microcontrollers

[steel aurora]

super fun concept.

[stuck thicket]

@steel aurora working with other companies in EU that could deliver them, shipping sub boxes internationally does not work out well so we're only able to offer to USA and a few locations outside of that. that said, we have a stand-alone box for sale after each one too, so it's always available in some way.

[steel aurora]

@stuck thicket that's true, I will probably order a few of the standalones at some point, but part of the appeal is not knowing what you get! everyone loves a mystery box.

[vague crane]

This could be a neat PyPortal thing https://www.confluent.io/blog/noise-mapping-ksql-raspberry-pi-software-defined-radio

[opal mason]

I'm visiting one of the Dutch Adafruit distributors tomorrow to pick up some parts

So I can join in the fun as well

[vague crane]

My pyportal comes tomorrow!

[opal mason]

Oh, man, they're so cool

I want one, but I can't justify the cost at the moment

[vague crane]

I have poor impulse control

[opal mason]

I have a poor man's bank account

[vague crane]

That's what credit cards are for!

[lavish echo]

Credit cards aren't common over here.

[vague crane]

It was my first adafruit purchase in 6 years

[past epoch]

my son made his first thing using CPE

found a project and guide on makecode

https://i.imgur.com/Nntt0Xl.png

looks very user friendly

now when does my pyportal get here

Estimated Delivery:
Friday, March 01, 2019
By End of Day

I just love those shipping times

[stuck thicket]

SHOW AND TELL is LIVE NOW #showandtell - https://youtu.be/zCPMfCjFZeE

[stuck thicket]

LIVE! 10% off all items in stock code is USBC expires 2/27/19 @ 11:59pm ET #askanengineer https://youtu.be/1LV2_QvuWN4 & http://www.adafruit.com

[clear vapor]

I am stuck at an hackathon and I need help with raspi! I tried to do object detection but my pi cam stopped working! so I need anything that could be related to security

[steel aurora]

you may find more expeditious help over at https://discord.gg/adafruit in their #help-with-raspberry-pi channel

unless it's specifically related to python code you're writing for the device

[clear vapor]

Thanks a lot @steel aurora

I ll go ask there

😃

[steel aurora]

give that a try. they're great.

[violet valve]

@steel aurora and anyone else who might like to know, FYI, much of the Adafruit Discord server is US based and it's often quite slow in what would be the "middle of the night" in most of the US. Same with weekends, depending on the weekend. Most of our server is made up of community members, so it's most active when they're available. So you might get an answer at off times, but it's more likely that you won't.

[steel aurora]

good to know

we have better coverage during EU primetime here

but we don't have much coverage at all for raspberries I think.

no matter what time it is

[violet valve]

Ah fair enough 😃

Good to know about you as well.

[steel aurora]

hopefully at some point, we will.

[violet valve]

I haven't done much with Raspi on our server, but I've seen a lot of conversation going by so there's at least discussion. Whether it's been helpful or not, I don't know. We added that channel recently because we felt there was enough discussion to warrant it.

[opal mason]

Rpi's are very diverse. Some people use it as some kind of mini-computer and mainly have linux/rasbian questions; others are busy with the GPIO pins and displays and general maker stuff

I was active on the raspberry pi forum a couple of years ago when I bought mine

[heady crescent]

i should set up my rpi

i got one for christmas but i haven't set it up because I don't currently have proper wifi (i'm using my comcast account, which is set up at my brothers' address, to leech off my neighbors' xfinity hotspot thing)

[patent barn]

My RPI is going to be a bedroom screen controller and a docker runner with ansible

Although I don't know if the PI is powerful enough to deal with that

[languid hill]

i dont know about docker on the pi, but it can easily display graphics and act as a touch input

at least, it has the power. making it do that easily is a different thing

docker is just containers though which are pretty light weight. technically it shouldnt be much of an issue in of itself.

[opal mason]

New toy

[open dock]

🎉 new toys are the bestest!

[tulip comet]

@opal mason keep us updated on the shenanigans you make with it :D

[past epoch]

@opal mason for my pyportal im making a weather status thing. the only important thing for me is that "will it rain from now and until i get home from work" if this is true, bring an umbrella. I hate rain

[opal mason]

The last time I was near where you lived there was a lot of rain, so that's understandable

[past epoch]

I used to have a microcontroller with a single LED that lighted up whenever more then 0.5mm rain during the next 9 hours was predicted. but I lost it when I moved to my new house

I also need to build a loudness sensor hand stick it on the wall in front of my son, he yells while playing fortnite. Not sure what I need for that project.

does the CPE have mic on it?

[opal mason]

1 x Sound sensor (MEMS microphone)

[past epoch]

brilliant 😄

[opal mason]

I'm just preparing mine now

[past epoch]

@stuck thicket was kind to send me 2-3 extra CPE for free 😄

guessing there is a tier system for getting some extra things 😄

[opal mason]

You did buy a lot of stuff in their store

Look at the beautiful stuff you've got

I probably need to build CircuitPython, right?

[past epoch]

not sure, I helped my son with his, he had to flash the board with a firmware, guess it will run python files out of the box

[opal mason]

Was that on Windows? I'm on Ubuntu and following the Linux guide

[past epoch]

yes, on windows. but he used a visual code editor for this project. guess the firmware was to read those files

[opal mason]

I think you need the firmware anyway, so the board works with circuitpython

Now that I think of it, I probably could have just downloaded it and loaded it onto the board instead of building it myself

But, hey, building stuff is also interesting

Probably nice to know as well, for if I ever want to customize something in CircuitPython and build that

So far, the process is really straightforward

So far, so good

I've build and moved the firmware to the board and it has restarted itself and now mounts as CIRCUITPY

Cool

I love this

[past epoch]

im going to finish laying out my new floor in my electronics workshop and then ill do some soldering.. 😄

[opal mason]

It works! I've got the most useless code running on my board, but, hey, flashing leds rhythmically is nice

[opal mason]

So, it's easy to play tones by frequency and duration

Now I obiously have to write something to play a random song at the press of a button

[past epoch]

Cool :)

[opal mason]

That looks so good. You 3d-printed that, right?

I've been playing around with the Playground Express I've picked up a couple of hours ago

Wrote a simplistic music script for

https://youtu.be/WpOlfe_vFzg

[past epoch]

yes and cool

[tulip comet]

that's pretty neat ves! it's a good starting point :D

[opal mason]

It's now also doing a light show alongside it

It's fun to experiment with this little thing

[steel aurora]

@opal mason I'll be mailing you a dock just like that soonish. if I don't break all those microusb connectors trying to solder them.

[opal mason]

Oh, that would be so cool

[opal mason]

Okay, I've ran into a little problem. I'm trying to program a Pomodoro work timer on my Playground Express and it works very well, except for one thing. Whenever I instantiate my class with four arguments, it throws a RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "code.py", line 1, in <module>
  File "/lib/pomodoro.py", line 3, in <module>
  File "adafruit_circuitplayground/express.py", line 700, in <module>
  File "adafruit_circuitplayground/express.py", line 123, in __init__
  File "adafruit_lis3dh.py", line 327, in __init__
  File "adafruit_lis3dh.py", line 106, in __init__
  File "adafruit_lis3dh.py", line 132, in data_rate
  File "adafruit_lis3dh.py", line 306, in _read_register_byte
  File "adafruit_lis3dh.py", line 331, in _read_register
RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded

The instantiation:

code.py

from pomodoro import Pomodoro

pomodoro = Pomodoro(work=0.1, sbreak=0.2, lbreak=0.05, usb_down=True)
pomodoro.start()

The __init__ in pomodoro.py:

from time import monotonic, sleep

from adafruit_circuitplayground.express import cpx


class Pomodoro:
    def __init__(
        self, work=45, sbreak=5, lbreak=0.2,
        schedule=["w", "sb", "w", "lb", "w", "sb", "w"], usb_down=True,
    ):
        self.work_duration = work
        self.short_break = sbreak
        self._long_break = lbreak * 60
        self.schedule = schedule

        self.intervals = {
            "w": (self._work_duration, (0, 0, 5)),
            "sb": (self._short_break, (0, 5, 0)),
            "lb": (self._long_break, (0, 5, 5)),
        }

        # Settings related to idle led
        self.idle_update = 0.5
        self.idle_led = 0
        self.idle_time = monotonic()

        # Decide start_led based on orientation
        self.start_led = 4 if usb_down else 9
        self.stop_led = 5 if usb_down else 0

If I call it with three arguments, it's fine, but as soon as I add a fourth (whichever permutation), it throws the Exception above

Is that because of a memory limitation I'm not aware of?

I guess probably, I'll experiment some more in the mean time

[opal mason]

I'm now just setting the attributes after instantiating the object. That works fine, but I do wonder what's causing the Exception.

[lean valve]

That stack trace seems to indicate it's the import that threw the exception, rather than the instantiation

Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense

Given that you said changing the instantiation parameters eliminates the exception?

