32 , its cheap , buy it , use micropython on it

you dont need to be scared of memory

[rugged sonnet]

yes but as soon as you go to work for a factory that does that they'll put a 32mb stm in front of you and tell you your job

[elfin sphinx]

ok ?

everyone is hobby maker here

they use whatever they want

[rugged sonnet]

ok?

give them the right expectation to know how its actually done

[elfin sphinx]

and making them aware of all the possible options is our job

[rugged sonnet]

not some bs your came up with

[elfin sphinx]

expectations for what ? they dont wanna work for a factory , why you considering they want to ?

and sure , learn stm32 if you want to as well

but that doesnt mean you shouldnt know aobut esp32 and pi pico ( which is what you are implying here )

[rugged sonnet]

why not

[elfin sphinx]

because not everyone wants to do this professionaly ?

[rugged sonnet]

id rather have someone worrying about memory than somebody buying something and finding out later

[elfin sphinx]

we cant comment about imaginary code , it all depends on the code
micropython or circuit python is excellent paired with microcontrollers i stated above

it can do A LOT of things , even with all hte memory constraits present

[rugged sonnet]

bruh what are you saying

ok here is something from their website

Note that there are several varieties of ESP32 – ESP32, ESP32C3, ESP32S2, ESP32S3 – supported by MicroPython, with some differences in functionality between them.

So off the bat the H series isn't included there, and specific S and C series are supported

[elfin sphinx]

micropython is obviouslly hardware dependent , just like other languages like c/c++

what even are you trying to say ?

[rugged sonnet]

so either tell people to buy one of those or just don't say anything about products

[elfin sphinx]

i never told anyone to buy anything

stop pulling shit out of the wazoo

[rugged sonnet]

its a pi pico or esp32 , its cheap , buy it , use micropython on it

your crazy

[elfin sphinx]

i told you that AFTER you said all that stuff about how it doesnt matter and allat , not initially

[rugged sonnet]

how about you go back to watching better call saul and call it a day buddy?

[elfin sphinx]

how about you mind your own business and not tell what to do to other people ?

[rugged sonnet]

yeah mb for giving people good advice

[elfin sphinx]

you just stormed in with no point and managed to create unnecessary noise , bravo

[rugged sonnet]

plz dont sue me sir 🤣 goofy ahh guy

[elfin sphinx]

anyway , looping back to this

show your code , we will see what can be done

[spiral sandal]

no there's education too, so RYN has a point

the future should not be built upon broadcom closed chips and adafruits breakouts ( even if they are wonderfull to start with )

[willow star]

what should the future be built upon? just curious, not trying to argue

[spiral sandal]

sadly by using local mcu foundries, but an awfull lot of countries have lack of them

so it is just wishfull thinking for now until open hardware spreads

[elfin sphinx]

pi pico is open source last i checked
and ESP32 has huge market share and people use it , even if some might not like it

[elfin sphinx]

sure, i will correct myself

"not everyone wants to do this professionally , some do it because they like it and want to , not necessarily because they want to work as a product designer in a company "

to be clear , i am not at all saying people shouldnt use STM32 , people absolutely should use them , they are wonderful chips

[spiral sandal]

more soft cpu would be nice too

[elfin sphinx]

BUT
there are also chips like esp and pico that are just as capable and wildly popular (at least at the hobby project level)

[main nacelle]

Well I was trying to see if there's a way of converting my code because I want to make it so if you put in how many liters or grams of regular resin you put in at pumps in an equal amount of hardener and it tears or subtracts the weight of the cup in grams my apologies @elfin sphinx

[willow star]

^

[elfin sphinx]

1. No need to apologise after every sentence
2. what do you mean " convert your python code to micropython" ?? Converting python code to micropython would mean that you already have a python code that does what you want . Do you have the machine ?

what exactly is happening ? can you give as much detail as possible about it ??

and yes, if you have the code , as already pointed out , show your code

are you like , looking to create the hardware as well ? or you have a ready to go machine that has all the mechanical assembly done and you just need to program it ?

[spiral sandal]

yeah and if it is a one build , the shortest path is probably telemetrix or firmata + the cheapest arduino hooked to a PC

sometimes no need to make a tailored solution generic will do

[main nacelle]

Well I want to know if I could transfer python code into micropy so it makes it easier if I'm having a problem at least I know that it might be a translation error from python to micropy I'm going to be working on it I just need help with figuring it out

[elfin sphinx]

can you show the code that you are trying to translate ?

and explain what help you need exactly ?

