general-chat

[rapid geode]

most cnc machines will have full schematics. self repairing them is generally an expectation

the controls will have some features enabled and disabled, but usually this is in conjuction with physical hardware and its not subsription.

renishaw tried to make a subscription digitising probe. $7000 probe they sold you for $3000, and you had to pay credits per probe. noone went for it.

[late fulcrum]

I found my tractor had a big cutout under the operation sticker. It made a dandy place to put the battery monitor display. Presumably the same casting is used in some other model that has some display or control there.

[raw jasper]

Tractor hacking

Awesome!

[glacial wigeon]

a pair of remotes, one with the overlay missing

4 of the button stems are just cut short, and lack a cut-out

also, ive never seen my cellphone camera malfunction like that before

pushing those hidden buttons did open weird menus, that where not normally accessible

[late fulcrum]

Cool!

[glacial wigeon]

cant remember the details, havent powered those TV's in decades

but adrians digital basement did a vid, where he got a chinese tv driver board, wired it up to a random crt, and it had a ton of cal menus

i assume thats what i was getting into

[raw jasper]

My grandfather managed to accidentally get himself into the TV's calibration menu by randomly mashing the remote's buttons

One of the options was "erase flash"

[glacial wigeon]

uh oh 😄

[raw jasper]

Thankfully, I happened to be there and he asked be before he pressed anything!

[glacial wigeon]

that also reminds me of something i heard about digital safe keypads

[raw jasper]

To this day, I have no idea how he managed to do that lol

[glacial wigeon]

there is a master 7 digit code that can basically factory-reset the safe

but you have to enter 2 of the digits at the same time, pushing 2 keys at once

so your very unlikely to hit it by accident

[raw jasper]

New Model: "Bandit's Dream"

[glacial wigeon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gesfh39-xlo

TLDR, a guy was at a protest, and apparently did nothing wrong, one of the peaceful protesters

the police raided his house, called up the safe manufacturer, and opened his gun safe

the manufacturer then posted on twitter, that they got a call from the police with a valid warrent, and just gave up the backdoor code

and suddenly, a lot of people are freaking out 😛

[rapid geode]

cops would have opened it anyway, so im not sure this means too much in the end. i wish cmpanies wouldnt just roll over like that though. at least go through all the paperwork and legal process

[tardy badger]

If they have a warrant, that generally enough. Companies can resist (like Apple has) to court ordered stuff and survived

Though guns are a different ball of wax vs phone data

[raw jasper]

If they got a valid warrant, then they went through the paperwork and legal process just fine

[rapid geode]

i guess

[glacial wigeon]

the problem is more, the fact that liberty safe has this data, and might also be handing it over silently

or if liberty safe gets hacked

who else might use this backdoor in the future?

dell for example, has a backdoor bios password, which is a hash of the board serial#

somebody decompiled the bios, and made a pw generator

the bios password on dell laptops is now useless

[tranquil swallow]

man everything's backdoored now

[glad ruin]

Having worked at Intel—on BootGuard firmware—I can pretty much guarantee you that any 'security' mechanisms in BIOS are only useful for vendor locking and idiot proofing.

[glacial wigeon]

the broadcom secure-boot can be bypassed by broadcom/rpf

[raw jasper]

You can typically clear the bios passwords by removing the CMOS battery and/or shorting some pins anyway

RPF can bypass secure boot anyway since they have the private keys

[glacial wigeon]

exactly

[raw jasper]

Broadcom probably has some sort of Master Key

That's the point

By buying broadcom silicon, you trust broadcom

[glacial wigeon]

the 1st stage of the bootloader must be signed by 1 of 4 rsa2048 keys

[raw jasper]

By buying rpf hardware, you trust rpf

[glacial wigeon]

and that 1st stage then sets all further rules

the 4 rsa2048 keys, are in the maskrom

[glad ruin]

Similar to the way Intel does it.

[glacial wigeon]

and the problem there, is that intel/broadcom could just build a custom firmware, that doesnt enforce the chain of trust

[raw jasper]

Buying hardware is an implicit act of trust. In fact, your hardware is a 4 in the PGP trust scale

(Remember that? 😆 )

[glad ruin]

Intel's implementation is more complicated though since there's at least one additional layer below that

[glacial wigeon]

as a better overview, there are ~4 stages to the rpi secure-boot
1: maskrom
2: bootcode.bin
3: bootmain.elf
4: boot.img (contains start4.elf, kernel.img, configs)

1 cant really be changed by an attacker

2 is signed with rsa2048

the hash of 3 is embedded into 2, and changing the hash invalidates the signature

4 is signed by a user-chosen rsa2048 key

the user pubkey is in SPI flash
the hash of the pubkey is in OTP (fuses)

[glad ruin]

That firmware is supposed to establish the root of trust. Whether you actually choose to trust it is a different question entirely. Having seen and worked on Intel's BIOS code fairly extensively, I don't.

[glacial wigeon]

2/3 will enforce that the user pubkey matches the hash

[raw jasper]

(And, for more "Reflections on Trusting Trust" action, the fab can also theoretically backdoor a manufacturer's hardware at the transistor level without them knowing)

[glacial wigeon]

if you externally hash and validate 2/3 havent been changed, you can assume the whole trust chain is intact

[raw jasper]

At that point, you either accept you cannot have fully trusted computing, or go mad and live in a cave

[glad ruin]

At that point though you're talking about supply chain attacks, in which case you are already screwed.

[glacial wigeon]

but if a malicious actor with the broadcom keys is involved, they can replace 2/3, and ignore the user pubkey

[raw jasper]

At that point though you're talking about supply chain attacks, in which case you are already screwed.

[glacial wigeon]

ive heard of some SoC's, where that root rsa2048 key is in OTP, so the customer can program it, and controls the trust root

and then nobody but the customer can change the trust root

[raw jasper]

...and then the customer gets hacked

:3

[glacial wigeon]

thats where you use a security token

a hardware device that will not allow copying/reading the private key

[raw jasper]

I feel most computers outside from maybe airgapped stuff are like salmon

In that they carry at least 3 nematodes

[glacial wigeon]

then you need to physically steal the security token

if you have remote access, all you can do is sign malicious payloads

and once the access is cut, you cant sign anymore

but now your assuming the security token, is secure!

[raw jasper]

I think that's enough to cause damage :)

[glacial wigeon]

yeah, it depends on how well prepared the attackers are, and if they have a malicious payload ready for signing

vs somebody that doesnt know what they have, and is just selling it on the dark web

[glad ruin]

A denial of service attack against the right (wrong) system can do that as well.

And for those you don't usually even need any secrets.

[raw jasper]

Weakest link in the chain and all

[sick apex]

haha, i ordered 3 x USB C cables for ESP32 off ali express

32 cents each

they sent me 3 ESP32 dev boards

[blissful roost]

🤨

[dusty citrus]

Don't you mind to share a link? 🤤

[sick apex]

haha im on call to student finance atm

once i can use my phone i'll send it

i was confused cause i checked the listing

and my order

and it only said it charged me £1.07

which is around the right price including tax and shipping

i think it was free shipping though cause i never order under £8

gotta get on that 11 day deliver grind

[rapid geode]

O_o

i paid liek $25 for my usbc cables :/

(for 5 braided coloured ones)

[raw jasper]

If you want them to actually comply to some standard, you have to pay something extra! :P

||And it's still not guaranteed||

[tranquil swallow]

I feel like I'm the only one that gets pathing problems installing python packages on mac, cuz the google results never line up

[dusty citrus]

I got my legs eaten alive by mosquitoes

[late fulcrum]

I generally use virtual environments for everything, it simplifies a lot of path issues

[glad ruin]

The only downside is that the folders are rather large.

Storage is cheap though, so...

[raw jasper]

rdfind is a thing....

(As in, deduplicating the environments often helps with disk space, since you'll often have duplicate packages)

[glad ruin]

Or block-level data deduplication, but the RAM requirements are high.

[glacial wigeon]

the nix package manager has 2 more levels of dedup that can help

1: package/version level dedup, so you can get things like a python virtualenv, and if 2 envs share the exact same version of a package, there is only 1 copy

2: file level dedup, nix just hardlinks every single file to /nix/store/.links/${hash(file)}, so duplicate files between versions arent duped

[tranquil swallow]

Wow

[sick apex]

does RF mean what i think it means

in this

[ancient rivet]

radio frequency

[sick apex]

so it does

interesting

[raw jasper]

It's probably the analog (PHY) layer for the Wi-Fi and BLE stuff

(they operate on a similar frequency, 2.4GHz)

[tardy badger]

RF also stands for really fast

[raw jasper]

Technically, it is a really fast oscillator :>

[tardy badger]

Lol

My brain couldn’t compute how smöl these actually are

[raw jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/87-years-gif-18840940

When the compute module arrives

[tardy badger]

I was lucky and got two of the 387 digikey stocked last week

I just need a carrier to attach it to

[rapid geode]

its a floor!