But code.py line 1 and pomodoro.py line 3 is before the instantiation

[opal mason]

Yes, that's what's weird and I don't understand it

I'm only changing the number of arguments when instantiating

I'll try to isolate it later in a simple file without any other code in it

[open dock]

@opal mason appears to be a known, and fixed in 4.x, issue. the number of arguments may be tripping the stack limit. https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/1085

although, if you're on 4.x (couldn't tell from your posts), then obviously its not fixed. 😄

[opal mason]

No, I'm on 3.x

Thanks, that should be it

[open dock]

you could give the latest beta a try...

[opal mason]

Yeah, I will. It's not really an issue for me, I was mainly wondering what was going on

I've had the Playground Express less than a day, so it could very well have been just me

[open dock]

it is a confusing message, given the possible causes. there is some discussion, but its unresolved. https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues/1086

[opal mason]

Ah, yes, I did see that issue, but I'm new to this, so I wasn't really sure if it was related to my problem

Thanks for answering my question, I'll look into the beta of 4.x

[open dock]

i've watched a few of those recursion issue threads. so i knew there'd be some meat on the bone... 😄

[opal mason]

So, I wrote a little Pomodoro script for the Circuit Playground Express. It's a timer for the Pomodoro time management technique that works by breaking your work down into interals with breaks in between. It's something I use almost every day to keep me focussed on my work and I think I'm going to like this new toy.

At the moment, it's fairly simple:

• It's has an idle mode with spinning LED animation;
• During a work session, the LEDs will count down the remaining time and you can pause the current interval (blinking LEDs) or skip ahead to the next;
• You can toggle sound notifications by using the onboard switch.

The settings (work session schedule and interval durations) can only be set with a PC at the moment, but I'm going to add functionality for that in the future. I just haven't decided on a strategy for that yet.

I've made a video with short interval durations to show it, but the quality of my phone's camera is crap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFPAKBqlgh0

The code is here: https://github.com/SebastiaanZ/cpx-pomodoro

[languid hill]

@opal mason so did you do all that stuff with cexpress so that you can override the single press functions to do the monotonic stuff?

[opal mason]

I wanted to add a single press property yeah, but I actually just wanted to know how to do it

So I can add more custom functionality later

Tried to subclass it first, but it complained about multiple hardware bindings since the original module already instantiates the class

So, I just downloaded the .py from GH, removed the instantiation at the bottom and cross-compiled it again

[languid hill]

ah yea icic

[patent barn]

I might be being silly here...
But isn't python not really the language that would be most optimal for this sort of thing?

I understand it's uses, but there are better languages for this... right?

[languid hill]

depends on your goal

python is more optimal for faster and easier coding

but c++ is going to be more optimal for performance and memory usage

a lot of stuff is circuitpython is handled by c++ code or buffers anyway. like sending data to serialports/usb and a lot of the protocol code

so if you structure your code around just telling the micro what to do and some basic logic, python is fine

[open dock]

yeah, the biggest "selling points" are iteration speed, and ease of learning.

[patent barn]

Yeah ok, so python is for the "ease of use"

Which is fair, opening up stuff like this to a wider audience is a really good thing

[open dock]

yeah. i mean 15-20 years ago, it was PIC with C or assembly as the only real documented option. things have come a long way. 😄

[lean valve]

This is a huge improvement over the old high-level-language-on-a-microcontroller, which was BASIC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_Stamp

[stuck thicket]

Working on the upcoming Python on Microcontrollers newsletter, watch the live updates here 😃 https://githistory.xyz/adafruit/circuitpython-weekly-newsletter/blob/gh-pages/_drafts/2019-03-05-draft.md and let us know what else to add...

[stuck thicket]

Python powered flexible E-Ink display

[opal mason]

Oh, very nice!

[steady juniper]

wow, that's cool

[steel aurora]

https://youtu.be/CHRe5NH3tQQ

been making these all day

[open dock]

they're like little lemon cakes! they look yummy. nice work!

[steady juniper]

reminds me more of soap bars than of lemons 😛 but yeah, looks useful

[tulip comet]

soap bars are pretty yummy too

[steel aurora]

gonna superglue little 3d printed python logos onto them soon

and then I am sending them to some staff members who expressed interest.

=)

[lean valve]

solder soldier o7

[vague copper]

installing numpy on my rpi, never seen it go this nuts before lmao

[outer obsidian]

@hallow igloo @stuck thicket (a partner of this server) has the Zero W for $10: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3400

[tawdry birch]

Hey, I want to make lib in upy. Should I follow python steps for creating lib and just use it with upy (for example ujson instead of json) libs so I could use it in micropython?

already I made it like https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/packaging-projects/ said

[tawdry birch]

btw. running micropython on raspberry pi is a good idea?

[inner radish]

may I ask why you would to that, instead of using "regluar" python?

[tawdry birch]

I want to test my code before ESP will be delivered to me

[inner radish]

I mean, even if you build micropython on the rasp it will run atop the OS, not "baremetal" like the other micropython microcontollers

[tawdry birch]

So I will wait for esp

Thanks

[inner radish]

I was just asking out of curiosity: I don't have much experience with microphyton, so I just use C with micro and regular python if my project involves a raspberry pi

[tawdry birch]

I'm just starting with this stuff co I'm courios

If I'm giving too much questions just said I'm annoying. When I'm learning something new I'm asking for everything

If I posted lib in pypi can I download it by upip?

[stuck thicket]

@tawdry birch may want to check out: https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-raspberrypi-linux/overview

[tawdry birch]

Thanks ;)

[humble kraken]

@tawdry birch only if it is a pretty vanilla library with no special shenanigans going on in setup.py for example

[tawdry birch]

you mean about lib for micropython?

[tawdry birch]

someone have pi 0? I can't connect via ssh

I can use monitor but I can't plug keyboard (I don't have adapter to microusb from usb)

[lean valve]

@tawdry birch Did you put a file called ssh into the boot partition of the SD card?

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/

There are instructions on how to enable SSH there.

See section 3

[tawdry birch]

I get this today, download rasbian img and boot to micro sd card. Trying to connect right now

@lean valve I can't use system

I can't use mouse or keyboard on it ;/

[lean valve]

You take the SD card out of the Pi and use a different computer to change it

[tawdry birch]

I'm trying to connect via windows and ubuntu

nothing worked

hmm, ok I will try

[lean valve]

Did you set it up to connect to your wireless?

[tawdry birch]

not yet, I'm trying to connect via usb

[lean valve]

SSH over USB?

[tawdry birch]

yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj3MPmJhAPU

like here

[lean valve]

Interesting, I have not done it like this before

[tawdry birch]

I'm trying to do this but it seems that I need to adapter from micro usb to usb

[lean valve]

Come again?

[tawdry birch]

it's still saying I can't open connection to raspberrypi.local and I can't see it in network devices

ehh, it's boring

I can't format it right now ;/ meh ubuntu

[lean valve]

I'm confused, you said you haven't created a file called ssh, but there are instructions on doing that in the video you linked

[tawdry birch]

I did it

there was ssh file with no extension

[lean valve]

So what are the steps you have done so far?

[tawdry birch]

everything to connect it to pc then I can't connect it via putty

and I'm connecting it to right usb port for sure

[lean valve]

You edited config.txt and cmdline.txt?

[tawdry birch]

yes

and added ssh

[lean valve]

Why did you say that you need to adapt from micro USB to USB?

[tawdry birch]

to connect wirleless keyboard and mouse

[lean valve]

When you attach the Pi to the computer, do any lights come on on the board?

[tawdry birch]

yes

green one

[lean valve]

Good

I would like to try this for you but my Raspberry Pi Zero is at home and I am at work

If you're still around in 3 hours I can give it a try.

[tawdry birch]

ok, thanks

I will sleeping I think but I can read that tommorow

and I was trying with other cables too

[lean valve]

Actually.

Is there a chance that the USB cable you are using is a charging-only cable?

[tawdry birch]

hmm, I think not I was using it when I was making mobile apps

[lean valve]

Ok, that should be fine then

One other thing you could do is just put your Pi on your wireless, you don't need keyboard or monitor to do that

[tawdry birch]

how can I do this?

[lean valve]

Instructions are here https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/headless.md

[tawdry birch]

ok thanks

[lean valve]

You need the part about the wpa_supplicant.conf

This is how most people do it

[tawdry birch]

but I need to use keyboard for it

[lean valve]

Nope

That link is to give you the correct format for wpa_supplicant.conf

But you are going to create the file on the SD card using your other computer instead of on the Pi, as described in the first link

`Setting up wireless networking

You will need to define a wpa_supplicant.conf file for your particular wireless network. Put this file in the boot folder, and when the Pi first boots, it will copy that file into the correct location in the Linux root file system and use those settings to start up wireless networking.

More information on the wpa_supplicant.conf file can be found here.

