general-chat

[rapid geode]

Effective June 7, 2026, Autodesk will no longer sell nor support EAGLE. Until then, you will continue to have access, but upon that date, access to EAGLE will end.

sigh

[glad ruin]

[stray wind]

All the features are integrated into Fusion 360. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[ebon dew]

This could affect importing from old eagle files eventually?

[late fulcrum]

I'll keep using my expensive Eagle license for as long as I can, then transition to KiCAD

[rapid geode]

yes, but adesk send out a letter not long ago saying that had no plans to remove the stand alone and it was a good investment

oh, wait, it was always free (under adesk) right? i guess that makes it harder to complain. i thought it was paid

[glad ruin]

Probably will.

[tardy badger]

the translation is pretty static based on the file data, it should be fine.

[wanton thistle]

We are getting smoke in CT all the Way from Quebec

You kind of can't breathe

[tardy badger]

yikes

[violet parcel]

CT ?

[wanton thistle]

Connecticut, USA (east coast)

[tardy badger]

Canadian Tundra actually

lol jk

[violet parcel]

Im farther up but not getting any smoke. That said I hope you guys can hosts us in refugee camps when the whole canada is burning down in forest fires 😦

[wanton thistle]

Lol

Depends on how far north you are. The whole northeast corridor is getting it

[violet parcel]

I guess they will be FEMA/ICE refugee camps ? Any idea when I should start packing/what I should pack ?

[wanton thistle]

Just an arduino /s😅

[burnt tendon]

I mean, is Adafruit's AQI sensor in stock? Time to get some data.

[rapid geode]

smoke is from kingston area, not quebec (here anyway)

yuk

[violet parcel]

we almost have 3/12 of canada gone now 😦

(took the first map I could find)

[rapid geode]

need some rain

the sky is now blue here, but it still has the warning.

[burnt tendon]

I mean, us on the west coast have lived through several versions of this.

[violet parcel]

ah seems like you are right just dont see it because the sky is really low and cloudy

but seems it is going all the way to new york

[wanton thistle]

Is this HO4? I think I've heard of that game

[violet parcel]

no europa universalis IV with me as GDI owning the G20 in 1368 🤣

but nvm that

[wanton thistle]

That's the other one

Paradox game right?

[violet parcel]

yeah eu iv is mostly 1443 to 1819 focused on simple units, buildings managements and about 15 goods trading

while hoi iv is 1930ish to 1945 focused on complicated units, only 2 buildings and 4 goods to trade

[wanton thistle]

Explains why you aren't enslaving your populations and turning them to food :p

(I play stellaris 👀)

[viscid parrot]

I'm in southwest Connecticut, 30 miles east of NYC and my Adafruit AQI setup is reading over 400 outside.

[wanton thistle]

New Haven? Yea it's not good in the Danbury area either

[violet parcel]

EU IV doesn't have a concept of showing you the population / applying gameplay effects to them. All you have is a manpower which is a measure of how troops the province contribute

[formal ore]

@glad ruin setup the level shifter and hooked everything up, the voltage glitching worked but only once, there’s still jitter so I would like to move to triggering off another point, but the triggers do not seem to be working correctly, do you think you could assist with troubleshooting this, I’m on a ds1054z

[violet parcel]

no really. It's a big thing they wanted to avoid offensive after-action reports on reddit

Because it is history and it might offend some peoples

Also stellaris is published by paradox not made by them so different policy afaik

[glad ruin]

I can't really sit and debug it with you today (might have some time on Friday). But feel free to ping me with questions.

[viscid parrot]

Wilton, just north of Norwalk

[late fulcrum]

Sky shows it here in Virginia

[violet parcel]

??

our forest fires smoke exports ?

you guys gonna make some smoked meat/smoked fish with it ?

[coral solstice]

hello

[exotic hedge]

Fusion 360 has zero linux support. This is going to be a big problem.

[exotic hedge]

The "Feature" that it will run on Linux is conspicuously missing.

[late fulcrum]

It may show up as windoze quietly replaces its underpinnings with Linux

[tardy badger]

Have you ever thought about how much different the computing world would be if they standardized multiples of 6 instead of multiples of 8s for computer data widths?

Arm cortex M0+ 30bit MCU

[rapid geode]

at least isd has mac. adesk is notorious for windows only

[tardy badger]

Atmeg328p 6 bit microcontroller

[rapid geode]

they chose 8 for some math reason, but i dont remember

[tardy badger]

It’s so awkward but that makes it funny to think about

Yeah, 8 naturally will give us more variance being a power of 2

Something in nature about powers of 2

[wanton thistle]

Im familar with this area due to a certain singing group 👀

[tardy badger]

Am working currently but I was a funny thought I had.

[stray wind]

Apologies for not knowing the Linux situation. I have now been informed twice. Please stop tagging me in replies involving the lack of Linux support. Thank you.

[wanton thistle]

wait, the heck? Is this for real? I use eagle stand alone and havent got this message

[rapid geode]

i got it a few hours ago

(well, when i posted that)

you must be later in the asesk spam queue

[wanton thistle]

I see it now

Ugh, I dont like cloud based stuff. But Im sure stand alone eagle will probably work fine.

[olive dome]

but will standalone eagle with online auth work though

[rapid geode]

no, it will cease function

[olive dome]

like after eagle v8, will they still work?

[rapid geode]

perma lic would be different i assume.

like a really old version

[olive dome]

yeah then essentially the only standalone eagle will be like v7 and v6

[rapid geode]

even then 2 layers only

in fusion

[olive dome]

I moved to Kicad after they brought eagle, so I don't have to deal with forced update

I'm thankful to KiCad being a viable option so quickly

[tranquil swallow]

Same

[tardy badger]

Yeah, more incentive to move over now. I’ve started using KiCAD but I’ve been slow to transition..

[tranquil swallow]

I’m kind of glad this is happening because we need to decouple from autodesk

[rapid geode]

weve been saying that for 30 years...

x

[tardy badger]

It’s bitter sweet for me. I learned circuit design on Eagle. Kind of upsetting tbh, but I knew this day was coming

Oh well, Tis what tis

[wanton thistle]

Thing is, I dont really sign into eagle when I boot it up

It asks me too but Im like

https://tenor.com/view/no-way-dude-no-oh-bugs-bunny-bugs-gif-22941840

[tardy badger]

Lol

[olive dome]

Yeah I also learn how to do circuit design with Eagle (and a bunch of Adaftuit + Sparkfun 's opensource board and library)

oops

But I honestly think Autodesk is pushing Eagle way too hard for professional use.

[wanton thistle]

I really dont feel like bringing all my eagle stuff to kicad either :/

I have a ton of libraries Ive built up

[wanton thistle]

💯

[olive dome]

Like big companies will still use allegro or Altium anyway

[raw jasper]

I "learned" on eagle too. Never made a pcb though

(Which is why I am putting learned in quotes)

[late fulcrum]

I assume there's a library translator. If there isn't, I'll write one.

[olive dome]

And 2-layer for free eagle is not going to capture new hobbyist and convert them into professional and pay the full price of 70USD/month...

[rapid geode]

Knowing a bit of how adesk works internally. they intended to kill eagle from day 1.

[olive dome]

I just convert the PCB project from Eagle and build the library with it.

[rapid geode]

As in, they will kill the paid one too

[wanton thistle]

It always felt like they were trying to get rid of Eagle but couldnt

[raw jasper]

Any suggestions for a good beginner PCB project?

[late fulcrum]

Mine will still run until I replace my computer, then it's KiCAD for me

[raw jasper]

Never mind, I can't solder

[wanton thistle]

But really, since I dont sign in to Eagle Stand Alone...did they program a count down timer in it to prevent access to the software?~~ If so, isnt that the definition of vaporware?~~

[olive dome]

I still keep my v7 eagle just in case I need to access the old project with eagle

[olive dome]

technically you can have JLCPCB do the soldering for you

[raw jasper]

💸

[wanton thistle]

555 Timer lol. Or Something useful, like a LED flashlight (advanced)

[raw jasper]

Why is an LED flashlight advanced?

[olive dome]

I don't think it will cost *that *much if you go with a simple design and components

[wanton thistle]

Boost Converter. Possibly it could use a 18650 battery or other lithium battery for rechargeability.

[raw jasper]

👍

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I'll probably make a few mistakes that'll require respins :P

I think I'll stick to writing verilog

[olive dome]

well then there is the value of simulation

[wanton thistle]

I think it would be a fun project as it introduces you to the world of SMPS's, which requires a bit of a dive into how they work and how to lay them out. I think those skills are vital when laying other stuff out too.

[olive dome]

^ and running simulation too

[raw jasper]

...and testing on an FPGA (it's not like you'll get to tapeout an ASIC anyway :>)

[olive dome]

yeah but for PCBs

[raw jasper]

Yeah, there's SPICE I guess if you do analog stuff

No need to worry about process corners either :P

[olive dome]

I think in general having the experience of simulation and test suit with design is a transferable skill for multiple engineering projects

[raw jasper]

How would you test/simulate a PCB?

Beyond LVS

which I assume is a thing in PCB-land?

[olive dome]

just SPICE

the simluation work is mostly on DC-DC power converter like @wanton thistle said, it can be quite complicate and hard to debug issues

[raw jasper]

Funny story: I probably can't install ltspice

They have a clause against using it for IC design, and I wouldn't want to cross the streams (I sometimes write verilog, not for ASICs, but still, best not to cross the streams)

[rapid geode]

why would they not allow ic design?

[raw jasper]

I guess you'd need a special license. And perhaps the built-in SPICE models offer valuable info to potential competitors

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, I guess the irony is that I didn't bother starting PCB design until KiCAD was out because everybody was using free Eagle and I didn't like the Faustian bargain that was using the free version nor was I keen on paying for it because non-professional.

Like, in 2008, access to even schematic capture was bad.

And, like, open source is largely a machine to exploit software engineers, IMHO, but I guess one thing I still feel is important is that people ought to have access to tools.

[tranquil swallow]

Some open source projects are more exploitative than others

[burnt tendon]

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeah, so in 2008, the best tool I could find was gEDA except that my desktop's a Windows box so I had to install it on my Linux box and use X windows.

[night crescent]

ASK AN ENGINEER 6/7/2023 LIVE! https://youtu.be/7p9r8z0-UuI

[tardy badger]

First harvest from the garden

Probably $6-8 worth of snow peas and like. $10-12 worth of lettuce mix

[ebon dew]

https://tenor.com/view/john-wick-keanu-reeves-gif-19659159

Yum

[rapid geode]

me too

teeny berries

i have enough lettuce for 2-3 salads every day

ha

[tardy badger]

Nice!

[rapid geode]

peaches are about 1" long now too

i guess they should be ripe in 6-8 weeks

or.... eaten by squirrels

[glad ruin]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/745716635280736406/1116167404284817479/8bddc05abd552e2e.png

[wanton thistle]

Pretty much. Im worried a bit (but not too much) about getting a good harvest from the garden this year. Between the cold snap we had and lack of sun, it may not be a good season. Ironically, I read that there are supposed to be above normal temps for the N.E.

[spice moss]

https://www.tomsguide.com/features/i-was-skeptical-of-the-dyson-zone-until-nycs-worst-air-pollution-ever this is fine so now project how to make your own air purifier wearable device

[glad ruin]

https://tenor.com/view/bane-gif-21040611

[static flare]

tbh im surprised we haven't seen more bane masks with COVID

[raw jasper]

Would a passive mask (n95/ffp2, n99/ffp3) help?