[tardy badger]

I’m floored!

[rapid geode]

it only took 2 years

ha

(cause the first floor was destroyed by water)

not bad for $170 as well. someones leftovers on kijiji (ebay classifieds)

hehe

this is why you make small buildings. they cost exponantially less cause you can get most of the materials for 70% off hehe

anyhow, im baked now. it is so hot in there. it need an AC unit

[raw jasper]

It looks like a floor!

[rapid geode]

soon to be covered with junk and never to be seen again

haha

ok no.

i need to keep it tidy in there. i have four 4x4 shelves 8 ft up to store all the junk.

[sick apex]

fair

i brought a wireless voltage detector from ali express

it cost me £1.23

it works so well

like it picks up DC voltages aswell as AC voltages

and it has a lazer to annoy my cat

[raw jasper]

Please do not expose your cat's eyes to LASER radiation. Thanks!

[sick apex]

fineeee

[rapid geode]

or children

[raw jasper]

Or anyone

[rapid geode]

airplanes?

oof

[tardy badger]

Unless you need to unsee things

[raw jasper]

Some random kid once managed to hit me in the eye with some gray market LASER pointer while I was passing through

[rapid geode]

ha

somone in the uk was poi9nting lasers at planes taking off i think last year

[raw jasper]

It didn't feel all that good for a moment there

I sometimes wonder what's wrong with people. I was just passing through the street! 😅

[sick apex]

im sorry but can board manufacturers please start putting the pins in the same place so if i switch boards because i need a new feature i can just swap them out instead of re-wiring everything

[rapid geode]

someone at work shot me from 1 inch away in the eye with a nerf gun

[raw jasper]

...and that's why arduino clones are a good thing, actually :P

[rapid geode]

i hope he enjoyed his last day

:x

[sick apex]

i agree

it annoys me so much though

like

i've finished prototyping on a bread board

im ready to switch to a PCB

prototype

but i want to switch from a C3 to an S3 so i can get in on that USB HID action

but now i have to redesign the whole PCB

[raw jasper]

In which case you directly use the ESP232 chip itself :)

And don't design for a board

[sick apex]

yeah but i dont have a rework station

[raw jasper]

I guess you could order PCBA

[sick apex]

and there are power line pins where some GPIO pins were

well i could

but for now

its more a prototype

so i want to be able to slot in and out

[raw jasper]

I mean, who am I to talk. I can't solder my way out of a paper bag

[sick apex]

using dupont slots

[raw jasper]

:P

[sick apex]

haha

felt

wouldn't it be funnier to say solder your way out of a plastic bag

because a soldering iron can just eat through a plastic bag

[raw jasper]

Either way, you would be likely to burn yourself

[sick apex]

(my soldering iron totally didn't drop onto a plastic bag when it slipped off the terrible stand it came with)

[rapid geode]

the paper bag is water cooler, solder will not harm it.

[raw jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/computer-pour-one-out-gif-22848417

[sick apex]

is that mineral oil

or distilled water

not mineral oil

[raw jasper]

I have absolutely no idea. It's just a silly GIF I found

[sick apex]

[rapid geode]

ha

[sick apex]

https://tenor.com/view/xd-programming-gif-23473924

this is my fav gif

[rapid geode]

if it was water it would be deionised, not distilled

[sick apex]

i knew what i meant

[raw jasper]

Please don't actually submerge your computers in liquid. Even if it's mineral oil, it's one heck of a job to maintain and clean

[rapid geode]

what about maple syrup?

[sick apex]

yes

[raw jasper]

The one error was preventing the compiler from finding the rest of the errors!

[sick apex]

exactly

but doesn't the compiler just wait until the end

it goes through the whole compilation process

then gets mad at the end

got a couple of these, they're actually quite useful

[late fulcrum]

It depends on the compiler (and the compiler settings)

[glacial wigeon]

?

[glacial wigeon]

ive missed a } or a ; before, and that happened

[sick apex]

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[sick apex]

its annoying either way

lmao like

why cant my code just work

[raw jasper]

It will, with time

[sick apex]

possibly

you seem to be like super smort

[raw jasper]

lol

nah

[sick apex]

have you ever messed with a bootloader to boot from an SD card instead of the onboard flash?

because this 4MB of flash is really screwing me up

i have SD card readers and SD cards

i just need to figure out how to screw with the bootloader

to boot from SD instead of onboard

[raw jasper]

I have not done this personally, and I have no idea if it's architecturally possible in the esp232, but, you could, in theory, load your binary from the SD card, write it to memory, and jump to it

you'd probably have to hack the compiler to make executables that would even be compatible with such a thing though

[sick apex]

time to research

i know you can hack the bootloader

maybe if i just tell the bootloader that the flash is in a different place

but then how would it know SD's protocol

unless i made some like

DLL files

put them on the SD card

omg

i could

i could make it so the default setup loop would check for an SD card if it exists, verify file integrity

then if that passes then it can call the DLL or whatever their equivalent may be

then in the loop

it can just call a function which would be in the dll

which would also be a loop but it gets called with the update loop

does that sound like it could work or am i like missing something

i swear i have too many micro controllers

[stuck moth]

no such thing

[sick apex]

i have 6 x ESP32

and im mad

because i brought 3 for £20

and ali express sent me 3 for £1.07

by accident

[stuck moth]

darn 🙂

[sick apex]

indeed

[glacial wigeon]

thats just a linker script

[raw jasper]

indeed

thx for the correction

[sick apex]

but how could you tell it to run the files if they dont yet exist?

because they'd be stored on completely different memory

[raw jasper]

oh, that's about changing the binary so that it can even be loaded

[glacial wigeon]

the bootloader would have to read the file from SD, copy it into ram, and then jump to the entry-point

[raw jasper]

Yeah, you'd have to "fix" the entrypoint

To something known

[glacial wigeon]

or use elf

elf can just point to it

[raw jasper]

Or that

But then you'd have to make an elf parser

In which case

https://wiki.osdev.org/ELF

[glacial wigeon]

https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/blob/master/app/vc4-stage1/stage1.c#L59-L69

this code will open an elf file, load it to whatever addr the LOAD headers specify, and then jump to the defined entry-point

[raw jasper]

...you can use this code as a pivot point for your bootloader thinggy

You'll have to read the ELF from the SD card

[glacial wigeon]

[nix-shell:~/apps/rpi/lk-overlay]$ vc4-elf-readelf -l build-vc4-stage2/lk.elf
Program Headers:
  Type           Offset   VirtAddr   PhysAddr   FileSiz MemSiz  Flg Align
  LOAD           0x001000 0xc4000000 0xc4000000 0x1d0c8 0x1f1e8 RWE 0x1000

an example of those LOAD headers

[sick apex]

right so time to read

for hours

[glacial wigeon]

the linker script is what sets those addresses

[sick apex]

thank you for your help and if you have any other ideas

lmk

[raw jasper]

the osdev wiki has some details

[glacial wigeon]

i can also give more details for the code i linked above

[sick apex]

please

that would be helpful

[glacial wigeon]

in my case, the elf library wants a pointer to a read function, ssize_t fs_read_wrapper(struct elf_handle *handle, void *buf, uint64_t offset, size_t len);
so you can then load an elf from anything

lines 36-38 of app/vc4-stage1/stage1.c just map that to the existing fs library

[raw jasper]

(question: are you using the linux elf.h?)

[glacial wigeon]

the elf library and headers are all under https://github.com/littlekernel/lk/tree/master/lib/elf

https://github.com/littlekernel/lk/blob/master/lib/elf/elf.c#L170
elf_load() does a range of sanity checks on the elf headers

and then on line 211, it loops over every program header

[glacial wigeon]

this command lets you list program headers
so you can compare the truth against what your code is reading, and iron out any bugs

[sick apex]

i need to stop messing around with USB hid, i swear every mf microcontroller i have with USB OTG, when i plug it into my PC i get rick rolled 😭

[glacial wigeon]

lines 224 and 238, then just read a file size chunk of the elf
starting at offset into the file
and drops it at physical address in ram

[sick apex]

this is sort of the part that confuses me

what if i want to load a 10 mb elf

i'd have to do some funky business to make it not load it all

because i only have 320 kb

i think

i dont know

[glacial wigeon]

you just cant load the whole thing

and gcc has no way of knowing you didnt load it all

[raw jasper]

And now, you discover bank switching

[glacial wigeon]

yep

[sick apex]

bahaha

alright

good to know

[raw jasper]

Welcome to the NES era! :D

[glacial wigeon]

this is where the rp2040 and its XIP has a major benefit (not sure how the esp32 solves it)

XIP lets you run code from flash, without copying it to ram

so you can have up to 16mb of code, and leave it in the flash

[sick apex]

my Pico W is currently locked in a box

attached to a door

so i cant use it

i knew i should've used the digikey instead

[glacial wigeon]

https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/latest/esp32/api-reference/system/mm.html

ahh yeah, that is what i was thinking about

the esp32 has a special mmu, that maps onto spi only

this lets you store multiple binaries in flash, that are linked to conflicting addresses

and then you can map one of them into ram, and execute it

this is better then the rp2040, because you can do a/b updating

you can just store 2 different versions of the firmware in SPI flash

and if it crashes, just run the old version automatically

and now its much harder to brick, and you can safely update it over wifi

[sick apex]

hmm

[glacial wigeon]

but because it only supports the spi flash, you cant map the SD card into ram

[raw jasper]

Don't sd cards also have an spi mode?

