general-chat

[thick wind]

What does this pokit pro read when you short the clips together?

Have you tried any other resistors of a known resistance?

[terse lava]

Yes this is usually the problem where the meter leads can often add a few ohms to a reading. Short them together, note the value, then mentially subtract it from the readings of the resistor. The cheaper and/or older the test leads the more the resistance tends to creep up.

[thick wind]

I’m not conclusively saying this is the issue here, but it is worth checking out. Rarely would that alone account for a full 2 ohms in my experience, but it is a discrepancy I could see happening on cheaper devices.

But yes I do understand this, hence my recommendation to check for this.

[frozen spruce]

Shorting them out reads 2.2 ohms, but when I read a resistor of 390 ohms, I get the correct reading

[thick wind]

Okay, so I guess the leads are introducing a parasitic resistance of 2.2ohms. As Timeline mentioned above, subtract this error from any resistance measurements made with this device, if there isn’t an obvious way to recalibrate the device.

Worth noting, 2.2 ohms are less than 1% of 390, so that resistor would be well within tolerance if that’s what the measurement came out to be without the error compensation.

[whole jacinth]

2.2 is less than 1% of 390. also, multimeters often have separate calibrations for different ranges. 2.2 ohms and 390 ohms are almost certainly in different ranges

[frozen spruce]

Yeah this is what I was thinking was maybe it’s just too low

[thick wind]

Barring the extra resistance, the device specs do claim +/- 1% accuracy from 0.1 ohms to 1Mohms. Just make sure to check this error whenever you need to check any resistance less than ~100 ohms.

[sick apex]

that feeling when you accidentally order 100 EEPROMS instead of 10 because you wanted 10 but it said 1pc on the listing but it was actually 10 pc and i set the quantity to 10 so 10x10 = 100 and now i have 100 EEPROMs

[dusty citrus]

gotta say that for gui things this thing, is pretty good www.guition.com

likely limited for the supported hw, but pretty fast
with a capacitive touch esp32 you got lots of options
cost around 15 euros

[tardy badger]

Happy Star Wars Day everyone, may the fourth be with you

https://tenor.com/view/force-may-the-be-with-gif-25164172

[terse lava]

If your leads are reading 2.2 ohms, as Hem mentioned that seems a bit high for good leads on a good meter. But does explain your 4.4 ohm reading on your 2,2 ohm resistor. As others mentioned, your nominal 390 ohm resistor may really be 388, well within tolerance, and so your leads bring it back to 390. You might want to investigate those test leads. One way to check is to take the resistor, remove the leads from the meter, and then touch the resistor to the points on the meter where the test leads go. If you still see 4.4 ohms, your meter may not be great for reading low resistance values. However if you now see something much closer to 2.2 ohms then you may want to replace your test leads. On my desk I have a Fluke multimeter with some Pomona test leads. I get 0.3 ohms when I short them together.

[frozen spruce]

I have a fluke for work, my uncle bought it for me so it stays in my work bag, which was why I bought the Pokit Pro plus it has the oscilloscope. When I lookup the color codes of the 390 resistor it shows 390 and also reads 390 with the meter. So I kinda think it might just be the leads. And I don’t think there’s a way to remove the leads on the pokit pro

[terse lava]

I would never buy a meter that had cabled test leads that were not replaceable. Test leads are always the weak point of the system and should be considered a maintenance item to be replaced periodically. I am not familiar with the Pokit so not sure what the deal it with that one but you might search for replacement leads to see if there are any videos or guides on how to replace the leads especially if Pokit made them "built in".

[frozen spruce]

Okie! Never thought of it that way, even as I have already had to replace my leads on my Fluke.

[frozen spruce]

This is the pokit just fyi

[whole jacinth]

try cleaning the probes. i seriously went from 55 ohms to 18 ohms with shorted probes on my cheap DMM just now by doing a quick wipe with a cloth on the probes. hook clip leads like the ones in your photo also have a tiny contact area that can add error to resistance measurements at low ranges

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada – Break Time’s Over!
https://youtu.be/aRgjbQCMkCE

We're back building—testing sensors, finishing the Sparkle Motion Stick, and designing a solar-ready FeatherWing for dual-voltage monitoring. Tune in & explore with us!

[terse lava]

The positive probe is probably fine since there is no wire to flex but the black probe I would hope could be replaced

[spice moss]

https://tenor.com/view/this-is-the-way-mandalorian-star-wars-may-may-the-fourth-gif-21430119

[fading flame]

3122

[hollow flint]

I’m using serial to usb
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3122 is not a USB to serial converter. It doesn't have any USB connection.

[fading flame]

Alright then

I’m trying to get a serial data connection to usb

It’s from an afr gauge for a car

[hollow flint]

Do you have a picture of the serial connection on the gauge?

[fading flame]

So we had to cut a wire and do that

and tap that into the box

But it didn’t work

Since I guess it’s not a converter

now that I think about it I was trying to do serial to serial to usb

[hollow flint]

Although what you purchased isn't a converter, it could still be used along with one to adapt bare wires to the DB9 connector that most USB to serial converters use. Such as this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/18

[fading flame]

so my cable is probably bad then

[terse lava]

"Nice Sauron helmet, by the way." - stolen from today's Sunday FoxTrot comic.

https://foxtrot.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/ft250504-foxtrot-comics-bill-amend-a-new-definition-of-pain-star-wars-day-boba-fett-jason-fox-sunday-comic-strip.jpg

[fading flame]

not bad but it’s not a conveter

Since I thought the box aas

Was

[hollow flint]

What you purchased is a mechanical adapter to convert from bare wire leads to a DB9 connector. Not USB, but potentially useful nonetheless.

[fading flame]

Ok

I was somewhat able to do what I needed with it not working at all

[night crescent]

🎧✨ If you like the TLV320DAC3100, you'll love the TLV320AIC3100!

With the successful launch of the TLV320DAC3100 https://www.adafruit.com/product/6309 , we can do two things: keep jamming on Fruit Jam https://www.adafruit.com/product/6200 , and whip up a new breakout for its sister chip, the TLV320AIC3100 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/TLV320AIC3100IRHBR/2193085 .

This one features stereo microphone inputs instead of two mix-in analog inputs and a DOUT pin. Technically, it has three mic inputs—one is differential/route-able, and we're connecting that to the headphone jack since most headsets have an electret mic these days.

This chip is a really nice all-in-one I²S codec: perfect when you want stereo inputs, stereo headphone out, and mono speaker out. Honestly, we're exploring whether it could be a viable replacement for the now-super-discontinued WM8960 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/cirrus-logic-inc/WM8960CGEFL-V/5036712, especially since it can be configured not to require an external MCLK.

[warm basin]

For anybody interested, I recently started a music technology zine called Circuit Punk with open submissions. Our first issue features projects, tutorials and explanations from the folks at Death By Audio, Holy Island Audio, Skull & Circuits, and many others. It’s free to read online (or get a physical copy) at https://circuitpunk.org

[warm basin]

For anybody interested in writing an article for the next one, you can send it to [e-mail] by June 15. Announcements for future issues and more will also be on our instagram https://instagram.com/circuit.punk

[weary fiber]

I’d definitely be interested! A lot of my project stuff lately has been towards imitating lab-courses to implement concepts & build on knowledge, so like, implementing my own basic kalman filter might be neat, but I don’t have too many ideas for using a premade one? Idk

[night crescent]

⚡️🔍 Power up your projects with smart USB-C tools! Switch cables on/off with ease, power with precision, and monitor every milliamp with useful & compact analyzers @ Adafruit.

https://adafruit.com/new

Check them out:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/6269
https://www.adafruit.com/product/6268
https://www.adafruit.com/product/6273
https://www.adafruit.com/product/6272
https://www.adafruit.com/product/6271

[weary fiber]

Oh man, I had never thought to even look for cables with power switches on them-- I'd just been abusing the ports lmao

def gonna pick those up

[thick wind]

Hi @sturdy dawn, I am glad you’re making headway with your electronics project, but please limit posts in #show-and-tell to project completions or MAJOR milestones. We want to make sure that channel is showcasing everyone’s highlights, not keep anyone’s personal build logs.

In the meantime, feel free to share any of your thoughts or updates in the #general-chat or redirect discussions to the relevant topics or help channel where applicable.

[dusty citrus]

I've found no docs about it, but anyone can tell what are for the exposed copper layers on the left?
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EzB34Rs

[hasty quarry]

Yesterday I took my ordinary differential equations final, and a mini bucket-list item came true for me. I completely forgot a formula I should've had memorized for a free response question, and I derived it back on the spot under the exam pressure

Incredible feeling

[raw jasper]

@burnt tendon FYI https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-24797

(pinging you since I remember discussing meshtastic with you)

[tardy badger]

I don’t think I had to take my final for DiffEq

I coasted through that class

[hasty quarry]

I haven't seen a final be worth so little that you'd still keep an A if you skipped it

[tardy badger]

I was happy to take the stress free B+

[hasty quarry]

It was reduction of order by the way, since you might recognize it specifically

[tardy badger]

It’s been so long, spring 2019, so 6 years ago

[hasty quarry]

I totally blanked on what the formula quite was, and I just started manipulating the Wronksian and taking integrating factors until something clicked and I made the formula again

[hasty quarry]

Second order ODE, one solution known, efficiently find the other with only the ODE and the known solution

[tardy badger]

You seem like a genuinely brilliant person, I definitely commend your ability to do that because I don’t know if I could have even when I was around the material

Unfortunately industry has a way of abstracting the fundamentals away from you and I’ve lost much of what I knew

[hasty quarry]

I really appreciate that, but I can't accept it. I was saved by finding the concept weird when I first learned about it at the start of the semester, so I looked into its derivation on my own time, drilled it, forgot about it, and when the time came, I was able to pull fragments and nibbles of those memories and put the puzzle back together

[tardy badger]

Brilliance isn’t defined by simply knowing things, it’s defined by your ability to rediscover and explore with genuine curiosity.

And you have great curiosity and abilities in these subject areas. That’s why I say you are genuinely brilliant.

[hasty quarry]

That's really kind, thank you

Wait, you say that like there's more context, do you remember me and conversations we've had here? Haha

Only surprised because I don't talk here much and you do so I assume I just get forgotten each time lol

[burnt tendon]

Yah, you actually achieved what the class was, ideally, supposed to do. Teach you how to think not just memorize.