Or is it so bad that one'd need something like a PAPR?

[patent hemlock]

N95 filters particulate matter quite well (my wife has asthma and uses them when we have this kind of thing)

[raw jasper]

Yeah, it should, but, I have no experience w using them for pollution, only for viral aerosol exposure control (pandemic). Thanks for the input!

[glad ruin]

I made a meme.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/774666684136947713/1116374212861497515/FirstTimeNewYork.png

[dusty citrus]

Do I have no way to understand which usb to serial com dongle do I have ?
It ain't recognized and I got no marks of any type

[sweet rivet]

Send a pic of it

[raw jasper]

You can also look at device manager / lsusb

[dusty citrus]

During the pandemic (as if now there's not one anymore...), There was the race of the dumbest
Like you had people getting masks cutting them and using those as filters for 3d printer respirators
Like wth

[raw jasper]

You probably know this, but one can buy a proper respirator with interchangeable (and disposable/consumable) filters

I do think the availability of those (like high-PFE masks) was curtailed in the "thick" of the pandemic

[spice moss]

ningen you remember those razer zephyr try but they didnt had certified test for those and wasnt good fan design for more thicker filter

[raw jasper]

I remember. "N95 Grade!" 🙃

[dusty citrus]

You could find nothing (or like really expensive) either with plastic like respirators nor standard respirators/masks
It makes no sense printing a plastic thing that doesn't ensure a real sealing, and then using another mask as a filter which was designed for starters to have a sealing and to work

[raw jasper]

I mean, you're preaching to the choir here; I know :P

Which reminds me that it seems that availability of high-PFE masks is becoming more limited again now (in Europe)

[spice moss]

ac with air purification have helped my breathing indoors better

my breathing varies much as the spirometric the breathing test i got average lower numbers on last test as I wasnt used to the way it test tube felt as it had caps on side so wasnt able to breath in so breath out was failing that why

so all the passive ones are for me are no cant do, so all these passive and pro-active ones are good as not many options out there

[raw jasper]

Take care of yourself!

[rapid geode]

if you can see your hands, the air is fine.... (if you lived in london in 1810

[raw jasper]

I mean, 1810's London atmosphere probably killed a lot of people

(And probably had an AQI well, well over 10)

[rapid geode]

😛

fires are sorta a different thing, but at least here, air is 100 times better than it was in say, the 80s

got rid of a lot of factories, and added lots of scrubbing tech

where i used to live has a different issue. its all sand, so some days the place is just plain dusty

[raw jasper]

Fun fact: 1810's London sooty atmosphere was so bad it asserted selective pressure to the peppered moth, causing only black-colored individuals to survive, as the white-colored ones were easily spotted by predators and eaten before they reproduced

(or, at least, before they could reproduce in sufficient numbers)

[rapid geode]

ha

poor moths

[raw jasper]

In fact, evolutionary biologists were able to determine the most likely date the mutation that caused the black coloration appeared: 1819!

They did that using DNA sequence data

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17951

[rapid geode]

so, youre saying id we cover all the white cats in soot, they will evolve into black cats and witches will return?

[raw jasper]

Lamarck, is that you?

[rapid geode]

its science!

ish

[blissful wing]

https://youtu.be/tFdnCzfJPJ0

TLDW do not use for covid purposes.

[violet parcel]

i got a case with 2 fans that are only 5v/gnd and they dont turn. How the heck can you fail to manufacture very simple fans with a 0.10$ dc motor in it and a resistor ?

[rapid geode]

cause its a pwm fan?

[violet parcel]

it's a constant rotational speed fan for a pi with a resistor in it. Nowhere in the instruction it says anything else than to connect it to 5V/GND

[sharp nexus]

what is this ppl?

[raw jasper]

The filled circles represent vias, buses and the like, which may reappear in other places in the design

[sharp nexus]

thank you

[late fulcrum]

Or just pads for test points

[violet parcel]

fan has continuity and seems to have a 600kohm resistor internally to turn the motor at constant speed but it's still dead 😦

[raw jasper]

Given the TP in all signals' names, this is the most probable explanation

[glad ruin]

It's probably more complicated than that. Fans are usually brushless and include an onboard motor controller.

[violet parcel]

it just have a red and black wire, plugs directly into 5V and GND pi pin according to the instructions. it's dc brushless. Was trying to diagnose it because I doubt pishop will pay the shipping to replace it and not really worth it for a 5-6$ dual fans thing 😦

[glad ruin]

Could just be that your supply isn't up to the task. Motors generally require around 3x their running current in order to start.

[late fulcrum]

If there are only two wires powering it and it's brushless, there must be a controller inside

[violet parcel]

It's not a general motor just an rpi fan that only has a red and black wire. So since it doesnt have control it should always turn on when the pi is powered

that Im connecting to a pi and my multimeter shows 4.99v-5.01ish v between the 5V and GND pin so no reason for the fan to not spin. I know normally you have to activate fans on a pi but not when you cant control it with a separate wire. But yeah there must be a controller outside since it's 3.5mA otherwise it would burn immediately and nothing in the instructions tells me to put a resistor before connecting it to the pi pins

[glad ruin]

so no reason for the fan to not spin
If your supply can't provide sufficient current, it won't turn on. Like I said, motors require 2-3x their rated current in order to start. Combine that with the fact that every Pi since the 2 has drawn more current than it should over USB, and you get this type of issue.

[raw jasper]

I'm curious why they aren't using usb3 and the power negotiation protocol (not really familiar with the details). I'd expect that'd be a better solution than expecting the user to own specific power adapters, and whatever ARM IP they're using probably includes support?

[glad ruin]

First, USB3 is only specced to deliver up to 900mA, which is still less than half of what the Pi 3 and 4 can draw. USB-PD can definitely handle it, but even then they'd have to request something higher than 5V. Best I can tell it's a cost cutting measure. I believe the Broadcom chips they use are mostly intended for use in things like TVs and other consumer products where battery life isn't an issue. At this point though it's gotten ridiculous.

Really it comes down to cost cutting and an unwillingness to change.

[raw jasper]

Yeah, USB-PD was the one I was thinking of. As always, thanks for the detailed answer!

(I was also assuming they were at least doing a custom SoC at this point, hence my reference to "IP")

[glad ruin]

Not in the Pi I don't think. That'd also raise the price.

[raw jasper]

I have no idea what the Pi MSRP is anymore :P

[glad ruin]

The MSRP has always been like $30-40. Whether anyone actually sells it at that price is a different question.

[raw jasper]

Out of curiosity, what's your preferred SBC?

[glad ruin]

At the moment I don't have one, so I'm open to suggestions.

I still have an extra Pi 3 with no permanent home, and one is now doing duty as an OctoPrint server.

I've also got a Pi Zero W taped on top of my old laser printer running CUPS.

[violet parcel]

finally found schematics that want to be free on fcc fillings 🤣

2009 radio-shack gmrs in these case with a nice complete parts list

[raw jasper]

Printing servers were a good use for the pi back when they were more reasonably priced

[glad ruin]

Yeah well that's when I got mine.

[violet parcel]

but pi 4b are 5V @ 3000 mA and this is rated 3.5mA ? 😦

Btw Im just validating that I cant troubleshoot it

since pishop.ca basically says on their policy they will probably google it 🤣

[glad ruin]

3.5mA is not a realistic amount of current for a fan to draw. I would believe 350mA, in which case it'd likely need around 900mA in order to start. But even the vibration motor in your phone will draw more than 3.5mA.

[raw jasper]

BTW, as far as SBCs go, I've only ever used the pi

[violet parcel]

eh I was a bit off: specs: Dimensions: 25x25x7mm (LxWxH): Bearing type: hydraulic bearing Connector: 2p 2.54mm Rated voltage: DC 5V Rated current: 0.075A ± 10% Rated speed: 5000 ± 5% rpm. Noise level: 29 ± 10% dBA. Mounting distance: 20.0 ± 0.3 mm:
Fan life: 35000 hours Net weight: 7g / pc

75mA not 7.5

[glad ruin]

I have a Pi 1, two each of the Pi 3 and Pi Zero W, and a BeagleBone Black. Oh and a Cyclone-V FPGA board that can technically qualify as an SBC since it has a dual-core ARM processor.

I actually have a project I want to do with the Pi 1. I desoldered the analog video port and got an ultimate GPS hat. Planning to turn it into a Stratum 1 NTP server at some point.

[raw jasper]

My pi 1 died. Can't remember how.

Have you used other FPGA manufacturers other than altera/intel? How do they compare?

[glad ruin]

I've actually mostly done Xilinx. Both have painful toolchains but that's the reality of FPGA design.

[raw jasper]

I've only ever used Xilinx so far

[glad ruin]

I would recommend sticking with it, especially with the way Intel is right now.

[raw jasper]

As long as they keep their low/midrange product lines

[violet parcel]

I still have my pi 2 something powered on somewhere. I just dont know where 🤣

[raw jasper]

Imagine them starting to only sell versal at current prices.....

[glad ruin]

I doubt they'll be getting rid of that any time soon.

[glad ruin]

https://tenor.com/view/mac-gyver-im-impressed-smile-impressive-gif-17529069

[raw jasper]

This reminds me of the story of twitter using a mac mini as a login node, and somebody not knowing about it and plugging it out

[raw jasper]

I'd hope! I haven't found any competitor that compares. Especially wrt DSP blocks/$

[violet parcel]

I can ssh to it but I have no idea where it is. I guess it's under boxes somewhere with a small 1 plug outlet or something

Also they dont have speakers as far so I cant play a music and try to locate it like a bat

I guess if I cant get pishop to help Ill just get the official raspberry pi case with their fan because Im sick of this situation and not being able to use my pi 4b

the previous case couldnt mount any fans. I mean it's just a fan not a keysight scope. Cant be too hard to get it right... grrrrrr

[raw jasper]

Just start disconnecting ethernet cables until it stop responding to pings.

:>

[late fulcrum]

I do find the open source toolchains to be a marked improvement

[glad ruin]

Yeah I don't know where they are in terms of things like timing analysis and place/route.

[late fulcrum]

They're easily good enough for the sorts of projects I do. I'm a little dubious about the vendor ones too.

[tranquil swallow]

My pi 2 is dead, wish I could it fix it so it wasn’t e waste

[dusty citrus]

Recently I got a khandas vim1
60€ shipped on paper looks good enough

[late fulcrum]

While it's not impossible to fix them, fault finding is tough, and many of the parts are difficult to replace. 😦

[spice abyss]

Hello people of adafruit, is there any chance you guys could help me out? I’m looking for a certain product and I have no idea how to find it

Like I’m looking for some LED matrix’s for a project, but I can’t find anything on the website

[ebon dew]

There are different types of matrixes available. The RGB panels and charlieplexed matrixes for example.

https://www.adafruit.com/category/37

[spice abyss]

Thank you so much, the thing I was on said there was only one product available, there’s only one thing left I need

Do you guys know if they have 8 by 32 1.2” LEDs?

If that’s a stupid question let me know because I’m very new to electronics

[ebon dew]

They have 8x8’s which can be chained together.

[spice abyss]

Ok stupid question, how do you chain them together?

