general-chat

[raw jasper]

obviously hah

I stress test all my machines with prime95 for 24hrs when I get them

[hasty wedge]

I run cinebench on that thing for 2 days straight

The only issue was thermal because that enclosure is so tiny

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I want to make sure the CPU won't burn me when doing numerical stuff, and prime95 is good for that because it's numerically intensive and verifies results

[hasty wedge]

This is the entire box, with the highest end 10th gen workstation Xeon in it

And yeah, that's a PCIE x16 slot

[tardy badger]

Here’s a fun joke: what is the hand weapon of choice for Polish soldiers?

War saws

I’ll see myself out lol

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-square-pants-spongebob-cool-finger-guns-you-got-it-gif-3561703

[hasty wedge]

[tardy badger]

It’s amazing the great jokes that geography gives us

You might say it’s put some comedians on the map

[raw jasper]

I love how it's essentially a supercomputer for the standards of 10 years ago, and you've got it chock-full of anime stickers 😆

[hasty wedge]

lol

[raw jasper]

....And the random PCIe slot sticking out on top

[hasty wedge]

yeah

that's for the GPU or anything you want to expand

[raw jasper]

Are the power connectors on the side to power the Nvidia A100 card you're gonna inevitably install? :>

[hasty wedge]

I don't have the curage to use these power connectors

I don't know their pinout

[raw jasper]

FPGA card! :P

[hasty wedge]

wait

I am hearing somebody is crying...

ah

it's my wallet

[tardy badger]

My bank account regularly cries

Money in, money out. $16 left

[hasty wedge]

[raw jasper]

hopefully it's your corpo bank account, not your personal one

[tardy badger]

Corp bank acct has.. $9

No sales 🥲

[raw jasper]

Oh mist :(

[tardy badger]

Normal bank account has $16

Paycheck drops tomorrow

[hasty wedge]

[raw jasper]

That's.... a relief.

[tardy badger]

$3150 should come in. And get whisked away for rent, groceries, car note, and related expenses

$3150 after working practically an extra shift

Otherwise it’s $2910 or so

[raw jasper]

I see :(

[tardy badger]

I’m lucky in that overtime is actually paid for me

Many software engineers work tons of extra hours with no extra pay added, essentially diluting their wage

Kind of sad tbh

Make $100k a year, but work 90+ hours a pay period

[raw jasper]

I guess that's the perk of working for the "extended government"

(trying to translate something from my native language here, sorry if it comes across weird)

[tardy badger]

Yup, but most contractors don’t pay their engineers the way the company I work for does

You’re just expected to work for “free”

Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Aerospace Corp., etc.. they don’t pay overtime.

[raw jasper]

I did not expect that

[hasty wedge]

nice

STM32Duino without ST's closed source STM32CubeProg

[raw jasper]

this is a very weird terminal console. It seems to strangely mix stdout and stderr

Or whatever the Windows equivalent is

[hasty wedge]

it's arduino IDE 2

also, for some reason st-flash.exe output it's message on both stdout and stderr

[raw jasper]

Last time I used arduino, it was still an atmega328p devboard, had a huge USB-B connector, and non-arduino board support packages (I don't remember the arduino world term) were kind of a novelty

[hasty wedge]

Yeah, I only use Arduino IDE with STM32

for other micros like RP2040 and ESP32 I either use their native SDK or just use CircuitPython

[raw jasper]

I don't think I'd use arduino IDE for anything with any remotely stringent power requirements

[hasty wedge]

Yeah, I am just doing a prototype

after that I am gonna use CubeMX and IAR

[raw jasper]

Ah, so you're actually writing the virtual pet code now?

[hasty wedge]

no

just a timer with sigmented LED

I use IAR because their libarary is open source

[raw jasper]

Most expensive kitchen timer :P

[hasty wedge]

compared to Keil which is closed source

also, Keil's ARM-clang is just garbage

I still prefer their legacy armcc

[raw jasper]

Even intel has pivoted to clang from their ICC

[tardy badger]

I’m glad IAR has free personal use licenses

I wouldn’t want to pay $5k for a single commercial license

[tardy badger]

Thanks goodness for this

Clang is superior

I can clang-format and then clang-tidy to make sure I’m following CPP Core Guidelines

Which, if you’re not using clang-tidy in your normal coding for CPP code, you should definitely look into it

[raw jasper]

the clang linting tools are great

[hasty wedge]

but most manufacturers I use never bother to update their SDK to arm-clang

which I am either forced to install armcc or just use IAR

[tardy badger]

Nordic SDK uses it 🙂

[hasty wedge]

Puya doesn't

same applies to HDSC

[tardy badger]

Shame on them

We should shame companies for not using free open source compilers

[hasty wedge]

arm-clang is not foss

Keil took clang, added some crap, and made it closed source and paid

[tardy badger]

I’m talking about gcc-clang

[hasty wedge]

normal clang is good

[raw jasper]

gcc != clang

[tardy badger]

didn’t say it was

[raw jasper]

the two projects have absolutely no relation afaik

[raw jasper]

Ah, I thought you were referring to an actual package with that name :)

[tardy badger]

No no lol

[raw jasper]

And went like.... huh

xD

[hasty wedge]

also, Just realised my STM32F103C8T6 secretly got 128KB of flash

instead of 64KB

[tardy badger]

Huh wild

[hasty wedge]

STM32CubeProg will probably just report 64KB and soft enforce it

but st-flash.exe just doesn't care

if it sees 128KB it lets you use 128KB

[raw jasper]

o.O

That's... printer cartridge levels of shenanigans

Make sure the extra 64KB aren't mucked up, and walled off due to binning

[hasty wedge]

The rest of 64KB probably got some defects

and ST is enforcing it with their flashing tool

I should take extra caution when using the "free" 64KB

[raw jasper]

👆

(Also, make sure the "factory" 64KB starts at 0x0, not at some other offset the ST tool is autoenforcing)

[hasty wedge]

it's flashing to 0x08000000

I let STM32Duino's flashing script to decide where to flash it

and that "STM32CP_CLI" is actually st-flash.exe

[raw jasper]

can you write a program to test the extra flash?

[hasty wedge]

I can

I can just write a gigantic binary

[raw jasper]

I think it'd be interesting

[hasty wedge]

flash it in and verify it

[raw jasper]

you can also see https://www.memtest.org/ for pattern ideas (though it's for RAM)

[hasty wedge]

2023-08-15T22:21:10 INFO common.c: Flash written and verified! jolly good!

st-flash.exe seems like it verifies the flash by default

[raw jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/ghost-pirate-dance-monkey-island-gif-12929936

jolly good

[hasty wedge]

https://github.com/stlink-org/stlink/tree/develop

this is st-flash's repo

[hasty wedge]

lol

[hasty wedge]

I just realised the "no name no documentation alphanumeric display" I brought from taobao

is a counterfit Adafruit Quad Alphanumeric Display

just without the stemmaQT port

[late fulcrum]

Possibly complete with counterfeit HT16K33 chip

[hasty wedge]

It's a VK16K33 chip

which is the chip SparkFun uses

Adafruit is the only manufacturer that never cheap out on materials

is that even legal?

if this thing go on sale on Amazon

Adafruit can probably request a takedown

[raw jasper]

I guess if they're both derived from the chips' appnotes, it'd be hard to prove anything?

[late fulcrum]

I didn't know there was a clone chip in existence. Yeah, copying the design of the board is legal (it's open source), unless the AdaFruit logo is used. As for cloning the chip, I dunno, but Holtek may have some thoughts about it.

[hasty wedge]

(for some reason I am fine seeing counterfit SparkFun stuff but angry to see counterfit Adafruit stuff...)

[hasty wedge]

no there's no logo

[raw jasper]

Would probably depend on whether it's a clean room reveng clone, or a direct copy of the mask

[hasty wedge]

(probably because I never buy from SparkFun)

[raw jasper]

(insofar that's possible to do w/. modern fab processes)

[late fulcrum]

Asking amazon for a takedown is pretty pointless, they don't care, and most of the "vendors" are just fake "companies" created on the fly, even if they take one down, it'll be replaced by another. Worse, due to their "equivalent merchandise" policy, you could buy a genuine AdaFruit product, the seller could ship a genuine one, and you could still receive a fake.

[hasty wedge]

very sad

[raw jasper]

https://www.abc15.com/national/amazon-notifies-woman-by-email-that-she-may-have-taken-counterfeit-pills

[hasty wedge]

well at least I successfully turned my "no name taobao alphanumeric display" on

with Adafruit's library

[late fulcrum]

“At Amazon, customer trust is our top priority” yeah right.