I barely squeaked by Differential EQ.

[hasty quarry]

I hope he's slightly amused when he grades me

"I forgot reduction of order. Attempting to derive it back" to explain why my response looks like deranged scratch work

[burnt tendon]

I mean depends on the prof?

[hasty quarry]

He's the "seen it all" not easily impressed type so I don't think so, but I hope a tiny bit

[burnt tendon]

I was really starting to lose my grip on things towards the end of higher-end math and squeaked by enough to graduate but I absolutely hadn't been approaching it right.

Met up with a classmate and he was like "Oh, yeah, I knew $prof, you should have just dropped in on his office hours"

Great thing to learn after I'd graduated?

[hasty quarry]

Did the prof himself not stress it?

People definitely know about it here, I've started to use them recently. Especially for Random Signals and Systems this semester, that prof was a great office-hours type

For that same reason they got crowded though

[burnt tendon]

Naw, I was in math-for-eventual-PhD's so they were content to let people drown?

[hasty quarry]

I'm so glad I took that class instead of the typical stats class (a.k.a reject the null hypothesis for 3 months class)

[burnt tendon]

Arguably, I'm not cut out for being a math PhD.

[hasty quarry]

Oh wow

[burnt tendon]

Also, I learned a bunch of stuff about how to learn after I didn't need to learn to get my degree?

[hasty quarry]

The stats class was VERY engineer-ish, every lecture was another punch to the gut, and the prof is a digital communications expert, and it reflected

[burnt tendon]

But, yeah, for me I could generally pick up on all of the math that I could map to engineering problems and math-for-math-PhD's would leave that part out more and more.

[hasty quarry]

That's insanely valid, I've always been decent at teaching myself things, but when it comes to "having to" learn things, it just doesn't.... work

It's not the same

It's the empty motivation. Your brain learns things so fast if it's stacking on an old tower rather than being told to start a new tower

Later it's hard to lift one tower and carefully place it on an old one

[hasty quarry]

I think you'd find the problems the stats prof put on the final interesting, genuinely "situational", not just "compute this"

Want an example?

[burnt tendon]

Yah, I think it can be hard because the math PhD type is fully motivated by just the mathematics, so it's kinda just code-switching.

I missed out on stats? I could take probabilities or prob/stats, but not just stats and prob/stats was another hour that I put towards something else.

What's the stats problem?

[hasty quarry]

Imagine you have wires that can transmit bits of data, a 0 or a 1

Thing is, there's a 10% chance the wire messes up and flips the bit, so what you do is you take 3 of these wires, and the receiver takes a vote of the bits it "sees" as what was actually sent

E.g it sees 001, 010, 100, or 000, it was probably a 0

Vice versa for 1

What's the probability that the receiver is wrong now?

[burnt tendon]

Yah, that's the sort of thing I needed to keep in my math education.

[hasty quarry]

It was like 0.028 by the way. 3 ways to mess up two bits, 1 way to mess up all three. 3*(0.9)(0.1)^2 + (0.1)^3

He went easier by setting n = 3, but he could've very well made us keep it as a binomial distribution

And then do a summation

But yeah it was a bunch of that sort of problem

Okay I'm curious now. Be back in a bit

I kinda give up, that's not trivial. The next reasonable step is if there were a lot of wires, and if the probability of messing up was very small, so I could use Poisson's approximation

Which is actually kind of realistic (?)

Pretty cool. Alright then

[tardy badger]

Yes, I recall many times you coming in asking questions and poking through equations, concepts, and theorems and having those aha! Moments.

[hasty quarry]

That's awesome that you remember that, pretty cool

[lapis flint]

hey hoooo

[thick wind]

I think a lot of us do, it really isn’t often someone comes through with a genuine excitement for differential equations of all things haha

[hasty quarry]

But without my differential equations how am I gonna make silly little robots that balance themselves when you try to knock them over

This is my 42 right now

This semester kept me too busy but I really wanna make my reaction wheel stabilizer now that it's summer, and a 2-wheel remote-control robot. I need excuses to use the incredible math I can do now

[night crescent]

ASK AN ENGINEER 5/7/2025 LIVE! https://youtu.be/pnPbycXsCPo

[raven tree]

at a glance does this appear to be an esp32? https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/17xho4e/tile_said_to_replace_it_once_the_battery_ran_out/#lightbox

[tardy badger]

Possibly a C3

[timid anvil]

Is it better to save a pic in PNG, JPeg, BMP, or GIF?

[slim shard]

.
GIF is useful for being animated (and lossless within a 256 color palette).
JPEG is good for small file size with photographic/not-overtly-synthetic images,
BMP is lossless, and simple enough to write your own file routines for,
PNG is lossless with compression and alpha channel support.
GOOD LUCK!

[stoic mesa]

this is much harder than solving 2nd order ODEs on paper.
Speaking from experience.

But indeed, analyzing PID algorithm starts with 2nd order ODEs

[night crescent]

Spinning up an STSPIN220 motor driver 🌀⚙️

This year, we've worked on adding more stepper drivers to our offerings. We kicked it off with the classic A4988 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6109), followed up with the fan-favorite TMC2209 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6121). Now we're circling back to one that's been on our list for a while—the STSPIN220 (https://www.digikey.com/short/f5nq47vq). It's compact, yet powerful, supporting up to 1/256 microstepping and 1A continuous current. Designed for low-voltage steppers, it maxes out at around 10V motor supply. We've included step and direction LEDs, a current adjustment pot that turns the right way, a 47µF bypass cap, and terminal blocks for power and motor control—making it super easy to use.

[hasty quarry]

I actually did this before even taking the diff eq class

Out of boredom during the summer I looked into state spaces and made an LQR inverted pendulum at the start of the year

I was joking because it’s like, what I’ve been up to, so I need my differential equations haha

Also the end of the course did seriously delve into matrix systems and matrix exponentials which I thought was great and very engineering oriented

[burnt tendon]

I'm glad that you really took to that class. We all need to find a way to make a ... difference in the world.

[hasty quarry]

There he goes

It wasn’t a matter of if

[burnt tendon]

I earned my role.

[sturdy dawn]

My life is a mess 🤣

Finishing up a 15 panel array and now ive wasted half the day i should have been driving

[tardy badger]

All in a good days work punning around

[honest jolt]

Rip tariffs everything's getting more expensive

Are people still ordering from jlcpcb or anything cheaper now?

[hasty quarry]

Is JLC chinese?

I forgot

[dusty citrus]

Oshpark may be us made?
Not from us, I heard about them a while back

[honest jolt]

Yea

[hasty quarry]

Uh oh

[burnt tendon]

There's a PCB fab in India that's trying to be Indian JLCPCB?

JLCPCB switched to billing you ahead of time for the tariffs.

[tardy badger]

OshPark is US fabbed

Digikey red is also US fabricated

[dusty citrus]

last time I checked it was like 5 usd for pcb.

Although the thing with china is not just cost, they make stuff easier and everyone wants to work with you even if you aren't a business with tons of licensing

[tardy badger]

$5/sqin for 2 layer boards

$10/sqin for 4 layer

$15/sqin for 6 layer

All for OshPark

[hollow flint]

everyone wants to work with you even if you aren't a business with tons of licensing
What if someone starts a https://tinytapeout.com/, but for PCBs instead of ICs?

[burnt tendon]

So, basically... that's what happened? Sparkfun started a thing, everybody looked at their chemical-stained fingers and slightly offset drilled holes and snapped carbide bits and decided this was awesome.

Sparkfun sold off that business, things changed, etc. and eventually JLCPCB and a few others got really really big.

[night crescent]

The LM73100 is a cute ideal diode 😎🔋

As we pass through the cycle of life, some may seek ideal happiness - we can't help with that quest. But if you're looking for an ideal diode, we found a pretty sweet one on last week's The Great Search: 🔍 https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/05/the-great-search-power-monitor-with-2-inputs-thegreatsearch-digikey-digikey-adafruit-2/

The LM73100 🔗 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/LM73100RPWR/13627234 ... can handle up to 5A and 23V - perfect for applications like solar panels where you want to avoid losing 0.5W+ to a Schottky diode.

Here's a quick breakout we designed for it: By default, it works just like a diode, with VIN and VOUT terminal blocks. But if you want to access more features, there's a 0.1" breakout. The IMON pin gives a voltage from 0-1.5V as current goes from 0-5A. Plus, it has options for overvoltage and undervoltage lockout and a power good output. ☀️🔋

[stoic mesa]

what's that lab?

[burnt tendon]

https://www.lioncircuits.com/

[stoic mesa]

thanks

will try and get a quote for the pcba

[rotund canopy]

Lemme know if the prices are better

[hasty quarry]

100 on that differential equations final. That’s hilarious. Well that was fun

[night crescent]

A WIZnet breakout for adding Ethernet! 🔌🌐

We have in stock an Ethernet FeatherWing https://www.adafruit.com/product/3201 and an Ethernet Shield https://www.adafruit.com/product/2971 , but for other boards where you may want to add wired networking, this breakout board will do the trick. It features the WIZ5500 chip https://docs.wiznet.io/Product/iEthernet/W5500/overview , mag jack with activity and link LEDs, level shifting, and power regulation so you can run it from 5V or 3V microcontrollers. Perfect for a Pico or ESP32 - all you need is SPI and two GPIO pins!

[craggy thorn]

Verso Books' printer service had a ransomware attack causing book publication delays 🦠🖨️🦠

[sick apex]

my partner keeps taking me into stores like cash converters and cex to see if he can find a cheap 3Ds, would it be advisable for me (a nerd) to just buy one and mod it for him

if anyone's modded one before, is it easy

[raw jasper]

What kind of "mod" are you referring to?

[sick apex]

well i was gonna do a battery mod and then probably some firmware mod, not sure which firmware mod just yet but yeah

i've also heard that a bluetooth mod is pretty easy so i might do that too if i can find a good bluetooth audio board

[raw jasper]

(For what it's worth, I think, nerd or not, buying one for him would be a very appreciated gift even w/o modding it since he seems to want one)

firmware mods won't give you too many useful features beyond unsigned code execution, arbitrary themes, and ... I think access to the nintendo network replacement?