`

[tawdry birch]

I take a look right now and I've got only these files on SD

it's not even installed system?

[lean valve]

This is only the boot partition, you're not supposed to see an entire Linux filesystem here

[tawdry birch]

yes, but I should here add this file with config? or somewhere else

[lean valve]

The boot partition is meant to be seen from other operating systems as well so that you can do things like create a file called wpa_supplicant.conf

The file goes here

[tawdry birch]

and just paste network={ ssid="testing" psk="testingPassword" } yes?

I know that I need to change ssid and psk

[lean valve]

This article might be easier for you to follow https://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2017/04/manually-setting-up-pi-wifi-using-wpa_supplicant-conf/

[tawdry birch]

thanks

[lean valve]

There is a sample file there

[tawdry birch]

It's not working I bought adapter for keyboard and I will make it just with screen. Maybe there is wifi module broken

[steel aurora]

used some heatshrink tubing to make a softer grip for the helping hands, the clips were scratching the board a bit.

[polar sluice]

nice

[steel aurora]

seems to work well.

[polar sluice]

smart thinking

[steel aurora]

they bite through the little silicon stranded 30AWG cables I'm using for this project, too.

hopefully not anymore, though

[ancient schooner]

Hello, any python hardware projects I can do while spending minimum money

[lean valve]

@ancient schooner What do you have at your disposal already? And do you have a budget?

[hallow igloo]

What are some good books for Arduino beginners

I’m starting Univeristy / college next year but I just want to get started now and learn about it

[lean valve]

I have a copy of the Arduino Cookbook from O'Reilly, which is sort of a long list of example projects. If learning by example is your thing then you might want to check that out.

[ancient schooner]

@lean valve I don’t really have a budget I just need the cheapest price about £35

[stuck sentinel]

I have a raspberry pi 3b with a 5 inch touchscreen (although I haven't been able to get that to work) What would be a good beginner project that wouldn't require much Linux knowledge?

[open dock]

@steel aurora that's the ticket! I need to replace mine; the teeth have worn through...

[hallow igloo]

Everyone asking about beginner projects :P. @lean valve I prefer to learn via theory but I’m not sure where to start

[violet valve]

@hallow igloo This was recommended to me. I purchased it but haven't had a chance to go through it, so I can't give much information about it past that. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E1EA6XM/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[lean valve]

@hallow igloo If you want to learn theory and apply it to an Arduino, then my serious advice is to learn the C programming language. That's a bit outside our scope here and I'm not sure what resources to recommend.

@ancient schooner There are quite a few boards capable of running Python inside that budget. The Raspberry Pi Zero comes to mind, as does the Circuit Playground Express from Adafruit.

If you want to bump your budget up a bit, you can get a full computer on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, with keyboard, mouse and monitor connectors, and still be able to drive hardware off the GPIO pins through Python

In terms of the low end boards, the Circuit Playground Express has way more toys built-in for doing hardware projects, just check out the list of features on the Adafruit site. The Raspberry Pi Zero just gives you a row of pins and it's on you to hook toys up to it.

Do you have any specific projects in mind?

On the other hand (still talking about the two low-end boards I mentioned) the Pi Zero is a full computer with an operating system booting off SD. The CPE is not.

[opal mason]

I've had a lot of fun with my Playground Express so far. The fun thing is that it has a lot of stuff built-in to play around with. Sensors (temp, light, sound, motion sensor), LEDs (full-colorNeoPixels), a IR-transmitter/receiver, two buttons, 7 things can act as captive touch inputs (or regular IO). It's a great thing to play around with.

So, for a light budget, it has a lot of stuff to play around with and to explore

Hence the name Playground, I guess

I've bought mine for around 28 euros at my local distributor

That's a great deal for all that it offers

I think the official price on the Adafruit website is something like 24 dollars

That's a lot of text. I'm just enthusiastic.

[tulip comet]

i can agree that it's a fantastic device

very much a "batteries included" sort of thing (except batteries aren't actually included, you have to buy those separately if you don't want to power from micro USB)

:^)

[steel aurora]

Circuit Playground Express: The only batteries that aren't included are batteries.

this beautiful thing arrived today

I can't wait to build something awesome with it.

@stuck thicket my kid loved the CircuitPython tattoo

rockin that ink

[tulip comet]

haha :D

[lean valve]

Is that a PyPortal?

[steel aurora]

yep yep!

@lean valve it sure is.

[opal mason]

It's good to see that your kid runs CircuitPython, lemon.

3.0 or the 4.0 beta?

[steel aurora]

running beta software on my own kid? what kind of monster do you think I am.

[opal mason]

Well, they are still in development

[steel aurora]

yes but I would prefer it if he didn't crash.

[opal mason]

Hmm, kids do that from time to time. And then they have great dads to help them deal with the flu and all kinds of viruses/bacteria/bugs.

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic.

[violet valve]

Children are incredibly resilient. They're perfect for beta software. Crash bug found? Bounce right back!

Anyway, we're days away from release candidate phase, you'd be fine 😉

[steel aurora]

you're not wrong. but to be on the safe side I'm gonna wait until he's a bit older before I start soldering components into his arm or whatever. he doesn't even have a microUSB port yet.

but who knows what the future holds ~~~

[violet valve]

Truth!

[ancient schooner]

LOL

what is the best but cheapest rasberry pi for about 15 to 20 pounds

and how good is the pi zero

[stuck thicket]

next week microchip is giving away 5 PyPortals during their live video, it will likely be as easy as just watching to win... here are the details we posted: https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/03/06/iot-design-week-with-microchip-and-adafruit-pyportal-giveaway-microchiptech-microchipmakes-adafruit-iotdesignweek2019/

[steady juniper]

Wow, nice. You guys are really generous. I'll see if I can free the time to watch 😃

[ancient schooner]

@stuck thicket thank you for notifying me i am reading it rn. do u have any recommendations?

what is the best but cheapest rasberry pi for about 15 to 20 pounds
and how good is the pi zero

[lean valve]

I have a pi zero, do you have any specific questions about it?

[stuck thicket]

SHOW-AND-TELL LIVE VIDEO! 3/6/19 (video) https://youtu.be/yfiu2-nHhZI

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE 10% off all items in stock code is iotdesignweek expires 3/6/19 @ 11:59pm ET #askanengineer https://youtu.be/3Ji8--b8Ceo & http://www.adafruit.com

[ancient schooner]

@lean valve is the pi zero good to have attachments etc so I can add basic stuff like flashing lights to program?

[lean valve]

@ancient schooner You can do that, but you need some extra parts. See this example: https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/27968772-turning-on-an-led-with-your-raspberry-pis-gpio-pins The Circuit Playground Express has built in multicolor lights.

[ancient schooner]

@lean valve thanks. Will this help me progress and maybe get a job in python?

[lean valve]

Assuming you use it, it will help you progress. You might want to ask in #career-advice about career paths to a Python job.

[ancient schooner]

Ah ok

[lean valve]

I am working on eventually getting a Python job right now. There's lots to learn.

[ancient schooner]

Good luck

[lean valve]

Thanks

[ancient schooner]

And also thanks for helping me

Do u use py zero again?

[lean valve]

I just participated in the week long Code Jam on this server and learned a lot of skills

[ancient schooner]

Wow ok

[lean valve]

I have a Raspberry Pi B+ and a Raspberry Pi Zero W

[ancient schooner]

Because the pi zero is pretty cheap on amazon but idk if it’s worth it

Can u link me one that’s around 10 pounds?

[lean valve]

You in UK?

[ancient schooner]

Yes

[lean valve]

I don't know for sure, but check the pinned message in this channel for a link to Pimoroni

[ancient schooner]

Ah ok

[lean valve]

If you get a Pi Zero, get the one that ends in W

It has wireless built in

[ancient schooner]

Okie dokie

Ooo that’s good

Ooo that’s good

[lean valve]

That's the nice thing about Raspberry Pi, you can have an internet connected server in your house that has no wires except one power plug

[ancient schooner]

That’s true. What do you think of this?

@lean valve

[lean valve]

It has a camera cable, but does it include the camera?

And does it have a power adapter?

The micro HDMI and micro USB adapters allow you to hook it up to keyboard, mouse and monitor if you want. Those are all optional with the Zero W though because you can just hook it up to wireless and connect to it that way

[ancient schooner]

I should get one with more USB ports

If possible can u send me a link that isn’t wireless for usb?

And it had wireless WiFi

Has*

@lean valve

[ancient schooner]

Anyone???

[vague crane]

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333

[opal mason]

If you're not located in the United States, then you may want to consider a local distributor

The Adafruit website has a list of them

It will save you some shipping costs, although the unit price will probably be slightly higher

[ancient schooner]

is the py zero compatibal with a usb hub?

[lavish echo]

Yes, I have used them that way.

[ancient schooner]

ah ok

@lavish echo do you think i could make something like a functional screen or maybe a camera or something along them lines with it?

and to start with making traffic lights or something?