[hasty wedge]

This is why I almost never buy stuff from amazon that I put into my mouth

there was just one exception that I brought a bunch of KitKats

because it was on sale

[raw jasper]

Hopefully they turned out good

I wouldn't trust shipping chocolate products over courier

Sounds like a good way to tempt Montezuma's curse

Especially if they have milk in them

[late fulcrum]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bq-6GeRhys

[hasty wedge]

[glad ruin]

Pretty much every large corporation has broken the patent office.

[patent hemlock]

i am somewhat ashamed to say i actually have a patent that's likely totally un-enforceable

[glad ruin]

The issue is that despite many of the patents by these companies likely being unenforceable that they can still 'enforce' them simply by the potential threat of legal action.

[late fulcrum]

I have 3 patents that are also likely totally un-enforceable

[rapid geode]

i have a patent on pineapple pizza

[versed meteor]

I have a perfect idea for this

ill make it a timer for washing your hands

[raw jasper]

You'd need to make it go up to 20 :P

(Yeah, yeah, I know you can scale it down, but why let pesky math and reality get in the way of a good joke? :>)

In other news, can somebody recommend me a good, non-arduino, OSS toolchain-supporting micro devboard that has a graphic LCD and some buttons on it?

[patent hemlock]

there's several hats and feather stuff at adafruit - try using "tft buttons" as the search parameters

[fossil dawn]

something RP2040 maybe 🤔

[burnt tendon]

I always end up strategically too busy whenever it's "hey, wana file a patent?"

And, dono, nothing I've worked on directly feels like it merits a patent.

[versed meteor]

or I can make it count up and then count down lol

[dusty citrus]

Ah nvm out of context

[patent hemlock]

i thought mine was worthless, but the Director of Engineering told me directly that it was for "defensive" purposes (and my job), so i sat through the 12-hour session with patent lawyers explaining it over and over

[rapid geode]

patents are an asset. if you want to sell the company later a patent helps. without it, they basically say "so you dont own anything?". but in terms of keeping others from copying you.. doesn't do much except for maybe massive companies like MS or apple.

[patent hemlock]

yeah kind of like baseball trading cards 😈

[rapid geode]

baseball cards are the opposite of an asset. they are destined to be worth 5 cents when you want to sell

[fossil dawn]

yeah kind of like ugly NFTs 😈

[patent hemlock]

are there any other kind? 😏

[burnt tendon]

Yeah, so nobody's ever sat me down and made me try to come up with a patent.

They've just been like "Hey, there's something patentable here, right?"

https://tenor.com/view/war-games-joshua-woppr-strange-game-doctor-only-winning-move-is-not-to-play-gif-16198386

Also, dono, I feel like enough of my former employers have faceplanted that if I did accede to their arguments and just filed the darn patent, it probably would end up going from a defensive patent to a patent-troll patent.

[wanton echo]

Walked into an interesting thread here! Haha.

Could someone give me a hand with creating a roadmap for learning bringing a iot product to market? I have some experience with Arduino with basic items and functions but nothing too advanced. My problem is when following tutorials they often say “here is the code and what it does”. I typically leave the process thinking “how do they or did they know how to use that code pieces, or that function, etc etc”. Id prefer to be able to understand how pull stuff out of the hat so to speak without canabalizing code found on the internet and ultimately not knowing how to modify in the future for fear of messing it up.

Everything from code and language to hardware design then pcb ordering. There are many many tutorials out there but which ones are the good ones?

I’ve done some wifi stuff but that tends to be too short range for my applications. Considering Lora or ble. I’ve seen some ble dev boards from fanastel claiming incredible range. I’ve even witnessed >500ft range of one fanastel dev board blink led via a master slave at incredible range

[tranquil swallow]

I have a book that broadly covers the engineering of bringing a product to market but it's pretty involved

[raw jasper]

There is no such thing as a good tutorial

[rapid geode]

O-o

[raw jasper]

You do lots of things, you look lots of things up, and, at some time, you get to "pull stuff out of the hat"

[rapid geode]

ive seen a few. they are rare, but they exist

[raw jasper]

Oh they definitely do, but I mainly said that in the sense that there is no "ultimate" tutorial that will unlock the Gates of Understanding to you like a mystical Royal Road to Wisdom

[rapid geode]

ah

[raw jasper]

(that probably sounded too edgy)

[rapid geode]

yes, for a tutorial to work it has to be focused and assumes much prior knowledge

like "learn autodesk fusion" implies you already know cad, design, etc other wise its a 4 year college course 😛

you need to already know exactly what you need to do, and just be lookig for the buttons to press.

[raw jasper]

Yeah, it's the whole, "you don't need to learn python, you need to learn programming", thing. Python (or C, or Perl, or Rust, or whatever), is just a vehicle

[rapid geode]

ys

why is the pizza man going the opposite direction of my house? WHY??!?!!?!

[raw jasper]

Have you ordered pizza?

[rapid geode]

i eated it

[raw jasper]

now you have no pizza

[rapid geode]

oh, i was prepared for that... i bought 2!

[raw jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/hellmo-pizza-creed-hellmo-pizza-hellmo-creed-gif-26018398

[late fulcrum]

Detected pineapple?

[cloud pilot]

I accidentally ordered the mini USB version when I needed micro... Can I desolder the mini port and solder a micro to it?

[safe osprey]

I just upgraded my computer and everything was working great until I installed new drivers now my wifi dongle will no longer work and I have no internet connection to my computer. I purchased the Bluetooth+wifi4.0 dongle a few years ago and it’s always worked so I’m not sure what’s the issue here

I even tried to uninstall all my network adapter drivers and that didn’t work either

Does anyone know a solution to this issue

[rapid geode]

the fail key is a success finally

haha

[rapid geode]

haha

the corian keys do feel really nice

sorta slippery but chalky? not sure how to describe haha

[tardy badger]

Indescribable

[rapid geode]

not sure about that, although i decided to throw the maple ones at the floor fairly hard and they had no damage

was surprised

other woods wont be as strong of course

the corian, maple and stock ABS do genuinely "sound" different. neat

gotta make up 4 corian keys with 3M logos. gotta get a vector logo and pantone colour.

will be a good test, cause i expect a lot of my business will inevitably be people asking for custom graphic work

err, what do i even call this. inlay? engraving?

[raw jasper]

like typing on a tub :>

Fun fact: I always think corian is supposed to be a type of wood

[rapid geode]

has

fancy plastic

[raw jasper]

I know, it's the stuff they make countertops and tubs from

[rapid geode]

i guess wood is also fancy plastic

[raw jasper]

✨Lignin, Nature's plastic✨

[rapid geode]

now im worndering. i have a wood called lignum vitae. enough for a full keyset (cant sell, banned). but it is ultra wazy and normally cant be glued. i wonder if the stuff 3M sent me for the delrin stems will allow it to stick to the lignum vitae

worth a test for sure.

(lignum vitae is the hardest and heaviest wood. used to be used for prop bearings on ships, it is waterproof and sinks in water))

i made some cats from is and we stuck on in the bottom of a glass of water at work til it evapourated

[ebon dew]

maybe because coriander is a plant?

[rapid geode]

coriander keycaps!

[vagrant wolf]

What do you folks think about an board with an ICE40/ECP5 fpga and LTE connectivity with the NRF9160, in an breadboard compatible formfactor?

[tranquil swallow]

How would I run my picam which needs a flex cable in a gimbal

So it can turn indefinitely

[dusty citrus]

Changing connector or rotating it along with the mainboard is what I can thing about right now

[late fulcrum]

It's also oily, which helps the seals both seal and rotate, but that's a large part of why it's hard to glue. The traditional advice is to glue it when it's freshly milled (before the oil has a chance to seep out), and use something like boatbuilders' epoxy or perhaps Gorilla Glue.

[fossil dawn]

slip rings exist but no idea if the cheap ones you can easily get can handle the frequency and data transmission of the camera

my random idea would be to rotate the camera together with a microcontroller/sbc, transfer power to it with a slip ring and send the image over wifi 🤔

[late fulcrum]

There is a mechanical arrangement where the cable has a curious loop that allows it to turn without twisting, but I think the cable passes in the way of the camera periodically.

Known as the "Dale A. Adams mechanism" or "Dirac belt trick", and traces its lineage back to Indonesian candle dancers.

Ah, here's a good video explaining it, along with how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZvimEf6DFw

[tranquil swallow]

Thanks for the ideas

[half moth]

hello everyone

i wanted to get an intership from june to july so any idea how i can contact

[tardy badger]

Go to a career fair, develop a technical resume that’s one page long, highlight your school, degree level, GPA, relevant coursework, any professional associations, and skills you’ve learned thus far.

If this is your first internship, highlight projects you’ve worked on

[half moth]

so i cant get an intership on adafruit right now

?

[tardy badger]

I don’t think Adafruit is hiring interns right now?