[ebon dew]

Get the I2C backpack version. Can only chain 4 together however with a multiplexer you can chain as many as you want. You’ll also want to get a multiplexer. I would recommend https://www.adafruit.com/product/5664

Here’s a red 8x8 with I2C built in (backpack) https://www.adafruit.com/product/870

Chain them together using stemma cables.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4209

The stemma cables will connect the backpacks to the multiplexer.

Some soldering is required.

There are different ways you can chain them together. You could also wire 4 together and then have all 4 connect to 1 channel of the multiplexer.

[spice abyss]

I know I’m asking a lot of you but is there any chance you could link like a tutorial or something? I really appreciate this help, thank you

[ebon dew]

Which would allow you to have 16 backpacks per multiplexer.

Since you need 6 backpacks and the multiplexer the best learn guide i can recommend is for the multiplexer. https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pca9546-4-channel-stemma-qt-multiplexer

Each plug (channel) will accept up to 4 of the 8x8 backpacks.

The 5th plug will go to the microcontroller such as a feather. It all uses stemma plugs.

[spice abyss]

So plugging in 4 8x8’s to it will connect them all together?

I’m sorry if I sound dumb, I’m really new to electronics

[ebon dew]

You can wire the 4 8x8’s together in series as a chain with regular hookup wire. Then plug that chain to 1 of the multiplexer ports.

They don’t really show a good example image with it. Here’s one i did with the pca 8 which was way overkill.

Wire each set of 4 in series to a mutliplexer. The image shows the maximum amount you can do (if you wanted to).

Im using 7 segment displays but it would be the same for 8x8’s or any i2c devices.

[spice abyss]

Okay, another stupid question, So for these, how do they like snap together? Because I’m looking at a guide and there doesn’t seem to be a gap despite it being 4 separate pieces

[ebon dew]

They dont snap together. Up to you on how to mount them.

Heres how i mounted the 7 segments.

[spice abyss]

Ahh I see, so again I know it’s going to sound really dumb but how do you mount them well?

[ebon dew]

I cut rectangles in some cardboard and shoved the faces through.

[spice abyss]

I see, you’ve been awesome thank you btw, I really appreciate your help on this

Ok so the schematic I’m following says to wire them up but when I look at their final product the 8 by 32 piece has no wiring, instead it is just soldered together, is that what I should do?

[ebon dew]

yes because the 8x8 don't have stemma so you'll need to make some modifications, it won't be plug and play.

give me a little i'll make a diagram for you

the bi-color does have stemma if you'd like to use those.. https://www.adafruit.com/product/902

[ebon dew]

If you want a more plug and play solution without soldering and splicing wires then go with the bicolor version that has stemma ports built in for chaining.

You would also need about 9 of the stemma to stemma plugs if you go with the bicolor version instead. https://www.adafruit.com/product/4399

[violet parcel]

zomg I didnt know they made fabs in austria/Uk and indonesia

[tardy badger]

Todays digital to analog experiment:

Resistor divider ladder into an op amp

Whoops lost a resistor to actually get the division into the op amp

The goal: turn on one of 8 outputs at a time to get different voltages at the op amp non-inverting input

Inverting input tied to ground, probably will add a small ceramic capacitor to filter any DC and hopefully be able to generate some fun signals

[wanton thistle]

Remember to record your results 😉

[tardy badger]

I was thinking of a blog post

[patent hemlock]

"It's not science if you don't write it down!" -- Adam Savage

[raw jasper]

Yeeeah, a blog is probably a better option than a random $SOCIAL_MEDIA thread these days

[cunning frost]

Speaking of experiments, I ordered and built this function generator kit (fun soldering project until you make a mistake lol) just so I could confirm the accuracy of my LED spectrogram. I already know it picks up frequencies really well using the mic but it's nice to see it respond to raw signals. Also, new toy. I gotta try it out. XD

[vivid turret]

Are 12v GaN power adapters a thing?
GaN USB chargers have been a thing for a while now. Surprised that I'm struggling to find ones that output 12v. (I am aware that you can get a trigger cable and get 12V from some USB adapters, but I don't want to do that).

[vivid turret]

Sharing also that... I've had random issues with trigger cables. I've had one that dropped power. I would love a reliable 12V solution that used GaN.

[late fulcrum]

GaN? Gallium nitride? I'm not sure what you mean by trigger cable.

[raw jasper]

I'm guessing they mean the kind of cable used in logic analyzers

You know what I mean, the hook probe?

(I don't know its actual name 😅 )

[glad ruin]

I am the hook person. I speak for the PCBs.

[late fulcrum]

I usually call them minihooks or minigrabbers. So you're just using them to access the contacts inside an adapter? While there are lots of 12V adapters available, most makers don't bother documenting the chemistry of the transistors inside (except for a few exotic ones). In reality, it doesn't matter much at 12V, but some of the higher voltage circuitry (think electric car chargers) uses silicon carbide and the like. What starting voltage do you have, like a mains plug you want to connect a 12V (DC?) adapter to?

[glad ruin]

Some of the newer semiconductors can be useful at low voltages and high currents.

But yeah generally speaking nowadays marketing learned that GaN and SiC exist so they make a huge deal out of it.

[raw jasper]

(actually, I've seen chargers marketed because they contain GaN semis. Supposedly, they generate less heat)

[glad ruin]

Like I said, it's become a marketing buzzword now.

[raw jasper]

And, by I've seen, I mean that I looked up "GaN charger" at the local price comparison website upon seeing this post :P

[glad ruin]

I hope you have an ad blocker, because if you don't I know what you'll be seeing...

[raw jasper]

I can only imagine :P

[vivid turret]

It's called a few different things. It's just a small cable that tries to trigger the 12V mode on a USB PD power adapter.

[olive dome]

I would say that it is because GaN devices nowadays are easier to integrate with the help of built-in controller GaN Mosfet that lower the cost of the technology drives the demand and product count.

Those product can not exists at it's pricing without those newer GaN Mosfets

[vivid turret]

GaN is more efficient and they're smaller, so desirable in that way. Many modern USB power adapters are GaN now.

[olive dome]

I don't think I have any issues with those USB-PD to DC jack cables so I'm very happy with those USB charger and 12V output.

While also utilizing USB-C power meter to measure the system power too

[tardy badger]

Realizing that wiggles made a cameo in Bluey lol

[raw jasper]

I have no idea how to parse that sentence

[tardy badger]

The Wiggles are a kids sing a long band that had a show, and maybe still have a show?

https://tenor.com/view/fruit-salad-wiggles-gif-12855136

[blissful roost]

Ahh, child programming...

[tardy badger]

Not surprising to most people, the Wiggles was also an Australian broadcast imported to the US

And Bluey, a kids animated show that’s wildly popular, is also an Australian show

[raw jasper]

👍

Thanks!

[tranquil swallow]

Anyone have experience with digitizing books, looking for open source solution to be used for android or pi to manually scan pages non-destructively

[vivid turret]

I wish some more reputable/well-known brands sold them.
It still feels like a bit of a lottery. It's even worse coming from Australia, where the choices and availability are fewer.

[olive dome]

I mean - Most reputable/well-known smartphone companies do sell them

If you are asking for a good USB-PD charger

[glad ruin]

StarTech is probably another good bet.

[vivid turret]

Not the charger. Just the cables.

I've got plenty of good USB PD (GaN) chargers.

[olive dome]

If you want: Cypress has EVB tailor to this kind of usage

I have one when I visit them

Or just build your own, I recently have to build a box powered with > 5V and USB-C so I end up using HUSB238 to do that for me.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/infineon-technologies/CY4533/10238329

[vivid turret]

I've built my own cables but the same thing sort of applies with quality etc.
I guess the big brands like Anker stay away from these cables because consumers would complain they don't work in situations they're not supposed to.

(But consumers get confused because usbc cables physically fit in many cases)

Thanks for the suggestions though. I think I'll just order a few again and see how they go.

[olive dome]

Anker does have though

[vivid turret]

Trigger cable?

[olive dome]

Anker Type-C to DC Power Cord

Ah it looks like they faced some quality issue with that

It is not available now

[violet parcel]

bah I dont like when BingGPT ruins my pc game modding plans in which I can only put one economic good per province and tells me that a place is known for 2 main stuff and I have to pick between the two 😦

[olive dome]

Or try innergie https://myinnergie.com/us/product/c-t-usbc-to-laptop-tip-cable/

[violet parcel]

Like for Milan it's banking and cars but it's kinda the main city in Italy for both 😦 and genoa doesnt do banking anymore today (and it's too small to compensate for Milan anyway)

[olive dome]

They originated from Delta, which if you know power supply you know who that is.

[violet parcel]

It told me that Catania: HQ STMicroelectronics . Agrate Brianza: headquarters of Micron Technology Italy. 3. headquarters of Texas Instruments Italia have the main electronics factory in Italy ? I consider electronics to be what we consider electronics in this discord: ie: electronic components, MCUs, semiconductors, fabs, ICs, transistors, mosfets. Not sure it was trained on the difference between having a corporate headquarter and actually making electronics

But another source seems to tell me that these places actually build fabs so Im not sure...

[late fulcrum]

I include vacuum tubes in "electronics" but stuff like relays and stepper switches I consider "electrical".

[violet parcel]

Im just a bit surprised that any production happens in Europe anymore and isn't just a oligopoly between singapore, indonesia, china,(hong kong and taiwain) japan and south korea

but eh what do I know the european union has a document showing a map where south germany, south-east austria, north italy and some small factories in estonia and latvia, france along the italian and german borders are where fabs are made

My understanding is that a fab factory makes most of the things that something like digikey sells and that adafruit/sparkfun/etc assemble to sell to us

[glad ruin]

🇺🇸 also makes quite a few chips still.

Mostly on the west coast.

[violet parcel]

I found this API generated map earlier today. Love the big blob on the US east coast because of Adafruit in New york 🤣

[glad ruin]

Map of PCB fabs?

[violet parcel]

Kinda surprised about indonesia and what seems to be the area around manchester and yorkshire/lincolnshire around the UK in there

location-of-the-semiconductor-manufacturing-facilities-around-the-world-1-575x329.png so it says semiconductors

[glad ruin]

Adafruit wouldn't be on that map then. It might be Analog Devices though. Based in Massachusetts.

[tardy badger]

There’s a handful of semiconductor fabs in New England

[olive dome]

GF has a Fab in New york isn't it? I've visit ........ NOAA on the other side of the road before.

[violet parcel]

eh I was kinda joking saying that. Like adafruit so big they made the map 🤣 but I know assembly into PCBs != making semiconductors

[olive dome]

I think it is also a research fab with IBM

[violet parcel]

I think montreal showing there as well

ie: IBM manufacturing plant

[tardy badger]

Texas Instruments has a Maine fab

Also Diode Inc

Micron has a memory fab in Virginia

[glad ruin]

Makes sense.

Texas is probably mostly TI and Intel.

[tardy badger]

Samsung too

[glad ruin]

Micron does a lot in Arizona.

[olive dome]

I wonder which one is still in Silicon Valley

[tardy badger]

Intel does a lot in Hillsboro Oregon and Phoenix Arizona

[glad ruin]

I know. I used to work there.

I still do work in Beaverton actually, for Analog Devices.