[main nacelle]

#===[import]===#
From time import sleep
#==============# 
Sleep(3)
Resin=int(input('how much resin are you planning on  using? In grams /n'))

Mixing_cup=20 #grams
Harder=resin

Dispense=resin+Hardener-mixing_cup

Print('dispensing...')
Sleep(4)
Mixing_question=input('would you like to have this unit mix your resin parts?,yes or no\n')
 
Sleep(4)

If Mixing_question.upper=='YES'
Sleep(6)
print('mixing')
#time that would take to fully mix the resin
elif
#take off plate sorry

[elfin sphinx]

okay , lets say we translated this code to micropython

how would you run it ? like , where is the actual microcontroller that will run this code ? where is the pump that will dispense the resin ? where is the weighing sensor that will weigh the resin as it is being poured on a plate ?

[main nacelle]

I'm working on that I'm just need to find the right parts ones that can be easily be changed if needed and everything else I'm just seeing if I could get python translated into micropython to make it easier after I get it done I was thinking maybe a micro Arduino but that might not work so I have to look for micropython circuits sorry

@elfin sphinx

Yes I'm going to be working with pumps it gets the weight of the silicone cup before takes how much resin you need in equal parts take away the cup in grams and then asks for the mixing the reason why I thought of mixing it is to minimize air bubbles because I tend to get a lot of air bubbles in my resin sorry

[elfin sphinx]

1. You cannot "translate" your python code into micropython , thats not how that works. Micropython is similar to python in terms of syntax and some standard lib functions only, but most of other stuff is different.

2. So you will need to write the code in micropython itself , you cant write it in python and use a tool or smth to convert it to micropython.

3. Micropython is hardware specific , meaning , the stuff you write for one microcontroller will be slightly different than the other. Also ex. you will need to use theboard library in order to manipulate pins of your microcontroller or use them in general (this library is not present in your python , so how would you write code in python and translate it to micropython ? ) The choice of your motor (pump) , the choice of your sensor , etc will affect the code you write.

4. This can be a pretty "intermediate" level project along with the assembly you will have to do and whatnot. ( what i mean is , this is not an easy project aimed towards a beginner)

I suggest you start with designing your machine , where you want the parts to go etc , choosing the parts that fit the requirements , etc etc
then worrying about writing the code after that is done

[main nacelle]

I have a design in my head it's supposed to be small it's going to be a multi-base resin type of printing and mixing station where I can do multiple things at once with resin so I just don't have one device that makes resin for epoxy moles but can do resin printing make prototypes instead of using a 3D printer although I would love to use a 3D printer it just doesn't get the right amount of detail plus it leaves strings where they might be supposed to be no strings and causes a jam and then you have to make sure that filament is undamaged otherwise it will break off due to dry rot sorry

[main nacelle]

I'm sorry

@elfin sphinx

[viral shuttle]

is it worth buying an raspberry pi as a beginner/intermediate programmer? i wanted to test out some physic automations and learn more about hardware but idk if it’s a good investment

[main nacelle]

Go with what you think might work it's not really up to us because we might say something specific that might dissuade you so go with your heart my apologies

[elfin sphinx]

why are you apologizing ? you havent done anything wrong

[elfin sphinx]

i understand you want to make some sort of machine that mixes different resins , correct ??

i cant understand clearly what you want to say , its all confusing

[elfin sphinx]

i dont know what you mean by "physics automation", but if you want to get into hardware, you should start with something like an arduino uno and a kit of basic stuff like breadboards , wires , etc etc

raspberry pi is just a PC shrunk down in size , is there a need for that to you ? if yes, then buy it , if not , then dont

[viral shuttle]

i mean like, programming your coffee machine to heat up 10 min before you wake up or something like that

[viral shuttle]

i was also thinking on using it to run a small server soon as i enter web development

[elfin sphinx]

well that would depend on the specific machine , if it allows you to automate it or not

but in general , to get into hardware, arduino is the most used path

[elfin sphinx]

rpi is decent as a web server ( but there are cheaper alternatives out there like a second hand laptop)

[proud gyro]

Does anyone have any learning resources for raspberry pi?

[elfin sphinx]

which raspberry pi ? model ?

also what do you want to learn when you say "learning resources" ?? there is LOTS of stuff to learn about rpi , what do you want to learn specifically ?

[proud gyro]

raspberry pi 4
Automation and robotics

[elfin sphinx]

what kind of automation ? and how much electronics knowledge do you have ?