[half moth]

where should i contact

what about arduino or raspberry pi

[tardy badger]

Those might be more achievable. I imagine they want you to be in the UK (Raspberry Pi)or in Italy (Arduino)

[half moth]

i was thinking to do an internship somewhere to learn new things in june july as school vacations will allow me to focus

[tardy badger]

Are you attending university right now?

[half moth]

im in grade 7 but i have lots of knowledge and experience

school

[tardy badger]

Oh I see

[half moth]

i mean i am very skilled

started from 4 y/o

[tardy badger]

it is probably difficult to get an internship being so young due to labor laws

[half moth]

i mean what if i just observe because im very bored and have nothing to do i want to learn more things and get some more practical experience

[tardy badger]

In the US you can work as young as 14 in some states with parental consent but you can’t work with dangerous machinery or hazardous materials. New York where Adafruit is located has higher standards, I think you need to be 16 years old there.

I think what you should do is become a contributor for Circuitpython. That’s a valuable skill to have, contributing to large projects with diverse teams of people.

[half moth]

i have lots of theoretical knowledge and i have parental consent and i wont really touch dangerous machinery im just looking forward to go abroad and get more practical experience like how can i get my ideas to work

can i go to raspberry pi or arduino then'

[tardy badger]

Probably not, the EU has fairly strict child labor laws

[half moth]

im 12

[tardy badger]

Many countries won’t let 12 year olds work in a commercial, let alone industrial setting

The best advice is to work on cool and interesting projects at home, share them, document them, etc..

[tardy badger]

Contribute to open source

https://learn.adafruit.com/contribute-to-circuitpython-with-git-and-github

[half moth]

ok

just the thing is that i still dont have enough resources or a workstation

[dusty citrus]

You can fake your age, I did that when I was younger
And you don't really need expensive tools either way
You can also exploit chinese apps to get free stuff
As much all of this may be against the code of conduct here

Nobody wants the liability to deal with an underage

Well except in some markets

[ebon dew]

sliprings, multiple if you have multiple pivots. there are different types of gimbals and in some cases it might not be possible depending on gimbal size. https://www.adafruit.com/product/736

[glacial wigeon]

i'm not sure if CSI would like a slipring though, and usb might have trouble too

an overkill solution, run 5v over the sliprings, and put a whole pi-zero+camera at the far end
then wifi stream it 😛

wifi cant get twisted!

[ebon dew]

there is a limitation yes. the limitation is how many wired rings there are.

wireless with batteries makes sense but that's not going to work on all projects either. depends on the size.

i'm still struggling to finish a 1:72 scale tank with a slip ring or battery pack, there's simply no room.

scale matters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Mn98n79zI

[glacial wigeon]

another thing, is does it need to be able to rotate infinitely, or just 360 degrees?

[ebon dew]

pretty sure they wanted 360 rotation, indefinite.

[night crescent]

SHOW and TELL & ASK an ENGINEER is on FRIDAY! August 18, 2023 for CircuitPython Day, see ya there! Full schedule here! https://adafruit.com/circpyday2023

[rapid geode]

not oilly so much as waxy. epoxy does not stick. freshly milled doesn't matter. wiping with acetone does nothing. it will stick for a day or 2, then the waxes will exude and it will release. when used as plane soles people dovetail them so there is a mechanical lock. it is a crazy wood. it self "finishes". you sand it to about 320, and leave it and 2 days later is is shiny and sorta polished looking. colour darkens from oxidation over a few weeks.

[half moth]

But which apps can I exploit to get free stuff please tell me

Sounds interesting

[late fulcrum]

Are you using Discord on your phone?

[half moth]

Yes

Sorry for late reply

[fossil dawn]

I haven't really tested it, but with Github codespaces you can get a full-featured IDE with compiler, etc in a webbrowser. If that's the issue

random side note:
I didn't think -Os would make such a giant performance difference! I accidentally disabled -Os and I couldn't even play a wav file without volume control. With -Os even with volume control it works great

[raw jasper]

If you have floating point and don't care about the risk of everything burning down, try adding -ffast-math too 😝

[fossil dawn]

that is definitely an interesting idea

With my quick benchmark (that only tests volume control and nothing else) --fast-math doesn't change anyting

O3 instead of Os leads to 86000 more bytes per second better performance

but that benchmark is terrible and I'm not even sure if it runs properly or if I allow the compiler to optimize too much. I should write a better more real-world benchmark

playing around with compiler optimization settings is definitely one thing on my way too long to-do list 😄

[raw jasper]

If you have profiled your code, you can look into how compiler optimizations affect the critical function using compiler explorer

FWIW, you could also make the compiler output the assembly and check on your local machine

[fossil dawn]

how would profiling a microcontroller work?

checking assembly is kinda over my head 😆

And the audio stuff is a gigantic library

[raw jasper]

Which micro were you using again?

[fossil dawn]

RP2040

Pi pico

I think I've seen people change an output pin at different sections of the code and then look at it with a scope 🤔

[raw jasper]

https://interrupt.memfault.com/blog/profiling-firmware-on-cortex-m

According to the datasheet, the rp2040 implements a program counter sampling register in its debug facilities, so you can periodically sample what the micro is currently executing over the Debug Access Port

[fossil dawn]

I think I've seen that register 🤔

But I've also noticed that just having the debugger connected completely tanks performance

[raw jasper]

you've probably read about the Program Counter at least

[fossil dawn]

that definitely too

built a 4 bit mcu in vhdl once 😆

[raw jasper]

The datasheet specifies the program counter sampling register is "non-intrusive". So, either their definition of non-intrusive is different than the obvious one, or there is a problem with how your debug stack is accessing your hardware...?

[fossil dawn]

But I suppose absolute performance doesn't matter.
What matters is relative performance difference between different compiler options (or other things that you change)

[raw jasper]

I've never hardware-debugged ARM 🙈

[fossil dawn]

super easy and cheap (4€) with RP2040, arduino-pico and platformio

[raw jasper]

You have forgotten to include the cost of time that I'd have to allocate to an MCU hobby project

:P

[fossil dawn]

heh true 😄

[fossil dawn]

yeah, tbh I have no idea what the debugger is actually doing or how exactly it's configured 😂

funny thing as well: With the debugger you can accidentally read a hardware spinlock... reading it changes its state.

so far I've only used to go step-by-step through some functions to check what's actually going on

[raw jasper]

You should probably skip on platformIO for that and directly look into the openocd docs

[fossil dawn]

true

[raw jasper]

Tangentially unrelated: https://github.com/olofk/serv

[fossil dawn]

Many logic expressions are hand-optimized using the old-fashioned method with Karnaugh maps on paper
wow interesting that this is actually used in realilty and not only college exams 😆

[glad ruin]

SERV is a college project I think.

[fossil dawn]

ah lol 😭

[raw jasper]

I'll admit to not looking too much into its backstory. I just find it a cool design

Somebody actually taped out a bunch of connected SERV CPUs (in a scanchain)

Found it!
https://github.com/gregdavill/gf180-mpw0-serv

[fallow compass]

Hey. I was talking to @fair summit regarding the HID emulation (issue #8289 on github). I am trying to reverse engineer the Kofax reader. I used Device Monitoring studio for getting the report descriptor.

[half moth]

.

[fallow compass]

I further used the hiddraw-dump tool to get this descriptor. When decoded, it corresponds to what I represented in the code

[fair summit]

we can discuss this in #help-with-circuitpython . I'll reply there.

[fallow compass]

Sure

[rapid geode]

"final" (ha, whatever that means)

[rapid geode]

so now i dont have a cutter that works for the bottom. sigh. always something. /me orders a bunch of 2mm end mills

i can make 500 stems in the meantime

[rapid geode]

aaand, the real thing. woo. well the bottom anyway

ha

[raw jasper]

nice!

[rapid geode]

what wood next?

purpleheart. good choice.

:x

[raw jasper]

how does typing on wood feel?

[rapid geode]

woody

[raw jasper]

Is it like strumming one's fingers on a table?

[rapid geode]

the keys feel softer maybe. depends on sanding and finishing. but the sound is different. quieter.

[rapid geode]

purpleheat is a bit chippy on the edges. gotta rearrange the passes

[nimble ice]

does anyone know if zwave controllers have any exploits that get taken advantege of? I am not finding much information about it online and the ask is mostly because I am adding a new zwave dongle to my pi running home assistant(has a zigbee already hopefully those don't fight eachother rf wise) and don't want to open a point of entrance for a neighbors device leeching into my network through some auto enroll component or something

I got some new door/window sensors that run using zwave and it seems to have "easy" sync sensors to your control stick

would be ironic to introduce a security concern when attempting to improve my security system

I guess a tldr would be.... any general concerns to be aware of that are overlooked by many particular to zwave content?