[lavish echo]

I've seen multiple traffic lights used to indicate things powered by pi's

[ancient schooner]

ah ok

[lavish echo]

Mine is used to display the time, weather, news etc

[ancient schooner]

as i do like making computers but also programming as i think the pi will help with both

and i*

do u have some sort of weather station to check the weather?

[lavish echo]

open weather api

[ancient schooner]

ah gotcha

do u think the pi is a good choice ?

[lavish echo]

It's a good choice for many projects.

[ancient schooner]

okie dokie, thanks!

[lavish echo]

However depending on the project an alternative could also be good

[ancient schooner]

ok

and ive seen a bunch of pis

which one do u recommend?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vilros-Raspberry-Basic-Starter-Clear/dp/B0794MGH87/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?keywords=raspberry+pi+0w&qid=1551993434&s=gateway&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1 do you think this is good?

@lavish echo

[lavish echo]

Could be, my own one just dangles from the back of a monitor. It really depends on what the project is and how you want it to look

[ancient schooner]

i dont have a project for it its just for practising

is this vital?

and does the pi zero come with in built wifi?

sorry to laod you with a hella lot of questionss

[lavish echo]

The pi zero w(ireless) does come with wifi.

[ancient schooner]

ah gotcha

[lavish echo]

You can connect sensors and such through those pins, but they would be pretty cheap at a local electronics shop if you end up wanting to use one.

[ancient schooner]

it doesnt say anything about wireless

[lavish echo]

The first line says a thing about wireless

[ancient schooner]

oh

u think its a good kit for someone who is just a beginner to a pi?

[lavish echo]

I don't know tbh.

[ancient schooner]

oh

well, thanks anyways

[lean valve]

All you need to get started is really just the main board and any microSD card. The rest is extra.

What you pay for in a kit is the ability to hook up a keyboard, mouse, monitor

[ancient schooner]

Oooooh gotcha

[tawdry birch]

for pi 0 you can need adapter for usb (micro usb -> usb) to connect keyboard or mouse. If're just starting just get the board and microsd card. Find something that you want to do and if you need anything for it you can just buy it so you won't waste money on other staff that you won't use 😉

[hallow igloo]

What’s a good place to start learning electronics? I’m getting kinda overwhelmed. I remember some vague things from HS but it’s been a while. I really want to know more about how it all works and design circuits.

[humble kraken]

@hallow igloo https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Electricity-Electronics-Sixth/dp/1259585530/

[steel aurora]

https://youtu.be/3ukL6obvunM

made a button that plays spicy sound effects.

detailed instructions on how to build one can be found on adafruits website. I followed this, with some modifications and obviously with my own code.

https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-sound-box/overview

[ancient schooner]

Any free raspberry pi projects ? Hi

[ancient schooner]

Can u use different ide for a pi and any beginner projects for a raspberry pi that don’t need any extra components and have I set up my pi properly?

[tawdry birch]

I'm making spotify client for raspberry

[lean valve]

@ancient schooner You have a lot of options - once you set up wifi, you can copy files directly to the raspberry pi from your normal IDE

[ancient schooner]

oh gotcha

[lean valve]

There's a good doc on how to do that here https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/wireless-cli.md

@ancient schooner from DM: you can set up a full Python 3 dev environment on the Pi Zero W

[ancient schooner]

ooooo

wait

for the hosting thing?

[lean valve]

For hosting a Discord bot? Yes, you can run it that way. You can write code on the Pi with keyboard/mouse/montior, or you can use ssh to connect to it and use a text mode editor, or you can edit on your desktop and save files and copy them over the Pi

Just think of it as a very small PC

How are you connecting to it right now? USB and HDMI?

[ancient schooner]

oh kk

im using

a micro hdmi or small hdmi to hdmi for the display and a usb hub for keybaord and mouse

[lean valve]

And you're logged in as pi correct?

[ancient schooner]

yes

[lean valve]

So to get the latest version of Python on there you should do a command like apt install python3.7 python3-pip

[ancient schooner]

ohhh

[lean valve]

or actually sudo apt install python3.7 python3-pip

[ancient schooner]

ive nto got my pi on rn so ill have to do that tommorow

[lean valve]

the sudo runs it as root

[ancient schooner]

ah

[lean valve]

root = admin

[ancient schooner]

im just gonna dm that so ik

and then what do i do?

[lean valve]

Depends what you want to do next. If you want to copy Python files from your IDE then do the wireless setup next. https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/wireless-cli.md

If you want to run a test Python program then edit it using nano or vim with your keyboard

[ancient schooner]

oh, i want to do the coding on the pi

[lean valve]

You'll have to pick a text editor to use then, like nano, vim or emacs, there are millions of documents on how to do that on the web

[ancient schooner]

oh

what if i use the normal one

[lean valve]

Are you booting to a desktop on the raspberry pi right now?

[ancient schooner]

no

[lean valve]

What do you mean by the normal one then?

[ancient schooner]

like the normal ide u get when u install python

[lean valve]

IDLE?

You need a desktop environment running in order to use that, it doesn't run in text mode

[ancient schooner]

oh

so i will install a text editor

i think there is one on the pi

its this beginners one or soemthing

[lean valve]

It comes with nano, which is easy for a beginner to use

[ancient schooner]

ye thats it

ill use that

[lean valve]

That's not a very good IDE though

You can definitely edit files with it

[ancient schooner]

oh

im just gonna sue that

use*

[lean valve]

OK

[ancient schooner]

i dont want to use more

what do i do next?

[lean valve]

... to do what?

[ancient schooner]

to get it to host my bot

[lean valve]

Set up wifi

[ancient schooner]

done that

[lean valve]

Do you have your bot code on github?

[ancient schooner]

ive got a bot

with a code

but not on github

its my own bot i coded

[lean valve]

Is the code on your PC?

[ancient schooner]

yes

[lean valve]

Is your main PC Windows?

[ancient schooner]

yes

win 10

[lean valve]

Do you want to copy files to the Pi the easy way or the hard way? 😄

[ancient schooner]

easy xD

[lean valve]

https://winscp.net/eng/download.php

[ancient schooner]

but i dont have anything to read my sd card

[lean valve]

Since you have wireless set up you don't have to take the SD card out

[ancient schooner]

oh good

so i can do it through wifi or something?

[lean valve]

Download that, and use it to connect to the Raspberry Pi's IP, with username pi and the password whatever you set it to

Yes

You can drag and drop files from your PC to the Pi

[ancient schooner]

ah gotcha

oooo

do i need the pi on

and do i do that command on a terminal or cmds

[lean valve]

Yes, and connected to wireless, and you have to know its IP on your network

What command?

[ancient schooner]

command prompt

[lean valve]

I don't understand your question, sorry

[ancient schooner]

hang on

Ok back

So, do I do that command on the pi or on command prompt on windows

[lean valve]

Which command?

[ancient schooner]

The pi username one

The pi username one

The pi username one

OOF my phone sorry

[lean valve]

Do you mean when I said "with username pi"? I just meant that when you run WinSCP, it will ask you for a username. Use pi.

[ancient schooner]

And it said I have an update but it wouldn’t fully update and left my pi on for an hour but still, no fix so I just skipped it

Oh kk

Oh kk i

Got u

Got u

[lean valve]

This is part of WinSCP

[ancient schooner]

Sorry my phone is bad

Oh that’s what it looks like

[lean valve]

Host name will be the IP of the Raspberry Pi Zero W on your network
User name will be pi
Password will be whatever you set the password to

[ancient schooner]

So do I send the .py file to my pi

[lean valve]

Yes, it will be pretty obvious once you run it how to do that

[ancient schooner]

Ye ok

And what about the hosting thing

And what about the hosting thing

[lean valve]

By hosting, do you mean running the bot? Or something else

[ancient schooner]

Yes running the bot

So I can keep my bot online

Forever

[lean valve]

When you get your Python files on the Pi, you would cd into that directory and run something that might look like, python3 bot.py

There's more stuff you can do to make it automatically start up when the Pi starts up, but it's probably best to leave that until you get it to work manually

I have to run out to the store, I'll be back in a little while

[ancient schooner]

That’s fine

That’s fine

That’s fine

Thanks and bye

[ancient schooner]

Wow

[past epoch]

so a wet-ness sensor and a light sensor on that would be amazing 😄

[lean valve]

Forbes: How Sony Sped Up A Factory With These Tiny, $35 Computers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2019/03/10/how-sony-sped-up-a-factory-with-these-tiny-35-computers/

[clever lintel]

I have a Pi 3 I don't know what to do with 🤔

[vague crane]

Time to build your very own Sony factory!