I think it'd be better to leave the fw at stock and let him decide if he'd want to make any changes

[raw jasper]

(And also access to import games)

[raw jasper]

The battery is holding up pretty well on mine actually (Japanese Old 3DS, ~4hrs of battery life I think), so I have not replaced it at all!

[sick apex]

yeah but i was gonna use that firmware that unlocks the higher clock speed for all games

i forgot what it's called but i saved the video that demos it

and i figured that'd probably drop the battery life a lil bit xD

[raw jasper]

I would imagine overclocking the system beyond its spec could potentially affect its longevity or stability

So, I wouldn't recommend doing it!

Especially given that they aren't gonna be making any new 3DSes anytime soon

[sick apex]

oh no, it's not beyond it's spec, nintendo enabled it for certain games but they didn't enable it for all because it was for the new 3ds xl

[raw jasper]

(Also, I would recommend looking for the new 3DS model because it has eye tracking and people say it makes the 3D effect work better for them.)

[sick apex]

there are a handful of games that have it enabled by default, iirc it needs to be enabled by the game developer but im not sure exactly on that front

[sick apex]

yeah i got that one

[raw jasper]

When I got mine, because I had never used a glasses-free 3D display before, I actually read the health and safety booklet

[sick apex]

congrats, i think you may be the only person to have done that

idk if i know anybody who's ever read the manuals inside the box for games consoles xD

[raw jasper]

It actually makes some quite useful suggestions, especially while getting used to the display

(things like, play in a well-lit room, 30 mins at a time)

[sick apex]

fair, i just got a second hand one from cash converters, it was discounted because it didn't have a stylus and the bottom case is cracked a little

[raw jasper]

And keep 30cm of distance between your eyes and the display

(IIRC)

[sick apex]

i was going to 3D print a new bottom case to fit the new battery thing anyways so it was great for me

[raw jasper]

I got mine from yahoo! auctions xD

[sick apex]

fair xD

old tech from places like that is great

i just hope that someone didn't pawn their 3DS intending to get it back when they have the money and now i have it haha

because cash converters do pawnbroking

[raw jasper]

TBH, I bought it to experience the 3DS and to play some videogames in Japanese for practice reasons.

And now I have played Ocarina of Time in Japanese!

[sick apex]

i think it'll be pretty good

[raw jasper]

I'll also get the majora's mask remake when I have some free time

[sick apex]

nice

[raw jasper]

(the 3DS remakes are also more accessible to learners than the original N64 versions because all kanji have reading glosses)

[sick apex]

i might see if i can make external controllers for the DS, idk if i'd be able to but i don't anticipate it being that difficult, i could do it with a few micro controllers

[raw jasper]

Possibly from a slot2 homebrew, reading the DS card bus?

[sick apex]

not that it'd be useful but with modded firmware you can stream it to a chromecast or something

[raw jasper]

(talking about the original ds here)

[sick apex]

with external controllers you could sit and be lazy xD

[sick apex]

maybe

[raw jasper]

Or actually boot from slot1 and attach the controller to slot2

Which is how many weird DS addons were implemented

[sick apex]

ir i could just be gross and cut intercept the actual buttons and stuff from the things on the board, wire them to a micro controller and then have the micro controller handle most of it

idk if it'd be low latency enough to play though

[raw jasper]

Do not mutilate the DS :S

[sick apex]

[raw jasper]

no, seriously, please don't

they are not being made anymore

Or get a broken one and do it

[sick apex]

there would be some contacts somewhere that i could solder to

just like attach onto it

[raw jasper]

yeah, just get a broken one and do it

[sick apex]

and then fix it

imma have to buy some red filament and then design a pokemon logo for the case and put that on the top

or i'll just design it, make sure it works and then have it made somewhere with better equipment than me xD

[raw jasper]

good luck!

[sick apex]

thank you xD i'll need it

[jagged citrus]

Have the moderators considered enabling the uh
Server tag thing
We could have an ADA server tag
Im sure this server fits the requirements

[hasty quarry]

Finally got my steel reaction wheel plasma cut for my reaction wheel control system side project. Gonna find its moment of inertia later. It’s even heavier than I expected. Really sharp too…

[dusty citrus]

I need to flash a bios ic, but it seems that it uses spi, which I don't have a board at hand that uses it, it looks like I can use gpio to virtualize SPI but I don't quite get how?
Also I've found a board with a similar looking pinout, I guess it's not compatible, but I kind of hope so

[cerulean plank]

Checking The Sound Is Fun 👍 #memes #relatable #sound
https://youtube.com/shorts/Su93whu2FQU?feature=share

[rapid geode]

what would it take to make an image recognition nerf sentry to scare squirrels away form my peaches? 😛 haha

[frozen spruce]

Oh wow that’s a very funny and smart idea 🤣😭

[rapid geode]

ha

yeah im only half joking

gotta make sure it cant hurt them, but will make them stay away

and go to easier food

[burnt tendon]

I mean, Mark Rober has a whole YouTube channel featuring some very elaborate projects to screw around with squirrels.

[rapid geode]

yes. but they always win!

[little quest]

It's called bit banging spi. Known practice. Google it if you can't manage to get a hardware gipo config

[hasty quarry]

If you don’t intend on changing the camera angle much and it’s a simple enough terrain, it would just take some algebra and trigonometry to map the camera’s perception of an object into where the nerf should point, and for accuracy some basic kinematics on the average shoot speed of the darts and some hope there’s not much wind. But I digress, hitting near enough to them would scare them

But now I kinda want to make a nerf turret. Look what you did

[rapid geode]

haha

yeah i dont even want to hit them. just the darts flying at them will scare them waway

well.... i think

haha

[hasty quarry]

It’s a funny but maybe overkill idea. Why not have something that could play a loud sound if it detects them?

[rapid geode]

they dont care about sound

or people

or anything

[hasty quarry]

Or something that would simply make a sudden motion near the plant

Really?

[rapid geode]

motion would work.. once

[hasty quarry]

They’re so timid though. I guess when it’s peaches that are on the line…

[rapid geode]

then they would see its not a threat

[night crescent]

The SC16IS74x is an I2C to UART converter

If you know us, you know we luuuuuv I2C as a near-universal interface for sensors, GPIO expanders, OLEDs, and other various devices under our Stemma QT family: https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=stemma+qt 🌱. But we still bump into some UART devices: https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=uart here and there—GNSS/GPS units, MP3 playback chips, fingerprint sensors, LIDARs, and more.

These can be annoying if you only have one UART port-or none at all! So we put together this SC16IS74x breakout. It can use either the SC16IS740: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/nxp-usa-inc/SC16IS740IPW-128/1301043 or SC16IS741: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/nxp-usa-inc/SC16IS741AIPWJ/4486521 chips-both essentially the same for our purpose: providing a bidirectional UART with flow control. Address jumpers on the back allow you to select up to four devices on one I2C bus—and there's even native Linux kernel drivers: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/serial/nxp%2Csc16is7xx.txt 🧠.

[rapid geode]

Dont need no neopixels for rgb here! 😛

[sturdy dawn]

Those neo pixels are really cool. Some of those wearable projects are fire

If I had the money Id build an Ironman suit

Make like a glass or acrylic orb with neopixel inside of it. Glass and acrylics really make LEDs pop

[hasty quarry]

This is frustrating. Sort of the good kind of frustrating though, the kind without a deadline

This part is fine, I know what's going on, it's just a sea of variables to get lost in and come back and tweak

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada – Designing More Protos & Trying Out Codex 🧠🔁🕹️
Protos are pumping! 🛠️ We're designing breakouts for new chips + testing Codex vs Claude. Also: help us find a WM8960 replacement 🎧 and maybe... should bring back the DIGG button kit? 🕹️ Tune in!
👉 https://youtu.be/JYbHJVo71-s

[stoic mesa]

another "gem" of advertising...
Facebook showed me a commercial for a soldering kit; in the beginning it shows the image of a poor maker who doesn't have this kit yet

I really pity this guy

[honest jolt]

Why does every ad i see for cheap soldering irons always show the person holding the metal part

Are they trying to reinforce how ineffective the iron is

[burnt tendon]

You think that by now, they'd get a handle on things.

[burnt tendon]

Knowledge can be a curse. Learning things has consequences. If you know how to solder, suddenly the world becomes full of dry joints, globby messes of solder, and bad advertisements featuring people gripping the hot part of a soldering iron.

That's why I make sure that I learn things with the express purpose of making even more bad puns about a wider variety of subjects.

[slim shard]

Are those DotStars?

[hasty quarry]

I’ll never forget the crazy things the skin on my fingers did when I grabbed the iron from the metal

[burnt tendon]

It's a reminder that you too are made of meat and can be seared and served.

[rapid geode]

dropstars

[night crescent]

Happy Mother’s Day! MOMS MAKE IT HAPPEN! Hope ya got some rest today! These two were in low-power sleep mode 🙂💐🛋️✨ - From Ladyada, & our little engineer, and the entire Adafruit team 💖😴

[sturdy dawn]

I made an improvement to the Pico screen. I cut the acrylic at just the right size to fit into the extrusions

Need a small Adafruit logo to go on this 👌

There we go. The metal coaster

[scarlet fox]

Anyone with NeoTrellis wanna try out a cool OS for it? I ported Matrix OS to it (See 203.io and matrix.203.io) and I would need people testing it
You will need a 8x8 NeoTellis and ESP32-S3 feather.

It turn NeoTrellis into a very powerful macro pad, midi controller, lightshow player, and some other cool features as well.

[lapis flint]

I feel nervous aaaa
just ordered parts for my project and I’m nervous because I’ve never ordered so many electronics before

[cerulean monolith]

Where would I go to find a small, battery operated motion sensor that sends put a Bluetooth signal?

[terse lava]

You could always make one out of an Adafruit development board that supports Bluetooth. Most can be run off a battery and some even have built in charging, and of course can interface to a wide range of various sensors including motion, proximity, etc.

[terse lava]

How many did you order?

[sturdy dawn]

I've felt it

The real tension was soldering the E-Pin on the matrix Portal M4

[lapis flint]

I bought all the soldering stuff i need along side a small test project and the parts

[night crescent]

VEML6046X00 from EYE ON NPI to a New Adafruit Breakout! 🌈📷

We covered the VEML6046X00 on our show segment EYE ON NPI a few weeks ago, and now we've gotten our sample chips in—so it's time to make a breakout board for it! We particularly like that this is a high-lux sensor, with a max range of 180 kLux, which is comparable to the discontinued MAX44009.