[glacial wigeon]

so you have to keep your program small enough to fit in ram, and just copy it like i showed before

[glacial wigeon]

the hardware is expecting standard spi flash, not an sd card in spi mode

so it wont be able to send the right commands

[raw jasper]

👍

||Read data from sd card, copy to spi flash, and memmap it||

[glacial wigeon]

that could work, but would wear out your spi chip!

[raw jasper]

Hence the award :P

[sick apex]

i mean i could make everything like stupidly slow by writing something that would only keep what's being run in memory

but that seems like a pain in the backside

and slow

then again it doesn't need to be fast

its not exactly going to be that big i just need more than 2 MB of storage

i'll maybe figure something out

[glacial wigeon]

XY problem maybe?

what was the actual problem?

[late fulcrum]

That's why the PL/1 compiler offers the "DWIM" options

[sick apex]

ohhhh

[sick apex]

omg my brain is so tiny

😭

this whole time

i have been coding this thing

i forgot to add header guards

so ive been getting issues like "multiple definitions of..."

😭

im so dumb

[glad ruin]

I need this emote for... reasons.

[sick apex]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1080836223112839212.gif?size=96&quality=lossless

link for it

add it wherever you want

[glad ruin]

[sick apex]

i have 2 versions

i like to alternate

between the two

OMG ITS FLASHING

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

i wrote like 150 lines of code

give or take

and didn't sanity check myself

didn't even know if it was gunna work

and boom

it compiled

[glad ruin]

Sounds production worthy

[sick apex]

hahaha

brb gotta crash prod

[sick apex]

you're smart, how can i keep a pointer active but like reset its value to nothing

if that makes sense

if i just do like

int* test = new int(10);

test = new int(40);```

if that was like in however i need it, would that work

[glad ruin]

That's a memory leak, assuming you don't have anything else referencing the first int you allocated. Also, having a pointer to a single int is pointless (pun intended). A pointer declared like that stores a memory address on the stack, which is itself an integer (there are some weird corner cases but those are irrelevant to this discussion).

[austere ermine]

can anyone tell if qemu arm usermode emulation supported on windows/msys2?

[glad ruin]

If it is it would be very S L O W.

[dusty citrus]

Wasn't there a way to execute a python file without having python installed? or include in a root python without having it installed on the machine?

[fair summit]

yes, there are various ways to embed python in an executable: pyinstaller, py2exe. here is a comparison by one tool with others: https://pyoxidizer.readthedocs.io/en/stable/pyoxidizer_comparisons.html

[whole jacinth]

there are drawbacks, including embedding a dependency on a particular OS version. these can be difficult for a non-expert to troubleshoot. (see some Arduino core tools on NRF and ESP32, i think?) ironically, non-experts are often the target audience for bundled Python applications

[fair summit]

there is also python in a browser, with PyScript, etc.

[spare raft]

Heya, I put the wrong delivery address on my order, is there a way to change it?

[glad ruin]

||Move to the new address so that it is no longer incorrect.||

(this is a joke)

[fair summit]

Please write to [e-mail] immediately.

[spare raft]

Thanks

[dusty citrus]

It's just a boring string manipulator
I couldn't make it on cmd/PowerShell which I barely have any experience on

[spare raft]

It says it can't change the address after the payment has been made, oh well

I know the guy at the address so I should be able to get it from him

[tardy badger]

I really appreciate That I’ve matured enough as am embedded engineer that I could make a really good and accurate guess at how a feature is enabled

[tardy badger]

Cool, getting hardware ray tracing on the iPhone 15 pro

Spatial video too

[tranquil swallow]

anything on the vision pro

[tardy badger]

Release timeframe is the same

[spring sleet]

Hello, I hope everyone is doing well. I have a bit of an issue with an AR1100 and the Configuration Utility. I had it working on 8/7, a Windows update happened on 8/9 and now I am no longer able to get the AR1100 to recognize through USB - (any option). I have uninstalled the update, ran a registry cleaner, rebooted, updated drivers and software, and re-installed the .net framework. Rebooted a half dozen more times, changed cables, and tried on both Win10 and VirtualBox Win7. Has anyone else run into this issue, or know the workaround to get the AR1100 to be recognized by the software?

[patent hemlock]

The "most portable" is probably via Docker image

[rapid geode]

shed progress. whee. finally time for wiring

[silent dragon]

Hey Friends! Anyone know if there's a current coupon?

(Please and thank you 🙂 )

[tardy badger]

Next one will likely be tomorrow during ask an engineer

[silent dragon]

Perfect! Thanks @tardy badger !

[edgy juniper]

https://dataconomy.com/2023/09/12/ai-robots-steal-the-show-at-the-chargers-game/

[dusty citrus]

https://tenor.com/view/the-doctor-leo-fitz-technology-gif-14038179

Hey guys I just joined the sever and i'm looking for a project under 75$ that I can use to impress a high school what do u recommend???

[tardy badger]

You can do an image recognition project with an ESP-CAM and high is pretty affordable as a board

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4095

Maybe do it where it can recognize a grade on a paper and build a CSV which includes average grade received, and other statistical data

[raw jasper]

this reminded me of those scantron test machine input sheet thinggies

Amazing what you can do when all you support is multiple choice and have low tech at your disposal :P

[tardy badger]

Hehe yeah

[raw jasper]

What is image segmentation? Let's just test for the conductivity of graphite in predetermined spots!

[tardy badger]

🤓

[fossil dawn]

Wait what? They test the conductivity? I always kinda assumed they would optical and detected dark spots 🤯

[raw jasper]

It looks like modern ones are optical

in fact, looking it up, it seems all scantron were/are optical in one way or another. The IBM100 was the machine that did this

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/testscore/

[fossil dawn]

1937 🤯 amazing high-tech with ultra-low-tech technology

[late fulcrum]

Punch card technology goes back farther than that. A lot farther.

[rapid geode]

at least to 1936

:x

[late fulcrum]

https://www.nms.ac.uk/media/399983/daughersofdecay-punchcards2.jpg

[tranquil swallow]

Are punch cards the solution to bitrot????

[late fulcrum]

They're organic material, so they can still degrade. But you could use the concept with more durable materials than card stock.

[rapid geode]

thats not optical though is it?

my cnc came with a punch card reader

ha

only for parameter storage though

[late fulcrum]

Originally, no. Those were read with wires that poked through the holes to let thread carriers rise

[rapid geode]

but ive seen a few with reel to reel

[late fulcrum]

Reel to reel what? Paper tape? Magnetic tape? Optical tape? Sticky tape?

[rapid geode]

paper take obviously

[glad ruin]

... hence the reason magnetic core memory was used in early space exploration.

The most durable storage medium though is multiple mediums with redundancy and error correction.

[late fulcrum]

I did build a 32-bit core memory (from a kit) a while back. I also have some decades-old core memory planes that presumably still contain information

[blissful roost]

Ohh.. likey!

[rapid geode]

i dont remember those....

runs

[blissful roost]

I never used them.. I ain't that old. 😛

My Ryzen upgrade list is down to £566, so that's nice. 😄

[rapid geode]

what was it before

$90990780

[blissful roost]

I think it was about £640 a few months back.

[rapid geode]

ah

[blissful roost]

..oh, lawd.
That was October last year. 😛

[rapid geode]

ha

[uncut trench]

I would so get one of those and build it if I could
(A) hook it up to a modern MCU as 32 bits of persistent storage, and
(B) find a meaningful use for 32 bits of persistent storage.
Surprisingly, when I think of what I typically do, (B) is the harder problem to solve. 😮

[rapid geode]

you could store the word core

[uncut trench]

Yeah, but I'm thinking something that is actually meaningful to the project at hand. For example, I'm adding a rain gauge to the outside temperature probe I made, so a 32 bit int holding the current rainfall for the day is the sort of thing I'm thinking. Except that project is complete as far as hardware is concerned, and I'd have to print and mount a whole new enclosure on the outside of the house where the temp probe currently resides. That could negatively affect the WAF of the whole project.