[stuck thicket]

REMINDER! IoT Design Week with Microchip and Adafruit! PyPortal GIVEAWAY! - https://youtu.be/0yxtECtDrCA

[hallow igloo]

uhh

my pi broke

it just did

like just now

and now it cant find any networks

just says "no APs found - scanning" forever

Fixed, A simple restart

wow 🤦

[lean valve]

😓

[hallow igloo]

sorry 😛

[hallow igloo]

how would i reprogram a car key to open my garage or my friends

[opal mason]

Like I said in the other channel, that's not something we're going to help you with

Since trying to find some kind of master key to open someone else's property is not something we assist with

!rules 5

[hasty zealot]

Rules

5. We will not help you with anything that might break a law or the terms of service of any other community, site, service, or otherwise - No piracy, brute-forcing, captcha circumvention, sneaker bots, or anything else of that nature.

[hallow igloo]

im not old enough to steal or break any laws

and im not going to in the first place

my dad wants me to program stuff

[opal mason]

That's not really relevant. Trying to find some kind of masterkey to open locks of other people is not something we assist with.

[hallow igloo]

.

just wanna do something creative

cri

arduino is cool but i don't have enough parts and i dont know it's coding

[opal mason]

Anyway, feel free to ask Python-related question on this server, but make sure to follow our rules. Also, I've pointed you to our nickname policy in the other channel, please make sure that your nickname for this server follows it. The rule that I'm specifically talking about is the one about having a nickname that's easy to ping for others using only characters found on a regular keyboard.

[hallow igloo]

yes im trying to find a username thats good

.cough

[hallow igloo]

oof

i love this already

oh

oK beFore anyone starts assuming stuff im not using this for theft i just wanna open my garage in a fun way

r00d

i dont even have the materials

arduino is the closest thing i can get to it

@idle mason

dude thanks i just stole my neighbors lambo w0w

lololol

jk im not gonna do this, this is impossible

[lean valve]

@idle mason Don't dig up cracking articles for someone after an admin told them they couldn't get help on that here.

It doesn't matter if they can google it or not, I'm deleting your message because you should have clearly seen not to do that.

[opal mason]

Okay, I want to add something to that

!warn 556563428442112011 I don't care if you're joking or not, but don't encourage illegal behavior on this server.

[hasty zealot]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: warned @idle mason (I don't care if you're joking or not, but don't encourage illegal behavior on this server.).

[ancient schooner]

How do I set up lights?

[civic hornet]

Have you tried turning it on and off?

[ancient schooner]

My pi?

[civic hornet]

😆

[ancient schooner]

Lol wdym

I’m a noob sorry

[civic hornet]

Idk

I don’t actually know

[ancient schooner]

OOF

But I’m sure all the components work

[civic hornet]

Are you following a tutorial?

Or something

[ancient schooner]

No

I watched a yt vis

[civic hornet]

Maybe find one

[ancient schooner]

Vid

I can’t tbh

They all don’t work

[civic hornet]

Oof

[ancient schooner]

Lol

I’ll wait for someone else to come and try help but ty man

[civic hornet]

Try adafruit #315249263103967242

[ancient schooner]

Mhm I have but still no help

[civic hornet]

They know this stuff

[ancient schooner]

People link me sites and stuff but it doesn’t show u anything it just shows u a bunch of other sites xD

[civic hornet]

Mmm

[sturdy ridge]

@ancient schooner show me the circuit clearly, it looks like your thing straight up isn't connected d

You want the non-ground pin of your Pi going to one end of the resistor, then the other end going to the longer of the led terminals and then the other LED terminal going to the ground pin

[worldly hare]

you might want to place your led in the same column as your resistor

[ancient schooner]

Oh ok. @sturdy ridge is this better, and do u have a circuit picture I can follow?

@worldly hare

[sturdy ridge]

@ancient schooner

[ancient schooner]

Ah kk @sturdy ridge u know the part where I connect the pins to the raspberry pi. How do I do that as mine are lined up together like this

[tawny fiber]

youd have to solder that thing to the pi

[hallow igloo]

the dude didn't even help me lol

who in the actual hell is gonna open somebody's garage on a saturday and steal a car

[tawny fiber]

• bored people
• people who want to steal cars

[hallow igloo]

counter examples:

• dude is at home

• dude has a gun and is not afraid to use it

• dude has a afraid and is not gun to use it

[ancient schooner]

@tawny fiber I don’t. It can just go on an off it but how do I connect the wires like what part do I need to connect following this example

[tawny fiber]

i mean its already a circuit diagram you just gotta take a look at https://pinout.xyz/ and match your pis ground pins with the ones in the diagram and your GPIO pin with the one in the diagram

[ancient schooner]

Ty

[stuck thicket]

we'll have even more about this later, however - here is a preview, python in space! https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/03/17/circuitpython-in-space-pythonaut-circuitpython-adafruit-maholli404-zacinaction-smallsat-kicksat/

[hallow igloo]

@stuck thicket whoever is behind your account better be paid alot of money to be advertising like this

props to you

[stuck thicket]

hi hi, it's not an ad, but thank you 😃

[tulip comet]

i'm like 99% sure that's actually adafruit, to be honest. :D

[stuck thicket]

yep, no one really wants to be us anyway, it's a lot of work

[hallow igloo]

@tulip comet of course it is adafruit, but whoever is behind the discord account itself is who I am talking about

[lean valve]

@hallow igloo Adafruit is a server partner, and that actually is the author of the article posting it

[hallow igloo]

hmm interesting

I understood it was a server partner

but the author of the article

hmm

[hallow igloo]

adafruit is arduino right

i was in their server

[tawny fiber]

adafruit does things based on arduinos

however they are not the people who actually make the original ones as far as i know

[hallow igloo]

ik that

[tawny fiber]

well then why do you ask wether adafruit is arduino

[hallow igloo]

i meant like

they specialize mostly in arduino

i forgot but i joined their servers like a year ago

[steel aurora]

no, they make their own stuff.

they do make microcontrollers, though

and you can also buy arduinos from the adafruit website. and they have arduino support in their community.

[tawny fiber]

do they actually make their own microcontrollers or "just" boards around others?

[steel aurora]

but the adafruit microcontrollers are really fun. you can run python on a bunch of them!

they make a lot of stuff, nix. they manufacture a ton of hardware.

huge factory in NYC

[tawny fiber]

yeah i know my question is do they actually make their own microcontrollers as in the chip which is actually called microcontroller or "just" build boards around already existing ones

[hallow igloo]

uhh

[steel aurora]

I'm probably not qualified to answer that but I think it's the latter.

[tawny fiber]

yeah probably

let's find out

[hallow igloo]

I thought the board was the microcontroller too

[steel aurora]

pretty sure the actual controller is made by other people.

[hallow igloo]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

the more you know

[tawny fiber]

no the board is a PCB build around a chip (well actually several) which is the microcontroller

[steady juniper]

don't most of these boards have Atmel chips on them?

[tawny fiber]

yeah

https://hobbydistrict.com/image/cache/catalog/Products/p00131/1-400x400.jpeg <- microcontroller
https://www.elektor.de/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/a/r/arduino_uno_r3_board.jpg -> board build around that microcontroller

@hallow igloo

[steel aurora]

https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/ATmega32u4 I think this is the controller that their circuitplayground express board uses

[languid hill]

they dont have a chip foundry or whatever no

most of their products are built around a generally available chip

which is very typical for this kind of product

[tulip comet]

lemon, is that not the controller for the circuit playground classic? i think the one on the express is an ATSAMD21G18A of sorts. https://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/en/ATSAMD21G18A

[sturdy ridge]

@tawny fiber Arduino and their ilk use atmega microcontrollers which have the AVR architecture. Both manufacturing and architecture are controlled by Atmel. Arduino boards are basic wrappers around atmega chips that barely add anything other than like, physical pins, voltage regulators and other basic stuff. Arduino makes those designs and open sources them and let's anyone use them to make their own clones with the exception that they can't they use the Arduino branding

[stuck thicket]

Coming up this week on the ALL THINGS PYTHON & HARDWARE newsletter! Python in SPACE, a sight for THOR eyes, new hardware, and more! Will be sent out in the am - Sign up now "Python for microcontrollers" https://www.adafruitdaily.com

[hallow igloo]

python for microcontrollers

ayayayayyayayayayyaya

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW-AND-TELL LIVE VIDEO! 3/20/19 (video) https://youtu.be/_DA2nXyhyv8

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE! 10% off all items in stock code is SNAKESINSPACE expires 3/20/19 @ 11:59pm ET #askanengineer https://youtu.be/zcnUSze0XPo & http://www.adafruit.com

[hallow igloo]

are they allowed to advertise and stuff

[steady juniper]

Adafruit is officially partnered with our Discord server. We appreciate them sharing their events and news here.

[steel aurora]

they're legitimately fun events. you should check some of them out.

their show and tells are great for finding inspiration to do an embedded python project.