[hasty quarry]

I have officially earned 100 dollars for investing in NVIDIA at the lowest dip. That could not have gone luckier for my first ever stock

Probably not gonna do something like that again soon haha

[brittle condor]

here's a weirdly specific question that i hope someone can answer

with one of those hdmi to csi converters, is a pi0 able to capture a 1080l input and just display it without lagging on a bate minimum system with mplayer?

has anyone tried that?

[lapis flint]

Man I’m scared lol
I’m about to solder for the first time on a test project (Blinky kit from bc robotics- just a blinking light)
I’m going through the motions with a cold iron and a scrap piece of filament before I touch the soldering wire and get the iron hot

it feels complicated despite being simple in practice

The guide says I shouldn’t use lead free solder for beginners but I didn’t realise that till now

(Also I’m pretty sure I can’t get that round here…)

[plain tusk]

What do we think? Any chance this thing will work remotely as well as a "real" ultrasonic cutter? 🤔
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hozodesign/neoblade

[lapis flint]

As a noob: I’m skeptical

They say they’ll do it cheaper than wired which isn’t how things normally go

(Example: wired headphones are generally cheaper than wireless and some people swear they are better. This is a bad analogy but again I’m not an expert)

[weary fiber]

by "just display it", do you mean displaying it on the miniHDMI?

[raw jasper]

Just make sure to keep proper lead hygiene!

As far as I know, it is: Clean your workbench and wash your hands after, and don't handle with open wounds

Also, do not eat during soldering

(or after soldering without having washed your hands after)

Keep in mind: I am not an occupational health specialist, and this is not professional advice

[hasty quarry]

Yes lead free solder is just awful, you need to be pretty used to leaded to get good results from lead free

And I second everything ningen said

[lapis flint]

Yep! I read safety guides and washed my hands. It was tricky but I think I got the hang in the end (even if I can admit my first ones were horrendous… burnt….)

This is why we do test projects folks

(But I can confirm it works!!)

We have light!

I’m now staring at my real project and slowly questioning my sanity however

[raw jasper]

Congrats mx. Bard! :D

[lapis flint]

Any pronouns work! But thanks for the congrats!

I’m going to be making stuff for a conversation and some pals have also trusted me to make glowing props if I can figure my own out

[raw jasper]

Yeah, I saw that in your profile, which is why I thought using the gender-neutral "honorific" would be appropriate. Should that not be the case, I apologize!!

[lapis flint]

Mx works! (It’s my first time seeing it lol)

[raw jasper]

Oh. Yeah, I did not come up with it on the spot :P

[lapis flint]

I'm nervous for the real project tbh.
I'm following a tutorial for a light up guitar but only in parts and spirit (reason why I'm using this over the standard lightsaber tutorial for props is my use case needs rotational and directional sensing)

https://learn.adafruit.com/light-up-reactive-ukulele/overview

Annddd I bought the unassembled version of the feather sense by mistake

Hooray more work

[raw jasper]

btw, do you have soldering flux?

[lapis flint]

‘Flux’
(I uh. Bought a flux pen. Like a drawing pen full of flux. Thought it would be easier to control)

[thick wind]

That is the same stuff in a different form. Works just fine.

Most solder rolls will have some flux in its core for ease of use, but a bit of extra flux on the surface will make your solder jobs that much easier to keep clean.

[lapis flint]

Also yes my mat is dirty imma clean it before I solder again

The con this is for is in July but I wanna get a head start on it before uni work swamps me

My 3D printer also should arrive tommorow

Printer + electronics = infinite possibilities and equally infinite ways of screwing it up

[thick wind]

3d printers have become more beginner friendly than ever before, so there is a lot less of the learning curve like there was with the Ender 3 boom. It’s great that you’re starting early though, as the toughest part of 3d printing can easily be iterating on your design too much.

[brittle condor]

yep

[burnt tendon]

See, but if we were intended to build Erin's project exactly as she wrote it, it would be an Adafruit product you could purchase....

[lapis flint]

shrug

I’m skipping and modifying parts anyways

[burnt tendon]

I started out with the light painting stick that was intended for the Adafruit CLUE but on an M4 Feather running CircuitPython, then wrote a different version of it on a homebrew Arduino using FastLED, then I ported the CircuitPython version to a Teensy because I needed more RAM and made a 3D printed chassis, ported the Arduino version to the M4 feather, now I've got a new PCB for the Teensy that I really need to solder up with an integrated switching power supply and other fancy features.

So.... yes! Explore! Alter! Tweak! Throw out the instructions and make it yours!

[lapis flint]

The idea a spinning object head cosplay (so the head spins and cool lights happen)

[burnt tendon]

...that's enough to make your head spin, yes.

[lapis flint]

If I only needed basic motion I would of gone with the lightsaber tutorial but due to the spin I went with the one I went with

At least it’s a good way to get started!
Even if I accidentally bought the not pre-assembled feather sense

[burnt tendon]

...well, in this case, you can deal with your mistake by soldering on.

(pun intended)

[lapis flint]

I at least managed to complete a small test project

As seen well above

[lapis flint]

Here!

It just makes a blinking red light

That’s about it.

[burnt tendon]

...but now you've soldered a thing, so it counts as an illuminating development.

[magic sentinel]

who remembers those out of this or any other reality ezines back in the late 90s?

[glass valley]

Watched this fun talk about the 2010 hacking of the HDCP master key. The casual genius of the hacking community vs the hubris and greed of intel et al.
https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-the-master-key

When they wanted to leak their result, wikileaks passed so they used twitter. adafruit was the 4th on their @-list. Adafruit was all that way even way back then.

[weary fiber]

I feel like Adafruit and C3 would be a cool collab

The two are a lil different in that Adafruit's more education-focused & C3 is more "hack the planet", but both take tech-knowledge-sharing & accessibility very seriously

[lapis flint]

Holy mother of chonky boys

[hasty quarry]

I saw my friends on Instagram posting a chain post, "What's your favorite song, nominate 6 more people"

And like any normal person, I had to figure out what the average number of reposts one original post would cause given the probability of every nominee seeing the post and choosing to repost it, p, and the number of nominees per post, n

I am pretty sure I ended up solving it. My results make sense, and my final answer is logarithmic which is kind of beautiful and somewhat expected

[raw jasper]

I think you have just accidentally independently discovered pandemic math

;P

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

[night crescent]

WE ARE LIVE in BROOKLYN! ASK AN ENGINEER! https://youtu.be/dnjFTLOaL5U

10% off! Use code: enclosure on checkout, expires 11:59PM ET! https://www.adafruit.com

[hasty quarry]

Kind of

I mean I knew whatever I was doing was nothing new, but it was to me, so I tried to solve it on my own

Ended up doing something Bayes-style

Looked like this when the dust settled

I say "Bayes-style" because I'm treating the propagation probability as a random variable in itself, assuming it's uniformly distributed with a believed mean and variance, and just presenting that as part of the result. I don't really have data to work with

[raw jasper]

I guess it sounds as reasonable as you could go for a prior :P

[hasty quarry]

What's interesting is p and n are not independent. At least for a convergent model

p must be less than 1/n, because if it's >= 1/n, every "branch" spawns on average 1 or more children

Which is divergent

So my belief is that it will stop, and this condition is met, which is not necessarily true, so again I have to present that in my result

[raw jasper]

You can "fix" this by adding time dynamics to your model.. Say, an interest variable that decays over time

[hasty quarry]

I was wondering about that, I could

[raw jasper]

I dunno if you'll get a closed form solution outta it, but it'd make for an interesting numerical simulation

You can do it with montecarlo modeling

Make random "agents"

[hasty quarry]

This is the first time I ever solve a real-world random process I got curious about with what I learned in my random signals and systems course

I think it was pretty interesting, took me a second

I'm somewhat uncomfortable about how I solved it though, even though I think it's valid

If K is my random variable for how many propagations happen, I kind of handwaved this because every branch will count itself as a post, and it's children which will average n*p children:

E[K | n, p] = 1 + n*p*E[K | n, p]
So that E[K | n, p] = 1 / (1 - np) for p < 1/n

Then I multiplied by my prior for p, and integrated over an interval defined by my beliefs of the mean and variance of p to get E[K | n]

It felt like a hack, that recursion I did. Like I cheated

[raw jasper]

I would expect your dynamics to be exponential up to a point at which saturation occurs

[hasty quarry]

So you're saying this recursive manipulation made sense

[raw jasper]

I guess, but I am not sure how much your model can capture without temporal dynamics

I would be more liable to think of this sort of thing as a logistic growth model

Which would also capture the depletion of interest

[raw jasper]

I think you would be interested in this!

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Juergen-Pfeffer/publication/371527325_The_Half-Life_of_a_Tweet/links/648b1c359605ba270e470e6c/The-Half-Life-of-a-Tweet.pdf

[hasty quarry]

No way

[raw jasper]

?

[hasty quarry]

That’s cool

[raw jasper]

Oh, I see. It is late at night over here, and my subtext detection is dead

I think it would be very cool to build a stochastic model that tries to replicate these kinds of dynamics

And then play with the various variables to see how they affect things

Perhaps you could even present it at a student conference

[tardy badger]

Kind of funny how posts like this typically from a mathematical standpoint would achieve critical mass within a few iterations if you assume each person nominates a unique individual who hasn’t been nominated before

[stoic mesa]

I know people who build math models like this professionally

[tardy badger]

I think for simplicity you would end up with simply p^n for a perfect unique set of p individual where p is not an element of n

6^n would quickly converge on the total number of instagram users and soon after the world

[raw jasper]

...hence the logistic growth model

[tardy badger]

32 interactions to hit the instagram active monthly users count of 1.2B but it would happen before that

[rapid geode]

sooo, AI nerf sentries on all the fence posts... yes? :x

[tardy badger]

Yes

[rapid geode]

hehe

[raw jasper]

"The nerf knows where it is because it knows where it isn't"

[tardy badger]

It calculates it position by subtracting where it is from where it isn’t

[rapid geode]

it tracks bushy tails with a laser

[stoic mesa]

unrelated:
if you - like me - are worried about expiration of de minimis exemption for small packages from China to US (it was supposed to expire on May 2), here is one data point: I recently ordered some SPI displays from AliExpress; they cleared customs on May 10 and I received them on May 12 - without paying any customs duties

[raw jasper]

or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater, it obtains a difference or deviation

[rapid geode]

im not worried about it....