[proud gyro]

i'm currently in my third year, studying electrical and electronic engineering

[elfin sphinx]

ahh great ,then you already have a decent knowledge of electronics

there is not really a "curriculam" or "roadmap" to learn these kind of things , you just start doing stuff , and learn stuff if you encounter something new

if you feel like they are taking some X thing for granted, learn those things and move forward

i am sure some people here will have some resources that might help , but the key imo is to just do projects and try out new things

ex, lets say you want to make a simple 4 wheel robot that can move when you press certain buttons ( rpi here is a bad choice imo , its extreme overkill , but oh well 🤷‍♂️ )

you would start by figuring out how many buttons you gonna have , what each of them will do , and laying out the general outline for the project

then you would divide the big "robot building task" into smaller subtasks , like firstly you would learn how to interface 1 button with the rpi , then how to interface multiple buttons with the rpi , then learn how to drive motors with rpi ,then learn how to do both button press detection AND motor driving , etc and then build from there.

and for learning this kind of stuff , i just use google and youtube , literally just google "how to do X with rpi" and read and watch bunch of stuff , and then continue this again

[rugged sonnet]

best learning resource is coming up with the stupidest idea or some childhood idea and tryna build it

don't put any expectations on the thing your gonna do

don't start dreaming about how cool your stuff is gonna be

just think of something and build it

[cloud hinge]

What's the best way to control robot from website connected to world?

or easiest. I mean from a persons own website,

[spiral sandal]

me use python-wasm in a webpage and telemetrix over websockets so no need for website at all just a browser

less latency and less points of faiture in the link

[cloud hinge]

Nice, do u have a video you recommend to learn how to do it by chance?

[spiral sandal]

there should have been a french video last pycon FR but sadly technical issues, so only doc is some slides and test code

but if can get telemetrix first to work without websocket then it will be simple

as long as you start from tested code here https://github.com/pygame-web/showroom/blob/main/src/test_telemetrix.py

was used to drive both the real thing and digital twin and with webcam feedback for telepresence

[cloud hinge]

This is really cool thank you @spiral sandal

I made a Domain name subdomain from 000webhost site that uses sql to control led but was difficult to change all the codes to make other functions work while keeping WiFi esp32 connection from disconnection or connecting at all @spiral sandal

[spiral sandal]

i used esp8266 and did not have trouble, and from outside/wan i use nginx ssl+websocket wrapping instead of just websockify/lan

could be fun to have esp32cam doing both robot control and visual feedback and have micropython on it https://github.com/lemariva/uPyCam

[cloud hinge]

https://youtu.be/Vp4glSVPT8o

[limber field]

Its a swiss army knife

[analog condor]

I have a curse of frying them

[elfin sphinx]

tbh if you are doing compute stuff , a raspberry pi is not required
you can do everythin the pi can with a spare computer or laptop you got lying around
by no means you need to buy a new pi

only appealing factors to buy would be the form factor and power consumption imo

[cloud hinge]

I use pi48gb for saving power, does like 25 to 50% of what i7 does matching i7 8gb.of memory. Way faster booting on pi. Vs code and cura run nicely on it. Arduino ide run s great on pi,even better than my i7.

[elfin sphinx]

you didnt just compare a rpi4 to a i7 machine 💀

rpi is fine for light computing and web browsing and stuff , but its limited
a full fledged desktop processor like i7 will obliterate the performance of rpi4 in terms of heavy workloads

i dont know if i want to downgrade to a severly limted PC just to save those 20 watts or so

[cloud hinge]

Im still on one one of those old spinny drives on the i7. I do feel rpi4 is faster than i7 in compiling code on arduino ide. My i7 takes a half hour to boot and with rpi4 I don't have to feel bad for leaving it on for a couple days like the i7 and its power hungry 3gb gpu. For work I can't do on rpi I do on i7 but for everything else the the rpi smashes the numbers very well, just lacking the higher quality video on youtube. I've never ran Linux Natively on the i7 only windows but maybe I should?

[cloud hinge]

200 to 250 watts on pc vs 10-15w is much bigger than a 20w difference. I don't look as.a.downgrade, more as complimentary

[elfin sphinx]

again , rpi is fine for light desktop usage
also , your PC is bottlenecked by HDD most likely , swap it out for a SSD ( nvme preferred )

if your PC actually takes half hour to boot , there is probably something seriously wrong with it

[cloud hinge]

Yeah I think I changed the virtual ram a while back, might be that or a old hd. Never used a ssd as of yet but I can't wait to try

[elfin sphinx]

i just quoted what you said here , i dont know what power your machine consumes

I use pi48gb for saving power, does like 25 to 50% of what i7 does matching i7 8gb.of memory.