[odd yarrow]

noo just realized ferrules don't fit in the terminal on the rp2040 propmaker

[late fulcrum]

I think there are some that do, they come in varying sizes

[odd yarrow]

I tried a 23 awg one

could try 24

[rapid geode]

bocote, ceylon ebony, swamp ash, purpleheart

mm

[raw jasper]

The swamp ash keys need a witch's hat print or a pumpkin or something

[rapid geode]

(just some off cuts and scraps testing the program)

haha. they are going to be the playstation square circle triangle x ones

the ebony was about 0.2mm too narrow. ill still mill the tops and give a little chamfer on the bottom. that wood is worth a dollar per key or so, so dont want to waste it

[patent hemlock]

zwave is a pretty simple protocol and, as you noted, it's done by pairing the device to the controller, just like zigbee -- they use different protocols and frequencies, so they won't step on each other; note that the zwave integration is handled by another "server" and not directly by HA, so make sure you've got the correct setup info for your installation

[desert karma]

Anyone here versed in c++ dll thingsss ive run into an issue i cant resolve that doesnt make sense to me

[glad ruin]

First, I would recommend just asking the question whether than asking to ask. Second, I recommend asking the actual question in #help-with-projects. Third, I am versed in C++ development, but thankfully not too much on Windows.

[desert karma]

thanks for the direction :)

[short pulsar]

It’s already CircuitPython day here in Austin.

[nimble ice]

yeah I see this now and it does seem to have a general host password system, just always try to be aware is all X/

they do have a security advisory in the packaged notes with it I didn't see until a bit ago covering potential security concerns though

[versed meteor]

I'm in the same position as you

[half moth]

Any ideas

On what to do

[versed meteor]

so you want an internship?

[half moth]

Yes

[versed meteor]

well you don't really need one right now, maybe right now you could experiment with electronics and other stuff like that

ask your parents for an arduino or rpi kit

[half moth]

RPI is to expensive for me as I'm in Pakistan

[half moth]

I've done that alot

[versed meteor]

what have you done?

[half moth]

I've participated in many competitions

And made many robots

And a peltier based water cooler

[versed meteor]

wow nice

did they provide supplies at this competions?

[half moth]

I'm looking for someone to help me out a bit in resources or finances so I can buy more things

[half moth]

No

[versed meteor]

how did you get the supplies then...?

[half moth]

School

[versed meteor]

does your school have an rpi or arduino?

[half moth]

Actually I had to use all my allowance

[half moth]

Only arduino

[thick wind]

What resources do you need? Finances aren’t something I can speak to, especially for someone underage in a country whose laws I’m unfamiliar with

[versed meteor]

do you have a pc?

[half moth]

Yes

[versed meteor]

because if you have a pc you don't need an rpi

[versed meteor]

great!

I can teach you how to pass data between ur pc and arduino

or do you already know that??

[thick wind]

The better question is what your goals are. All I got so far is you’re 12 and bored but are looking for something to do.

[half moth]

Serial monitor

[thick wind]

What kind of projects are you interested in? What fields of electronics do you want to learn more about?

[versed meteor]

no I know that but I mean like a python program to make ur pc do cool stuff

[half moth]

I want to learn new things because I have lots of theoretical knowledge but less practical knowledge

[half moth]

Yeah I can use the arduino serial library

In python

[thick wind]

Knowledge of?

[versed meteor]

yeah what do you know?

[half moth]

I mean like ideas of how to make a device like a portable gaming console

[thick wind]

With a pc, you can at least start on software projects. Image recognition projects only need a pc and a webcam these days…

Oooh, hardware development does cost money. You’ll have to figure something out there…

[versed meteor]

aahil you should make a yt channel of your ideas and past projects

I will help you with it

[half moth]

I was thinking about it

[versed meteor]

go for it! it could be the answer to your problems

do you want to work together?

[glad ruin]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/887865989453205581/1141990952404267049/IMG_3050.jpg

[dusty citrus]

Curiosity: Toxoplasma gondii may cause to make you love cats

[rapid geode]

this is the standard way to ship cats.

[blissful roost]

This is the way.

[rapid geode]

i mail dozens of cats per day and have never had an issue...

wait, what? they are supposed to be alive at the other end?

[fossil dawn]

so you're the one that people buy cats in bags from?

(lol, it's "buy a pig in a poke" in english 😆 )

[rapid geode]

no pigs involved. i use schroedingers shipping service

[raw jasper]

I think "pig in a poke" works better than "Katze im Sack"; For one, I doubt the Katze would remain in the Sack for too long :P

[fossil dawn]

lol true 😆

[raw jasper]

@rapid geode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USQxZc9nmtE

[rapid geode]

hey! they stole my idea years before i had it!

not fair!

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I saw that and thought of you and your keys :P

[rapid geode]

what i need is the pizza key to be tied to a macro that orders me a pizza

[raw jasper]

Is there a pizza-ordering API?

[fossil dawn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCTSOAy3vvg

[rapid geode]

cant be that hard to have something navigate a pizza website

O_o

ha

[raw jasper]

Actually, the Japanese version of the Wii had an entire channel dedicated to ordering food

https://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/games/spv/0906/02/news073.html

[rapid geode]

i just want one button. press pizza button and 30-40 mins later a nice pineapple pizza shows up

[fossil dawn]

that's what the project in the video revives

[raw jasper]

Funnily enough, the title reads "We tried ordering pizza from the "Home food delivery channel", that allows you to order food from your Wii"

Interestingly, the API provider was called 「夢の街創造委員会」, "Dream City Creation Committee"

[fossil dawn]

lol being able to order food in a city makes it a dream city 😆

[raw jasper]

Ordering food.... but online! 🙃

In other retro Nintendo Online services news

Best-selling game: Betting on horse racing

(Yes, I clicked on "Betting on horse racing" to see if there was an actual wikipedia page about the software.)

[fossil dawn]

is there?

[raw jasper]

nope. It's just the generic "horse racing betting" page

[fossil dawn]

ah 😭

[raw jasper]

It also had Stock Trading!

(Incidentally, I love the Japanese word for "buy-sell order"; It's 売買注文, which reads "baibaichuumon")

[raw jasper]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/18/italy-microchips-parmesan-cheese-fight-fakes/

Interesting application of presumably RFID

[rapid geode]

"fake" cheese...

this pdo thing has to end. it is nonsense.

[tardy badger]

Lol

It can’t be parmigiana Reggiano unless is comes from Italy, otherwise it’s just sparkling spaghetti cheese

It can’t be cheddar unless it comes from Cheddar, Wales

Otherwise it’s just sparkling snacking cheese

[rapid geode]

indeed. except the "quality" of parm is so variasble from italy the designation means nothing at all. just a way to inflate the price of a $1 peice of chees to $12

[rapid geode]

and stilton chees cant come from stilton

😛

[tardy badger]

Parmigiana Reggiano from Costco is very nice

[rapid geode]

champagne which is a uk invention must com from france.

its all silly

anyhow, rant over. i want some pasketti with parmesian

[tardy badger]

It make have come from the UK, but the French perfected it twists French mustache

Lol

[tardy badger]

https://youtu.be/ZecYx-jvoTg

[rapid geode]

ha

[dusty citrus]

I agree at 100%, but you know there are few industries who act like mafia here, and all the population seems just industrie's products feeding on bs

[tardy badger]

It would be like saying it isn’t really open source unless it comes from Adafruit

[rapid geode]

more like its not a real feather if it wasnt made in nyc. if adafruit moved production to seattle, its not a real feather

[tardy badger]

If the cheese tastes good, it’s going in my belly.

[rapid geode]

cause the water and humidity affect the pcb

:x

haha

[tardy badger]

Lol

[rapid geode]

sometimes that is true of course with food, but usually not, and easily replicated in food plants anyway

granted, this is from someone trying to sell $50 keycaps ;x

hahaha

[raw jasper]

Looks like I started a food flamewar 👀

[rapid geode]

they are speshul!

[dusty citrus]

Anyhow I was wondering why my parcel did not came home, and why the tracking just stopped
You know what? I see in the news that close to my home a censured word of a couriers was caught selling in the streets other people's parcels

[rapid geode]

oof

there was a uk sottry about "lost" packages being auctioned and they bought some and checked and some of the packages were clearly deliverable and had only been "lost" for a few days. someone clearly did the math that they would make more money selling the packages than delivering

ok, version 2.0 of keycap stems reprogrammed.