[tardy badger]

Renasas

Roseville, CA

[olive dome]

dammm, I wonder how much it cost

[glad ruin]

Silicon valley seems to be more corporate headquarters than actual production now.

[olive dome]

wait Roseville doesn't count

[violet parcel]

Those circles lacks a bit of accuracy obviously. But I guess now I know some electronic components might have legit CE markings 🤣

[tardy badger]

Apple surprisingly has a fab in San Jose

Their X3 fab

Tower Semi in New Port Beach California

[glad ruin]

AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel (though they hate to admit it), and Apple's most advanced chips all come from TSMC.

[violet parcel]

in my mod california is mostly oil anyway(ie: around los angeles) and new york state is mostly gems/banking based on UN trade but I guess I'll try to fit some electronics in there

[olive dome]

Interesting.... But I don't think they are doing cutting edge process R&D

[glad ruin]

Probably not.

[olive dome]

Yeah might just ask TSMC to do a super-super-hot-run-lot for them

[violet parcel]

apparently montreal is big on photonics and mems too. Kinda surprising to have electronics manufactured in Canada

[olive dome]

I mean even Russia has one

[tranquil swallow]

That’s where all the infrastructure in Canada is built because they bought the government

[glad ruin]

MEMS is not a 'typical' process.

[tranquil swallow]

Any time they need to make a product in Canada the Canadian government contracts a failing company in Quebec

[olive dome]

It's not like Semiconductor manufacture has only take off in this decade but it has been activity developing for >50 years

[glad ruin]

... is this why it's more expensive to ship something across the massive land border between 🇺🇸 and 🇨🇦 than it is to ship across either ocean?

[violet parcel]

seems they gave up on MIL Davie shipyards though 😄

thats where they used to send ship contracts when they didnt really want them to finish because of endless cash flow problems in the 20th century

[violet parcel]

sure but it seems every textiles operations was sent to asia all across the world. Even classic fashion majors did. So I thought it was the same for electronics

ie: I thought they did the same things as the suits. Designed in the US/Europe but sent to be made in Asia

[tranquil swallow]

Now seems like a good time to get into hardware with the changing political landscape

[violet parcel]

ie: Like I though all STM did was to draw something in Eagle in Italy and send it by email to a factory in shenzen

[olive dome]

The key here is that once you paid off the machinery cost, you are basically profiting by operating it longer

But they are not putting resource in advance process R&D so newer product needs to be outsourced

[violet parcel]

sure but it was still a better business choice apparently for armani, lvmh, hugo, gucci etc to send all their stuff to be made in asia

[olive dome]

And old semi process is still needed

The difference is the cost to produce comes from machinary or labor cost

Like how 8" wafer is still on full scale manufacturing even if the replacement part for those machine is hard to get

Once you have a fab running, the cost to move it somewhere else doesn't make any sense, and it is better to just pump out wafer in place

Semiconductor process is way more complex then those commodity

[violet parcel]

but isnt that just for semiconductors ? I cant imagine you need a billion $ factory to make primitive stuff like DIP chips couldnt just make one in your garage ?

Like I cant imagine it's very hard to make a DIP-4 chip with 4 AND logic gates on it that was first made in the 1970s

but I can understand that a modern one with like 512 gates on it in an SMD package might because of the much smaller die size to make 512 instead of 4 in an SMD package around the same size as the DIP-4

[olive dome]

Surprisingly DIP package doesn't mean primitive

It is just how chip is packaged, you can pick the one that fit

Now the thing like I said before is that your billion $ factory has already paid off, so your cost of manufacture is pretty low

[late fulcrum]

That's because most shipping occurs in international waters where there's no labor protection. Read the book "90% of everything" for the details.

[violet parcel]

ah it is just that I very frequently see the least performance/least expensive chips always in DIP packages. Like if there is a 8 bit multiplexer, 1 channel it will be a DIP. Where as the 32 bits, 16 channels ones with a speed of hundreds of Mhz are always SMD. This happens generally no matter what types of IC I look at

So It gives off the vibes that DIP are really primitive / always the least powerful ICs/sensors for a specific type of components

[glad ruin]

Ah, slave labor. I should have guessed.

[late fulcrum]

SMD has two main advantages there: one is it's practical to have a lot more pins. The other is the same advantage miniature tubes have over octals: shorter leads.

[glad ruin]

It's also far easier to do automated production with SMD

[olive dome]

And you can pack larger chips

[violet parcel]

There is also the international treaty that artificially floor the postage depending on the country with no regards to labor conditions and it changes very slowly

the US/Canada are considered top-end countries so they are obligated by this treaty to charge the premium price for international shipping no matter how true hat is in 2023 because it was last revised around the 1970s

Where as most countries along with China are in the developping states category and charge the minimum price

[glad ruin]

Yeah that's the other big factor. DIPs are extremely inefficient in terms of space usage. The dies are typically square (or mostly square) and positioned in the center.

[violet parcel]

That is why it costs 1500$ to returns my pc case to Taiwan from Canada. But it costs 10$ to have it shipped from Shenzen. So it's less expensive to take an emirates business class flight and drops it myself in Taiwain 😢 🤣

[glad ruin]

... there must be something specific that makes shipping anything to/from Canada extortionate though. It's still cheaper to ship from 🇺🇸 to 🇪🇺 than it is to 🇨🇦.

[violet parcel]

yeah there is but it would be against adafruit discord rules to explain it 🤣

[late fulcrum]

Weirdly, the US DigiKey site explains how to get free shipping to the US and Canada, but the Canadian DigiKey site doesn't.

[glad ruin]

Too political? I feel that if that was the case we crossed that line and 20 messages ago.

[violet parcel]

It does says it somewhere. I often see free shipping over order 100$ while browsing the website

[violet parcel]

I am just researching where fabs are made. Which are facts not opinions vs my current knowledge. Not sure what is political about that ?

[late fulcrum]

The free shipping over $100 isn't available in the US, which is unfortunate for me.

[glad ruin]

Yeah $5 isn't too bad if you make $50 orders though.

[late fulcrum]

That's what I end up doing, batching my orders and waiting for a $7 UPS shipping deal (they offer FedEx too, but I'm unenthusiastic about FedEx)

[violet parcel]

https://www.digikey.ca/en/help-support/delivery-information/delivery-time-and-cost for Canada. But it wont let me check on .com keeps redirecting me to .ca 😦

[glad ruin]

And I can usually come up with at least $50 worth of crap to order.

[violet parcel]

for me it's more to avoid cross-border surprises though

[tranquil swallow]

Thanks, got any other good books?

[tardy badger]

I feel like a Higgs Boson particle. Popping in and out of discord, providing substance to the conversation. Lol..

[crystal ore]

I'm more like a cosmic ray. Randomly showing up to flip a bit and cause an unexpected, impossible software crash.

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/bsod-gif-26376970

[violet parcel]

I more like a comet, shows up once in a while lot of activity then Im out of range for a couple of months

The #1 reason I cant finish projects is waiting after components/budget issues something that only resolve after a few months

Need to find something something to keep busy regardless

But I dont really have a electronics components bank/vault

[rapid geode]

I can't find the any key

it it just me, or should strawberries be bigger? :x

[thick wind]

They certainly don’t have to be. I’ve picked tiny strawberries before…

[rapid geode]

those were the large ones

ha

so teeny

[blissful roost]

Smol

[rapid geode]

probably need like 800 berries to make a pound

[violet parcel]

looks like milistrawberries kinda like the miliamps we uses 🤣

[rapid geode]

muberries

they tasted nice

[violet parcel]

if they ever make a nano pi 5 I guess they will be called strawberry pi based on the image above

[rapid geode]

need a raspberry pi 9 which is basically a 40 core xeon form 8 years ago miniaturised

😛

[violet parcel]

Dont hold your breath. It will probably takes like 300 years to ship

Like you will need to put it in your will to change the shipping address so someone gets it in the line of descendants

[half plank]

What is the best board to use to run computer vision, facial recognition, hand gesture control, and train it to recognize pre programmed images. At the minimum i need it to recognize hand gestures and pre programmed images. The catch is that I need this to be fairly small at max 3 Arduino nanos put together in size.

[glad ruin]

As much as it pains me to say it (I hate Nvidia), with those requirements you'd probably be best off with a Jetson Nano.

It's the size of an RPi.

[violet parcel]

dont peoples do this all the time with a pi and openmv or opencv whatever it is called ? Can even use a usb camera and feeds it a screenshot of it

I was very interested in getting a drone with a camera that let you program it but not mod the electronics and I saw peoples using opencv/mv with it to control it or have it fly autonomously

[glad ruin]

Ethan specifically asked what the best board for it is. That is not the Pi.

[violet parcel]

You are right I missed "best" in the question

[glad ruin]

The Pi can do a lot of things, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it the "best" at anything.

[tranquil swallow]

I run opencv on my pc and stream wifi video from my sbc

If I really need compute on the device I’d get the nvidia jetson

[half plank]

Thanks for the feedback but what about size

And cost

[glad ruin]

Size of a Pi, about $100.

[half plank]

Would a RPiZero run. It is cost efficient which I need because this goes in a product, and is rpi

[glad ruin]

Doubtful. A Pi 4 compute module might.

[half plank]

I will rethink the idea, but is it possible that I can use LiDAR for facial recognition

On arduino

[glad ruin]

Nope. Nowhere near the processing power required for that kind of analysis.

[half plank]

Ok, when will Arduino innovate and dip their toes into the image processing world!?!?!?!?

What about Arduino MKRR

[glad ruin]

It's not a matter of innovation, it's a matter of market segment. Arduino does microcontroller boards, which generally speaking are not designed to be powerful enough to do real time image or video processing.

Microcontrollers are very good at I/O and can respond to incoming events with precise timing. Something like the Jetson Nano (or the Tegra SoM it is built around) is designed specifically for machine vision and embedded machine learning applications. Its processor is powerful enough to run a full-fledged operating system, which is used mostly to configure the GPU to do the heavy lifting.

[half plank]

A little off topic, but I found something that suit my needs without using LiDAR, or any kind of machine vision. Is an Arduino able to process a time of flight sensor, and how many can it operate at max

[glad ruin]

Yes, but you'd still need a lot of data to reconstruct a face, and even then doing the actual recognition will likely require machine learning, which is well beyond the capabilities of an Arduino.

You might be able to purchase a prebuilt module (Intel used to make them, I think a few other companies still do) that is capable of doing the heavy lifting. But these are some pretty heavy calculations we are talking about, and the algorithms involved are not simple.

[half plank]

I am mainly looking for hand gestures so if I could connect at least 8 should do the job. Would I be able to use on or two Arduino nanos in parallel to give double the power.

[glad ruin]

I don't think you're perceiving the difference in computing power we're talking about here. Computationally a GPU, any GPU, can easily outperform an array of 1000 Arduino Nanos.

[half plank]

Ok thank you for helping me. I will dive more into that. I appreciate your time helping me and I will hopefully get this working!!!

Do you know of a program like processing that can map a time of flight sensor from an arduino

What I mean by map is like radar kind of map not machine learning map

[glad ruin]

numpy+matplotlib should be able to

[half plank]

Is that online because I have heard of numpy on raspi

Can I plot from serial port

[glad ruin]

Numpy is just a mathematical library for Python. It won't automatically plot data from a serial port, but with pyserial you can easily get data from a serial port and plot it using matplotlib (which is closely related but separate from numpy).