[ancient schooner]

I want a good raspberry pi project that I can do, I don’t have a limit for money and I am a beginner

[oak badger]

web server?

file hosting?

no extra hardware

[sturdy ridge]

r o b o t

[languid hill]

buy 50,000 of them and give each one a single led and turn it in to a display

realtalk though, one of the easiest ones to get started with is a pihole

then move on to learning to use its io

[ancient schooner]

ok thanks

[stuck thicket]

latest Make: magazine ... #1 tech trend, PYTHON! https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/03/23/make-vol-68-april-may-2019-is-here-guide-to-boards-tech-trend-1-the-push-for-python-make-adafruit-circuitpython/

[lean valve]

hell yeah.

[ancient schooner]

mmm

[clever karma]

I really want to get into electronics but rasberry pi seems too complicated/too much work and I don't think I have the drive to spend that much time and effort on something like that

should I start out with arduino

I've used it a few times

[sturdy ridge]

@clever karma A pi isnt very complicated. it's literally just a tiny computer. you plug it into power, connect a mouse/keyboard to it and a display and it's got linux installed

barely different from a small desktop pc

[clever karma]

I dont really want a computer tho

I kinda knew about that

[sturdy ridge]

that's fair, it's not really close to electronics

arduino is a better option in that case

[clever karma]

I dont really want to put a lot of time into learning about pi

ok thanks

and how should I get started with it

[sturdy ridge]

there's not much to learn about a pi. if you can use linux, you already know how to use it

[clever karma]

yeah I want something that's just more electronics

I was thinking of first buying the starter kit

for arduino

[sturdy ridge]

just buy an arduino, download the arduino IDE. Preferably buy it in a small kit because that gives you something to play around with

something like this https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265

is an amusing beginner option

all hobbyist parts

[ancient schooner]

i wanna buy like a small electronics kit that has items like a breadboard wires and modules i want to use it for my raspberry pi 0w. my budget is about 10-15 pounds

[lean valve]

There are lots of kits like that online, you can also get that stuff pretty cheaply if you have an electronics store near you

Like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/ELEGOO-Electronics-Potentiometer-tie-points-Breadboard/dp/B01LZRV539/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=breadboard+kit&qid=1553440653&s=gateway&sr=8-5

just as one example

[ancient schooner]

Thanks

[stuck thicket]

@clever karma since you are here in python discord, python runs on many electronic platforms now

if you are looking to get started fast, you can get a board that runs python and get things going very quickly

here are ones we make at adafruit - https://www.adafruit.com/circuitpython

[celest bone]

Okay so im coding my microbit using Python

while True:
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        pin1.write_analog(55)
        pin0.write_analog(50)
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        pin1.write_analog(0)
        pin0.write_analog(0)```