[rapid geode]

i think the device is more art than anything else. so it would fit into a project that is art.

[raw jasper]

I love that you can physically see the bits!

[late fulcrum]

To actually see the bits, it turns out an AdaFruit NeoPixel display happens to line up with it, and can show the data: https://blog.adafruit.com/2020/01/01/arduino-core-memory-shield-upgraded-with-adafruit-led-display-neopixels-hackadayio-bikeandfly/

[spring sleet]

Hello,
I am new here and really need some assistance. Can someone please give me a direction to go in? I posted my issue yesterday. It's about the AR1100 not connecting through the Configuration Utility. I know Windows sees the device because, the driver shows up, and I can use the Pointer Devices utility in the Control Panel which shows Microchip, AR1100. I can calibrate it with the UPDD Console, but I don't know what Properties match up with the Thresholds in the AR Configuration Utility. I have tried multiple things to get the AR Configuration Utility to correctly see the AR1100. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[fair summit]

are you using https://www.adafruit.com/product/3305 ?

[fair summit]

We don't really know anything extra about the Microchip software. Have you tried contacting them directly or posting on their forums? See https://www.microchip.com/en-us/support/all for their support resources.

[spring sleet]

Hi danh,
Thank you for your response. I am using the 7" 800x480 HDMI Backpack (+ AR1100 Touch Controller) PWM-able Backlight. I will jump on their site and see about contacting them. Thank you. :0)

[regal terrace]

I found your video on Attribution of OpenAI ChatGPT very enlightening and impressive! I wonder if restricting the training material to desirable and reliable examples improves the results, besides dealing with the attribution issue. https://blog.adafruit.com/2023/09/09/attribution-of-openai-chatgpt-in-open-source-code-published-by-adafruit/

[raw jasper]

I wonder how it'd look like if you were to press a magnetic field viewing film against it as the data change.....

[late fulcrum]

Since the fields are concentrated in the material of the cores, you might see some little pinpoints of flux at the cores. When it's being driven, you might see the fields of the address wires too.

[raw jasper]

Do you think the patterns would change with the data?

[patent hemlock]

defining terms like "desirable", "reliable", and "improve results" are the big problems behind AI -- unless you have a completely known, well-defined,finite dataset, all bets are off

[regal terrace]

Yes, I figured what Lady Ada did was effectively use such a data set.

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, I figure the pinpoints at the cores would shift depending on which way they're magnetized.

[rapid geode]

thats a big problem with humans... we get so many notes from directors "give it more mmph, and zing... " what the heck is that supposed to mean? 😛

[burnt vale]

hey, whats a really good brand of diagonal cutters that have a high hardness and can be easily lapped sharp again? I need them for 3d printing post processing with glass and carbon fill so I need something really hard to prolong the time between sharpenings. Thank you in advance for any information!

[late fulcrum]

Erem comes to mind...

[raw jasper]

For some reason, I can imagine having an MCU write random patterns of data to the core memory with the field viz film on working out well as an art piece...

[late fulcrum]

I may have some of that viewing material, so I may try it. I'm a big fan of electronic art. However, I think it would be pretty subtle, having little pinpoints flicker. It could be that updating the cores provides a more dramatic display, as the various wires will have magnetic fields (if they last long enough to visualize)

[raw jasper]

Who knows? I feel it'd be worth trying. If the patterns are nice, with the right illumination, it'd be pretty nifty to look at

Like a physical screen saver of sorts

[stable vapor]

What is this panel mount I saw advertised on Instagram? The black mount in the background.

[hard estuary]

Swirly mounting grids: https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=swirly

[tender heron]

This is so cool and didn't know it existed lol

Does the Swirly come with plastic pegs like shown in the 10x10 product image?

[fair summit]

no, those are nylon standoffs and screws. Go to https://www.adafruit.com/product/5781 and scroll down to "May We Also Suggest" to see black and white nylon hardware assortments.

[tender heron]

Ah thank you!

[stable vapor]

Thank you! How would you recommend mounting this to a wall? Command strips?

[hard estuary]

That I don't know, sorry

[patent hemlock]

if you mount it to a wall you won't be able to attach anything else to it because you won't be able to get "behind" it, but if the idea is to make a "permanent" installation, command-strips might work if you have screw head on "bottom" and -- the padding on the strips might be enough to pad around the heads

riffing off the top of my head, what you could so is mount some standoffs on each corner on the side you want mounted to the wall and then press something like foam-core "strips" onto them and then use command-strips on the foam-core -- that would get past any screw head height issue

[glad ruin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/923433336163151913/1151900499709267988/image_from_ios__1__480.png

[patent hemlock]

@stable vapor kind of something like this: #adafruit-blog-feed message

[edgy juniper]

Finally! 😁

[spare raft]

There's literally no other supplier for this part except from some sketchy websites

Or the old version which is 30$ more expensive on amazon

Am I allowed to reorder or am I just blocked from ordering from them or something?

[hard estuary]

Unfortunately, this server can't help with store issues. You'll need to contact Adafruit at https://www.adafruit.com/contact_us

[glad ruin]

@tender heron I need that emote

[tender heron]

Idk if you can get it from that @glad ruin

I'm on mobile atm

[glad ruin]

I'll grab it later.

[tender heron]

👍 I'm also in the process of trying to get some cheap DHT11 sensors to work with my Pico W lol. For some reason they're all justr returning 0c and between 1-2% humidity. :/

I have VBUS connected to the + on the breakout the sensor is connected to, a 10k ohm resistor on the data out pin to 3.3v out on the Pico W, and a jumper from GP2 on the Pico W to the data out on the sensor breakout board, and - on the breakout to ground.

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong

[stuck moth]

what part?

[glad ruin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/979206202363891773/1151954270212591647/image.png

This is true both at home and at work.

[tender heron]

Well that's strange, I bought these thinking they were DHT11. But, given the weird readings I just switched the code to define the sensor as DHT22, and it's working now. Strange

[glad ruin]

Methinks you might in fact have a DHT22. Congratulations on your free upgrade.

[tender heron]

Well, hang on

On Arduino using the DHT library it works defining it as a DHT22. In CircuitPython if I define it as a DHT22 it can't be detected. 🙃

This is using a Pico W for the CircuitPython board. If I code it so it's a DHT11 it detects the sensor but again the values are all wrong.

[spare raft]

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3211 Just ordered it from digikey so it's all good

[stuck moth]

that was going to be my suggestion

[tender heron]

So, I think these are some weird Frankenstein DHT sensors lol. They have blue casing like the DHT11, and the product listing said DHT11. But, they don't read correctly when my code has them setup as DHT11. But, on Arduino with my Uno I can define it as a DHT22 using the DHT library and it starts reading correctly. Well, within range of what it should be. But, if I define it as a DHT11 it also reads incorrectly on the Arduino. But, on the Pico W with CircuitPython it doesn't detect it as a DHT22, and only as a DHT11.

[ancient rivet]

https://learn.adafruit.com/modern-replacements-for-dht11-dht22-sensors/overview

[tender heron]

@ancient rivet thanks. Yeah I did read through that before buying these. But, I was looking to go real cheap. I guess this is what I get for being cheap lol.

I'm really confused now though why do they work with the Arduino library as DHT22, but not the Adafruit DHT CircuitPython library?

[severe sonnet]

Hi all, for programs running the adafruit_midi library (https://docs.circuitpython.org/projects/midi/en/latest/), when the device is plugged into the host computer 's USB port, will the host recognise it as a MIDI device?

[jagged axle]

anyone know a good metallic 2.5M screw/standoff set that they'd recommend? Something like these but in larger quantities:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2336
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2337
I got some of those and love them, then eventually bought a larger set of nylon ones, but I'm not liking them as much.

[glad ruin]

Got it

Here's the gif link:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1152088172088537119.gif

[glacial wigeon]

the ?width=...&height=... causes discord to downscale the image server side
if you remove those from the end, you get a higher quality image

[glad ruin]

Yeah that's just in the gif link.

[blissful roost]

Not bad, considering how washed out it was by all the glare.

[fair summit]

look for M2.5 standoffs on Amazon or eBay. There are a bunch of kits, some mixed size, but some others M2.5 only. I've bought similar kits from there. McMaster-Carr has them at ridiculous prices, so I wouldn't go there.