[dusty citrus]

If that's the case I will likely be refunded, I also weirdly paid for the additional insurance... But it annoys me really much for the waste of time
I wanted to exploit those days that I was free from work to get at home a 30kg package

Also because without it, I can't continue my ongoing project

[cinder jetty]

i really wish i had known about this server back in 2017
woulda made my life a lot easier on this one project

[rapid geode]

i dont think it existed in 2017

🙂

[umbral phoenix]

I think this server started in 2020

[tardy badger]

It’s been around since 2017

Jepler for instance has been on here since 2018

[umbral phoenix]

I was just going by the Welcome page, first post dated 2020, but my profile says I started Discord in 2017 and think Adafruit would have been the reason

[fossil dawn]

seems right

(not sure if that's different on phones, but on desktop it shows this profile when you click on peoples names and tells you when they joined discord and the server)

[umbral phoenix]

I don't see my own date for joining this server

[hard estuary]

even when you click your own name in chat?

[umbral phoenix]

oh, there it shows, just not when I click on my avatar down by settings

I guess I was lurking for a year+ before I first posted here

Feb 2019 was when I really got going... after wifi became available in CircuitPython via ESP32SPI

[patent hemlock]

fun stupid fact: there are more hydrogen atoms in a single molecule of water than there are stars in the solar system

[rapid geode]

there are more stars in the solar system than raspberry pis available to buy

[dusty citrus]

My hate for universities extends far more than the number of atoms
Everything gets expensive, everywhere it's filled by loud and nasty people

[rapid geode]

ha

university is free here as are all the books. so are ferraris and pizza...

oh, wait, no, thats not real life

[dusty citrus]

Rent and food also get more expensive
When you could get an apartment for 500, now uou get a room

[rapid geode]

500 pays for heat here.

an apartment under $2000 is a dream

[dusty citrus]

Different cost of living
Here you're lucky if you got a salary of 1k eur

[rapid geode]

a day? ew, thats bad

oh wait, dreaming again.

haha

[dusty citrus]

Ah Italy the mexico of europe

[rapid geode]

min wage full time salary is um... 600 a week. thats like 420 euros

thats working at mcdonalds or the like

i hear very little good about italy economy wise. working, running busines, etc.

[dusty citrus]

We don't have that, we had some sort of basic income of 500 euros, but industries couldn't find anymore slaves, so they lobbied and abolished it

[rapid geode]

haha

post pandemic that is happening here. bad employers are complainign noone will work for them... soo, maybe be a better employer?

[dusty citrus]

It's all mafia, it doesn't work anymore in the streets, but on the state level, by hiding under unions and the kind

[rapid geode]

mmm. needlessly complex corner jointery (ok, not quite needless, it locks it in alignment so it can be clamped

[tranquil swallow]

So true!

University here is a scam, not only do they charge you exorbitant prices for class, they charge for every minor thing they can, it's like microtransactions except everything is $250

[rapid geode]

"oh, you wanted ALL the pages in that textbook?"

physical books are the worst. cause little of that money is going to the writers, its all going to the printer, who is charing an amount that is not based on any logic

[tardy badger]

Filled with loud and nasty people?

[tardy badger]

What country are you in?

In the US there are state universities that are really affordable. Those ones are not a scam, or as large of a debt sink as private universities

But regardless, for many people, a 4 year degree still yields greater lifetime earnings and lower rates of poverty/need for government assistance than people who finish high school.

[tranquil swallow]

Canada

[tardy badger]

Despite my disdain for student loans, I’m still in a significantly better financial situation than before I finished my engineering degree

[dusty citrus]

Due to peer pressure or I don't know what, most are loud, on drugs, junk and body fluids are everywhere, act like late adolescents

In my experience that is

[tardy badger]

Most are late adolescents

So that tracks

Plus there’s not much to do in Canada

When it’s snowing 6 months out of the year, most people tend to turn to substances. It happens a lot in places like the northern states of the US where rates of drunk driving and drug use tend to represent large per capita of population

[rapid geode]

....

university is "relatively" cheap here. heavily subsidised. supplies are bad, but it is usually far more money in the usa.

[tardy badger]

I don’t necessarily see an issue with people having fun in college considering the general life outlook of working 40+ hrs a week to get by

[tranquil swallow]

Join the rocket club

[rapid geode]

squares

😛

[dusty citrus]

As long they don't get in my way, I don't want to hear loud stuff, cult like things, or vomit in the elevator

[tardy badger]

Don’t move to any major city

[rapid geode]

why are you going to tech conventions then?

oh, wait

:x

i think your real issue is other people exitings. i fully understand that 😛

[tardy badger]

It’s fine to be introverted in college. I never had any issue avoid people who annoyed me

Granted I went for engineering where most people were usually studying and not partying

[dusty citrus]

I need to feed, so sometimes to release "stress" I rant

[tardy badger]

https://tenor.com/view/rant-rant-over-end-of-rant-okay-bye-see-ya-gif-11756146

Lol

Figured I would see what came up for “rant” in terms of gifs

Anyway, that said. Life is full of people who will run you wrong. The best part of being an adult is you don’t have to entertain those people unless you really want to

[rapid geode]

ha

[dusty citrus]

If you want to work you still need to 🙈
Ihavenofish is right, people exist

[tardy badger]

I mean, you can ignore people at work if you want to

Might not keep your job long, but the option is there 🙂

[rapid geode]

ha

depends who you ignore

😛

[edgy apex]

Only works for management

[rapid geode]

i ignore management

unless it is pizza day

[edgy apex]

Lol

I haven't been in an employer/employee "relationship" in a while.

[rapid geode]

keycap grading...

[edgy apex]

How do you grade them?

The most important thing that people need to figure out is what do they like to do over and over and over again regardless of the money involved. Money doesn't make people happy if they do things they don't like over and over again to get it.

[tardy badger]

yeeep

unless you make enough money where you can clock out at the end of the week and completely disconnect doing things you enjoy

that would require you having money more often than not 🙂

[edgy apex]

Or have that to begin with

[tardy badger]

by having money,, I mean coming from a moderately weathly family

[edgy apex]

What's moderate these days?

[tardy badger]

$10m+

[edgy apex]

Per person?

[tardy badger]

inherited

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! SHOW AND TELL! https://youtube.com/live/Vk_f3yW6mps

[edgy apex]

Yea that's a moderate amount that should carry someone through the rest of their life

[tranquil swallow]

Would $10m be enough to get one of those carbon fiber looms

[rapid geode]

"fail" ones that have defects that make them unusable. the eboy was 0.2mm too narrow wood, so its missed one side. the purpleheart chipped out bad on the bottom. the padauk with the inlays got eaten by the machine. "blank" are fine, but need some additional sanding. Smiley are perfect. cat is ultra premium, which is not really a thing here, i just had a cat key and it needed a place 😛

[rapid geode]

depends where you live and other factors. 10m will get you a very nice house most places, a few fancy carsand toys, and a 150k salary for 25 years (matching inflation if you invest right).

[tardy badger]

this is assuming you already had a house from your parents and a car

[edgy apex]

Lol

[rapid geode]

ha

circuit python day makes me think of weasel stomping day for some reason

[edgy apex]

Also your parents may have put in their will that you can't waste the money on luxury items and you must have a 'job" even if it's voluntary

[rapid geode]

or leave it all the the cat

[edgy apex]

Lol

[glacial wigeon]

i heard of one case, where the less favored brother jumped on taking care of grandma for her last month, and basically stole the house by being there at the very end

[raw jasper]

I'm glad to know the joke of a rich person leaving everything to the cat transcends borders and cultures

[glacial wigeon]

and he was planning to just flip the house

but the other brother discovered, the septic system was crossing into the neighbors property, so he bought that property

cant flip the house if you dont own the property with the septic field!

[raw jasper]

he still gets to rent it....

[glacial wigeon]

the story didnt mention that detail

[raw jasper]

(probably. not familiar with $COUNTRY law)

[rapid geode]

i saw a thing about 2 kids being left one lot, and one built a giant house leaving like 10 feet on the side. so the other build a 9 foot wide 4 floor house blocking all the sun

weirdos

[edgy apex]

It never ceases to amaze me what people will do to family imagine how they would treat the general public

[glacial wigeon]

one of my neighbors owned 2 lots
they built a garage in the middle, but mis-measured, and the garage is 1 foot over the property line

so they cant sell the 2nd lot without getting the property lines redrawn

so they are stuck renting the house on the 2nd lot

[rapid geode]

the neighbour here is building a large ish house and they raised the grade almost 2 ft. they seem to be doing it correctly though and grading inward to drains.

we'll see

ha

[raw jasper]

$10m+ sounds "rich enough to be set for life barring significant setback" to me, not moderate :P

[edgy apex]

It is in the absolute bottom of the 1%

[raw jasper]

min(Q99) still is set for life :P

[rapid geode]

top 1% salary at the time of that movement was 386k/y.

so i think 10m is well above

(in cash)

[edgy apex]

Yes it is

Enough money to technically be in the one percent while the top of the 1% spends their net worth for vacation

[rapid geode]

ha

thats the 0.001%

i spent 25m on pizza last year

[raw jasper]

milliMillions? 😆

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! ASK AN ENGINEER! https://youtube.com/live/RsDdENyCvKs

[raw jasper]

That's a lot of pizza

[rapid geode]

all pineapple

[tardy badger]

Latest statistics for the US is $652,657/yr to be in the top 1% of households

I’m only $540k/yr away

Though investopedia is saying $823,763/yr

[tranquil swallow]

In due time

[bleak fox]

Curious questions, stranded wire or solid wire?