this is the current code i have and i would like to add in these lines 
```sleep(1000)
pin1.write_analog(54)
pin0.write_analog(50)
sleep(1000)
pin1.write_analog(53)
pin0.write_analog(50)```
 but i dont know where to put it without messing with the button press to start and stop
button_a starts and button_b stops the process but when i add in the other lines above it just makes it so it takes longer to stop

[sturdy ridge]

@celest bone Either use a tick counter function of some sort, or use interrupts. Interrupts are generally the standard way to do things like that but I have no idea what the microbit python API exposes

[open dock]

@celest bone

import time
from microbit import *

interval = 1000
current_time = time.monotonic()
last_time = current_time
while True:
    current_time = time.monotonic()
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        pin1.write_analog(55)
        pin0.write_analog(50)
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        pin1.write_analog(0)
        pin0.write_analog(0)

    if ((current_time - last_time) > interval):
        last_time = current time
        pin1.write_analog(54)
        pin0.write_analog(50)

        # if you want the 2nd set to trail behind
        # in a similar non-blocking fashion,
        # setup another interval and time keeper
        pin1.write_analog(53)
        pin0.write_analog(50)

I think this is close to what @sturdy ridge was talking about wrt to a tick counter. this will be non-blocking and only trigger the additional commands every second.

and ISRs are available in MicroPython...

[sturdy ridge]

pretty much, yep. far from an elegant solution since it doesnt scale very well to many timers but it works decently

[open dock]

yeah. and i have no idea what the millisecond drift is like, if there is any, on the micro:bit.

[sturdy ridge]

as with many things in embedded programming, writing in a state-machine like manner is probably the nicest way to deal with things. i imagine having python OOP constructs available would make writing state machines sliiiightly easier

[celest bone]

this is what @molten cosmos came up with ```python
from microbit import *

brake = True

def stop():
pin1.write_analog(0)
pin0.write_analog(0)

def brake_check():
global brake
if button_b.is_pressed():
brake = True
if button_a.is_pressed():
brake = False

def write_motor(value):
pin1.write_analog(value)
pin0.write_analog(50)

def wait(ms):
for _ in range(ms):
sleep(1)
brake_check()
if brake:
stop()

while True:
brake_check()
write_motor(55)
wait(1000)
stop()
write_motor(54)
wait(1000)
stop()
write_motor(53)```

struggling with the last part tho as i want after "a" is pressed for the wheels to turn for 3 seconds then stop for 1 second then go for 3 seconds again etc etc

[open dock]

that works too, if you wanted blocking routines. i'd have the functions return values though, instead of global.

[sturdy ridge]

i've had many hours of my time destroyed by global variables in embedded. mostly in C and in some very complicated code, but yeah

never getting lazy with global variables again

[celest bone]

do you guys know why the wait(1000) part isnt actually stopping the wheels from turning?

[open dock]

slightly-educated guess: because wait() is missing the global brake...so it isn't reading any state changes. (good time to switch brake_check() to return the state. 😄)

[celest bone]

not really sure how to do that 🤔

[open dock]

def brake_check():
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
    return brake

def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        if brake_check():
            stop()

[celest bone]

that didnt seem to work

[open dock]

oh, and you'll need to drop that break_check at the start of the while loop.

[celest bone]

from microbit import *


brake = True


def stop():
    pin1.write_analog(0)
    pin0.write_analog(0)


def brake_check():
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
        return brake


def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        brake_check()
        if brake:
            stop()


while True:
    write_motor(55)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(54)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(53)```

when it looks like this nothing at all works

@open dock

[open dock]

@celest bone in brake_check(), the return statement is indented too far to the right. it needs to be at the same indent as the if statements.
in wait(), remove the if brake: line, and place an if before brake_check(), and place a colon at the end of the line.

[celest bone]

 from microbit import *


brake = True


def stop():
    pin1.write_analog(0)
    pin0.write_analog(0)


def brake_check():
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
return brake

def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        brake_check()
        if before brake_check():
            stop()


while True:
    write_motor(55)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(54)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(53)```

is this correct?

[open dock]

de-indented the return one too far. and closer on wait..not sure where...oh, my bad if i confused you with the place an if before. should look like this:

def brake_check():
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
    return brake

def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        if brake_check():
            stop()

[celest bone]

from microbit import *


brake = True


def stop():
    pin1.write_analog(0)
    pin0.write_analog(0)


def brake_check():
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
    return brake

def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        if brake_check():
            stop()


while True:
    write_motor(55)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(54)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(53)```

this comes back with an error on the microbit

[open dock]

whats the error?

[celest bone]

something to do with line 17

[open dock]

that would be the sleep(1) by my counting...

can you paste the full Traceback?

[celest bone]

line 17 is the return brake part

[open dock]

doh. was skipping blank lines. i tend to do that sometimes. 😄

[celest bone]

it gives the error on the screen of the microbit and its very hard to read

its a 5by5 of led's

[open dock]

yeah, i'm aware of the micro:bit, just never used one. are you editing just the main.py, or are you using an IDE (like Mu)?

[celest bone]

im using Mu

[open dock]

if you open the REPL with the Serial button, you should see the error there. at least i hope it works like that for the micro:bit.

might need to hit the ctrl+d keys to restart it for the error to print though.

[celest bone]

http://prntscr.com/n2fn7d

[open dock]

from microbit import *

def stop():
    pin1.write_analog(0)
    pin0.write_analog(0)

def brake_check():
    brake = False
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False
    return brake

def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        if brake_check():
            stop()


while True:
    write_motor(55)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(54)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(53)

try that.

[celest bone]

now when the battery is on it starts without having to press button a

thats why there was the brake = True at the start

and also when the button b is pressed it no longer fully stops it

it just stops it for a second and then it goes again

@open dock

[open dock]

i'm not entirely sure what you're wanting it to do. you can go back to global brake, if that's how you want the state to work. without knowing what particular actions you're seeking, i can't really expand on what to change in while True:.

also, in looking at the microbit API, button_x.was_pressed() might work better since is_pressed() only returns true if the button is currently pressed at the time it's called.

https://microbit-micropython.readthedocs.io/en/latest/button.html

[open dock]

i do apologize if i've led you off course. globals just really turn nasty at a certain point.

[celest bone]

so this is what i am trying to code for

basically what im trying to do is

when I press the button a

it starts

both wheels turning

for about 3 seconds

then i want both wheels to stop for 1 second

[stuck thicket]

preview -- PyperCard (Hypercard like thing for CircuitPython) and/or CYOA ... Choose your own adventure

[celest bone]

and then wheels to go again but at a slightly different speed hence the write motor (55) (54) etc etc

and i want the b button which acts as a stop

to be able to stop the sequence at any time

thats pretty much what I was trying to do

@open dock

[open dock]

i was following along. 😄

[celest bone]

yeah does that explain it better?

[open dock]

it does. let me ponder a sec.

[celest bone]

okay 😄

[open dock]

i mean...the easy way is using global as was advised before. i will concede that. but its a bad practice to get into.

[celest bone]

yeah at this point i just want to make it work and go to sleep lmao

[open dock]

then, yeah, just go back to using the global, and add global brake to the wait() function.

from microbit import *


brake = True


def stop():
    pin1.write_analog(0)
    pin0.write_analog(0)


def brake_check():
    global brake
    if button_b.is_pressed():
        brake = True
    if button_a.is_pressed():
        brake = False


def write_motor(value):
    pin1.write_analog(value)
    pin0.write_analog(50)


def wait(ms):
    global brake
    for _ in range(ms):
        sleep(1)
        brake_check()
        if brake:
            stop()


while True:
    brake_check()
    write_motor(55)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(54)
    wait(1000)
    stop()
    write_motor(53)

that should do it.

[celest bone]

yes this one works well but the last part does not

the wheels do not pause for a second and then go again at a different speed

they stay going at a constant speed but the start and stop buttons do work

[open dock]

put some wait()s after the stops?

[celest bone]

that actually works 😮

[open dock]

the way i'm seeing this in my head...is creating a class so that your bot has some attributes that can be tracked for state logic.

[celest bone]

    brake_check()
    write_motor(55)
    wait(500)
    stop()
    wait(500)
    write_motor(54)
    wait(500)
    stop()
    wait(50)
    write_motor(53)
    wait(500)
    stop()
    wait(50)
    write_motor(52)```

how does that look to you

it seems to be going faster and slower at certain parts

and im not sure if the wheel speeds are correct

[open dock]

i noticed that write_motor will always produce a wobble, since it has pin0.write_analog(50) hardcoded.

[celest bone]

what would you suggest then?

and i noticed that too but wouldnt think it would impact it that much as i dont need to change that number

[open dock]

well, if it doesn't affect it, then i guess its fine. i allowed the possibility that it could be a trim adjustment or something.

[open dock]

@celest bone this is kind of what i was seeing when i talked about creating a class for the bot. it allows you to keep track of attributes and act upon them (among other things). this is from the hip with no testing, so it would probably need some tweaks.

from microbit import *

class botty_mc_bot_bot():
    def __init__(self, left_pin, right_pin):
        self._left = left_pin
        self._right = right_pin
        self.brake = True
        self.last_action = "stop"
    
    def stop(self):
        self._left.write_analog(0)
        self._right.write_analog(0)
        self.last_action = "stop"

    def brake_check(self):
        if button_b.was_pressed():
            self.brake = True
        if button_a.was_pressed():
            self.brake = False

    def drive_motor(self, left=50, right=50):
        self._left.write_analog(left)
        self._right.write_analog(right)

        self.last_action = "drive"

    def wait(self, ms):
        for _ in range(ms):
            sleep(1)
            brake_check(self)
            if self.brake:
                stop(self)

# initialize our bot object
josh_bot = botty_mc_bot_bot(pin1, pin0)

while True:
    # check the brakes at the top of the loop
    # this isn't needed after this, since the
    # wait loops will run brake checks
    josh_bot.brake_check()
    if not josh_bot.brake:
        write_motor(left=55, right=55)
        wait(3000)
        stop()
        wait(1000)
    # only wobble if the brake is off, and we last drove straight
    if not josh_bot.brake and josh_bot.last_action != "stop":
        write_motor(left=54, right=52)
        wait(1000)
        stop()
        wait(50)

[celest bone]

oh cool ill check that out in a second, if i wanted to change the value of the pin0 at the bottom which was hard coded in how would i do so

[open dock]

with the current code?

[celest bone]

yeah with the one im currently on

[open dock]

you'd have to change the function def. i would use keywords, so that you can define defaults. like so:

def write_motor(pin1_value=50, pin0_value=50):
    pin1.write_analog(pin1_value)
    pin0.write_analog(pin0_value)

then you can call it like this:

# assign both values upon calling
write_motor(pin1_value=55, pin0_value=55)

# assign only one value, and use the default for the other
write_motor(pin1_value=55)

# use defaults for both
write_motor()

you could also just use positional arguments, and/or iterables:

def write_motor(val_1, val_2):
    pin1.write_analog(val_1)
    pin0.write_analog(val_2)
    # called with 'write_motor(50, 50)'
-------------------------------
def write_motor(value):
    val_1 = value[0]
    val_2 = value[1]
    pin1.write_analog(val_1)
    pin0.write_analog(val_2)
    # called with 'write_motor((50, 50))', or 'write_motor([50, 50])

and, i'm off for the evening. hope the bot scoots-n-wobbles how you want!

[celest bone]

thank you very much you've been great help enjoy your evening 😄

[stuck thicket]