[ruby spoke]

Does anyone have a favorite way to mount a micro USB plug to a housed project? I like to use micro USB for 5V power. I got these Adafruit breakouts, but I’m having trouble mounting one to act as a power cord connection to my box.

This would be better if I had thought to buy this instead… hehe

Or in addition, rather

[ebon dew]

If it's in an enclosed space there are panel mount versions where the USB male plug is right angle for plugging into a feather/qt py/etc..

Though I don't think Adafruit carries them. I needed one for an enclosure project where only a right angle would fit. Having the panel mounted onto the back of the enclosure has saved me a lot of time. I used to have to open the entire closure during a hard fault and reach in there to hit the reset button. Solved it with a panel mount and later added an external reset button.

It's nice if you can 3D print the back face to accomodate the plug for a snug fit too.

[ruby spoke]

Very pretty

[ebon dew]

if it's battery powered you'll want an external reset button just in case because pulling the power cord will not reset the device. it will switch to battery power immediately.

cute adafruit tiny arcade button as reset switch

[raw jasper]

this looks like something one'd put in their car!

Is this the plan?

[ebon dew]

No, it has the weather and sits in front of my monitor. Though I’m working on a huge wall display that will replace it so I can use it for something else.

[raw jasper]

nice

[placid torrent]

Woot, long time customer first time here. Thanks for all the fun you share 🙂

[reef dew]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NURLeeyPu2c

Does the adafruit website sell this?

Can't seem to find it

[thick wind]

If your box is 3d printed, https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CAD_Parts/tree/main/1833 microUSB breakout has the 3d model files for your design.

[tardy badger]

So I made the choice to finally check something off the millennial checklist. Starting a podcast

[acoustic pawn]

messy desk only means you're doing the hobby properly

[sharp nexus]

Where Can I find schematics for high quality headphones like Marshall that i Can build on my own?

[sharp nexus]

I want to make a Unique design through 3d print

Best would be if they played 100khz

[late fulcrum]

Generally the frequency response is dependent on the drivers. For maximum quality, you don't want any circuitry, just connect the headphone drivers directly to the headphone amplifier. Note that the Marshall ones aren't "high quality" as much as tailored to provide a similar distortion characteristic to old style Marshall vacuum tube amplifiers. Noise cancelling is a completely different animal.

[blissful roost]

So close!

[raw jasper]

What's left to do with it?

[blissful roost]

A lot!

Needs some new plastics.. battery.. 1080p screen mod, BIOS update and some firmware mod thing.

Definitely needs a good clean.

[raw jasper]

Oh yeah. I remember making a BIOS update USB stick for my thinkpad

It was a fairly involved procedure, because they only give you an ISO

that needs to be burned to a CD to boot to DOS

I remember using some whacko utilities to do some el torrito black magic to get it to boot

What firmware mod?

[blissful roost]

Something related to the Fn key alts.

I think...

[static flare]

I need to put a new disk in my ThinkPad

[raw jasper]

At least with thinkpads it is not that involved

[blissful roost]

I need to swap in the drives from the X220t, but that's trivial.

[blissful roost]

That's better! 😁👍

[sharp nexus]

Okay, so hypotethically, if i wanted headphones which would be in the range of marshalls, is there some online schematic I Can already use? 🙂

[patent raptor]

You're making me miss my X220 🥲

[blissful roost]

It's ok... I've only butchered an X220t to make this happen. 😈

[sharp nexus]

https://www.crowdsupply.com/tomislav-liber/lta-headphones

[versed meteor]

I have taken apart so many devices that I have developed a bad habit of it

[sharp nexus]

Something like this

[versed meteor]

now when ever I see a device I want to take it apart and see whats inside

this is a curse

[sharp nexus]

Do you know anything like open hardware for high-end headphones so I Can test the code and test the hardware on something

?

😃

[late fulcrum]

High end headphones, as I said, don't contain much circuitry at all: what makes them high end are the drivers and housings.

[urban arrow]

Isn't that how Limor got started in electronics as a young girl?

[glad ruin]

That's how basically everyone gets started

[vivid iron]

say, If I have a pwm signal and a H-bridge, I can make a sine wave centered around 0 (with negative voltages over the coil or the resistor or whatever). Can I achieve this using some other topology than a H-bridge? specifically in a useful efficient sensible way?

[glad ruin]

What you are describing is an inverter. They often use an H-bridge internally.

[vivid iron]

yeah

is the H bridge the ultimate topology for an inverter? should I stop looking for better alternatives?

[tender heron]

Hmm, I'm confused. On the Adafruit learn site about DHT11 sensors it says you can power them with 5v even if you're using it with a MCU that uses 3.3v logic. But, I just tried that with mine and when measuring the data out with a multi meter it reads it's outputting upper 4v. I added a pullup resistor to 3.3v out and it still reads upper 4v. What am I doing wrong here with the wiring?

I should clarify the sensor is on a breakout board. Is that board doing something to cause this? Here's the product listing for the ones I bought. https://www.amazon.com/Temperature-Humidity-Digital-Compatible-Raspberry/dp/B092M8GSTD/

[glad ruin]

I don't know if it's the "ultimate" topology or not, but there are lots of ways to implement an h-bridge.

[vivid iron]

you're saying your 3.3V mcu is outputting 4V? is it being powered by 3.3V?

[vivid iron]

it's the only one I know, and I know there are a thousand ways to do it, just figured I'd ask the experts, maybe there'd be a simpler, more reliable design I'm missing

[tender heron]

No, I'm saying the sensor is outputting upper 4v on the data out. I was using this with a Pico W, luckily it doesn't seem like it damaged the gpio pin it was connected to. It still takes input and outputs 3.3v itself correctly.

When I power the sensor via 3.3v it outputs about 3.3v as expected.

When powering the DHT11 with 5v on the + pin though the data out is upper 4v

Even with a pullup resistor connected to 3.3v for data out

[vivid iron]

it's probably a good idea to use the same source, a pullup resistor doesn't work that way, as I understand your circuit, that would never have worked.

why do you need it to be a value other than 4V though?

[tender heron]

I want to use it with a Pico W that uses 3.3v logic.

[vivid iron]

it's fine

[tender heron]

Wouldn't taking input above 3.3v on the gpio damage it over time?

[vivid iron]

nope, it's a field effect transistor that is receiving it, it won't get damaged under a voltage under something like 20 volts ( you can look this up in a data sheet, or just google it) you're right, anything above 3.8 can damage your pico

the pico does have a 3.3 volt output pin, I recommend using it

[tender heron]

Yeah, they maybe a bit tougher though as I did run this sensor shortly using the 5v on + to power it. 😬 But, again the pin seems fime, the RP2040 and WiFi still work fine

No magic smoke lol

[vivid iron]

heh

[tender heron]

https://learn.adafruit.com/dht/dht-circuitpython-code on this page though under wiring it says using 5v for power is fine even for 3.3v logic. I'm confused though other than using a logic level shifter how to make that work.

My other problem is getting these sensors to actually read the right value lol. Using an Arduino uno they work, but only when defining it in the code as a dht22 lol. If I say it's a dht11 then it doesn't read correctly.

[vivid iron]

I won't get suckered into saying anything bad about adafruit inside adafruits server.

[tender heron]

It says it's like 0c and 2% humidity. But switch to defining it as a dht22 on the arduino and I get expected temp and humidity.

But in circuit python if I say it's a dht22 sensor it can't detect it. But, when saying it's a dht11 it detects it but also shows the temp as like 0c and 2% humidity.

Happens when powering with either 5v or 3.3v

@vivid iron I'm not saying there's anything bad about the article lol. I think it's probably a skill issue on my end lol. I'm probably doing something wrong here. Or, the breakout board these came installed on is doing something.

[vivid iron]

it's not a skill issue, inspect the accuracy in the datasheet miss

[tender heron]

I'm not sure if there is a datasheet for these sensors I bought on amazon lol

They seem to actually have their own pullup resistor built in though. The sensor is detected even without an external pullup resistor installed.

[glad ruin]

H-bridges are about as simple as it gets.

[static flare]

They were the third thing I was taught to build using discreet components

[tardy badger]

It’s pumpkin bread calving season

[static flare]

I'm planning on using what I know with that to get the basics down and move to better constructed circuits by people who know more about what they're doing

[raw jasper]

Bread... calving? Isn't calving a thing cows do?

[tardy badger]

See the tiny loaves? That’s the start of larger pumpkins loaves lol

[raw jasper]

Now I am even more confused 😆

[tardy badger]

It’s a joke because of there being small loaves next to a larger loaf 😛

[raw jasper]

Oh. OK. It's been a long day.