a pi 4 consumes around 20 watts to 30 watts , and you said its 50% of what your i7 did , so thats a 20-30w difference

[cloud hinge]

I ment 25 to 50% of software on windows I normally use, my apologies for not being more clear

[elfin sphinx]

try running a benchmark software , you will see the difference
try to run a game , you will see the difference
try to run AI/ML trainings, you will see the difference

try to do photoshop and stuff, video editing and stuff

if all you ever do is light desktop usage then by all means use a rpi

but i doubt thats what devs do , most of them need the full fledged machines

[cloud hinge]

yeah Photoshop and video editing I would not. Browsing reading, compiling, running generic discord apps work great on pi with just sd. Pi seems to be running vs code decent and loads faster on raspbian than on winodws. Pi loads 20 to 30 browser tabs no prob. So many things Linux can do that Windows can't do the same
Like instaling soft from terminal. I'm amazed how much new software runs on raspbian these days. Its like every year more mainstream soft gets ported over. My windows matching wants to go into update mode or doing something with HD that slows it down every time I use if, its super anoying, I need to reinstall, way overdue

[elfin sphinx]

all the examples you just listed fall under the "light coputing" umbrella , which the rpi can do just fine

[cloud hinge]

True

[elfin sphinx]

and yes , HDD is a very bad bottleneck for PCs , change it out for SSD, you will really feel the change ( try to go for a m.2 NVME SSD if your mother board supports it ) , if not SATA SSD are always there

as long as your machine is not very old , the SSD should pretty much fix the speed

and you might want to change the SD card in the pi to a SSD or smth similar
SD cards will wear out overtime and will be corrupted

[cloud hinge]

Nice thanks for the tip, I'm strapped for cash but one day ill make it happen, what have u been been up to for developing lately?

[cloud hinge]

I need to do that . I have a good one but its kinda old now already. Seems good, I need to backup everything and hope for the best for now

[elfin sphinx]

nothing much interesting
but i do have an interesting project idea in mind , a gesture mouse

like i hate having to use mouse just to click the little thing and then go back to keyboard . So i want to make a BLE glove that i can wear on my hand that will have mpu6050 IMU units on two of the fingers , and with gestures that i would do on a trackpad , i can do in the air and then the glove can interprete it and send as mouse commands or smth

its just the idea , i still havent worked out the details , maybe i can give it more time on the weekends and figure something out

how aobut you ?

[cloud hinge]

I love that idea. Anything g to make life easier and more egonomic. I used rotary on esp32 to control wheel like a mouse wheel to scroll up and down a webpage. I used ai to smash up some code atoms and it worked. It connects via ble flawless and actually useful. I hope you make your idea and share it, I really like glove controllers since nintendo

ill have to check out those mpu6050

[elfin sphinx]

nice
sure, ill upload it on gh and send the link once its done

[cloud hinge]

Awesome. I been holding off on my plant watering project. Just needs one last feature implemented and I think its ready for prime time

[elfin sphinx]

what feature ?

[cloud hinge]

the code is so long its hard for ai to do it all correctly a lot of the time but more or less was taking a break for the project. I was able to put a clock on it so waters at certain time s with certain functions and many other features makes the code a mile long

[cloud hinge]

Reverse motor after it waters to clear the tube

[elfin sphinx]

i kinda dont like using AI to write code for me 😅

it feels like i have to spend more time explaining him what i want to happen , correcting its shitty code , instead of which i can just write my good code in the first place

[elfin sphinx]

ahh ok

[cloud hinge]

I'm slow to learn code and horrible writing and remembering what to write but I'm good at understanding and editing on many code structures once I'm familiar

[elfin sphinx]

but to correct and edit code , you would need to understand what the correct code is , in the first place

[cloud hinge]

If you can add that feature to my code that would be amazing, I tried a few times bit I keep breaking code lol

[elfin sphinx]

when/if i have the time , ill ping you , send over your github repo , maybe ill take a look

[cloud hinge]

Ai breaks down what I don't understand and what I don't understand I experiment with and what I can't figure out I try and if trying don't work I move on to the next thing. Kinda patchwork like but until I learn to write code its what I got

[elfin sphinx]

or you could just ask your question here directly

[elfin sphinx]

maybe you should drop messing with AI and learn to code
you are not in a race , its fine if it takes a bit of time , everyone learns at different pace

[cloud hinge]

Ok, I don't have github but I can use paste in or something. Thank you, I have some coding apps and to learn c++ basics and a couple pdfs, I have an adversion to some math cause it boggles my brain but you are right 100%

I'm still learning c++ features and its versitility, its mind blowing how complex it is, I love it. It at the same time I'm like "what does it all meen"

[elfin sphinx]

<@&831776746206265384>

[weak basin]

!warn @worn whale No advertising here. Please read our rules

[hasty zealot]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied warning to @worn whale.