[dusty citrus]

They're out of production

At least for the smaller cheaper one, raspberry alternative

[steady cedar]

Or you can get a knock off raspberry pi like the banana pi or orange pi

Or one from libre computers

[dusty citrus]

They sorta all use the same chips like rockchips and allwinners
The jetson line up would be really great if they hadn't killed the 2gb nano version
Now the cheapest option is 150~200$

[steady cedar]

Yes sadly

But then again raspberry pi's are supposedly finally being able to restock

I might be wrong though

[dusty citrus]

Anyhow it is possible to do image recognition with stuff like arduinos, although it's more challenging
There's stuff like tinyml, which should make it easier, although I never used it

[steady cedar]

Not to the point of you can just go buy a pi but it's supposedly better then before

[steady cedar]

Just run the arduinos in a cluster 🤭

But seriously maybe get a knock off raspberry pi if you need image recognition but you don't have enough money or just be a baller and go for a jetson or there's option #3 which is to slap a usb to gpio on a old laptop or sff pc (this one I have little to no clue if it'll work

Also there is the option of having it send it wireless to your pc and you can just have your pc do the heavy lifting

And your Arduino or whatever you are using just send and receive

Probably won't be fast but it might work

[raw jasper]

Speaking of, what do y'all think of hardware like the https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/maix/m1s/m1s_dock.html ? It's supposed to have an ANN accelerator on-chip

Has anyone used it?

[vagrant wolf]

Hi folks, I have some space on the middle of my esp32 s3 board, what do you think I should add? I was thinking of temp sensor and gyro etc

[amber violet]

Hello everyone I would like to know what are the topics discussed here please? I'm new to the channel

[raw jasper]

Welcome! This is the general chat channel. So, anything that doesn't violate the server rules but doesn't fit into the rest of the channels

[amber violet]

Ok

[static flare]

Went to ComiCon today

[raw jasper]

I've never been to one

How was it?

[static flare]

i had fun

[sick apex]

what are those diodes that pick up light

i forgot the name of them

[crystal ore]

Photodiodes?

[sick apex]

i think that's it

thanks

[sick apex]

this thing

[patent hemlock]

photo detector

[sick apex]

aight

[crystal ore]

Yeah, that looks like a CdS photocell (which works as a resistor) rather than a photodiode.

[sick apex]

do you think i'd be able to measure some data from it

because i want to be able to shine a lazer at it

and if the beam is broken then do sumn in code

like measure the resistance

[crystal ore]

Sure, that should work. You can read the value with an ADC analog pin if you hook up the photodetector in a resistor divider.

[sick apex]

idrk what im looking at, which ones are suitable for it

if any

[crystal ore]

This should get you going: https://learn.adafruit.com/photocells

[sick apex]

oh nice

thank you

[glad ruin]

Aren't those illegal in Europe or something?

[raw jasper]

Looks like it, due to cadmium-based anything not being RoHS-compliant

[burnt tendon]

So if you use them in Europe, you'll feel like a total cad.

[vagrant wolf]

Hi folks, I have some space on the middle of my esp32 s3 board, what do you think I should add? I was thinking of temp sensor and gyro etc. Thanks

[tardy badger]

There isn’t a big need to post the picture twice, you can reply to your previous message with something like “Thoughts on this?” It just helps keep things from feeling spammy is all. As for your question, if you have space for both, i would do both.

I would keep in mind the size of the components it looks like you have on your board. 0201 can be difficult to place and if you are using an assembly service like JLC, it would be good to make sure they support those sized components. Placing by hand is doable but if you’ve not placed that small before, it might be worth going up a size to make it more manageable.

Overall it looks pretty clean, a very nice aesthetic

I’m also curious if that is a 2 layer or 4 layer board?

[vagrant wolf]

Ahh, so sorry about that. Will keep that in mind.

[vagrant wolf]

4 Layer board, will have a PSRAM footprint on the other side for expandibility

Thanks

[spice moss]

for personal fusion 360 that is limited for 2layer board

[glad ruin]

[raw jasper]

I'm guessing as eagle is phased out it's bound to become more popular

[tardy badger]

I’m planning on using KiCAD more going forward

[spice moss]

autodesk is thee tokens

[raw jasper]

Any blockers, beyond force-of-habit?

(I have no idea about anything PCB design, other than, there's a schematic and you then have to do the placement and routing)

[tardy badger]

Honestly.. it’s the process for adding libraries and parts.

I haven’t been in a big PCB design mood lately so that’s also a hindrance

[raw jasper]

That's the biggest hindrance always with projects like that :)

[tardy badger]

Office work has largely been a soul suck for me

Though I’ve been trying to do smaller designs

Or reworking boards that should work that don’t

[raw jasper]

I guess you could try working on your mcu design until you get back in the mood?

[tardy badger]

I started on a one wire protocol last weekend that I’ve been slowly improving

It’s kind of a bus protocol

[raw jasper]

That's cool!

[tardy badger]

https://github.com/skerr92/TsyncOneWire

[raw jasper]

*Reads "partially asynchronous"
*Welp, the STA on that is going to be a headache

[tardy badger]

It’s a little incomplete and not usable at the moment

I’ve got to figure out setting up and determining timing for each transaction

[raw jasper]

(Unless you sample on your own clock to avoid the...... multiple domain weirdness, much like an UART)

[tardy badger]

I’m thinking what I’m going to do is determine timing as being start but high length divided by 4

[raw jasper]

You may want to look into https://wavedrom.com/ for documenting it

[tardy badger]

So if I send the start chunk and it keeps the line high for 4ms, the clocking is then 4ms/4 or 1ms

I’m going to add a section to my website https://oakdev.tech

[raw jasper]

(Or you could go nuclear and write SVA formal properties for proving a new design based on it, but, alas, tabby CAD --the "cheapest" tool supporting formal I can think of-- costs $500/month?)

[tardy badger]

Lol

I plan on writing a Verilog implementation of the protocol too

[raw jasper]

On the brighter side, xilinx's xsim supports SVA for functional assertion-based verification

And it's free(*)

[tardy badger]

Yeah, true

[raw jasper]

If you do something in verilog, tt04 will have a multiplexer that could theoretically reach 50MHz

[tardy badger]

Yeah, and it should technically be small enough to work on TT04

[raw jasper]

I think you'll be able to buy multiple "slices" on the MCU. At least, that's what I remember from last time I checked on the project

(In case you want to also connect a core to it or something)

[olive dome]

Just put up my new allsky camera on the roof!

[vivid turret]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIPl71ZeOYk

Apple might become more viable for gaming if this tool becomes more widely adopted.

I still think PC is going to be the gaming platform for a while though.
They've tried to do similar things with Linux but it's still annoyingly unreliable at times.

[dusty citrus]

Wasting over a month to pick a board
I finally picked a board
-> comes out an upgrade model with double of the onboard memory at the same price (but shipping from china, so a decade later)
Sus

Vim1s and I got the vim1

[vivid turret]

What are you trying to do?

Last I checked, Khadas are pretty expensive

[dusty citrus]

Can't tell, I just needed a generic platform
I'd liked more one jetson nano 2gb with onboard nvidia gpu, but they are out of production sus
So I end up getting a vim1 for 60€

[raw jasper]

Gotta get one of them new super expensive nvidia servers :P

Whatcha wanna do, edge ai?

[vivid turret]

Does it need to be SBC? Are you running off battery or doing something mobile?
Does having a GPU help?

[blissful roost]

Apple... Gaming??

Who comes up with these jokes, honestly... ?

[glad ruin]

Things could have been very different...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Pippin?wprov=sfla1

Also Apple is likely the largest player in the mobile game market.

[blissful roost]

Yeah... Android only holds the massive majority there. Lol

[glad ruin]

Well at one point Apple did hold it. And as far as individual companies are concerned Apple may still be on top due to the way microtransactions work.

[blissful roost]

Ahh, yes.. that garbage.

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, I mean, I've not really been interested in playing video games, then the whole giant social mess happened and I was like ew, and then nowadays I look at the microtransactions and it's just... no.

[dusty citrus]

Just a generic platform
Likely they can do the same stuff more or less
But a 128 core gpu with nvidia libs was more attracting than a mali crap gpu

[glad ruin]

Keep in mind that the notion of a "core" depends heavily on the GPU architecture, and that a "GPU core" is nothing like a CPU core. Really a better description would be a pipeline.

(My point here is that comparing a "core count" across different vendors is meaningless, because they all define the term differently.)

[olive dome]

Quite some health info for this micro SD card

[dusty citrus]

I wasn't aware of that thanks

[raw jasper]

BTW, since you mentioned it, do you happen to know of any good in-depth books/resources on (preferably old enough not to be encumbered by patents) GPU microarchitecture?

[olive dome]

I'll go with this first
https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/04/01/amds-hd-6950-vs-rx-6900-xt-what-does-adding-50-do/

Hot Chips conference also if you want the latest info
https://hotchips.org/

[glad ruin]

That's a bit tricky, because anything recent enough to actually be relevant will still be patented. NVIDIA in particular is very tight-lipped about the internals of their GPUs and how to interface with them beyond their APIs. The closest thing we have to a detailed description of a modern GPU architecture that is publicly available is likely AMD's RDNA3 ISA document.
https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/rdna3-shader-instruction-set-architecture-feb-2023_0.pdf

[glad ruin]

chipsandcheese is pretty thorough

[raw jasper]

I don't care about it being modern

[glad ruin]

Yeah I'm really not sure. Discrete GPUs didn't really start to show up until the late '90s, and it took even longer for 3d rendering to become a major bottleneck for the CPU.

[raw jasper]

thanks!

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, also the earlier stuff was all a fixed-function pipeline so it doesn't really map to the modern day.

[glad ruin]

It took most of today and yesterday, but my home lab is finally (almost) clean.

[patent hemlock]

deep envy - this is what i got to work with

i'm actually quite pleased with being able to set up something in zero space /me pats self on back

[obtuse flare]

Hey all, just wanted to pop in and introduce myself. I'm new to IoT, just completed a 10 week deep dive coding camp for it with Dr. Brian Rashap at the Fuse Makerspace in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was incredible! I'm currently building a solar powered park bench to showcase to the city of Albuquerque as part of an effort to get our city on the map as being technologically advanced. They paid me to go to the coding camp and build something combining my art (I'm a visual artist) with what I learned in the camp, I'm hard at work on the bench these days, show day is June 30th. I may pop into the help channels here if I run into snags.

Here's a peek at what I did in the bootcamp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOC_jv2n0Ek

[patent hemlock]

very nice, although it would have been neat to see it actually being rolled, but i can see where the issues would be in that - and very glad to see the requisite rubbery ducky

[sharp nexus]

• Bluetooth button programming

DAC programming

POT programming

as easy as that, I need help with these 3 things

I use seeed xiao nrf52840

[tardy badger]

I encountered the strangest thing I’ve seen gardening.. I found green aphids on the underground portion radishes I pulled from the garden.

There are root aphids, but they are not green.. which makes this all the more confusing

[patent hemlock]

those are too broad a subject to tackle generically - there's plenty of guides and things under https://learn.adafruit.com/ so i'd start there

[obtuse flare]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4opcNLIQqt4 Thought you guys may enjoy this, it made me laugh so hard!