[tardy badger]

Crazy how time passes differently depending on the gravity of a situation 😛

What if the reason some days feel shorter is because we’re surrounded by more dark matter than other days

I think it’s perfectly valid lol

[raw jasper]

I mean, time is not matter anyway. And the perception of time is super subjective. I guess the simplest explanation would work best

Unless you want to make a religion or something :P

[tardy badger]

Nah, gravity affects time

It’s science

[raw jasper]

Speed too, but orders of magnitude don't match up

For our scale

[tardy badger]

And dark matter is the current best explanation for missing matter

[raw jasper]

I think if we had "lost time", we'd know by now

Somebody would have written their paper of their lifetime

[tardy badger]

I didn’t say we lost time

I said changes in local gravity May affect our perceptions of time

There’s places of measurably different gravity on earth

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-gravity-hole-in-the-ocean-may-be-the-ghost-of-an-ancient-sea1/?amp=true

Pretty cool stuff

[vagrant wolf]

General question is sdram just preferred over psram/sram because sdram normally has higher storage?

[tardy badger]

Speed is also a factor

Sdram in probably most all cases is connected in parallel making read and write times really quick

[vagrant wolf]

I see, speaking as an HW engineer,sdram is significantly harder to implement on smaller compact boards than psram. And normally on the small boards psram is quicker due to processor limitations. Just makes things a bit more complicated

[tardy badger]

Sure, psram and sram on smaller boards tend to use qspi or octalspi to be faster

Also considering how many microcontrollers can’t handle huge memory spaces so well.

[vivid iron]

@glad ruin rail splitting seems to be simpler. Are you familiar enough with rail splitting to recommend it or against it?

[tardy badger]

On the right system, you can handle up to 4GB of QSPI Flash for instance

[vagrant wolf]

Yes but they tend to get more expensive than sdram

[tardy badger]

Yup

On some NXP micros, you could probably do SDRAM with flexbus or flexio

You could probably 2x the speed over octalspi

That would take some firmware gymnastics though

[vagrant wolf]

Yeap I'm working with the imx rt currently

Quite complicated with other memory options so I think it's best to stay with 8mbyte psram for simplicity

[tardy badger]

Probably a good choice

I think you’ll find that pretty adequate in general for a micro

[vagrant wolf]

I also saw the imx rt1176 is clocked at 1ghz, and I'm planning on designing another board aswell

Don't know what's best for it

Currently I'm working on the rt106s

[tardy badger]

You can change the fuses in firmware to run slower if you’re concerned. I think you’ll likely still end up bottlenecked by the psram though

[vagrant wolf]

Yeah I guess, the 8mbyte psram for the rt1176 isn't enough

[late fulcrum]

There are many options but if you have a spare op-amp handy, rail splitting is easy

[vagrant wolf]

I guess I'll have to look at hyperflash or something else that is significantly small

Not alot of options on the size though

And all of this is supposed to be put on an breadboardable board

[glad ruin]

That depends on what you want to accomplish.

[vivid iron]

I was thinking of using this:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/TPS54360BDDAR/10434703
it's a rail splitter that handles 3.5A, which I need.

[vivid iron]

I want to create a custom waveform 6-12 phase inverter to drive a motor

my bachelors degree depends on me creating a motor and a motor controller 🐹

[vivid iron]

should I just use an op amp?

[late fulcrum]

For that, I might lean toward a bipolar power supply

I generally do rail splitting for signal circuits and individual power supplies for power handling

[vivid iron]

ok, first I'm ever hearing about bipolar power supplies, you'd recommend creating 6-12 individual power supplies?

[glad ruin]

Correct split rail will not be enough.

I would suggest talking to your prof about reducing the requirements as well. Just one of those is a major project on its own.

And building motors is tedious due to the amount of wire wrapping required.

[vivid iron]

here is a basic design of a bipolar power supply, this is what it is?

[vivid iron]

I can handle tedious, and my advisor warned me of doing something so difficult, but I don't mind difficulty or hard work or a lot of research, if it takes me twice the amount of work than I could get away with, I'm fine with that

[glad ruin]

It's not the amount of work that will be your problem. It's time. Go ahead, I dare you to ask how I know.

[vivid iron]

why would split rain not be enough?

[vivid iron]

how do you know?

[glad ruin]

Because motors both sink and source large amounts of current, and your options for sinking current on the supply side are heavily limited.

[glad ruin]

My senior project was originally going to involve designing a PCB, FPGA logic, and implementing a Linux kernel module. I got the first part done, barely.

[vivid iron]

ok, so would a h-bridge be a better fit?

[vivid iron]

yeah, but look at you, you glorious beast, you got the long end of the stick with all your knowledge and expertise

[glad ruin]

For a multiphase motor you're looking at something even more complex. For each phase, you'll have an h-bridge + additional feedback and control logic + additional components to get an actual sine wave. And then there's the additional control circuitry to synchronize each of those phases.

[vivid iron]

I know, the project has already been approved, I have spent an entire month researching

[glad ruin]

What I recommend is to not have one part of your project depend too heavily on the other working. You should make an inverter that can drive a small off-the-shelf multiphase AC motor, and then if you have time you can build your own motor as well.

But honestly just getting the driver designed, built, and functional is going to take months.

[vivid iron]

If I could, I would, there are many ways for me to simplify, but this ain't the place

[vivid iron]

no, it will take me around 2-4 weeks, I will take the easiest route, I can do 6 phases instead of 12, I have worked with power electronics and I already have a degree in electronics engineering (journeymans degree)

[glad ruin]

Ah, I see.

[vivid iron]

you'd recommend the h-bridge instead of the bipolar supply?

[glad ruin]

Yes I would.

[vivid iron]

would you recommend an H-bridge instead of a bipolar power supply (for staiblity and ease?)

[glad ruin]

At the same time, with your degree and experience with power electronics I would kind of think that you'd have a better idea than any of us. I haven't personally designed a motor controller before.

[half plank]

Does anyone know of a good 10x10 mm oled display

[vivid iron]

your input is still valuable, thanks for the help

[half plank]

Also does anyone know how to measure a filet with calipers

[vivid iron]

there's 3 ways to use the caliper, the front back and end. are none of those useful?

[half plank]

Not for radius

I have to measure the curved edge of a round rect screen

[bright hornet]

hi

[vivid iron]

I think the caliper might not be a good fit for that, unless you know for sure the curvature, in which case you'd have to do math

[ebon dew]

https://youtu.be/RTqCqpOYwKk

[rapid geode]

oh, so im repairing my water damaged lathe and i want to change the motor in it to a servo that receives pulses. but not cnc. i need an mcu to create a pulse train for any given speed (0-2500 i think) based on a potentiometer. then it needs to display the speed on a 4x7 segment led display.

i have a pro trinket 5v 32u4 on hand. it that powerful enough to manage?

doesnt seem like a hard project, but pulse timings always worry me

[tardy badger]

PWM peripheral should be up for the job

Also: I grew yet another tiny cantaloupe

[rapid geode]

ha niec

under ripe?

[tardy badger]

Slightly

There’s not really enough constant sunlight these days to ripen it fully

It sat on the vine for well over a month at that size and webbing

The flesh is still pretty sweet

[rapid geode]

ah

[rapid geode]

ok, stage 2 of my lathe is 2 motors, reading the encoders of each and feeding them in sync. then showing some things on a display. i think feather m0 bluefruit then. i have a terminal block base for it too. yeah that will be nice and "pro" haha.

no need for the bluetooth but its the board i have

[wispy spoke]

nice

[raw jasper]

ha. Take this out of context! 😆

[tardy badger]

xD

https://tenor.com/view/jeffrey-dahmer-delicious-gif-20115051

[late fulcrum]

Those are two orthogonal issues. You can use either, both, or neither, depending on what you have available, and the details of what you're trying to do.

[whole plover]

i just arrived to see this

https://tenor.com/view/fava-beans-a-nice-chianti-silence-of-the-lambs-hannibal-lechter-horror-movie-gif-18786842

[whole plover]

a fill - eyyyyy

https://tenor.com/view/fonz-ey-ian-well-yeah-gif-3665492

[tight copper]

are there any feathers that have an hid chip?

I want to make a wired gamepad

[static flare]

the RP2040 can be used as both a USB host and peripheral, but I believe you need some jiggery pokery to do both at the same time

[glacial wigeon]

circuitpython has a pio-usb host module

so if you just cut up a usb cable, and wire it to 2 gpio pins, you can get a host port

[static flare]

Well that's probably the jiggery pokery I meant

[glacial wigeon]

yep

[whole plover]

itsy bitsy

[tight copper]

thanks

[whole plover]

6 analogs and many pins. really cool!

thank @late fulcrum for recommending me

[tight copper]

thank you!

I looked through the site and found this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4518

exactly what I need, I am making an arcade machine but figured I would just say I was making a controller

[tight copper]

thank you both of you for the help!