[dreamy wasp]

I'm working on a small project, where I'm trying to connect my Arduino Uno with an Xbox controller, but I'm having some trouble understanding the Xbox controller wiring.

Question: How can I configure it to look left, right, or have no input (off)?

• To look left: I send a + signal to the pin.

In other words to look left: You send a + to the pin on the right

• To look right: You need to connect the output of the "look left" pin to the pin next to it (I'm not sure if this is correct).

In other words to look right: You have to connect the left pin to the right pin

Problem: I don't know how to set it up so I can control looking left, right, or neither.

Here are a few pictures to help explain.

[elfin sphinx]

"connect my Arduino Uno with an Xbox controller"
cool , show us how you have connected it , show us the wiring diagram/ circuit diagram and a photo of how everything is connected together

look left where ? look right where ??
how can an arduino look left or right ?🤷‍♂️

its just xbox controller connected to an arduino UNO right ?

also those pictures tbh dont really make much sense to me if i am being honest

please explain ana overview of what you are trying to do

[dreamy wasp]

Ok, first, I apologize for not including a diagram. I don't know how to create one, so my bad.

"Look left where? Look right where? How can an Arduino look left or right? 🤷‍♂️"
I mean on the Xbox controller—I want to make the right joystick move to the right or left (to look right or left).

"Isn't it just an Xbox controller connected to an Arduino UNO, right?"
Yes, but it's not connected through a USB. It's like PIN 13 connected to button A, etc.

"Also, to be honest, those pictures don't really make much sense to me."
You're right. I was trying to show how the Xbox controller is made, but to be honest, I don't even understand it myself. Someone who doesn't understand trying to explain is not the best combo.

"Can you please explain an overview of what you're trying to do?"
For example, I want to play a game, and I need to walk to the objective. To do that, I have to look right and then left. But I don't know how to make it so I can look right, because you need to have the two pins "connected" (I think, I'm not sure). I can't use a +, - , or GND.

As I'm typing this, I've realized that if I use a 3.3V on the right pin, it will make me look left, and if I use a 5V on the right pin, it will make me look right.

I think I've solved my problem.

Thank you for the help—just talking this through with you made me understand it better! 😄

[elfin sphinx]

so i assume you want to connect the buttons of the xbox controller to directly arduino , bypassing all the electronic circuitary in the controller and using it just for the buttons ??

if yes, firstly get 4 tactile switches, hook those up to the arduino , and get the USB communication between your PC and the arduino working

figuring out how to wire up the switches in the xbox controller is the easy part

arduino UNO does not have the capability to act as a USB HID device built into it , so i am not sure how you are going to do the USB part

i assume you want to connect the xbox buttons to your arduino UNO and then connect your arduino UNO to your PC via a USB cable and then have the arduino UNO show up as an "xbox controller" , is that correct ?

[dreamy wasp]

Fist I'm not making a Xbox controller, in this aspect all I'm doing is tearing a light on and off but for me I'm using a Xbox controller. so like if I want to look left I tern the "light" off/on

"if yes, firstly get 4 tactile switches, hook those up to the Arduino , and get the USB communication between your PC and the Arduino working"
No?

"figuring out how to wire up the switches in the Xbox controller is the easy part"
Not doing that.

"Arduino UNO does not have the capability to act as a USB HID device built into it , so I am not sure how you are going to do the USB part"
I'm not going to, I'm planning on just having this as like a "macro" but for Xbox (the console)

"I assume you want to connect the Xbox buttons to your Arduino UNO and then connect your Arduino UNO to your PC via a USB cable and then have the Arduino UNO show up as an "Xbox controller" , is that correct?"
No I'm having it as like a thing to play games, more or less for me on an Xbox.

[elfin sphinx]

ohhhhh so you are modding your xbox controller so that you can turn on some LEDs depending on what direction button is pressed ?

[dreamy wasp]

no

[elfin sphinx]

💀

do you want the xbox controller to function normally , as it was before, after you have done whatever you have done with it ?

I am really confused as to what you want to do actually

ex - " in this aspect all I'm doing is tearing a light on and off " , i have no idea what tearing light means , like are you fading it ON and OFF ? like dimming or smth ?