[glad ruin]

For what purpose?

[rapid geode]

for hanging laundry?

oof

it smells of solvent in here now.

😛

(the primer for the delrin)

[bleak fox]

Just in general, cause from what I've seen disassembling stuff it looks like stranded is used the most, was wondering why solid isn't preferred since it seems like that can be sturdy.

[rapid geode]

stranded is for applications needing flex

solid will eventually crack if flexed continually

[glad ruin]

It really depends on the use case. Stranded is more flexible but in some applications solid is required for legal or safety reasons.

[rapid geode]

alright, i need an idea for icons on the purpleheart, and 2 of the corian sets. the others have plans already.

ha

[raw jasper]

Invest in
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Fume_hood.jpg

[rapid geode]

ha

nah, i just need to do this in my actual shop, not livingroom 😛

not ready yet though

[raw jasper]

Do you at least have your windows open?

[rapid geode]

haha. air is circulating. it was 2 drops of solvent. not an issue, just surprising how strong the smell is.

[tardy badger]

Hey @late fulcrum the strange pumpkin flower turned out it’s more hermaphroditic (this seems to be the word used by biologists). Super fascinating thing to see

[tardy badger]

Yay, successful watermelon!

[raw jasper]

Are watermelons demanding to grow? I've never grown one (it's not like I have a garden or access to a garden, but I never had the chance to grow one when I had, so I'm curious)

[tardy badger]

There are ones that are bred to grow in containers

[raw jasper]

hah, like the novelty square watermelons?

I've seen those

That'd be interesting :P

[tardy badger]

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/watermelon/growing-watermelons-containers.htm

[raw jasper]

I know avocados are pretty hard to bootstrap

[tardy badger]

There are a number of seed varieties and they list them in that article

If you live in a more urban area, you’ll need to pollinate by hand with a small paintbrush

Overall, pretty satisfying thing to do

[raw jasper]

TIL watermelons are dioecious

[tardy badger]

Yup!

[raw jasper]

Fun fact: This practice gave us modern genetics (Gregor Mendel did this a bunch of times with peas)

[tardy badger]

“Male” and “female” but also can have hermaphroditic flowers as well

Yup, Mendel helped us understand genetic diversity in species

[raw jasper]

Essentially how (unlinked) genes (even though he did not know what a gene is) are passed down.

[tardy badger]

Yeah, fascinating stuff

Though unfortunately it influenced bad practices in our history

[raw jasper]

fun fact: We discovered the role of genes thanks to corn

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

[tardy badger]

Wheat was also a big help in genetic research

Fortunately that research was used to improve the yield of wheat which was considered a major driver of reducing global hunger (though we have a long way to go)

I know there’s a huge push against GMO, but it’s done an incredible amount to help tackle global hunger

Plus there are some incredible varieties of fruits and veggies that we’ve made through selective breeding and other gmo practices

Like Cosmic Crisp apples that researchers at the university of Washington developed. Hands down one of the best apples I’ve ever eaten

[raw jasper]

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

Related

[raw jasper]

Most of the stuff that's on the market has come out through selective breeding and stabilization of "happy accidents" (mutants that happen to have desirable traits)

[tardy badger]

Yup

[raw jasper]

We have literally been doing that for thousands of years. Difference is, these days, even when doing "just" selective breeding, we have a map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_trait_locus

[tardy badger]

Yup! It’s amazing what we can do these days with agriculture

[raw jasper]

https://images.nintendolife.com/4994f824871f6/1280x720.jpg

In Japanese, the "technology enthusiast" pokemon NPC actually says 「科学の力ってすげー！」, which translates to "the power of science is incredible!"

[limpid sedge]

using the BNO085, how can I calculate distance traveled?

[raw jasper]

The IMU measures acceleration (meters/seq^2), which (simplifying a bit and ignoring pesky vector stuff) is the second derivative of distance traveled. In theory, you could derive distance by taking the numeric double integral; However, if you are moving at a constant speed, the acceleration will provide no useful information at all (derivative of a constant speed is zero). As such, I don't think the IMU will be very useful for that application

I might be wrong though, in which case, I am sure somebody will provide a correction in time :)

[late fulcrum]

You could keep track of acceleration and do the math, but the error would tend to accumulate

[limpid sedge]

hmm

what sensor would be used for this then?

GPS?

[crystal ore]

Yep, that would be best for large distances outdoors. There are also things like tire encoders / odometers for wheeled vehicles to track their distance traveled.

[rapid geode]

off we go.

haha

we'll see where i am in a week. haha

[tranquil swallow]

It's been impossible for me to find chopped carbon fiber

The UK stuff is an option but it doubles in cost from shipping alone

[rapid geode]

solar compsites ?

soller

10 bucks us per lb. thats not bad

1" fibres

they also sell tow, so you can cut it up any length you want

[blissful roost]

You ain't no soller back girl... ?

[rapid geode]

...

[blissful roost]

😛

[tranquil swallow]

I think I could buy those fibers and sell them at a markup locally. Bad idea?

[dire dirge]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/balltze-real-dog-behind-the-iconic-cheems-doge-meme-dies-at-12-after-cancer-battle
Rip

[fossil dawn]

Programmable IO = more space for bugs! 😭

[late fulcrum]

I disagree. Not more, but different (plus another programming paradigm to learn)

[fossil dawn]

fair point

tbh I'm not completely sure if the bug I'm experiencing right now is actually caused by the programmable IO or by something else

It seems like sometimes the PIO state machines don't start or immediately get stuck

And it's extremely cursed again. Adding debug Serial.prints affects the bug

[late fulcrum]

That's frustrating. My usual approach in those situations is to hang an LED (or oscilloscope) off an I/O pin and juggle the code to toggle the pin when various things happen.

[glacial wigeon]

PIO sideset in the rp2040 can do that

[fossil dawn]

that's a good idea but I don't even know what those various interesting things could be 🤔

[late fulcrum]

It sounds like you do. You're trying to answer questions like "did it start up?"

[glacial wigeon]

ive also debugged PIO code, by just changing the clock divisor, so my scope could get more accurate measurements

[fossil dawn]

I don't think the PIO Code itself is the issue

Right now I higly suspect the "feeding PIO the data" part

[late fulcrum]

That is a logical thing to suspect, and you can use the same trick to debug that. My go-to debugging technique is "divide and conquer", so I try to set up simple scenarios that hinge on one thing happening and see what the results are.

[limpid sedge]

what abt like a drone?

[fossil dawn]

I have two hints:

1. When I2S is started and the bug occurs, pio_sm_is_tx_fifo_empty() always returns 1. When the bug doesn't occur it always returns 0.
2. I think that the DMA stops feeding the PIOs. The I2S output buffer get filled. And then it gets stuck in the "write to output buffer" function because it keeps waiting for an empty buffer but no empty buffer arrives.
   (There is basically a linked list of output buffers. DMA feeds one buffer to PIO, then an interrupt switches the just played buffer to the "empty buffers" list and feeds the next one to PIO.)

[late fulcrum]

That smells like a race condition (those are evil)

[late fulcrum]

In the case of a drone, your options are more limited. The approaches I'm familiar with are (D)GPS, TOF, triangulation, and image recognition.

[fossil dawn]

absolutely! Changing debug Serial prints has a major effect on when this bug occurs. Same with changing the SPI speed of the SD-card (where the audio comes from)

[glacial wigeon]

ive had a race condition in my context switch routine before

it didnt show itself until i implemented xmodem transfers

it was a stupid mistake, i would turn irq's off, do some action, then turn irq's back on

irq's where off to begin with, and should have remained off ....

[limpid sedge]

dgps requires 2 gps chips right?,and what is TOF and triangulation. And how could image recognition be used?

[fossil dawn]

I'm also kinda suspecting alignment issue just because that has completely blown my leg off before

[late fulcrum]

At least you're (presumably) working with a RISC CPU instead of CISC, which reduces the number of alignment problems available.

[fossil dawn]

RP2040

[late fulcrum]

That was my guess (it's the usual candidate for PIO stuff lately)

[fossil dawn]

afaik there has to be int32 = 4 byte, int16 = 2 byte alignment

• some alignment for PIO but I don't know what that requirement is rn

but last time I had alignment issues, it completely crashed. Now it does't crash. It just gets stuck in an endless loop waiting for a buffer to finish playing, which never happens. Meanwhile the PIOs have an empty buffer so aren't getting any data

[late fulcrum]

My guess (I'd have to crack some reference materials to make sure) is that the PIO doesn't have any real alignment, it just always does word-wide operations.