[wanton thistle]

ahhh so I see that some of reddit has already gone private due to the API changes

[blissful roost]

Yeah, there's a lot of fuss about that.

Personally, I can't find a single .... to give.
It's reddit... Meh.

[wanton thistle]

I use it a lot not just for knowledge but for local stuff too, and to find support for certain things as well.

I do have my gripes though.

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada - Ruxpin Rock-out & Prop-Maker Prepping https://youtu.be/BT_v7_WDcYM

[sick apex]

im so stupid

😭

i've been wondering why my GP0 and GP1 wont work

turns out

i wasn't plugging into GP0 and GP1 i was plugging into VBUS and VSYS

[late fulcrum]

We all make mistakes (I sure have). However, you figured it out, indicating that you're the opposite of stupid.

[rain cradle]

Plus this kind of fails make you remember them, so you will spot them inmediately next time (probably)

[late fulcrum]

That's one of my favourite quotes: “Experience is that wonderful thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.”

[rain cradle]

I went crazy couple of days ago after a little change to my code. I was re-initing my eink driver by mistake (wont let you draw until 3 minutes have passed, to prevent damaging it), and i was doing so every 30 seconds 🤣🤣

[late fulcrum]

A few people here have commented on my ability to diagnose problems remotely. That ability comes directly from making a lot of mistakes...

[rain cradle]

I simply changed from "clear" function (which just re-inits under the hood), to drawing a big rectangle 😬

[lunar trench]

if i cut off 1/4th of a micro sd card (at the end, not on the side of the pin connector) would some files be corrupted or just completely not work?

oh the processor would get cut off

[sick apex]

i only figured it out because i burned myself on an LED

that got hot

also where can i post a link to a project i've finished

i think its cool and im sure someone would want to poke and prod at it

its opensource

[violet parcel]

got burned on a an electronics sized led ?!

[static flare]

I've been burned on a resistor

[rain cradle]

#show-and-tell

[sick apex]

thank you

[violet parcel]

I wonder if this can be obtained throught "social engineering" Hi I would like to know 1) why my whirlpool @whirlpool_range_model range has a wiring diagram in a pocket behind it but my maytag @washing_machine_model washing machine doesn't seem to have and neither does my maytag @dryer_model dryer. Is it a case of just not havin found it yet is it inside them ?
2) why these wiring diagrams are not on maytag site like what happens if I lose the paper version in the back of the appliance ?! I tried the chat bot but it just give me a link to manuals for my models but without the type of manuals Im looking for
Answer:
Good morning, MulhorandEmperor! Thank you for reaching out. We apologize for this frustration! The wiring diagrams are typically supplied to technicians in the event a repair needs to be made. We do not have access to appliance wiring diagrams on our end. Do your appliances need service? Please let us know how we can help. -Someone@Maytag 😦

[patent hemlock]

i think you have to be a registered maytag tech 🙄

[patent hemlock]

i got burned on a stepper motor that i left engaged for > 6 hours without doing anything

[late fulcrum]

Yes, it can totally be obtained elsewhere. I would try the direct approach myself and say I would like to be able to service my own appliances, and request the documentation. If asked, I will point out that I've been servicing appliances for years and am familiar with their operation and appropriate safety procedures. If that fails, I try sites like manualslib and the like. If that fails, I ask them for the procedure to become a registered technician. If THAT fails (I'm looking at you, Canon), I write screeds about them on social media.

[patent hemlock]

https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=maytag

[sick apex]

ahhhhhhh

[late fulcrum]

Realistically, most of these appliances are pretty simple, and there's a lot of white labelling going on, so sites like repairclinic can look up equivalents for you, and you can figure things out yourself, even without a wiring diagram. In my experience, the main things that need repair are badly soldered relay contacts on control boards, worn belts, and motor start units.

[unkempt hearth]

I am not sure where else to discuss this, but I saw the Adafruit blogpost about Mojo programming language and as a minor data scientist (mostly EDA/ETL for mech engineering purposes), I can say that the lack of dict and list comprehensions seems like a significant downside of the language. At least for my workplace, the use of pandas/matplotlib/SQLalchemy/scikit-learn and supporting libraries is a major reason for python's relevance, but presumably if Mojo delivers on its bold performance and can literally "superset" Python, maybe adoption will happen. As the author of the post mentions though, Python is easy and convenient for data scientists who don't necessarily want to spend time coding and has huge community support, despite having more memory/performance overhead. I guess kind of like Circuitpython. So it will be tough to displace.

[late fulcrum]

Like this fridge I repaired a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even look for a wiring diagram, a visual inspection showed this badly soldered relay contact had burned. Since the pad was on the other side of the board under the relay, I ended up running a bodge wire to it for the repair.

[violet parcel]

serious sites seems to require payements before I even know if they actually have the manuals for mine. Id like to hook up to them to see the state on my pi for instance but there's no wiring diagram or anything so I dont even know the internal voltage so I cant evaluate the project at all. Also electricity tends to be more simple so it should be relatively easy to know if a motor has started/water valve hjas turned on by checking the voltage on the control wire

[violet parcel]

yeah but I cant find any information on how this is actually done

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, a lot of sites are like that (I'm looking at you, scribd), but manualslib is pretty reasonable, which is why I mentioned them.

[late fulcrum]

Like I said, contact Maytag and ask them straight out.

[violet parcel]

The above was my conversation about it. So far they claim they dont even have these manuals despite one being in a pocket behind my stove...

[late fulcrum]

I suspect the answer is either a) take a 2-week course at their facility (yuck), or b) sign a piece of paper stating that you will only use Maytag approved replacement parts.

[violet parcel]

from their answer it seems like a chinese competitor put it there

[patent hemlock]

as an application programmer, i hate the dynacism that Python allows because your programs are non-deterministic - you can generate side effects in code that has nothing to do with the execution flow

[late fulcrum]

That is, of course, what happened in the case of the Canon debacle (the piece of equipment in question was actually built by Delta in China)

[violet parcel]

I mean guys... you are maytag... I have a maytag appliance with a wiring diagram behind it.., surely it was put there by maytag and not by a sneaky random person or canada customs....

[late fulcrum]

There's a difference between a handy service schematic tucked into equipment (this is common), and an actual full-blown service manual. It could be they don't have archives of the schematic sheets (which is dumb, but it happens all the time).

[violet parcel]

my issue with the stove one is that it doesnt list any voltage

[late fulcrum]

I actually got Sony to sell me the full service documentation on a fancy piece of equipment, but it wasn't cheap.

[violet parcel]

so I dont know if it has 3.3/5V TTL and the typical huge cables with custom connectors at 240V I dont plan to mess with

or if even the control board is 240V too

[late fulcrum]

No, they generally don't list voltages, you have to learn to read the schematic and figure out what's going where to work out the expected voltages. Normally there are only a few (logic, relay control, and mains)

[violet parcel]

If it's the former Id be willing to hook to the output wire to know if something is on or not (surely there is something like an inverse relay for stuff like this anyway)

[late fulcrum]

Most of them run mains straight to the control board, and I've seen a lot of them that have 240V traces right alongside 3.3V logic chips.

Where there are things like inverse relays (generally optocouplers in practice) for logic to monitor the presence of mains voltage, the manufacturers don't normally bother with that kind of feedback.

[glad ruin]

I hope they at least separate them far enough to handle any creepage.

Although running logic voltages and mains on the same board is a no-no in my book.

[late fulcrum]

That would be nice, but I've seen boards that just use conformal coating and a prayer instead of following creepage guidelines.

[violet parcel]

no I mean inverse relay for me. Like connect 120/240V to relay to activate a 5V circuit

instead of the normal one that uses 5V to activate a 120V/240V circuit

[late fulcrum]

Oh, I don't consider it a good idea, but these things tend to be heavily cost optimized, and even designed where the logic board is considered a profit center. Most of these outfits are happy to sell you a new $120 logic board (that costs them $8) every 3 years. They'll include undersized resistors, bad solder joints, and other intentional things to keep you buying new applicances or parts. I just resolder the relays, replace the resistors with appropriately rated ones, etc. and keep going. I keep my appliances for decades and I've never bought a logic board for one.

While there are relays with 120VAC and 240VAC coils available, I prefer optocouplers for activating logic circuits with mains signals. There are even logic-output optocouplers available to make it easy.

[violet parcel]

Very rough drawing and not the schematic for my dryer but basically connecting to the control wire that comes out of the MCU inside the dryer seems to be the best way to know something is happened

same for water valve and motors in a washing machine etc

[late fulcrum]

I did that a while back when I wanted to monitor the operation of my water heater's heating elements with an Arduino. Worked fine.

[violet parcel]

instead of placing photo sensor in front of each leds on top of it probably most sensors wont work because of the EMF on washing machines, possible induced currents from rotating electromagnetic field etc

[unkempt hearth]

I think I used to have some edge cases where list/dict comprehension insertions seemed non-deterministic, but this was changed in python 3.7(?) and I haven't had issues since.

at least not while using Jupyter notebook

[spice abyss]

Hi chat, can I ask you a stupid question about tech? I’m a bit new to it and any help would be appreciated

[patent hemlock]

not something i wish to debate - unless you've got a bar tab and several hours 😏

[patent hemlock]

no such thing as stupid question - questions are always welcomed!

[unkempt hearth]

I assume that application programming is vastly different from my usage as a data scientist so not surprised there would be differences in how well the language works

[spice abyss]

So I’m following this schematic right, and it says to wire all the LEDs together, but in the videos he uses solder instead of wire, is that viable?

[patent hemlock]

quick and dirty vs "this must NEVER break or fail"

[patent hemlock]

"wire LEDs together" is based on what you have at hand - soldering is generally regarded as the most reliable and secure means of attaching things, but bread-boards are also used a lot, especially when beginning and/or prototyping

you can just twist things together, with our without wires in between, but it's not reliable and nay give false errors

[crisp lantern]

[spice abyss]

So should I provide examples of what I’m seeing? Because I might’ve explained it wrong

[patent hemlock]

it was kind of a general question

[crisp lantern]

You can use solder or wire

As long as there's a good connection, same difference as far as testing goes. Depends on what you need it to do etc.

Solder some wires even 😎

Best of both worlds

[spice abyss]

So here’s what I’m supposed to do, wire them together in the schematic, but this is what they do, so is it possible to use solder as wire?

[unkempt hearth]

nothing quick and dirty in data science (though tensorflow and some other ML models is basically non-deterministic). The data coming in has to be good, the results coming out have to be good, and the scripts have to be robust for processing hundreds of data acquisition channels. Just that much of it is math that can be verified with tests and made simple through good libraries like pandas.

[violet parcel]

wiht soldering you can also take dead paperclips or 18AWG and remove the sleeve and make perfboard for semi-permanent modular "breakouts" of your own

and you use the sleeved wires to put them above each other so the end design is more compact

[spice abyss]

Ok thank you, that’s what I was asking, I apologize, I’m not too good with tech

[crisp lantern]

It's all good we all start somewhere. I started in this discord a few years ago

The wires in the schematic are just showing where the connections are. They used just solder in the pic on the right, but they could have soldered wire onto the contacts if they wanted the components to be spaced further apart, which I assume they don't, since this looks like one of those LED displays

[patent hemlock]

one thing to keep in mind - solder is "wire" or conversely, anything that conducts electricity is "wire", including the human body (very bad electrical conductor - too much resistance and very squishy)

[late fulcrum]

Elastomers have their uses, but the human body isn't a good elastomer substitute

[violet parcel]

so I found the maytag authorized repair peoples portal . Apparently my dryer/washing machine came with a wiring diagram but I suspect the authorized reseller took them when they installed it

because they aint in my technical manuals folder

[late fulcrum]

Well, that's rude. Happily, washers and dryers are pretty simple from an electrical standpoint.