Coming up this week on the ALL THINGS PYTHON & HARDWARE newsletter! #1 Trend - The Push for Python makes' it, Pyboard D-series, Squeezing Python Into Microcontrollers! Will be sent out in the am - Sign up now "Python for microcontrollers" https://www.adafruitdaily.com

[opal mason]

Nice, I've signed up. Work's been a bit busy, but I need to get back to my Playground Express

Still have some ideas for projects I want to do and I want to add a button menu to my Pomodoro timer

[lean valve]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/python-programming-language-pyboard-d-series-arrives-for-micropython-robots/

[ancient schooner]

Does a raspberry pi 0w work with 40 pin gpio cable ???

And @lean valve which raspberry pi do u have

[tawny fiber]

rasperry pi 0 w do have 40 gpio pins too so there is no reason they shouldnt

[lavish echo]

Very useful to have around, you never know when you'll need it.

[ancient schooner]

Okie dokie thanks guys

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW-AND-TELL LIVE VIDEO! 3/27/19 (video) https://youtu.be/eIdlUM_Dx90

[lavish echo]

That's awesome.

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE - 10% off all items in stock code is ESPEYE expires 3/27/19 @ 11:59pm ET #askanengineer https://youtu.be/oTCVcxmDe-Y & http://www.adafruit.com

[open reef]

Anyone here use a bno055 in their projects before?

[cobalt hatch]

can anyone make a recomendation for what i can do with a microbit? i am not allowed to attach anything to it i am just wondering what i can do

it is owned by the school

[stuck thicket]

@cobalt hatch we have these guides and there are a ton more online - https://learn.adafruit.com/category/micro-bit

[rotund canyon]

i saw a conversation here or maybe on #491524019825278977 about microbit

got a few and they are so fun!

[foggy cliff]

Hey guys! Noob here, coming from arduino world.
Was trying to understand how to control stepper motors from the metro m0 express but could find much beside the servo documentation. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction?

[open dock]

@foggy cliff these should get you started:

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CircuitPython_Motor/blob/master/examples/stepper_motor.py

https://learn.adafruit.com/micropython-hardware-pca9685-dc-motor-and-stepper-driver

[foggy cliff]

Saw that one but was concerned about all the warnings and deprecation alerts on top

@open dock

[tawny fiber]

Does somebody happen to know a way to create Bluetooth LE services with python on a raspberry pi. I have been looking around the web and found dozens of libraries which implement functionalities to connect to one but I couldnt find one which actually hosts a service yet

[stuck thicket]

more python on hardware, TI calcs in france - https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/03/31/use-circuitpython-boards-on-the-ti-83-premium-ce-calculator-tiplanetnews-ticalculators-circuitpython-circuitpython/

[steel aurora]

hahaha that's crazy

[vague crane]

That's awesome

There was another calculator built from the ground up with Python but I can't remember the name

https://www.numworks.com/

[foggy cliff]

anyone has an idea how to connect an esp32 board to metro m0?
(using SPI)

[stable rune]

@vague crane these are pretty good

Kids today have it easy with these nice calculators and shit

[sturdy ridge]

calculators dont make maths easy

[stable rune]

@sturdy ridge was kidding 😄

Calculators are not even allowed in most maths courses

[sturdy ridge]

yeah, we were only allowed them in intro maths

thank god, I hate putting stuff into calculators

[vague crane]

I use a hammer and chisel like the gods intended

[tawdry birch]

@stable rune only Basic calculators are allowed

in my country for kids

In exams etc.

[stable rune]

@tawdry birch depends, after HS I was not allowed using calculator for every single math exam

Basic calculators were allowed for physics though

(tfw HS has you buy a $70 scientific calc you'll be denied using later)

[tawdry birch]

Hmm in my country you can use Basic one even on math exams

[long orbit]

@foggy cliff https://learn.adafruit.com/adding-a-wifi-co-processor-to-circuitpython-esp8266-esp32

[foggy cliff]

@long orbit yeah, been there, it doesnt explain wiring on an esp32, only esp8266 which is not supported anymore... im kinda losing my hopes, the metro m0 cant even hold the esp32 library without running out of memory

[long orbit]

ya, I think we mostly use it with the m4

the ram limits the data size you can load too

[foggy cliff]

but the m4's been out of stock for while

[long orbit]

feather m4 is in stock

there is a metro m4 with on board wifi coming soon

https://adafruit.github.io/circuitpython-weekly-newsletter/drafts/2019-04-02-draft.html

[hallow igloo]

https://www.balena.io/blog/build-an-environment-and-air-quality-monitor-with-raspberry-pi/

this looks fun, can't wait to set this up for my grow

[ancient schooner]

Hello, so I have recently bought a raspberry pi breadboard kit and wanted to ask if there where any projects I could do. Some of the items included in this kit where:
Breadboard
Pixel module
LCD screen
Motor
Something like a button but you turn it to make it on and off
Digit module
And many more. Please give me a tutorial or some ideas on what I can make. Thanks

[tawdry birch]

You can build for example clock or calculator

Make server for your files

Use google assistant on pi

[steel aurora]

there's a ton of projects here: https://learn.adafruit.com/search?q=raspberry maybe one of those could inspire you

[tawdry birch]

^

[steel aurora]

it's usually a good idea to find a project first, and then buy the parts you need

rather than just buying parts and then asking us for a project :P

[tawdry birch]

^

[steel aurora]

but when you're starting out, honestly, just make anything at all so you can get familiar with breadboarding and with the controller

the other lemon seems to have made some decent suggestions already

[tawdry birch]

There're a lot of things that you can made with pi or other board. You just need to be creative

[ancient schooner]

Thanks lemon(s). I bought a starter kit for the raspberry pi so that’s why I don’t really care what I do with it

I just want to practise and then I’ll hopefully make something big

[indigo ruin]

can a esp32 handle a sqlite3?

and are there like some web framworks for it with python, something like flask?

[tawny fiber]

an esp32 is not really meant to be used with any sort of sql db

at least not as a db server

you could maybe connect to one with it i dont know if it has enough memory for the software to do that though

[hallow igloo]

how do you open a .sh file on raspbian?

it just opens in the text editor

if I try to open with

and select terminal

the cursor loads for a while

and then stops

and nothing happened

[tawny fiber]

.sh files are normal shell scripts

any editor will work

[hallow igloo]

no

its a text editor

it doesnt run

I want it to run

[tawny fiber]

go in a terminal and do nano /path/to/file.sh

well then do bash script.sh or ./script.sh

[hallow igloo]

yeah but I can't just click on it to run?

ok looks like I cant

rip

extra question

is there a way

[tawny fiber]

clicking on it to run is not the way in linux

gui in general is just a crip in linux

[hallow igloo]

I see

[tawny fiber]

at least for file interaction

[hallow igloo]

ok

I should really get linux then

hmm

I can run a python file through a .sh but seperately, like as a seperate executed run

like it calls the python file to be run, so it is run in a fresh terminal with no connection to the run.sh terminal

and I want that sh terminal to close

[tawny fiber]

you can do

pythons script.py &

thats gonna run it in a detached way

so its not gonna block the terminal anymore

[hallow igloo]

pythons

hmm

@tawny fiber can you do pythons3.7?

and uhh it says pythons3.7 command not found

but python3.7 works fine

[tawny fiber]

yeah because it has an s after python

[hallow igloo]

you said pythons

if I do python script.py it does block the terminal

wait

you mean the & at the end?

ok that worked

but now its weird because I cant really seem to see what is going on

like I had to quit by opening task manager and killing at the port

or what I think is the port

can you have it open in a new window also?

[tawny fiber]

well I guess you could open a new terminal emulator if you knew its name but Im not really sure why youd want to do that

[hallow igloo]

@tawny fiber what do you mean by that? I want to know.

[stoic summit]

hey all, I need help configuring the registers of an IMU through circuitpython

I've figured out through the documentation how to read the registers

but I haven't figured out how to write to them

This is a L3GD20 sensor connected to a Trinket M0 with CircuitPython

If I'm doing this right, then the writeto method in the I2C libary is used to point at the register value before actually reading it with the readfrom_into method

So by that logic, would I use writeto to point at it, then writeto again to overwrite what's in there?

[stoic summit]

hey all, I've been bashing my head against this code all afternoon and I'm about ready to give up... Can someone take a look at it and see if there are any glaring mistakes? I'm embarassed to say it's not even 50 lines

fair warning, I have no formal training as a programmer

So this might make o sense whatsoever

[tawny fiber]

what about actually showing us the code so we can actually try and help you with it

code errors etc

[tawdry birch]

^

[hallow igloo]

@stoic summit nobody can take a look at the code if they don't have it, can you actually post the code

[open dock]

we actually got it straightened out on Adafruit's server.

[stoic summit]

I meant to come back sooner, it's working smoothly now... Strangely if I record the streaming data from MATLAB, there's formatting errors every 20 lines or so lines being blended together or truncated

I don't need to do anything on real-time though, and it works like a dram when I record it at the terminal window

Thanks again for all your help!

[twilit nest]

Hi, i've got a micropython project i've been working on and i'm trying to do wss:// client, am i just supposed to wrap a socket in ssl? I can't find much documentation on wss as a protocol in general or even a test mirror

[hallow igloo]

hey

any micro expret here

[sturdy ridge]

@hallow igloo

[hallow igloo]

yes

i just bought an uno

i wanna learn about pins ,

and how to do wiring

@sturdy ridge

[sturdy ridge]

arduino has tutorials

https://www.arduino.cc/en/guide/introduction

more hobbyist intro here http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/

[stuck thicket]

SHOW AND TELL is LIVE! https://youtu.be/ZsXdVOWkWNg

[patent parcel]

hello!

I am wondering if anyone has worked with the si47xx family? I am looking to create a hat (not to standard) for an rpi with the si4731, for an android auto project I am working on

[stuck thicket]

There are now over 53+ boards supported by CircuitPython - check'em all out! https://circuitpython.org/downloads

[vague crane]

Whoa

it's growing so fast!

[hallow igloo]

@stuck thicket are you adafruit

[stuck thicket]

hiya, yep

it's either pt (me) or limor (ladyada) who run this account on this server and ours on discord

[stuck thicket]

python on hardware newsletter preview - https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython-weekly-newsletter/blob/gh-pages/_drafts/2910-04-16-draft.md

[rich peak]

So much great stuff in there 😍

[steel aurora]

Hackulele

[stuck thicket]

LIVE! https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-circuitpython

[stuck thicket]

Preview of Python on Hardware newsletter - Will be sent out in the am - Sign up now "Python for microcontrollers" https://www.adafruitdaily.com

[stuck thicket]

This is not real, just testing out 8-bit Game of Thrones fan art and audio on the Python gamer

[steel aurora]

haha oh man. I never knew I needed an 8bit GoT game until now.

[vague crane]

That looks great!

Can it run Super Potato Bruh 😄

https://cmlsc.itch.io/super-potato-bruh

[long orbit]

@vague crane "Minimum Requirements: 1.7GHz 2-core CPU (tested on Intel Core i3-4010U)"

I think that is a no

looks like it comes with the source so I'm tempted to try it though

heh

[mystic nova]

@stuck thicket I just read one of your posts: Precise GPS GNSS positioning with a Raspberry Pi and the RTKLIB and was wondering if you had some more info on it.

Im working on a drone right now and the only thing missing is a accurate positioning system

And I would prefer gps over lidar or even some form of slam positioning

[stuck thicket]

@mystic nova the post is all we know about it at this time, that said, if there is more/other updates we'll post'em here (and on the blog too)

[mystic nova]

thx!

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW AND TELL! https://youtu.be/wDzhbaHb34g

[stuck thicket]

WE ARE LIVE! ASK AN ENGINEER! https://youtu.be/AMOBcxkC2HQ

[zinc anvil]

Heya, i was wondering what is the best (yet cheap) way to communicate with arduino through android? Must be cheap, because it will only be used for learning purposes. Bluetooth seems the cheapest and easiest but it has a very limited range so... I am open to all ideas

[lean valve]

Are you intending to do arduino development on the android, or have them work together as part of your project?

It looks like if the android device has USB OTG (the ability to host a USB connection) you can just connect them directly with a USB cable.

[stuck thicket]

preview of python powered gaming device 😃

[zinc anvil]

I want them to work together.

[lean valve]

@zinc anvil Check out this article - it looks like exactly what you are looking for https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/communicate-with-your-arduino-through-android/

@stuck thicket that kind of rules

I could see that being a big deal in the classroom

[zinc anvil]

thanks, checking it out 😃