[vivid iron]

is there a single board computer like the Raspberry pi that has ADCs?

[whole plover]

you could add an MCP3008 for an ADC

it gives you 8 channells

le potato also can handle that setup but you need the mcp3008

[vagrant wolf]

look at MCUs instead, if you want powerful processing with an ADC look at the NXP IMX RT series also the teensy is good

[whole plover]

aren't teensys impossible to get?

[vagrant wolf]

nope they're everywhere (teensy 4.1)

or you could get an stm32h7 in one of those arduino portenta boards, they have good adcs

[vivid iron]

2000 in stock at digikey

[vivid iron]

the ADCs are good, 16 bit accuracy, but there's only 3 (6?) of them, also the $80 price difference is too much for me

[vagrant wolf]

sbcs are going to be way more expensive

Or you could just get one of those PI Zero 2 adc hats

[solar kindle]

So, this is an LED strip floor lamp that sells for $450. It's essentially: a base, 3 pieces of square tubing, 4 pivot points, an LED strip and a touch-control dimmer. Trying to work out the best way to DIY one of these. The touch control is a slider that, frankly, doesn't work very well. A few capacitive touch buttons (dim, brighten, on/off) would work much better. If I used neopixels, I could even have temperature selection. Debating with myself on whether 3D-printed tubes or off-the shelf aluminum tubing would be better.

[fossil dawn]

If I used neopixels, I could even have temperature selection.
Yes, but terrible CRI unless you use some RGBW strips and they're allegedly still not great. I had a bunch of RGB (non-addressable) in my room for a while and the colors looked really weird. And the PWM dimming made motion look really weird when it was dimmed down a lot.
Something kinda like this is on my endless project-ideas list 😭

[late fulcrum]

You don't even need NeoPixels, an ordinary analog RGB strip along with some driver transistors would do, since having all the LEDs light the same color is fine.

[solar kindle]

True!

[patent hemlock]

yeah, but if you stick with neopixels, you can guarantee your project will go completely out of bounds ("so if this server is down, turn that pixel red...") 😈

[glacial wigeon]

years ago, i had a program that could beep a frequency on the motherboard pc speaker

i put it into crontab, but i went nuts

at x:00, it would play one tone
at x:15 and x:45, a second tone
at x:30, a third tone

so every 15 minutes, all day long, it would emit a beep, but each was a different freq

[patent hemlock]

yeah, i prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkenlights

[raw jasper]

hah, that'd drive me nuts. I remember those insane watches that would beep on the hour. I found them very annoying

[glacial wigeon]

it was also configured to beep non-stop at 20khz, if my name was said on irc

high enough of a freq that my dad couldnt hear it, so he couldnt complain

but still within my hearing range 😛

[raw jasper]

Ye Gods, you allowed people to page you?

lol

[glacial wigeon]

pretty much

bbl

[tardy badger]

Scheduled for my first podcast episode to be published next Saturday

The biggest hurdle to doing anything is starting

[raw jasper]

what's it gonna be about?

[tardy badger]

OSIRIS-REx

A space probe set to return to earth a week from today

[tender heron]

That sounds pretty neat.

[cursive spoke]

Hey guys

Anyone know what this is called?

I’m trying to find this part on the internet

[tardy badger]

Emergency shutoff

[tender heron]

Pretty much like a fancy button then?

[tardy badger]

That one had some extra features like the “twist to reset” feature

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/omron-automation-and-safety/A22NE-M-PD02-N/10493621

[tender heron]

Ooo interesting. That's expensive

[tardy badger]

That’s just an example

There are cheaper

[tender heron]

Yeah

[cursive spoke]

I’m trying to reassemble the knob it sorta fell apart

Here is the guts of it

[tender heron]

Yeah, I assume if you need an emergency stop it's probably important it's working.

[cursive spoke]

And this white price is a part of it

Actually fell apart is not the right word, I disassembled it

[tender heron]

Are you having difficulty putting it back together?

[solar kindle]

This close enough?
https://www.amazon.com/gande-Mushroom-Emergency-Switch-Latching/dp/B0BQZYW3PB

[cursive spoke]

Well sorta

I just need to know how the white pice goes back or if I can find a replacement part

[tender heron]

Are there any identifying marks on the knob to say what model it is?

[cursive spoke]

Thank you Steve, but it’s currently unavailable

[late fulcrum]

It's an Idek AB6-V

[cursive spoke]

Thank you

[patent hemlock]

presented with no comment (which of course, is a comment)

[vivid iron]

is there an easy way for me to check if a power supply is grounded or floating?

I want to place two power supplies on top of each other to make virtual +5 and -5

not yet seen a datasheet specify if the output is floating or not

[late fulcrum]

You can check for continuity from each output to any of the input pins, or you can hook them together with a 1k resistor between them and check for voltage across the resistor with them both on

[vivid iron]

the resistor seems easy to understand, but how would I check for "continuity"?

[late fulcrum]

With a multimeter set for resistance or continuity

[vivid iron]

I'll google it, thanks

oh, easy as pie, it's just beep testing

and it makes a lot of sense lol

saying continuity testing instead of beep testing sounds a lot more professional

[night crescent]

HERE WE GO! The Desk of Ladyada - MAX3421 'wing & debouncing & SWD IDC ports 🔧🔌💡https://youtube.com/live/FjbiyjPVoek

[gusty galleon]

Ahhhh crap... somehow somewhere something shorted to the ADC on my Leonardo... made a little pop and now the readouts don't change. Voltage regulator now also overheating...

[strong flame]

To whoever may need it. https://github.com/bill88t/CircuitPython_RAMDisk

[ebon dew]

What would be the difference between RAMDisk and NVM?

[blissful roost]

RAMDisk, I assume, would be volatile... thus losing data on power down.
An NVM by definition should be NON-volatile.

[glad ruin]

Yeah, ramdisk usually refers to a filesystem being emulated in memory.

[vivid iron]

are there any possible downsides to having a larger capacitor in my motor circuit? Surely larger capacitances always means more stability, right?

[raw jasper]

It was more visible in older OSes, but, many linux systems have /tmp as a ramdisk

[glad ruin]

You want a capacitor that cancels out the impedance of your motor.

[vivid iron]

that is the only reason, right?

just for power factor?

[glad ruin]

That's the primary reason, especially for an AC motor like you are wanting to build. The only other potential concern that I see is if the capacitor(s) have a bunch of excess energy when the motor stops. They'll discharge straight into the coils, which isn't necessarily the best.

[vivid iron]

no, the coils are encased in an H-bridge, I think it won't be any trouble.
But this is fantastic news because I don't care about power factor at all

[glad ruin]

You're going to have to take a look at (and try to simulate) the power-on and off transients. Also keep in mind that as soon as you reverse bias to drain/source of a discrete MOSFET sufficiently that it will conduct through the body diode.

[ebon dew]

Right sorry I meant in terms of performance?

[blissful roost]

Ohh... No idea.
I guess that comes down to the vagaries of the bus, protocol, etc.

[ebon dew]

thinking more along the lines of a pagefile/vram for graphic buffer. i know NVM has a relatively short life span if you use it heavily.

i'm guessing bufferio uses psram somehow but i don't know how it works.

[glad ruin]

If you need external RAM you'll want a chip with an interface dedicated to it. Some of the bigger STM32 chips have SRAM interfaces.

[ebon dew]

i've yet to use a teensy but thinking about it. any recommendations for driving my big matrix panel display? if say I wanted to add 8 more panels for a total of 20?

not that i have a specific reason in mind. thinking about doing it just to do it.

[glad ruin]

How many LEDs is that?

[ebon dew]

4x5 panel matrix with each panel being 64x32, so math.

it's currently a 3x4 panel matrix for 192x128 is 24,576 pixels

256x160 would be 40,960 pixels

[glad ruin]

Ok, so you'd need around 50k to buffer a single frame.

[ebon dew]

depending on the bit depth

[glad ruin]

Correction: 150-200k.

[ebon dew]

at bit depth 4 would be around 300k yeah.

i can't really do bit depth of 5 or 6 and 3 is too few colors for my liking.

but with more panels i might have to drop it down to 2 or 3 bit depth, i understand a compromise might need to happen at some point.

[glad ruin]

I'm counting 24bpp.

(bits per pixel)

So, 50k * 3 bytes = 150kB

[strong flame]

nvm is supposed to be non volatile
ramdisk will be gone next reload.
It's in the stack, so it will be wiped before a reset even.

[sick apex]

today is so hectic

i got up at 6 am showered then got dressed

went to uni

i just got back from uni and now i have to teach until 8:30pm

[strong flame]

that's why most ppl including me skip theory

I know it's importance, but with 3 hours transit time..