[violet parcel]

I thought they had hidden it inside or something but the parts diagram have a book icon for it and doesnt show it in the panel

yep they are but I still need to figure out the voltage / if Im comfortable with it

like if there is a control board going to a relay to turn on the motor / water valve / belt / etc Id be comfortable with that

hooking to 220V ? no, I dont even have the protective equipment / fluke for it

and re: control boards. I never fixed it but I have an issue with being charged a couple of hunderds just to change one when that is the problem when I can order one / operate the debug mode on the display so I know what's wrong

Im fine paying for changing a big part like a motor when the dryer has to be taken out etc but not so fine with paying to "connect the motherboard" / diagnose when the display will tell you

[late fulcrum]

The "right to repair" legislation, if it passes, will do much to address those problems. I support right to repair, and I hope many others do as well.

[violet parcel]

by the way I have an authorized repair center like 100 feet from me 🤣

[late fulcrum]

Ask them for a job?

[violet parcel]

I would if I didnt have such a good job

I guess i could try to find out if I cant question them for like 30 mins for a couple of money / asks about what Ive been asking here if they are bored and have no clients

[violet parcel]

for me honestly the most annoying is having to explain why each time and having to explain how I would do it as if Im leonardo da vinci and electicity is new and hooking a detector for a smart home to monitor my home is a cutting edge science.

Always feels like some kind of test each time but I dont know if the person can actually help

The service center is probably not legit also since you dont need a license to repair appliances in my province

Lol "non-contact". Looks pretty close to live wire to me. One wrong move and a bit of missing sleeve and zap!

[dusty citrus]

Just curious what are the left colours of the new adafruit logo?

[dusty citrus]

I bet that if it passes there will be some scapegoat/hidden tunnel

[patent hemlock]

i believe they are meant to portray inclusive of all folks (not "just gay" which is what the rainbow is generally associated with)

[storm dagger]

hey i just set up my platform.io and been working on a project i've created a file in which i put the mpu6050 code from a lib and now i want to work on a main code in which i want to take valuse from that mpu and other sensor and run some parameters but am not able to do it pls help me guys

[crystal ore]

It's the "Progress Pride Flag" design, I think, which adds some extra stripes for transgender, AIDS victims, and intersectional race/sexuality categories.

[patent hemlock]

The Progress Pride flag was developed in 2018 by non-binary American artist and designer Daniel Quasar (who uses xe/xyr pronouns). Based on the iconic rainbow flag from 1978, the redesign celebrates the diversity of the LGBTQ community and calls for a more inclusive society.

TIL

[median viper]

I think some of those flag stripes were banned off of Twitter for child abuse but I don't really know for sure guys. But if discord doesn't care than I am not gonna worry about it

[stuck moth]

We'll handle it

[patent hemlock]

my opinion - Twitter is no longer reliable for anything more than the rants and whims of a man-child who hasn't a clue

[sage rivet]

Oiii gay Adafruit :3

[median viper]

People are using their freedom of assembly over this stuff right now where I live right now (North Carolina) holding signs like, "Groom Dogs, not Children, etc." The numbers of the public protestors are not significant amounts.

my opinion - but the real problem is, is school attendance over these issues right now is declining where I live, and the Governor is trying to veto the state house of representatives which are pulling the kids en-masse in favor of academy schools instead of public K-12 over this issue.

They will have to to start laying off K-12 teachers from the significant amount of student withdrawal.

[dusty citrus]

Eh it's all ideological no sense, for both parties

Industries do profit off, following the wave, while in the us they claim to be ethical, in the other hand they use slave workforce

[topaz juniper]

Learning system seems to be down

Nevermind, it's back 🙂

[glad ruin]

I agree, but I think they are approaching it the wrong way. Before requiring publicly available documentation and replacement parts, there needs to be explicit legal protection for "hacking" any and all vendor lockout and DRM mechanisms for repair and personal use.

[stray wind]

It was for under a minute. Apparently the internet at large is being flaky today. Either way, our devs are on it.

[rapid geode]

someone clogged the tubes.

[stray wind]

It's happening again. Devs are looking into it.

[stray wind]

Most likely reason, yes.

[late fulcrum]

It is a non contact tester, it will light up and beep when it's near voltage. It's also non-conductive, so even if you touch a live wire with it, it won't conduct the electricity to you.

[violet parcel]

I mean like holding it like that my hand is so close to the wires that if one has a tiny hole in it I might accidently rub on it and gets electrocuted

Also im surprised they show it this close normally I use them like 2-3 inch away or stuck on a wall

[tranquil swallow]

Microwave ovens can be used to melt certain metals for casting, do you think it would be feasible to add temperature controls and use microwaves for heat treating metals?

[rapid geode]

i dont think so. they way you melt metal is by putting it in a ceramic closed container. There amy be a temp sensor that can live in a microwave to monitor the melt, but its not really a controlled process

[patent hemlock]

TIL!

[finite oriole]

Can I ask a question about an item in stock on the store?

[late fulcrum]

Yes. While most of the people here are volunteers, some of us are familiar with some of the products available.

[half plank]

Is there some git respository or somewhere in the shop where I could find a time of flight .brd that has the basic pins (SCL,SDA,VIN,GND)?

[coral solstice]

Hello

does anyone here have a Rpi CM4 Carrier Board? I'm looking to power it with a PSU and wondering if there is anything I should know?

[ebon dew]

@half plank Yes the .brd and .sch files are usually available in the learn guide for a specific product. The learn guide for a product is usually at the bottom of the product page (if one is available).

So it's usually product page> learn guide > downloads or at least that's how I usually get to them.

[modest knot]

do diodes count as analogue circuitry, or digital?

[tardy badger]

It’s going to depend on the context they are used, but more often they are used in digital circuitry.

But the fundamentals and the characteristics of diodes are not necessarily linear.

But they do block current is one direction so generally digital.

Cue the Electroboom full bridge rectifier GIF

https://tenor.com/view/electroboom-full-bridge-rectifier-full-bridge-gif-24661594

[late fulcrum]

Early diodes (Wollaston wires, galena/cat's whisker, Edison Effect, etc.) were generally used in radio receivers as detectors. Although Edison basically used one as a current limiting resistor just to get it mentioned in a patent.

[glad ruin]

Technically everything is analog. Digital is a design philosophy, an approach to problem solving that has proven to be very effective. Perhaps the more interesting question here is whether diodes are active or passive components. And as an electronics engineer I can't tell you conclusively, there are arguments that fit both narratives. What I can say is that diodes are nonlinear.

[fresh niche]

Analog or digital,all i remember about diodes is Id=Is(e^qVd/nkt -1)

I can see the diode formula in my nightmares at this point

[late fulcrum]

Heh, I learned it as J = K Vd3/2 / d2 but then again I learned on vacuum tube diodes

[glad ruin]

This is probably the best demonstration of digital audio reproduction I've ever seen. He is spot-on.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cD7YFUYLpDc

[naive ore]

I have an order from 6 Jun that was never picked up at your site. Order ID 3083129-6383913092.
Please update on status

[glad ruin]

Wrong place, you should really be emailing Adafruit about this type of thing.

[fair summit]

please email [e-mail]

[half plank]

Thank you

[dry wave]

I just got pinged by Discord to change my account and somebody has sniped my hierophect tag. I'm really kind of freaked out by it because my use of the tag is so consistent across my accounts, I'm worried whoever did it is going to try and distribute malware or something under my reputation

has anyone else had this happen?

[crystal ore]

I mean, you used to be Hierophect#2551, and there was nothing stopping someone from being Hierophect#2552 before. So I don't think the reputation-sniping risk is any higher now.

[rapid geode]

there was 2250 of them before you...

(ok thats not how the numbers work)

[dry wave]

I guess my worry was because I'm just hierophect on every other platform

but it is what it is, doing more research it seems like the rollout is going pretty poorly for a lot of people and there's just a brick wall of bots instead of support

maybe some kid picked it as their first username, I'd def take that over ransom or impersonation

[rapid geode]

i think you over estimate your fame on the internet 😛

[dry wave]

lol. a lot of people are getting ransomed, though

or with less extreme language, sniped and then asked to pay

[dry wave]

I had an old reddit account get taken over to plug crypto scams so I'm a bit paranoid

[rapid geode]

i thought that was the purpose of reddit?

[kindred isle]

I'd wager that your old reddit account was just a convenient target, not something more nefarious.

[dry wave]

well, same deal with this, you know. I wouldn't expect anything personal to me, just somebody grabbing known dev tags to use for bad stuff

but it is probably harder to run that kinda scam on discord so eh

[burnt tendon]

The other wireheads and myself have long been battling over it.

[thick wind]

Glad I got mine pretty easily. Seems like people are trying to add me to their friends list because they want MY name lmao

[late fulcrum]

I normally try for “bodger” but that's usually taken, so my second choice is “madbodger”. Now it's a little more like domain names, so people are trying to wring value from names, but I'm cheap and only play that game when I can win without paying (like I did with domain names)

[crystal ore]

I'm astounded at how tenacious domain squatters are. Wanted a name for literally 19 years, and it's been a squatted placeholder page for all this time. Just let it expire already! 😅

[late fulcrum]

It only took me a year and a half to get eggtooth.com without paying $8000 for it...

[rapid geode]

i bought all the domains with your names.

[patent hemlock]

i wondered where that had gone to and now i know

[rapid geode]

i rolled the dice and i put crypto scams on most, and the cure for cancer on one.

[raw jasper]

I need to hear the full story behind that 😅

[late fulcrum]

My sweetie wanted a domain to put up a site to sell art. She wanted eggtooth.com but someone was squatting on it and asking for big bucks. So I asked her if she was in any hurry. She wasn't, so I just set myself a reminder on the expiration date. Sure enough, it expired, and I was able to register it for the usual fee of $8. She sat on it for a while, then someone else offered her $1800 for it, so she sold it to them!

[rapid geode]

ha

[umbral phoenix]

yeah, I have annual calendar reminders about a handful of domain names I'd like. I'm not too hopeful, but the overhead of trying is low

I do have my surname domain, *.yy where my surname is *yy And I got one for someone in my family for their 5-letter first name like xxx.yy

[raw jasper]

Lucky!

[half plank]

What is a good pcb checker that makes sure that everything is connected besides the one that is already built into kicad?

[kindred isle]

What's wrong with the one in Kicad? As long as your schematic is complete, Kicad's DRC will inform you if you've got any disconnected nets.

[wind rampart]

You guys use DRC ? lol

[kindred isle]

It's smarter than me. I've never made a board, and I'd like some kind of sanity check.

[wind rampart]

Howdy everyone, how ya days been so far ?

@kindred isle for a hobbyist/school type of designs

I think using DRC's is just extra work (especially if u design these random items without taking into consideration the type of the pins)

[kindred isle]

I just want to know that I haven't made a glaringly dumb error.