:x

hehe

i propose a trade deal. we send all the squirrels.

[tardy badger]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ for teh lulz

[rapid geode]

thats a bit larger than a nerf

good for fat squirrels

[tardy badger]

Insert joke about American oil exploits here

[stoic mesa]

I can send you some deer.
we have a lot of them, and they are eating my wife's flowerbeds

[rapid geode]

we dont need deer

[tardy badger]

Have you tried strong scents and human hair?

[stoic mesa]

you flattened your squirrels! how barbaric

[rapid geode]

for deeer, you just put up lcd screens playing bambi

[stoic mesa]

we tried everything...
short of missiles

[tardy badger]

Sounds like missiles it is

[rapid geode]

i really want to try a nerf sentry, but based on some videos, i dont even think the squirres will care

[hasty quarry]

A belief of the probability being around 9% to 14% for 6 nominations per post gave me a chain of 11, which seems quite reasonable based on what I saw myself for how many reposts they were actually getting

[tardy badger]

For real world random variables, that seems reasonable

[stoic mesa]

do you think these displays will work?

[hasty quarry]

It’s just good that my math gave such a reasonable number in and of itself, for a small simple case where it’s just friends nominating friends

[rapid geode]

id go bigger, so they can all line up at once like in a theatre

[tardy badger]

You’re not too far (a short New England distance away) from Boston Dynamics, just borrow one of their robo dogs

Though try to avoid getting caught as to not get a harassing wildlife charge

[rapid geode]

a robot dog that "ate" the squirrels and spit them back out unharmed a few blocks away would be good

😛

[stoic mesa]

and what do I do later? how do I scare away a Boston dynamics robodog?
We need to plan ahead

[tardy badger]

Though I’m not sure how many people actually get charged with harassing wildlife

[rapid geode]

yeah we arent allowed to touch squirrels here at all.

[tardy badger]

Same thing Morty did to his functionally immortal churro. Leave it in a distant planet with what appears to be its own kind

[tardy badger]

Tiny humanoid robots that grab and drop kick the squirrels

[rapid geode]

ha

i thought about a decoy feeding station but was told that would just encourage more to come

people say they dont come near hot peppers... they ate mine

[tardy badger]

How hot?

[rapid geode]

50k

[tardy badger]

Try cayennes

[rapid geode]

those are k

5k

not hot at all

[tardy badger]

Cayenne are 150k

[rapid geode]

O_o

[tardy badger]

Sorry, 30-50k

Do Thai chili

[rapid geode]

they will eat ghost pepper

but mostly peaches

[tardy badger]

Tie scotch bonnets to your peach tree

[rapid geode]

ha

[rapid geode]

give it snacks and sya whos a good boy

[tardy badger]

Also just looked, there are two varieties of cayenne. The long hot ones are what I grow, 250k-500k scoville

[rapid geode]

the ones i had said 5000 on the package

[tardy badger]

Also grow Hungarian wax peppers every year. They’re great pickled and tossed on sub sandwiches

[raw jasper]

sends barrier cream. For the Voiding.

[tardy badger]

I’ve got an apricot habanero sauce in my fridge

Delicious

But no one else will eat it with me 😢

[raw jasper]

more for you! :P

[rapid geode]

ha

[raw jasper]

maybe you could share some with no fish's militant omnivorous squirrels

[rapid geode]

next year i expect many jams and pies and canned stuff to be made. peahces, apples, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, pumpkin

tomatoes

[stoic mesa]

this can be seriously dangerous, if someone unsuspecting bites it

[tardy badger]

In some ways, I kind of hope the kids who mess with my garden every year get curious lol

They usually steal small pumpkins and related from my garden

😦

[raw jasper]

i wonder if you would be legally liable if you don't have a sign

especially if this post were to be shown to a jury

[rapid geode]

no humans ever steal anything from mine. only squirrels

[tardy badger]

Their parents at worst would just sneer at my wife and I but generally they just tell their kids they deserved it

They know their son (who is the one who messes with my garden) gets himself into trouble often

[raw jasper]

I am seriously questioning their parenting skills at this point

[tardy badger]

I’m not condoning vindictiveness, to be clear. I’d rather they not steal from my garden period

[tardy badger]

Same

But I live in one of the few states in the US that has “free range” parenting laws on the books.

[raw jasper]

hmm... I do not think helicopter parenting is a good thing either. There is probably some healthy balance to be found in the middle.

Please note I am not a parent

[tardy badger]

And those laws tend to be taken by many parents here as a reason to let their kids run feral without the slightest supervision

[raw jasper]

Speaking of parenting, I recently read an article in a local newspaper that kids are starting to use mobile devices before they have learned how to read. Apparently, they use voice input to find the videos they want.

I am sure that is gonna go splendidly 🫠

[stoic mesa]

well, free range is one thing - I grew up like that, too, - and "thou shall not steal" is another , quite different

[tardy badger]

It’s the free roaming mantra of the 70s/80s/90s without the parents who actively engage either their kids to enforce rational behaviors

[tardy badger]

Yeah

[stoic mesa]

though to be honest, stealing an apple or several from neighbors' garden was supposed to be the cool thing among many... but stealing a couple of apples from a tree which bears hundreds of them is not doing too much harm

[tardy badger]

Indeed

[hasty quarry]

Oh, come on now

I may be among the first generations if not the first (Z) to really understand en-masse how awful devices are for kids, before actually having kids, and how dangerous the internet has become

My children will be so analog it's not even funny

Physical toys almost exclusively, only TV for a long time if anything and research the shows they're seeing

[tardy badger]

Eh, I have kids (4 of em) and I’ve understood for a long time how technology affects people. My kids get technology but it’s heavily regulated compared to their peers. They have screen time limits, they can’t just ping pong between technology. They know clearly the shows they can and should not watch and follow that pretty clearly. We set clear and respectable boundaries with clear reasons why to help them understand better.

It isn’t perfect though. Being a parent is incredibly taxing at times and sometimes technology is an okay outlet for your kids if you need a moment to breathe. Again, all this is done with clear and understandable boundaries.

[brittle condor]

hello, I'm trying to identify a component, marking is bq=d28 and is a sot 23 5, it looks to be a settable switching voltage regulator, any help?

[stoic mesa]

One possibility: it could be Ricoh R1112N341A LDO:
(from this document found online: https://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/385720/Ricoh_MARKINGS.pdf)

(I started by looking at https://smd.yooneed.one/code4251.html )

[vestal pier]

Gemini suggested RT8059GJ5 Richtek Technology synchronous step-down DC/DC converter

[stoic mesa]

yes, looks like it is a better fit than what I found

[brittle condor]

looks like that indeed

pcb layout seems to mostly match too

many thanks

[brittle condor]

the formulas give makes sense too

it's set for 1.8v which is reasonable for what it's powering

[valid spoke]

does anyone know if for the SMT Breakout PCB like this guy the quantity between adafruit and digikey is 6 or individual ones
i dont see any reason to believe they are not but i wanna to double check
https://www.adafruit.com/product/1212
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/1212/5022800?s=N4IgTCBcDaIIYBM4DMBOBXAlgFwAQEYxCQBdAXyA

[tardy badger]

The digikey one is made by adafruit so they're the same quality

well, they designed/ordered the pcbs and packaged

[valid spoke]

yeah i know they are the same brand but it didnt list quality so i wanted to idiot check

also thank you skerr

[tardy badger]

no worries, I understand the desire to double check. Money is precious these days so you want to make sure you're making a smart purchase 🙂

[hollow flint]

@valid spoke originally asked about quantity.

[tardy badger]

ah, quantity. sorry my brain's autocomplete sucks sometime lol

I'd expect quantity to be the same if they list the same Adafruit part number

which they do

[stoic mesa]

adafruit explicitly says

[bright veldt]

I heard that humans can reach a 1 trillion population if they followed rabbit like reproduction scheme. Basically in 6 years it could compound from 10 bn to 1 trillion

[valid spoke]

on the wesite yes not in digikey

which is why i wanted to check

[stoic mesa]

digikey sells exactly same item as adafruit, in Adafruit packaging

[valid spoke]

yeah but i wanted to make sure fun guy

id rather ask a question and double check than spend 35 dollars on overnight and the wrong part count

[stoic oasis]

Hi, wanna ask which chat group can I ask regarding the ATTiny with seesaw peripheral? example Quadrotary encoder

[fair summit]

#help-with-projects would be fine. If you are using it with CircuitPython, could post in #help-with-circuitpython . Note this open issue: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_seesawPeripheral/issues/25 which has affected several peopel

I see you asked in #help-with-arduino

[rocky pelican]

Longshot here,

But anyone in the Orlando area happen to have one of these?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/364906719918?_skw=Artery+AT-LINK+Programmer&itmmeta=01JVCRNV9XMA2FH2KE5AC8FYCJ&hash=item54f622aaae:g:OtEAAOSwVIxmTbWh&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1f1b8Pgvm3vlCDABLAnCI%2BylawxakTGDOMajRma4HPiG8fpBdfavfy%2BZXH8cWpnwdOENhn25I7Y2BozQhINe3IqNRxZ%2FQbr5KhsEavVcnCLDpFIas1c98oCCOAAFM5pO92%2FaLawZ0zMpIu7a4ZZeP2Kp%2Bmmu3ycciEyV9fiKIo7qCHa%2Bvf82SUe8A%2BX9BVEoc%2FI04yrBdTfAlmzb0QF09rdauBzHuKJPFoS%2BU0YHJsfAr1h4WE5ZJBQwIgHpxtjZo9Kle1PlJSjAosRUJ2fM5Py7AVMAolmTw88FrZX%2Bi7zbQ%3D%3D|tkp%3ABFBMiLXXmNtl

[hollow flint]

If you have a Raspberry Pi Pico handy, you can flash special firmware to turn it into this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5699
I don't know if that'll work the same as an AT-Link, but it's worth a shot.
Instructions for using the special firmware are at "Appendix A" of https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/pico/getting-started-with-pico.pdf

[rocky pelican]

Awesome! I think i have one lying around.