[fossil dawn]

#define LINUS_MAINPLAYER
#ifdef LINUS_MAINPLAYER
[entire main.cpp]
#endif

adding these defines changes when the bug occurs

(I wanted a faster way to switch between two main void loop() void setup() sketches)

or it's random when it occurs

yes. False alarm. it's random.

[late fulcrum]

I cracked open the RP2040 datasheet, and sure enough, §3.1 ("PIO") says the shift registers, scratch registers, and FIFOs are all 32 bits.

[raw jasper]

I think all data paths in the rp2040 are 32bit

[late fulcrum]

That was the thrust of my RISC comment above: the fixed word width avoids a host of alignment issues. And yes, the RP2040 is an ARM core, which is a RISC architecture. I was just unsure if the PIOs were somehow different.

[fossil dawn]

Ohhh thank you

[raw jasper]

(sorry, I just skimmed the scrollback)

[late fulcrum]

There are a variety of synchronization methods available, including WAIT, blocking PULL, and IRQs.

[fossil dawn]

But what happens if the alignment would be wrong for PIO? Throw a panic or just do nothing 🤔

[late fulcrum]

That's my point: I don't think alignment can be wrong (in the traditional sense) for PIOs.

[fossil dawn]

and I think those bufferst that get fed to PIO are created using new() so they should be 4-byte aligned

Ah now I get it

[raw jasper]

Well, I guess it can be wrong when feeding the instructions

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, code alignment and data alignment are different. But you're right about using 4-byte aligned data.

Elektor has a particularly good article about using PIO, but unfortunately, it's paywalled.

[raw jasper]

(Mainly saying this in case the PIO is programmed from C code in an openCL kind of way)

[fossil dawn]

PIO instructions get compiled, then they are a (static) C-array that gets loaded in with some SDK function

[raw jasper]

Sounds (superficially) similar to openCL :P

[fossil dawn]

never worked with that 😄

[raw jasper]

https://github.com/rsnemmen/OpenCL-examples/blob/master/Hello_World/hello.c

You write your kernel source in a string

...and it's compiled at runtime

[late fulcrum]

Basically, the PIO state machines run little programs. How the PIO program is expressed and loaded is abstracted by whatever programming language you happen to be using for the rest of the code. However, the end condition is the same: the PIO program is converted to binary, loaded into the PIO shared instruction memory, and the PIO executes it from there.

I did not know that it was compiled at runtime, that could be a tricky source of bugs, if the PIO tries to light off and run code that's not in place yet.

[raw jasper]

I don't think it's compiled at runtime. I was referring to openCL. PIO is compiled to a static byte array I think

[late fulcrum]

That makes more sense to me.

I haven't used openCL yet, but I'd like to (I've had pitched battles with CUDA and would love to change horses)

[fossil dawn]

hmm I think I can rule alignment issues out.
The data flows like this
uint8_t array => gets casted to int32_t (here it would crash if there was alignment issue)
int32_t gets used as a function parameter (copy)
and again
that int32_t gets written to a previously allocated buffer (array of uint32_t)

and then that last buffer gets fed to PIO

[rapid geode]

why on earth would you do that, people can just buy it themselves

[fossil dawn]

thank you! I mentioned that pio_sm_is_tx_fifo_empty(_pio,_sm) before... Logging it (0 or 1) to serial affected the timing a lot. Now I turn the LED on or off based on that function 😄

[glacial wigeon]

ive had similar trouble in my usb code

it worked fine, until i removed debug logging

had to throw sleeps in at random places, until i worked out all of the edge cases

[brittle condor]

Does anyone know if there is a map somewhere of the average power rating of electrical service by county?

[rapid geode]

O_o

[brittle condor]

I know it's a weird quesion, but i want to make a point...

[rapid geode]

the question does not compute. what exactly are you asking?

[brittle condor]

You know how the power company gives you a cable where the power comes from?

[tardy badger]

Like.. kWh usage?

[brittle condor]

No kw available

Like in italy it's limited to 3kw

[tardy badger]

It’s not really broken down by county as far as I’m aware

[rapid geode]

so, v and amps of household service

[tardy badger]

But I will say

[brittle condor]

Or in america it's 200A (whic can be converted to kw)

[rapid geode]

but its not

[tardy badger]

In America is greatly varies

[rapid geode]

in the us (and canada) it is 60, 100, 125, 300, 400, all over the place

240v, sometimes 480

[tardy badger]

It’s all dependent on the area and utility provider

[brittle condor]

Yea, that's why i asked for an average

[rapid geode]

in canada mains is 600

there is no average

[tardy badger]

I doubt there’s an average

[brittle condor]

._.

[tardy badger]

Counties across the US vary so much

[rapid geode]

a brand new house build in canada will have 240v (2 phase) 200A

[tardy badger]

Los Angeles county has like 8m residents

Meanwhile a county in Wyoming could have 2000

[rapid geode]

but that is new standard, far from average

[tardy badger]

US houses get 240V 2 phase

Most single story houses here have 150A service, two story (where you’re more likely to have multiple HVAC units) tend to have 200-300A service

[rapid geode]

new houses have a lot more electrical things too. heat and oven are now electric on new builds. so way more amps needed. and sometimes 3 phase.

[brittle condor]

Welp, I'm gonna guess from all this confusion that no one has ever bothered to collect statistics about his...

[tardy badger]

But an average isn’t really available because populations and sizes of counties vary so much

[patent hemlock]

US multi-unit housing have extremely large feeders off of utility mains to be able to deliver 240v 2 phase to each unit

don't know what my panel rating is, though

[tardy badger]

The average US household uses 886kWh per month

[brittle condor]

You see the issue also is that in italy for example new builds are made with a 6kw pannel, but only a 3kw service and the meter has a breaker that will pop if you overuse

[tardy badger]

Average county has 100k residents

[brittle condor]

Mine is used 150kwh/month :L

[tardy badger]

So 88,600,000kWh

But that’s a bad metric to use

[rapid geode]

my condo panel was 125a

i want 3 phase but they will charge me like $25000 to run the wires 100M or so.

[patent hemlock]

100M? that's a long run!

[rapid geode]

in winter i use up to 2000kwh and this house is tiny

[rapid geode]

short actually, im luck they is a commercial street near me. some people have to pay for several city blocks of wiring and tx

[brittle condor]

My worst period is Christmas with all the lights at night but even then it's just 350kwh

[rapid geode]

you dont have electric heat at 035c though do you?

😛

[tardy badger]

My usage

July was a scorcher here

[brittle condor]

Wood heating at barely 24c

[rapid geode]

see, thats the difference. wood is mostly banned here

polutes too much

[brittle condor]

Dw they are making it hard to use here too

We also have no ac

[tardy badger]

You need AC where I live

[rapid geode]

i have a small ac thats not one very often. we only have a few dozen days a year that rerally warrant it. and its mostly about humidity.

[tardy badger]

Houses would be unbearable when it’s 38°C or higher out

[late fulcrum]

I've thought about getting 3 phase run here, but it would be a lot cheaper as I'm just a few meters from the 19.9kV three phase distribution lines.

[rapid geode]

3 phase is abnormal here outside heavby commercial. most small office buildings dont even have 3 phase 600v.

but, theres a welding shop at the corner, so i know its here

[brittle condor]

Here if you need more than 6kw of power you are required to get 3 phase

But prices per kwh will skyrocket

[rapid geode]

but my street only has 2 wires. (2 phases) with tx every few houses. they really only need to run one more wire i think. but im not sure how they go about it.

[brittle condor]

They usually just replace everything

Especially if they can charge the user for the new cables 😛

[rapid geode]

ha, nah

they are lazy here

[brittle condor]

100% ready for full electrification

[rapid geode]

my old workshop had a tx for incoming power that was.... 20x10 ft footprint

the bus bars for the building were 1x6" solid copper

x4

not sure what the total power was but my unit was 60a 600v x3

[brittle condor]

My service comes on a 12 awg wire...

I can't turn on the oven and the hair drier without the meeter popping

[rapid geode]

ha. service here is #0 copper i think.

for 200a

[brittle condor]

Yea i saw how thick those wires get...

It's rather annoying

Especially cause power is 1€/kwh

[rapid geode]

my oven and cooktop is on 10ga each separate run.