[wind rampart]

I was gonna show you my latest kicad work but it appears that my RAM is saturated

ah it's oki now, I closed google

nobody uses DRC for this

even in analog circuits, lemme show u the circuit before

no DRC, no PCb for this one though, wouldda been a nightmare tbh.

[spice abyss]

Hey! Can someone help me out? I’m really new to soldering and I’m having a really rough time trying to solder some electronics, does anyone have a good tutorial on it?

[half plank]

Thank you for yall's advice

[half plank]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rmErwU5E-kWH
This is how I learned.

[violet parcel]

I forgot to cancel my domain name but it's just 9$ so who cares. Like less than 3.46 pennies per day...

[finite oriole]

Do they still sell this?

[ancient rivet]

yep. just out of stock right now. 😦

products get marked "discontinued" when no longer available

theres a mono version:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3351

also looks like digikey has the stereo ones in stock (and maybe other resellers)

[finite oriole]

Alright thanks

[ebon dew]

note to self don't clean keyboard with discord open 🤣

[violet parcel]

I have a nice on/off switch on mine for this

I wish the dongles had source code/were open though so I could make a switch to decide which computer to send the keyboard/mouse input to

Would might seem weird when you first read it but remember SSH/etc and the time to load things / go throught ssh

hopes that nobody asks me to explain what I mean here 🤣 seemed like a good idea when I wrote it

but like kinda what KVM did in the jurassic era of computing - ie: send signals to usb /pick where without needing a remote session

[raw jasper]

I remember somebody sold a program to detect whether a cat was stepping on the keyboard and automatically disable/lock input should that be the case

No idea if it works though

[late fulcrum]

Once I was telneted into the engineering server, saw something I wanted to tweak and did a quick sudo. Then I got a "who are you" message and remembered I wasn't on my server. Better yet, the person running the engineering server had chosen the same (bad) root password that I had!

[raw jasper]

It's interesting how the use of telnet and the active use of msg dates this story

[violet parcel]

"Who are you?" - Zerocool Madbodger - Acid Burn sez Leave b4 u r expunged

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, that was from when I was in college. The local machine was an LSI-11/23 (running AT&T v7 Unix) and the engineering server was a VAX-11/780 (running BSD 4.2).

[raw jasper]

I think local mail, msg and talk should come back

[late fulcrum]

Better yet, the person who ran the engineering server was named "Rex Root"!

[raw jasper]

Talk about nominative determinism

[late fulcrum]

There is still a use case for UUCP, even when it's over USB or TCP/IP.

[sand frigate]

Does anyone by chance have a spec sheet that shows what's inside of one of these ano encoders? I took mine apart for no reason and now the middle doesn't click. I think I may have lost a part: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5001

[raw jasper]

Somebody should make an IP core that communicates over UUCP over AXI :>

[late fulcrum]

Not HASP?

[raw jasper]

HASP? The DRM dongle?

(I know it's probably something from before my time I am not familiar with :) )

[violet parcel]

you could compare with the technical diagram under the product page. Supposed to show what was build. Looks like a 5-position deluxe switch with a nice enclosure to me. Id reach at [e-mail] because it's not likely someone here will have more info besides what adafruit shared.

[late fulcrum]

Happily, not DRM. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/datapro/communications_processors/C13-829_Telenet_TP4000.pdf

[raw jasper]

Oh wow, a telnet coprocessor

I wonder whether it was made of discrete 74 ICs

[late fulcrum]

Not really telnet, but Telenet (which I just realized was pretty close to where I was when I worked with stuff like that)

[raw jasper]

Setup and hold time? What's that? :P :>

[violet parcel]

speaking of not drm Im surprised how professional radios sets/ham stuff openly share their schematics/parts lists/how you can mod it

Like the other day I saw an aircraft radio manual and it has all of this right in the user manual

[raw jasper]

Unlike most consumer stuff, they are meant to actually be user- (and in many cases field-) serviceable

[late fulcrum]

It's like (good) test equipment: the target market is people who tend to value and fix things, and we'll actively shun manufacturers who don't supply such information.

[violet parcel]

any other products like this ? Been trying to get a library of schematics for inspiration 😄

[late fulcrum]

When I was amusing myself during the lockdown repairing old oscilloscopes, I was pleased to notice most of them had been repaired before.

[violet parcel]

and I dont mean tutorial level schematics but actual products

[raw jasper]

If you don't mind vacuum tubes, you can find a bunch of schematics for old radios on the net

Some early transistor ones too

Old oscilloscopes too

[violet parcel]

that is a bit too old, was hoping for recent stuff. Been combing FCC for these type of things too

Like it would be great if I could have one example schematic for each type of major consumer electronics even if from the 2000s or end of 1990s (like radio-shack shares)

[late fulcrum]

Check TekWiki for lots of Tektronix manuals (they have superb documentation including how the circuitry works and why they made various design decisions). BAMA (the Boat Anchor Manual Archive) also has a bunch of good ones.

[violet parcel]

I wonder if the FCC law changed in 2010 or something as well and if they didnt have to declassify all the schematics from before 2010 or something but all of traxxas stuff even from the 1970 is still classified

[raw jasper]

Boat Anchor?!

⚓

[violet parcel]

boat anchors ?

[late fulcrum]

It's a term of endearment for big heavy equipment (which was most test gear back in the day)

[raw jasper]

LOL

Agreed

It fits

Now I want an old oscilloscope. Gotta love green phosphor.

[violet parcel]

I think I once saved a ferry because I was fascinated by the boat anchor. Like something that seemed like it should be closed to prevent water from getting in wasn't and when I told the crew they closed something and still had to lock a section off - tow the cars manually because a section was flooded 😦

[late fulcrum]

If you're looking for R/C schematics from the 1970s, I was able to find service manuals for the Kraft KP-5 and PCS-4 transmitters online fairly easily. Not much to 'em.

[violet parcel]

you guys saying boat anchor made me remember it

[raw jasper]

That's.... a story

[late fulcrum]

If you're on the US east coast, I can set you up

[violet parcel]

It's just that all I have to understand how it work is blackened internal pictures on FCC site and their frequencies and unmarked chips

[raw jasper]

Wrong continent :P (And I don't have space)

Can anybody else smell Old Test Equipment Smell by seeing this picture?

[late fulcrum]

The Kraft manual shows you what's inside that chip. Not much, it's just five flip-flops.

[raw jasper]

You know what I mean, right?

[violet parcel]

are those kraft pcs-4 kp-5 still legal or it's like the old spark gap transmitters? 😦

[raw jasper]

There's a specific smell to old test equipment :P

[violet parcel]

I visit toronto or montreal once every few years for the electric smell of the subway which I can tell instantly so I can relate 🙂

[late fulcrum]

After replacing a bunch of paper-wax capacitors, and remembering the "burnt resistor" scented candle April Fool's joke, I realized I could melt them down and make scented candles I'd actually enjoy. So I did.

[violet parcel]

(also to uses the subway and be shipped by train to toronto/montreal)

[late fulcrum]

It seemed like the logical thing to do...

[raw jasper]

Now these are real artisanal candles

:>

I wonder if they're hazardous

[late fulcrum]

I doubt it, there's not much in those capacitors, other than paper, foil, and wax. There may be some leaded solder on the leads, but I didn't heat them nearly enough to melt that.

[violet parcel]

I have enclose glycol proyl(?) candles from a chemistry set and they are apparently safer because they cant spill

[raw jasper]

propylene glycol probably. Make sure not to eat it

[violet parcel]

dad got them for me when I was doing chemistry at 12-13yo because he was nervous about the normal alcohol burners used in chemistry

[raw jasper]

'Tis antifreeze

[late fulcrum]

They did bubble somewhat intriguingly

[raw jasper]

(and, coincidentally, an alcohol -- more specifically, a diol --! See the -OH groups?)

[violet parcel]

I accidently burned some tissue with the burner once while cleaning a spill and I was too scared my dad would put a stop to my chemistry so I extinguished it by hand (carrying it to the sink) and told my dad I accidently touched poison ivy (for the burn marks) 😦

[raw jasper]

That... looks like a cursed corncob 💀 :P

[raw jasper]

All this talk about scented candles reminded me of the yankee candle COVID index

[violet parcel]

I remember how Id freak out and get unnecessary tests because Id eat some foods and couldnt taste anything

then now I realized they just never tasted much and my taste just evolved with better food where as during covid I had to fall back to what was available to survive

[raw jasper]

I'm glad you're doing better now

[violet parcel]

also all those lead solder fumes have burned my smell recep.... nah just j/k

meh Im fighting against solidworks atm - the most difficult part is to get it to start the first time 😦

[raw jasper]

I've never designed any object for printing

So, if you're at the stage where you're fighting with solidworks, you're leaps and bounds ahead of me ;)

[violet parcel]

I used it without 3d printing before to more easily communicate what I wanted to do

[raw jasper]

The most physical thing I've made is gateware, so I can't say I ever had an use for it

[violet parcel]

Also a relative asked me this week why I was buying a 3d printer and I said madbodger/Hem from the Internet told me to and I eventually do what they advise even if sometimes I asks for alternatives for hours

[late fulcrum]

3D design is its own thing. I kind of enjoy it.

[raw jasper]

Yeah, if I ever pick up 3d printing, I'll go for openscad. It seems like a good fit for a programmer

[violet parcel]

I actually brought pics from cad programs before to ask a shop if they had anything like it. Like I know what shape/size I need I just have no idea what it is called

[late fulcrum]

That's a good idea!

[violet parcel]

sometimes I couldnt have guessed (like a washer) sometimes it was obvious(L-bracket)

[late fulcrum]

I often have trouble specifying things when I don't know the lingo

[raw jasper]

Speaking of @late fulcrum advice, what's your favorite lattice fpga board? I'd like to eventually get one, and you're experienced with the ecosystem, so I figured I might as well ask :)

[violet parcel]

I found a free 400 pages ebook yesterday about lego technic parts, advice to build them, how the mechanics of them work etc. I wish there was something like that for the typical construction parts (mcsomething-carr helps with that a lot though even with the auto-order stuff 😦 but thankfully they cant sell to me so they just cancel my orders)

[late fulcrum]

That's a good question. I started out with the Nandland Go board, which has some nice onboard peripherals. However, the TinyFPGA BX is small and inexpensive. The iCEBreaker is another good one.

For lots of mechanical parts (gears, bolts, nuts, screws, etc.), Machinery's Handbook covers them in (formidable) detail.

McFeely's has some good information on fasteners (and may well sell to you, which may be an advantage or a drawback, depending on your point of view)

[raw jasper]

Sadly, their big one, the tinyfpga ex, is "under construction" :( 7680 logic cells are too few (But I love smol FPGA boards)

Thanks for the info!

[violet parcel]

remember that kit ? The maker has open .step for all the parts 🍾 🎆 🧨

[late fulcrum]

I have some bigger Lattice boards, they're mostly evaluation boards I picked up from DigiKey. There's also the ColorLight boards, which have the advantage of built-in level shifters but the disadvantage of being basically output-only (I'm thinking of building a floppotron out of one)

I don't have opinions on the bigger boards yet, as I received a bout of discouragement right after acquiring them, so I haven't done anything with them.

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I've looked at the colorlight boards, tempted to get one because the price is right, but the level shifters are what they are

[violet parcel]

Still getting used to "evaluation boards" still cant get over it after 2 years 🤣