Super useful info. Ty!

[hollow flint]

You're welcome. Let me know if it works, I'm curious.

[rocky pelican]

I have the Raspberry Pi 5. Will that work?

[hollow flint]

I don't know whether any of this will work.
You can try following this Adafruit guide: https://learn.adafruit.com/programming-microcontrollers-using-openocd-on-raspberry-pi
Or, the Micro Center in Miami, FL carries the Raspberry Pi Debug Probe: https://www.microcenter.com/product/663804/raspberry-pi-debug-probe

[rocky pelican]

Thx! I found one on Amazon for overnight delivery. Will wait on that.

Appreciate all your help!

[hollow flint]

An AT-Link on Amazon?

[hollow flint]

Otherwise, Amazon is not a Raspberry Pi Approved Reseller. Please purchase Raspberry Pi products from one of these companies: https://www.raspberrypi.com/resellers/?q=United+States&country=1

[rocky pelican]

I ordered this, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WX2DSVB

From what i researched it seems like it should allow me to flash firmware onto a ARTERY AT32F421K8T7 chip

[hollow flint]

I'm pretty sure that UART is distinct from SWD/JTAG. If that's true, then USB to UART boards, such as the one linked, cannot work for your use-case.

[ivory wave]

my sincerest thanks to the folks behind the MACROPAD project, 100% what i was looking for just ready to go, super convenient

[somber spindle]

what language originated the "-up" naming convention to get started? I know of rustup and circup, but I was wondering if it was just those two, or there are others, and if so, which was first

[brittle pagoda]

Hey, I'm trying to build a new monitor from an old iMac 2017 5K screen with a custom case. Any of the channels that'd be good to ask questions related to construction of this?

[brittle pagoda]

Docker compose up, up can be a reference to update, setup and up in the same way you might get 'up' instead of being down

[somber spindle]

There were the old ifup/ifdown scripts for linux systems, that probably pre-dates any of the language use cases

but that's more of an "up instead of down" kind of thing, instead of a setup/update like circup or rustup

[dusty citrus]

Some kind of a powerbank board with an esp or anything that supports wifi and allows some logic, to control which usb gets power? Off AliExpress I see several <1€ usb splitters with that kind of logic, but I'd like the power to not be splitted

Reason: I have an sbc which for whatever reason sometimes does not boot. Removing and reputting power seems to "fix it". So that's a workaround that I though to use

[bright veldt]

I kind of thought there would be products for those

[bright veldt]

i heard of rustup first, or at least it probably popularized it a lot

[burnt tendon]

I was playing with some three-pin second-order filter components two weeks ago. And so in my dream last night, I somehow got the secret data sheet for the version that was mil-spec and so you were expected to be using it in something that would be exposed to nuclear bomb flux or something like that. With like "This is how it's going to melt if it gets exposed to enormous nuclear flux" sections. And the "Oh, so if you order this normal-looking variant, that's actually the nuclear-war-grade-version sold on the open market" note.

[hollow flint]

That reminds me of this meme I posted a few years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/meme/comments/ntt5bn/types_of_toilet_paper/

[burnt tendon]

OK, if I have a follow-up dream that wanders off into the land of toilet paper, I will have words with you.

[hasty quarry]

I am actually so mad right now

Been borderline ripping my hair out wondering why my basic proof of concept control system wasn’t working, my own Kalman Filter and PID controller on a motor

And it was chattering HARD

I had no idea what was going on, and then I looked at it. My discrete sample time, 50 Hz. And I realized that is way slower than it should be, my system’s pole being like 20 Hz, insanely small margin, practically useless

Setting it to 500 Hz just to see, absolutely fixed it. I hate that. Can’t believe I did that and couldn’t see it

I did all of this analysis and wrote all my own stuff from scratch and the main mistake I make is something like that? Wow, man. Wow

[burnt tendon]

Man... that just hertz.

[hasty quarry]

Aw man

[valid spoke]

You sorted it out tho

That's so awesome

The process sucked a lot but

You got through it

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada – Claude WebApps, Solar MPPT, and More Sensor Breakouts 💡🌞
https://youtu.be/bBXVQPXjBB4

Ladyada’s back with sensor breakouts, Solar MPPT, and the new OPT4048 web app—thanks to Claude! Don’t miss the Sparkle Motion Stick + more.

[dusty citrus]

WITHOUT getting extra hardware (the luck of not having the chinese market at home...), is it possible to get some gpio to act as an usb ?

[whole jacinth]

you probably won’t be able to meet timing specs except at low speed USB, and even that is tricky (see original Trinket)

[plain tusk]

There is tinyusb, but it'll depend on what you're using it for, what mcu you're running on, and what else it's doing (which might eat up cpu cycles or cause delays that mess up communication)
https://github.com/hathach/tinyusb

If you're using newer ESPs many have a dedicated USB device stack you can use

[hasty quarry]

So scratch everything I said last night

My transfer function was utter nonsense. I just got a 50 Hz controller working absolutely fine after fixing it

Which is also pretty embarrassing. But pretty cool actually, that I got that working now

[sturdy dawn]

I just saw someone using some sort of guitar pedal visualizer to drive a neopixel board. I'd really like to set something like that up to receive an audio input from a cable, same way they did it in the video

It was on adafruit's Facebook stories

Kind of pricey but one of those 16x16s would look crazy next to my DJ setup

[dusty citrus]

Also, some kind of dumb proof microfone module that can work sitting behind a piece of plastic?
I saw that there are piezo based modules but the end result audio isn't so great.

[bright veldt]

Mirco

[sturdy dawn]

I think motion tracking would be better than an audio visualizer actually

I scratch like a fiend

Scratching is like break dancing or doing graffiti across and audible canvas, so it would be really cool to visualize that as well

Bought these tables in like 2005 still running strong

The one idea I had was to stick a reflective label in the center that's bumpy so that it gets some variation when it turns

Only problem is it will be slightly behind the sound in latency because light is faster than mixer parts but I doubt it will be very noticable

[hasty quarry]

Guys, how safe is it to overvolt a motor?

And is there much point?

Specifically a brushed DC 24 V gearmotor

[terse lava]

Motor ratings are not like a lot of other electronic components. It tends to be a "nominal" value. So you can go higher within reason and it is not uncommon to PWM drive motors are much higher voltages than their nominal but when not at 100% PWM your effective voltage to the motor is a lot less than the peak of the PWM.

[terse lava]

What voltage are you talking about and are you driving it 100% at that voltage?

[hasty quarry]

I understand the stated voltage is the “nominal” voltage and the “rated speed” is just the speed at which it settles to for that nominal voltage

I’m not actually doing it, I’m considering doing it

But I am using PWM, this is a precise thing

[raw jasper]

(this is a joke. Please do not actually do this)

[hasty quarry]

A control system, very transient

[hasty quarry]

I’ve seen this lol

[raw jasper]

sorry, I couldn't help it ^^

[hasty quarry]

I’m doing a weird thing where instead of driving current I’m using the encoder it has attached to sort of “infer” what the current back EMF is at a point in time

Which is actually working pretty well I think?

I really don’t know how weird this is, but it is working apparently

Also like I said last night, the super annoying bad tuning was because I gave Simulink the wrong transfer function all along

Now I got my 50 Hz controller working just fine

I will go higher because come on, it’s an ESP32, but I was just going insane because a 50 Hz loop should’ve been enough, and now I can rest easy knowing I was right

[whole jacinth]

if you're not breaking down insulation or causing excessive arcs (beyond normal commutation), it might be ok? (add some safety margin!) also check voltage ratings of attached capacitors, if any

[plain tusk]

so you aren't driving it overvolted, just getting potential voltage spikes from turning the motor manually?

[hasty quarry]

I’m not turning it manually, I was just asking about overvolting because I wonder if I could get more out of it is all

I’m concerned about torque, that’s what I want to get more of, this is a control system

That said, I also don’t want to end up causing nonlinearities which I’m assuming would start happening rather fast

If you’re thinking about “turning it manually” because I said “back EMF”, that isn’t what I meant. Back EMF happens when it’s moving itself too, that’s why it settles at a certain speed, all your voltage just turns into back EMF and the equilibrium point is a constant speed

[plain tusk]

It happens in both cases 🙂 that's why I was asking. In general you shouldn't exceed the rated voltage, at least not continuously. You could overheat it and/or damage the coils

[hasty quarry]

Right

I just wonder how I can see how bad that is without causing damage lol

I probably won’t do it

[whole jacinth]

overheating would be from resistive heating, thus more dependent on current than voltage. you could damage the coils by breaking down the insulation, but how high are your rails anyway?

[hasty quarry]

I’m giving 24 volts right now but that’s just what it’s nominally rated for, and not even all the time that’s just my maximum

If I overvolted it would be in quick bursts really

When it’s somewhat stalled

[hasty quarry]

I’m also using an L298N which seems to be limited to 2 amps per output? Which I don’t like. My motor’s resistance is 7-8 ohms so I may damage the L298N. I wonder if I can use the two outputs in parallel on the same motor

Lol

[austere pulsar]

Hello world! Thanks for the swift help @stuck moth

[stuck moth]

Welcome back!

[worldly rose]

Hi everyone, I'm helping lead a student team making a cubestat, does anyone know how to get access to the notion on pycubed? is there helpful stuff in it??

Any help is much appreciated!! thanks!

[raw jasper]

https://pycubed.org/ looks like a notion site to me.....

[worldly rose]

they have a thing on their git thats a link for more documentation, which links to a notion, that has a request access wall, and i requested access a while ago but havent heard anything

[raw jasper]

https://pycubed.org/All PyCubed Resources 8738cab0dd0743239a3cde30c6066452.html

seems to match the link in the repo

https://www.notion.so/maholli/All-PyCubed-Resources-8738cab0dd0743239a3cde30c6066452

They prolly accidentally linked their private link

[stoic mesa]

if you are serious about using high-power motors, I'd strongly suggest ditching L298N and using any of the more modern, MOSFET-based, motor drivers.
there is a huge variety of them

[hasty quarry]

I did actually just look for some mosfet ones

I’ll decide on one later

[brittle condor]

hello, i'm using a rpi zero 2w to display video from an hdmi to csi card, currently i'm just running in terminal mode and using ffplay -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -an and yes it does display but there's a bunch of delay and it's not the smoothest playback, and some times it just freezes and doesn't do anything else, is there a way to make it work better?