"so like if I want to look left I tern the "light" off/on " , "look left" as in when the left button is pressed ??

and "i tern the "light" off/on" , which light , i wasnt even aware that you were using some LEDs ??

please assume i know nothing about it and explain without ommitting anything

[dreamy wasp]

i mean that as like the A button is a "light" you tern it on and off

like i want to jump i have a + send to it. i meant the light as a figurative object ig

[elfin sphinx]

you cannot "turn a button on or off like a light" , that makes no sense

its an input component , not an output component

[dreamy wasp]

kk we done

[dreamy wasp]

Is this good if I'm a newer person to Soldering and working with Microcontrollers? Amazon.com

[elfin sphinx]

should be fine for quick solder jobs like soldering pin headers to arduino and such , def dont use this for longer sessions
and these soldering irons have a tendency to work fine for a few days and then suddenly stop working after a while , so dont expect this thing to last long ( it might last long but the chance of it breaking is much much higher )

[dreamy wasp]

Do you know of good one's for newer Soldering users?
and is not like $100 USD

[elfin sphinx]

i dont have a specific link , but i had something similar to this and it has lasted me for a LONG time
it was for like $12 or smth , it has no adjustments or anything , so it just straight up goes to max , but i have done soldering with it just fine

usually the more shit they try to shove into less money, and make it adjustable and shit , the less reliable (in my eyes ) it is

[dreamy wasp]

So you're saying just get a basic type and that should be better lol

[elfin sphinx]

yes

[dreamy wasp]

kk ty

[elfin sphinx]

i have the fancy one too , i dont use it much , it is very limited in terms of its heat output

it cant even melt a medium solder blob properly , it cant solder more than 3-4 simple hookup wires properly , it struggles to generate the amount of heat needed, even at max temps set

[dreamy wasp]

dang

does this look good https://www.amazon.com/Soldering-Ceramic-Adjustable-Temperature-Repairing/dp/B09DSDBC7G/ref=asc_df_B09DSDBC7G/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693642117589&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10768321737287857887&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009387&hvtargid=pla-1463066031535&mcid=c7454086624038eca5e8e210b45580a8&gad_source=1&th=1](https://www.amazon.com/LDK-Soldering-Adjustable-Temperature-Replacement/dp/B083L8BXRC/ref=asc_df_B083L8BXRC/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693071814223&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10768321737287857887&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009387&hvtargid=pla-883826104031&mcid=bd96e04bbbf5348f9013f3b7d34c8f85&gad_source=1&th=1)

[elfin sphinx]

looks the same as previous no ?

[dreamy wasp]

dang it wrong link lol

1s

dang it the link i had saved did nott save

[dreamy wasp]

This is $18 ish USD thats not bad, ty

[elfin sphinx]

nw
(btw i didnt mean that one specifically , its just an example i found , i bought mine from a local shop, its similar to this one without the light at the front )

mine is 50 or 60 w , i dont remember exactly , but it has no problem generating the heat , it can melt big blobs , can solder loads of stuff no problem

[dreamy wasp]

ik ik, i just found a different one and its 60w.

does this look good, its basic and is cheep:
https://www.amazon.com/Hakko-503F-V12ED-503F-Soldering-Screwdriver/dp/B007OSH504/ref=sr_1_65?crid=337E57FATS16I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zX6YwElquKRXUP2_dhCWkV2VDYGPK9FhXH8nN430gcDRWN0BRzfOb8aZYv08oYDCTxLodIzEHJbylkMSqkGs4vysimV2fDTikdJ5srYuzjTAuVMFWBVAuWRDRQb_NoINQ3ViXYKYfC-jiM0q710drJIHgfN7I-pKiEQi_Yp8O3ycstpvqFIJX-oKUd2jCGuEGq57-wN0FyDEbRVDpLPj5fLGGoyATj5UDzSTx6EDhHFbU2OR32Tpriznb2X7um-i.9tzSlDiH1GQueITmdavCst7y8rbnI3YcxUhnZzoSKNM&dib_tag=se&keywords=Soldering+Iron&qid=1723612194&s=hi&sprefix=soldering+iron%2Ctools%2C120&sr=1-65

[elfin sphinx]

yep looks good to me , no unnecessary bits and bobs , just a basic soldering iron
and hakko is a good company too , so looks good 👍

try to see if you find extra tip for this one , this one seems to have a conical tip , try to find a chisel tip too if you can ( if you cant its fine too , it just means that you have to use your current tip with a little care since you dont have a replacement and some solder jobs would require extra effort )

also you might wanna get a brass solder tip cleaner thin , it keeps your soldering tip clean

[dreamy wasp]

What is a good type of solder for this type of stuff?