[brittle condor]

Well technically it's 0.5€/kwh but after taxes that's the price

[rapid geode]

ah, see, theres your problem. power here is 7.5 cents cdn per kwh off peak

[brittle condor]

Yea

I also have a peak time contract

The promem is that the off peak price is 0.42€

The difference is negligible

[brittle condor]

Looks about the same here except that peak time starts at 8am and ends at 7pm on week work days, everything else is off peak

Needless to say, I'm not pleased

[rapid geode]

ha

right now im using 10-20kwh a day depending how much i cook and run the ac. the CNC does not seem to be drawing too much.

[brittle condor]

Tbh i was also surprised that my 3d printer consumes less than my normal printer

[rapid geode]

ha

yeah

[brittle condor]

I can run my 3d printer on my ups no problem but my normal printer trips the security

[ebon dew]

Your high is my low this month.

[rapid geode]

the cnc uses up to 2kw, but it only does so in 100ms bursts. average through a job is more like 200w i think

[brittle condor]

Yea, I'm guessing that the heater is what consumes the most i my normal printer but i never actually checked

I should tho, i have the tool...

[rapid geode]

micromachining is fun!'

[brittle condor]

Sure looks like it!

[ebon dew]

How many of them are you making good lord.

[rapid geode]

gonna make about 500 today

[ebon dew]

today??? 🤯

[rapid geode]

i should have about 500ish fully finished keycaps by end of week

some for wasd sets and some for single esc

[brittle condor]

Today i managed reuse my old over clock module which i had replaced with an Arduino to controll the display, next will be replacing the arduino with an esp and implementing some iot stuff

[rapid geode]

i havent decided on all the engravintgs yet though

[brittle condor]

Oh you make custom wooden key caps?

[rapid geode]

wood and corian yeah

just starting up production

[brittle condor]

Cool!

The design is only painted on or is it resin so that light can shine through?

[rapid geode]

engraves and epoxy filled. no shine through on these, but i have some ideas for that

[brittle condor]

Ah i see

[fossil dawn]

🥳 I'm at least one baby step closer to the bug!
Remember that pio_sm_is_tx_fifo_empty(_pio,_sm)?

1. When it works it returns 0 and when the bug occurs it returns 1. I figured that out earlier. But I just found out it returns that even before any audio data is written to the buffer. I can basically predict the "getting stuck waiting for a buffer to finish playing" symptom before it happens.
2. Adding a delay(1000) in a certain place (directly after setting the PIO up, before any data is written to the output buffer) => problem doesn't seem to occur (yet). And it seems like I can enable or disable logging and the problem stays the same. @late fulcrum @raw jasper @glacial wigeon (no "please help me now"-pings. Just "I want to update you and thanks for your support earlier"-pings)

[late fulcrum]

That is progress! Well spotted!

[tardy badger]

We were hitting above 101°F

Those temps are average daily temps

Lows are getting to the lower 60°Fs this month, cooler even next as expected

[rapid geode]

60c, thats crazy

ok, 128 stems done. lunch break! 😛

i am make pretending like this is a real job

haha

[tardy badger]

Lol

[fossil dawn]

wait, no. This still makes zero sense. The delay is after that pio_sm_is_tx_fifo_empty(_pio,_sm) and it somehow still affects both the issue and what that pio_sm_is_tx_fifo_empty returns

now that delay doesn't do anything anymore

I really need to do a table and like 10 tests with each change

[glacial wigeon]

@fossil dawn one thing to keep in mind, is how dreq and dma works on the rp2040

[fossil dawn]

yeah, the issue is I have absolutely no clue about that stuff

[glacial wigeon]

when you configure the dma and the pio to work together, the PIO will hold dreq active for 4 or 8 clock cycles (depending on if you joined the rx&tx together)

the dma will then count that, and know the fifo has room for lets say 4 x 32bit of data

as the dma writes data to the fifo, it counts down, until it hits 0, and then stops

if the pio consumes a 32bit word, and wants another, it will hold dreq active for exactly 1 clock cycle

and dma will then send exactly one word over

the next question then, is how often is PIO consuming a word?

[fossil dawn]

Thank you. I will check that tomorrow but now I'm completely tired and my brain is soup

22050Hz sample rate
16 bit per sample but stereo
=> 22050 words per second.
Each buffer is 512 words (right now. But it's reasily reconfigurable)
It uses that Ping-pong DMA buffer configuration. If I understand correctly: The DMA automatically switches to the next buffer after the first one is finished. And then then an interrupt swiches the just-finished-playing buffer to the next one

[gleaming vine]

where can I ask questions about an order I've made?

[hard estuary]

You should contact Adafruit on their website here: https://www.adafruit.com/contact_us

[gleaming vine]

how long does it take for an email response on average?

[ebon dew]

It's a weekend so I wouldn't expect a response until Monday during normal business hours US EDT.

[gleaming vine]

I'm just curious if this has ever happened to anyone here? I submitted an order and they gave me an error saying that the number wasn't entered correctly or they don't accept the card. But, I get charged anyways and my order didn't go through.

[ebon dew]

The Adafruit discord is a community discord and has nothing to do with the daily activities of the company store or shipping. We have no idea about their internal processes. You can contact them via email or feedback form on the website and they will get back to you.

From my experience alone in dealing with their store that has never happened to me and I purchase something from their online store pretty much once a week for years. I don't know how many total orders I have, quite a lot, and that's never happened to me.

[gleaming vine]

nvm I just realize the charge was temporary I was refunded after

[ebon dew]

I can say that their staff is extremely professional. If you have an issue they'll do their best to resolve it to your satisfaction.

ah ok, cool. all good then.

[gleaming vine]

thanks

[urban arrow]

I've been meaning to type these thoughts for awhile...
I started w/ Arduinos years ago, like 10 or more, and got pretty good with the C code and Ard IDE. Anyway, as can happen, life and jobs got in the way, and then I got back into RC helicopters (after a long break) pretty heavily. Put up all my Arduinos in a box for years.
Long story short, last year around July, I decided to see if I could still do Arduino stuff again, and made a few more orders from Ada. (I had ordered quite a few LadyAda items way back then - Arduino related).
That's when I heard about Feathers and SAMD's, TFT's, OLED's, etc., and something called Circuitpython, which I'd never heard of. I was totally out of the hobby for a long time, and did not stay informed.
THEN I got my first Feather RP2040 and some displays, and started the excellent Learning guides for the hardware and CP. I've made MANY orders since, and gotten pretty good with the programming, ALL THANKS to Adafruit making it "easy" and enjoyable.
Bottom Line: If you're reading this, and considering jumping in, if a total reasonably intelligent dufus like me can do it (did I mention inexpensively???) SO CAN YOU!
Thank you Adafruit!

[tardy badger]

Smöl baseball sized watermelon (~74mm diameter)

Surprisingly sweet

[rapid geode]

oooh

i ate most of my peaches. they ripend up in a paper bag. really nice

[tardy badger]

Oh nice

[raw jasper]

How?

[rapid geode]

you keep them in a small tank

[tardy badger]

Generally through under pollination, lack of sufficient watering/nutrients, or other environmental stresses

It wasn’t intentional but they are cute

[rapid geode]

are mellons like cucumbers, they are edible right from the start and you pick them when you feel they are the right size?

[raw jasper]

They're certainly an oddity

[tardy badger]

They should have been about 170mm in diameter for the variety

[raw jasper]

and/or novelty

[tardy badger]

Watermelon only ripen on the vine and there are specific indications which tell you when they are ripe

[raw jasper]

There's this urban legend where I live wherein you're supposed to knock on it and listen to the sound of the knock

[tardy badger]

Many varieties develop ground spots and the tendril on the leaf node the fruit is growing on will be brown and shriveled

[raw jasper]

I have absolutely no idea how this is supposed to work, but I've seen people do that at the supermarket 😅

[tardy badger]

All watermelon sold in stores are picked based on those two indicators

They are picked by hand

Some varieties it’s harder to identify a ground spot due to darker colors

[rapid geode]

ahh

i hear they take like $10 in water to grow a $2 mellon though. haha.

[tardy badger]

Cucumber are nice in that you can pick them whenever

[rapid geode]

lettuce and cucumbers are ever bearing 😛

[raw jasper]

You can pick them whenever, but if you want it not to taste like slightly sour water..... :P

[rapid geode]

my second round of lettuce is coming in now. mmm

[rapid geode]

well, within reason. the ones i grow are good from about 3-4" to 12" long. they do eventually "ripen" and turn fully yellow

[tardy badger]

Ohhh

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE! Desk of Ladyada - TFT displays in cool shapes, and a captouch revival 🖥️ 🔄 🛠️ https://youtu.be/O9H6Xs1CIdc

[rapid geode]

google says basicalyl dont let cucumbers ripen to yellow

[tardy badger]

I’m growing two variety of cucumber

[rapid geode]

they wont taste nice

[tardy badger]

I’m growing a shorter pickling variety and a slicing variety