[hollow flint]

A FIDO2 security key: https://www.picokeys.com/pico-fido/

[dusty citrus]

Any cheap board with at least 2 functional usb ports?
I saw that adafruit has this rp2040, but 30eur for a board for my pockets it's too expensive 😓

[rigid whale]

I think each week a promo code is offered through one of the YouTube series. Not sure if that would help with the costs.

Sparkfun might have something which could reduce shipping costs.

[stoic mesa]

what country are in?
Pimoroni sells this board in UK for 17,5 euro:
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/adafruit-feather-rp2040-with-usb-type-a-host?variant=40703553830995

[dusty citrus]

Italy

[stoic mesa]

there is also this:
ESP32-C6-DEVKITM

[dusty citrus]

if I'm not wrong the two usbs are not functional, one is for power the other is attached to a serial ic

[hollow flint]

That's my understanding as well.

[dusty citrus]

I already have that board, but I haven't got chance to use it yet 😅

[stoic mesa]

as you can see, both ports can be used for communication with the IC

but yes, one of them goes through USB - UART chip

(from https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-dev-kits/en/latest/esp32c6/esp32-c6-devkitm-1/index.html)

[hollow flint]

If you and/or people you know (such as at a local makerspace/hackerspace) can justify purchasing multiple items at once, both DigiKey and Mouser offer free shipping on most orders above 50 EUR.

https://www.digikey.it/en/products/detail/adafruit-industries-llc/5723/18883559

[plain tusk]

What are you looking to do with both/each port?

[dusty citrus]

Some kind of usb analyzer. I know it can be done via software but I don't want to, and it can be done with a cheapo rp2040 board as well, but they're ugly

[weary fiber]

honestly fascinated by this combo of strict requirements and budget

[hasty quarry]

@stoic mesa Hey shurik could I get a recommendation on one of those mosfet h bridge pwm drivers actually

I don’t need anything beefy at all, “better than L298N” is my only thing right now

[stoic mesa]

sure. What voltage and current are you looking for?

[hasty quarry]

@stoic mesa Currently 24 volts nominal but willing to overvolt it maybe to 30-40 something, and at least 3 amps

[dusty citrus]

2 questions:
On kicad, I can't like select a whole layer and then delete it? Pressing H and then ctrl a "fixes" it
secondly, is there like a way to select all footprints without the extra "junk" on top like silkscreens, paste, pcb cuts?
I'm pretty much editing a reference, but having an hard time to select the stuff that I'm interested in

I could just delete everything and then update from schematics... just tired I guess

[wanton bay]

bottom right corner of KiCAD has a useful a "selection filter". Just below your Appearance screen shot. By default it has everything, but you can de-select "All items" and choose what you want to work with.

I often find myself in a situation where I want to rip up all the tracks so I de-select All-items. Click tracks check box and then ctrl-a to select them all and press delete. Then flip back to All items to work as normal.

[stoic mesa]

for 24v, you can use this one:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3190

if you need higher voltages or currents, check drivers from Cytron: https://www.cytron.io/c-motor-and-motor-driver/c-motor-driver

or pololu (much more expensive): https://www.pololu.com/category/11/brushed-dc-motor-drivers

[night crescent]

ASK AN ENGINEER 5/21/2025 LIVE! https://youtu.be/fEkGUd13XtY

[night crescent]

10% off! Use code: xyzcolor on checkout, expires 11:59PM ET! https://www.adafruit.com

[young coral]

bump its the thought that counts keep rocking yall

[dusty citrus]

Found this 2350 based board in the end

7€

[plain tusk]

Neat. From where?

[urban arrow]

Wanted to mention: for any of you who have a "problem" HDMI monitor... I bought one last year from Amazon for my Raspberry Pi 4, which works perfectly. When I tried to use it with a Pico RP2040 and DVI breakout board, it simply would not work. No display.
My board would work just fine with 2 other small monitors I have... Tried everything pulling my hair out with some colorful language. It WOULD display black/white with 800x480 color=1
Finally after a whole day of research, I looked at the resolutions that Arduino will accept, like these
DVI_RES_320x240p60 = 0,
DVI_RES_400x240p60,
DVI_RES_400x240p30, //Best KNOWN, Reduced refresh rate, less overclock required
DVI_RES_640x480p60
etc. etc.
AND tried them all in Circuitpython, and Lo and Behold, this one is graciously accepted by my stinking el cheapo monitor:
width=400, height=240, color depth=8
P.S. This isn't a big "issue", but the only accepted resolutions with RP2350 (since the above errors out in RP2350), I CANNOT get this monitor to display anything with a Pico 2, no matter what I try.
Oh well.

[hasty quarry]

Thanks shurik just ordered some of these, they look great. Some bare ones on Amazon, I have the screw terminals to solder on

I doubt they’ll make a massive difference but we shall see. Nice to know I’m using something more reliable regardless

[stoic mesa]

most serious problem with L293N is low efficiency, which means that significant part of current is wasted as heat. Not only this wastes energy, but it also means that it easily overheats - there are limits to how much you can dissipate as heat, even with a heatsink.

I have been burned (literally) running a 12v hobby motor with L293n, just by touching the heatsink

[hasty quarry]

Yeah same actually, got a bit burned by it before. A stepper motor made it very angry

[dusty citrus]

How lucky. Order/payment did duplicate and both paypal & the platform don't see the transaction but the bank does

[dusty citrus]

Waveshare

[slim mauve]

Where do I learn circuit python ?

Like, which is the best place to get good at it

[umbral phoenix]

@slim mauve Depends on where you are starting, and how you learn best. There are a number of resources highlighted in the pinned messages in the #help-with-circuitpython channel. Start with those guides, then that channel is also the best place to get help with questions setting up and using CircuitPython.

[slim mauve]

thanks!

I dont know anything about circuit python

so i just wanted to know

ill check

[terse lava]

Is you random post some sort of backdoor advertisement/spam?

[terse lava]

I started by purchasing the Adafruit ESP32-S2 Reverse TFT Feather (the S3 was out of stock at the time or I would have bought that). First thing I tried was the "Blanka Chan" clock learning guide (https://learn.adafruit.com/esp32-s2-tft-digital-clock-display-featuring-blanka-chan) and then I started to play around with it from there. Modifying the code a bit to see what I could do then just playing in the REPL and with small programs to read the buttons and light the LEDs, and continued on from there.

Which is basically a longer winded way of saying, buy a CircuitPython compatible board, load CP onto it, and just start trying stuff. I also found joining the forums and reading people's questions and problems would give me something to try and see if I could figure it out and learn a bit more CP code.

[hasty quarry]

@stoic mesa I think I got scammed on some DRV8871s on Amazon lmao

Well… really I’m not too sure actually. They shipped the next day and it seemed convenient, they were clearly clones of Adafruit’s but they looked fine

Huge red flag though, I didn’t even get the same product as what was on all the pictures. The PCB is visibly way lower quality, the current-limit-set resistor holes are straight up missing, the capacitor is different, just…. Suspicious

I hooked it up exactly as intended, and the motor turned super slowly, less than half the input voltage would ever come out the output, and the module started getting super hot to the touch, and I was WELL within specs

So yeah I think I got scammed or something

[slim mauve]

Thank you @terse lava

[acoustic remnant]

does there exists a pygamer / pybadge emulator ? i also have a gamebuino meta which uses arduino ide and there i could test locally (without having to upload binaries to device) by using an emulator for the main work. I've been googling a bit and can't say i found anything. there seems to be a simulator for ada projects that uses sfml but i'm not using ada

if it matters i'll use c/c++ not python

[shell yew]

I dont know if its the right channel, but did my rp2040 arrive with burned usb host or what, I was wondering why I couldn't get it to detect my mouse and saw this now

[hollow flint]

After rereading it, I can see how it could be considered spam. However, I am genuinely curious about the comparison. Like, what if automobiles utilized FIDO2 security keys, or a different key fob standard that could be interoperable across the industry?

[weary fiber]

Hyperfixated on a cool number series (perfect powers) and decided to see how efficiently I could generate them in typescript

Took a while to even figure out how, but leveraging cool data structures & searching algorithms got me here

[somber spindle]

I think people have very weird ideas about the economics of software and hardware. Sometimes I think back to this: https://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

But more seriously, many breaches are due to password re-use, password spray attacks, bad passwords, etc. We know this, and we have solutions: password managers. There are free password managers and paid password managers, and yet uptake of password managers is still far from 100%

In fact, I've been told by corporate IT offices that password managers aren't allowed

2FA is known to be a much higher security option, but many people don't turn that on

then on top of all that, lots of sites still don't support FIDO keys, sites that really ought to

so why bother spending money on a niche security product that probably won't work where it ought to and will just get lost and complicate your life?

[terse lava]

Are you just talking about the crud you can see on the board here?

[terse lava]

If so it just looks like flux residue to me and can be cleaned up with a bit of alcohol and a toothbrush but its presence shouldn't matter to it working. Or put simply, that looks normal-ish (they should do a better job of cleaning that) even if unsightly.

[shell yew]

it doesnt look like its just dirty, I have it since 4 days and didnt even touch it here, it looks like burned

[weary fiber]

use isopropyl alcohol & a toothbrush on the area, then post another pic

there's frankly too much crud to tell what it is

[rotund canopy]

Going to charge my diy battery pack with a wall wort, if I die at least I tried

[thick wind]

It certainly doesn’t look like burnt traces, but some of the little strands might be cause for concern. Try cleaning it and see what remains.

It’s possible some solder splatter could be shorting pads, but a quick brushing should help clarify that.

[topaz sentinel]

Anyone have any advice for this one hole I can't get unsoldered. I've just got an iron and wick and that last bit refuses to come out. I've tried alternating which side I add to then wick out and still no success

[plain tusk]

The short answer is there is no incentive for them too. They and authorized resellers also like to be able to sell you both an overpriced fob and charge you the fees to program/pair/etc. it with the vehicle

[thick wind]

That last hole is connected to the large ground plane, which will pull heat away from the hole itself and make it difficult to keep that solder molten. There are a number of different ways to get better heat conduction to the hole, but my first approach would be to first fill the hole with some more solder so the surface isn’t caving inwards, then wick with some additional solder on the iron and flux on the wick to help the heat transfer better to the board.
It may seem counterintuitive to add more solder when you’re trying to remove it, but having good surface contact is important for thermal transfer, and putting some on the iron before wicking can increase the effective thermal mass of the iron, especially so if you lack temperature control or a larger tip.