[elfin sphinx]

the brass cleaning thing is not exactly required if all you do is small solder jobs , but its pretty good in keeping the clean tip

[dreamy wasp]

Oh I see that's nice to know

[elfin sphinx]

i dont research about that one lol , i just buy whatever our local shop has

most of the stuff should work just fine tbh , buy a solder paste box as well , it makes it easy for solder to stick to surfaces

if you want to know the diameter then my solder wire has 0.6mm diameter

[dreamy wasp]

Nice. What is the solder paste needed for?

is it for like bonding

[elfin sphinx]

lets say you have a surface where the solder is supposed to stick to , but it isnt , you can apply this paste over that surface and it will make the solder stick to it (usually , in most cases , in some cases you might have to roughen the surface up a little)

an example of this is wires , a lot of the times , when you strip some end of a wire , solder sometimes likes to not stick to it , which makes it hard to solder them

but if you just dip that end of the wire into the paste , and then reapply solder to it , it works !

i think there are some solder wires that have a hollow core that have flux inside of them which makes it easy

but i have the paste on hand anyway, its 50 cents , dirt cheap

[dreamy wasp]

Oh that's great to know thank you.

[obsidian goblet]

if im going to be buying an ESP32 is this the one i should be buying?
i've used arduino a lot but never any other brands of microcontroller boards like this

[spiral sandal]

most cheap reflow/rework stations also often have a soldering iron attached with adjustable temp. it gets you set for real work and less cables in the end

[elfin sphinx]

esp32 makes a range of different products and microcontroller boards
the selection of correct one will depend on the project

if you wanna buy for learning purposes , then sure , S3 is fine , so is S2 and so is the most basic one commonly called only ESP32
you will probably buy more than 1 type of esp32 boards when learning

if you can , go for S3 , its the newest one of the three

https://gist.github.com/sekcompsci/2bf39e715d5fe47579fa184fa819f421 here is a quick comparison char to compare different features of the most common boards

esp32 c6 is also pretty cool , it supports new wifi 6, 5.0 bluetooth

[obsidian goblet]

and what about like devkit vs not devkit ? I wasn't really clear about what that meant

[elfin sphinx]

so ESP32 S3 in itself is the small rectangular chip that you see at the top of that board

devkit is like the board they made which has these other components like USB to serial chip , the voltage regulator so that you can power your chip with USB , etc etc
this board makes it easy for you to use and work with the S3 chip

thats pretty much what devkit means , probably short for developement kit

[obsidian goblet]

it seems like boards are either N4, N8, or N8R8 so im assuming those are just the steps in like "how much memory the boards have" like would an N4 be too slow for like, pretty simple projects getting simple communications over wifi and/or bluethooth where timing isn't too important?

like are the big differences between what i could do with an S3 N8, a C6 N8, and a C6 N8R8 just that the S3 is (older and not rlly better in any way other than more documentaiton?), the C6 N8 is just slower than the N8R8?

sorry, i realize these are prob really dumb questions

[elfin sphinx]

those numbers probably represent the flash size and external psram
more is usually better , but those things are not that required

flash size is relevent if your program is very huge , for simple stuff (and in cases even some complex stuff , you will not be exceeding the default , so dont worry too much about it )

PSRAM is external RAM for extra usage , its relevent if your program needs to hold lots of data in the RAM , like maybe image processing or smth like that

so bigger is better , but dont stress too much about it

[elfin sphinx]

S3 is a dual core processor running at 240 mhz , it is more powerful than the C6 , C6 is a risc V single core processor running at 160 mhz

there is alos some other differences as listed out in the link

[dreamy wasp]

3

[elfin sphinx]

its not dumb , esp32 has loads of boards and it can get pretty confusing even for people who have worked with it before

if all you want to do is some wifi and bluetooth stuff , you can buy the regular ESP32 , it is available for like 5 bucks or so and does those things like a piece of cake

[obsidian goblet]

oooooh

that makes so much sense!!!

tysm

[elfin sphinx]

general rule of thumb is that

ESP32 S series is for high performance tasks , C series is for low power , mid performance but high cost to performance stuff

[obsidian goblet]

ok, i swear this is my last question: when you've been using a c6 do you feel like the documentation and stuff has been worse than an S3??
i know that's kinda a weird question that's probably not too quantifiable, im just wondeirng that since it's newer there's a noticeably smaller amount of info about it online
like is coding on them a wildly different experience if you just wanna use the same features

[obsidian goblet]

ok wait that's a really good summary! so if im using pretty small quantities where the difference between a C and an S is only going to be a little bit for the whole project and it's not gonna require crazy high performance, then i should go w/ C series right?