[tranquil swallow]

same

i HATE it, everyone was fearmongering about how we'd live in pods, i'd pay $100/month to sleep in a pod without a commute

[umbral phoenix]

SRAM (typically on-chip/module) is fastest (and sometimes there is even a hierarchy there), PSRAM is slower, flash (NVM is typically a chunk of flash) is slowest

[ebon dew]

ah ok i was guessing based on the RAM usage published in the learn guide https://learn.adafruit.com/rgb-led-matrices-matrix-panels-with-circuitpython/advanced-multiple-panels

[umbral phoenix]

on an espressif, for example, on-chip RAM is fastest, but CircuitPython typically allocates off the (PSRAM) heap when it exists

[ebon dew]

ah didn't know that, thank you.

[umbral phoenix]

Teensy 4.1 has banks of on-chip RAM with different characteristics, but from the perspective of a CircuitPython program, it's a big (almost 1MB) chunk of heap

[late fulcrum]

For some CPUs, there's another option in FRAM, which is nearly as fast as SRAM, but it's non-volatile

[glad ruin]

Just very low density/expensive

[late fulcrum]

In particular, I was thinking like TI's FR series of their MSP430 line, which use FRAM in place of flash, adding a fair amount of speed and versatility, as well as reducing power consumption when writing the non-volatile storage.

[bright veldt]

do government IT or tech jobs usually have work from home?

[tardy badger]

Not typically

Private tech is more likely to have remote, though many these days are hybrid with some WFH days like mondays/fridays or either. Then you’d be in office the rest of the time

[tranquil swallow]

I've been advised to NOT work in the public sector for a tech job

[blissful roost]

Yeah, private sector is better overall.. especially for job security when the company is stable.

Government departments are.. unreliable at best.

[tardy badger]

In general though, for government jobs, once you tenure it’s pretty hard to get rid of you

So if you can keep your head down for a few years, you can have a very stable job. Stay in it 20 years and you get a really nice stable retirement

My only caveat for this day and age is that government shutdowns in the US are more frequent which means you could end up working without a paycheck while things get sorted

[crystal ore]

And the tech you work with can sometimes be ancient and weird. A friend of mine got roped into working on migrating a huge MUMPS medical-records system for the Veterans Administration... 😱

[hasty wedge]

be hold

i ported my melody code to one more MCU

Not that Arduino Nano IoT 33

its that little sop-16 chip

product of a boring weekend and lack of ideas

This is basically my version of "can it run doom"

[hasty wedge]

also, ironically RP2040 is the only chip that I was not able to port my melody code

[raw jasper]

Of all things, why? :P

[worthy magnet]

Sw synth?

[hasty wedge]

weird SDK

i am used to Keil MDK

and IAR EW

[raw jasper]

This looks like it'd do?
https://github.com/GorgonMeducer/Pico_Template

Found via a quick google search. No idea if it actually works 😅

[hasty wedge]

i will try it thank you!

[raw jasper]

let me know if it works

[hasty wedge]

this sdk mentioned that it uses keil arm compiler v6

which i never used before

i only used armcc v5

v5 is keil's own thing while v6 is just a modified clang compiler with DRM

i believe my license works on both of these tho...

[raw jasper]

Sounds like intel's new custom C compiler thing, sans the DRM

(I think they use clang too now)

[hasty wedge]

[raw jasper]

guess it didn't work?

[hasty wedge]

just shaking head because that DRM thing

it will need a lot of work because my code is for keil armcc v5

v5 and v6 codes are different

[raw jasper]

ooh API breakage. My favorite. 🍝

[dusk flax]

I always love to find like minded people. Anyone going to the Language Creator Charity Event this afternoon?

[patent hemlock]

alas, i'm tied to transit and trying to get across the bridge is not something i wish to attempt 😏

[dusk flax]

Yes, not fun (guess I should have asked earlier, then could bring people with me)

[jagged citrus]

Guys serius question, who is the avr dude? And why does he keep popping up when i compile arduino sketches? What does he want 😨

[ebon dew]

Brian Dean, creator of AVR Downloader/Uploader

DU = download/upload and DE is the first two letters of his last name.

[jagged citrus]

Aha, i see, i knew that DU was for downloader/uploader but didnt know that DE were the initials of its creator

[raw jasper]

"Who is General Failure? And Why Is He Reading My Drive?"

[glad ruin]

I'm stealing this.

[sick apex]

this might sound like a very stupid question but would it be possible for me to use a USB małe and USB female D+ and D- pins thing for my own protocol

cause I wanna make my Boards but i also want expansión Boards which I could use the D+ and D- pins for the connection protocol

but i don't know if it would work

[glad ruin]

Some products do use USB connectors for custom wiring because they are cheap. My general advice: don't. If your thing has a USB connection on it, somebody (probably you) will plug it into an actual USB port at some point. In the best case, it would do nothing. Let's not talk about the multitude of worst cases (resulting in hardware damage).

Short version: although nobody has hired a USB conformance hit squad (yet) and nobody will sue you, there's no compelling reason to use USB connectors for anything that isn't USB.

If you have the space, I recommend modular (phone and Ethernet style) plugs.

[sick apex]

oh dw about that imma do some funky design with it

like a proprietary connection slot

so its secure

where you put it into the hole then springs push out the USB Male

and then once its in the dots on the side

lock into holes on the inside

so you cant accidentally break it

[glad ruin]

... why though? I guarantee you that Molex/Amphenol/JST/TE/Samtec can design and build better recessed locking connectors than you. And a vast majority of the custom connectors I've seen designed by non-connector companies have critical design flaws.

Long story short, connectors is one of those areas where you really want to just buy something off the shelf. Making reliable electrical and mechanical contact is deceptively difficult.

[burnt tendon]

Just makin' a plug plug, I guess

[fast sonnet]

Hey everyone! What's your favorite BMS (Battery Management System) for projects?

[late fulcrum]

That's kind of a vague question. I could say "Inventus SBM-01", but it's more appropriate for some projects (like the 4kWh LiFePO4 battery powering my electric tractor) than for others.

[patent hemlock]

"mains" 😀

[late fulcrum]

Now that's a lot of kWh!

[raw jasper]

test

o_O discord now has masked links

Be careful everyone, look at the URL before you click if you can

[ebon dew]

There is a hover popup on desktop discord that shows the link.

[raw jasper]

On desktop you can check the link anyway by hovering over it. The problem is what happens on mobile...

In any case, I guess informing people might make it more likely they will actually double-check the link target shown in the popup!

[ebon dew]

Can you long press to see the url?

[fossil dawn]

Discord has a few imho pretty bad security things like this "logging in by just scanning a QR-code" feature that still gets used to take over peoples accounts.
You click a link to a supposedly interesting server but you have to "verify" by scanning a QR-code (that gets displayed inside discord!) and when you scan it bam, they have your account.

I'm already very excited to see how scamers will abuse that masked link feature! 🥳 ...not

[ebon dew]

QR codes in general are too easy to abuse if you want to be malicious with it.

[raw jasper]

I guess it's a matter of time until a bot comes out that auto-deletes all masked links

@glad ruin just saw your new custom status xD

[fossil dawn]

yes, long pressing it gives the real url.
And just clicking it gives the "Leaving discord - you go to this url:" popup

[ebon dew]

oh that's even worse

[fossil dawn]

(in the popup, it displays the real url that you will actually go to)

[glad ruin]

[unkempt hearth]

The Metro M7 series of boards look really sweet, and I know that generally "more fast=more gud", but are there any specific projects that really take advantage of the speeds that M7 cores offer? I imagine you would also want to use C/C++ to get the absolute max out of it?

[stuck moth]

C will always be faster than Python regardless of the cpu. I know synthio in CP is better on imx. However the 1011 is pretty RAM limited. The higher end imx have much more ram.

[hasty wedge]

why

every stemmaqt cable is out of stock

[hard estuary]

Randomly checking Digikey, they have a 1000 in stock of the 100mm,not sure of the others (if you're in the US) https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/4210/10230021?s=N4IgTCBcDaIIYBM4DMBOBXAlgFwAQBYwBGABhAF0BfIA

[hasty wedge]

thank you!

I am in NYC

adafruit stuff ships like lightning

[hard estuary]

I bet!

I'm in Minnesota, so my Digikey orders are usually next day, so I get it. 🙂

[hasty wedge]

I still have a bunch of pictures I took last time when I was under adafruit's building

my friend joked: So you basically went to your favourite live streamer's place?

lol

[sick apex]

well its already in use

by some companies

i cant remember which ones but i've seen it before

kinda like how game boy cartridges connect

but with a USB C cable and a spring

that stops you from snapping it off