[elfin sphinx]

i havent used C6 yet so i wouldnt know
but its been quite some time so i "assume" that the docs shouldnt have much of a difference in terms of quality

[elfin sphinx]

again depends on why are you buying the board

if you want to buy it to put it in a circuit and use that circuit , then sure , choose the C series if the task is not that intensive or S series if the task is intensive

but if you wnat to buy it so that you can learn more about esp32 , then i would say go with the S series so that you are not limited by the performance

if you want to gauge according to resources available , the basic ESP32 by far has the most amount of information about it on the internet

[obsidian goblet]

does it have wifi and bluethooth tho?

[elfin sphinx]

ofc

this thing

it supports wifi ( 2.4 ghz ) , bluetooth classic and BLE (4.2 i think )

[obsidian goblet]

ok cool! i think i've mostly just been getting caught up in the names of things i dont know (my goal of this board was to learn about it while using it in diff projects) so i was hoping to try to find something with a BUNCH of info that would also work as both "basically an arduino w/ wifi and bluethooth" and as a more powerful board once i learn more about it

[elfin sphinx]

this would fit the definition of "basically an arduino with wifi and bluetooth" pretty nicely

[obsidian goblet]

cool! and im assuming for the ammount i know, the 2u or things like that won't affect me at all that much lol?

[elfin sphinx]

2u ?? not sure what you mean

[obsidian goblet]

u2 lol or like u1

ill send a pic

those

like the 2u at the end or 1u at the end

maybe it's some sort of like version tracker?

oh wait maybe it stands for update?? so like the U is the more (updated somehow? idk) one

[elfin sphinx]

umm , not really sure
check what esp32 they are using and its specs
i would try and stick to the standard boards
ESP32 , S2, S3 or C3 , C6 these are the mainstream ones and by far the most popular

as long as the board uses one of these chips as its core , it doesnt matter that much what the other naming they have going on

ex there are probably 100+ differnet types of boards that use ESP32 ( the basic one ) as its main component , all of them are more or less the same , they differ in minor aspects or have some extra features like a built in screen or Lora module or smth like that , but the brain is still ESP32

what you have shown here , i havnet used it , i dont what it is so i cant say if its good or bad
what i can say is i havent seen this board used that much

[obsidian goblet]

ok, well thank you so much! this has been super super helpful!!!

[vagrant dagger]

i cannot get my lily go T-Display

to work

i tryed everything

[elfin sphinx]

if you want help , show us your setup , the code that you ran , the error it gave you, explain what is supposed to happen and what actually happens

[vagrant dagger]

i burned the screen i think because i tryed the same code on another board and it works fine

i'll just use that one

[elfin sphinx]

oooof

[bitter swallow]

what course or tutorials do you recommend for starters? I have seen few videos to get an idea how they work on a higher level. A structured approach suits me.

Some of the resources i explored had a big load on number system, conversion and so on. I am familiar with those concepts and unsure how much of those I can skip

[elfin sphinx]

Since electronics in general is a vast field and there is just soo much to learn
what you learn depends on what you want to do at the end of the day

till now i have not seen a good "roadmap" for this kind of stuff, the usual way is to just buy an arduino or smth , buy a sensor kit or whatever beginner kit and just start making stuff
when you encounter something you dont understand , learn that topic and so on

https://embeddedartistry.com/beginners/ there is this that tells you stuff about being an embedded dev

[bitter swallow]

that's really great thanks!

[bitter swallow]

i have seen esp32 mentioned mainly in what i explored so far, and that it has many features. i have no idea about either arduino or any other micro controller. which one do you think i should start with?

my way of learning is starting out with the hardest stuff and take a long time figuring it out by looking up every topic and self learning. I'm thinking of going the same way for this

[elfin sphinx]

esp32 is pretty cool , but i dont think its a beginner board

if you are brand new , you should start with arduino UNO R3 imo

UNO is a simpler board, and its probably the most popular beginner board for people who wanna explore this stuff
it has loads of amounts of shields and so on that you can plug into it to make different things

it also has huge documentation/resources available, so if you are stuck , you are pretty much guranteed to get an answer online

[elfin sphinx]

i dont think you should start with complicated stuff , start simple

its like sitting in a F1 car trying to figure out what every thing is and how to drive it when you dont even know how to drive a regular car

[bitter swallow]

when you say online are there any communities or basically online