Oh, I guess I assumed you don’t have a larger iron tip. I’d try that too, if you have one.

[topaz sentinel]

I tried both these and no luck. I've got my iron at 400C. The circle worked on the others better than the knife. I'm worried I messed it up already cause those traces next to the hole are starting to turn copper brown

I've got one of these thin tips and was wondering if using it to try and push it out might work

[thick wind]

It may help get contact without having to add more solder, but it’s not good to rely on pressure to remove solder. That’s probably the easiest way to break the traces on your board.

I’d try filling the hole with solder and use a fluxed up wick before resorting to physical force.

[hasty quarry]

This is honestly kind of hilariously overkill for speed controlling a DC motor but I'm enjoying the deep-dive and tying of a bunch of things together. Also the code is aesthetically pleasing

[dark helm]

Hi guys!

I saw this via youtube and saw that you guys have a discord channel.

I really wanted to know where I can get my hands on these

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

Thank in advance ❤️

[dark helm]

or where i can buy it

[dusty citrus]

looks like they have got a sample and never put it on sale on their shop...
you can find similar things off aliexpress, for about 200-300 usd, along with a driver board

there are multiple vendors/models, one of them is:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008080429573.html?

[dark helm]

Thank you. Is that one also see throught?

[dark helm]

Because in the video its see through, exactly what i need

[terse lava]

I disagree and I still think it is flux residue (I have many many many years at looking at dirty PCBs). But just to be clear, I wasn't implying you did anything. I am saying that is how it came out of the package because it wasn't properly cleaned by the manufacturer. Try cleaning it and report back with a new photo.

[dusty citrus]

Rip 😦

Wasted another 3 hours trying to desolder the gpios, forgot it in the oven, and that's the end result
Had I know before thet soldering some pins would be such a pain on a board that steals heat

[kindred isle]

With the tariff mess going on, does anyone have suggestions for PCB manufacturing and assembly in the US?
Or experience with what happens if you order from someone like PCBway now?

[plain tusk]

I have yet to use them (planning to soon) but OSHPark is a good option

Oh, I don't think they do assembly tho 😕

[kindred isle]

I mean, I've been meaning to learn SMD soldering, but haven't gotten around to it. For some of the really small parts I might still want someone else to do it.

Part of the want to learn is that while PCBway is cheap for a lot of things, they charge you for 10-20 "lost" parts for each SMD component because those reels aren't meant to be swapped in and out. As a result they often lose parts, and you pay for them. Resistors and similar are fine, but microcontrollers quickly add up.

[plain tusk]

How many units are you planning to make? I was a bit nervous about my first SMD stuff, but it's actually gone seamlessly thus far with solder paste and a heat gun 🤷‍♂️

[kindred isle]

If I can get one done, I'd be happy. I was only planning on ordering 5 boards to start.

While I'd love to sell them, even the target market is tiny.

Also I should sleep now. I really need to stop digging into this stuff at this hour.

[civic drift]

Do they ever do tours of the Adafruit offices? I live so close to them, i really want to see the place

[stoic mesa]

as of now, JLCPCB pre- charges 55% tariffs on orders to US.
While it is a lot, it is still cheaper than any US-based assembly service

[kindred isle]

Good to know. I'll add that to my list of options.
Right now I'm also considering just biting the bullet and at least for the next revision of this project just limiting SMD components. Sadly that means also sticking with USB power, but c'est la vie.

[stoic mesa]

in my experience, the easiest option is low temp solder paste (bismuth-based) + heat gun.

Resistors/capacitors in 0805 package are easy enough, TSSOP/SOT23 packages are also ok.
But I was struggling with 0.5mm pitch packages such as TQFP, and QFN and LGA proved impossible for me.
That is, I can do them, but 2/3 go to trash 😦

[kindred isle]

I think SOT23 is the smallest I'm looking at if I go for my fullly self contained board. TI's boost chip is nice, but oh so small.

[stoic mesa]

there are plenty of boost ics, many in more friendly packages

[kindred isle]

Yeah, but that means actually learning the values of the rest of the components instead of using TI's Webench calculator.
Which isn't a bad thing. Always should be learning.

[hasty quarry]

I noticed something interesting when controlling my motor, how the DRV8871 has a coast mode and brake mode. Coast mode looks so nonlinear with the stop response being miles different from the step response, but brake mode's stop response literally looks just like the step response but flipped. Very linear first-order looking

I kinda wonder how I could control coasting mode. I probably won't bother with that right now

[stoic mesa]

expected behavior is that coast mode just allows the motor to rotate until friction slows it down, so it just slows down in a nice exponentially decreasing curve (in real life, of course, it will completely stop within seconds)

[hasty quarry]

It does seem to do that, yes

But now I can't model the step response and stop response with one pole

Because they have very different time constants

Wow, it doesn't even look exponential

Eeehhhhhhhh......

That's awful lol

Compare that to the brake mode responses. Same time constant in both cases made this fit. Beautiful

[solar kindle]

I've been thinking about how to upcycle these dental floss dispensers. It's a nice little enclosure with a flip-open cover that reveals a window suitable for a (tiny) display. The thing even unfolds all the way and has convenient mounting posts. Just begging for a miniature project.

[night crescent]

Trying out Claude Code with Sonnet 4 for our STSPIN220 library 🌀🤖🔧

We got the drop that Sonnet 4 (https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-4) just got released and the baby went to sleep early, so let's try it out! We wrote a library for the STSPIN220 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/stmicroelectronics/STSPIN220/6137574) — this is a stepper motor driver like the A4988 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6109) or TMC2209 (https://www.adafruit.com/product/6121), but for low voltage motors.

One interesting thing about it is it uses the step/dir and two mode pins to set the micro-steps, from 1 to 1/256. Since that gets a little confusing, we figured a driver (https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_STSPIN) would be worth doing. The table was definitely annoying to decode, and higher microsteps started overflowing 16-bit variables, but now we've got it spinning happily!

[plain tusk]

time to make some mini communicators? 🤔

[rigid whale]

Anyone ever notice the giant LED between Chekov and Sulu? The whole control panel is awesome but that LED is a chonker.

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada: Stepper Spinner, LED Booster & Radio Receiver
https://youtu.be/nWAnyuuCv-c

Prototypes ready: STSPIN220 stepper driver, LED booster, SI4732 radio breakout & more! Plus, a deep dive on RF inductors for radio filtering. Tune in & grab the latest gear!

[somber spindle]

Digikey launched a new PCB manufacturing service, but I know nothing about it. https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/dkred

[kindred isle]

HMMM...
I already use them as my primary parts supplier...

[thick wind]

Dkred is great for maker projects. In exchange for some restrictions on fabrication options, they give a very competitive price for prototyping smaller boards.

[kindred isle]

I'm so inexperienced in board design, and only build so simple projects that I can't imagine hitting any of their restrictions in a way that would matter.

[thick wind]

Bonus points if you’re ordering for work and already purchase from DigiKey, since your company doesn’t have to qualify an additional vendor haha

[kindred isle]

Like "oh no, the solder mask can only be red"

[thick wind]

Yeah pretty much

The dimension limits might restrict you from some projects like larger keyboards, but otherwise it’s solid.

Can still do 4-layer boards so most circuits down to QFN and small BGAs are very doable.

Downsides, if any, are a lack of stencils or assembly, so be prepared to assemble the boards manually by hand.

[kindred isle]

Yeah. Lack of assembly is something I'm already factoring in. Current project has only two SMD components. A USB Micro socket, and an ATTiny. When I get more comfortable with doing it I'll add more.

[thick wind]

For starters, I’d recommend getting some solder paste or flux paste. It’s certainly not the only way to do it, but it does help accelerate the process.

Wick is a must have though.

[kindred isle]

Yep, I've got some paste, and a soldering station with heat gun to try that. Even have a practice board off Amazon.
I really need to get around to trying though. Which is just me being lazy.

Oh, and wick. Yes I have wick.

[thick wind]

I don’t even have a heat gun… 🥲

[kindred isle]

Well, if the reviews are to be believed I might not after a few uses. This unit came recommended via a friend forwarding a youtube video, and while the iron is great, some people report that the heat gun may melt itself.

Fingers crossed it doesn't.

[thick wind]

Heat guns are more a nice to have than a need to have, anyways. All you really need is a decent iron with one good tip.

[terse lava]

The answer is NO. From their contact page "PLEASE NOTE: Adafruit does not have a retail store, orders cannot be picked up. NO VISITORS ARE PERMITTED. Our factory is not available for visits."

[stoic mesa]

you never know.
my soldering station is also a cheap no-name Chinese one, but it has served me well for over 4 years...

[kindred isle]

Yep. The reviews are largely positive, but more than a couple people commented that it melted. So it's probably going to be fine. Not to mention I'm well aware of people blaming products for problems of their own creation. Like the time I was looking up 2 part resin, and someone gave it 1 star because it ruined their project...
After they mixed it with some other random 2 part resin they happened to have under their sink.

Surprise surprise, mixing random chemicals ended up with a bad result.

[terse lava]

John Wick? That could be dangerous.
For my home use I have been very pleased with the Pinecil soldering iron, if anyone was looking for a recommendation.

[raw jasper]

Pine: Makers of devboards, phones, laptops and... soldering irons?

[terse lava]

Yep. This one https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-soldering-iron/ which gets tons of great reviews. It is usually talked about right up there with the other portable irons like the TS101

[terse lava]

It is a nice choice for people without a lot of deskspace that don't want a full station sitting on the desk full time like with something like the Hakko FX888DX. When I am done using it, it slips into my tackle-box I use for my various parts and tools.

[raw jasper]

I find it absolutely funny that they tout the processor and resources available on the Hot Stick

..thinking about it, perhaps endearing would be a better word for it

In any case, I was aware of it, but I did not know it was actually good. Thanks for the info!

[terse lava]

Yeah some even go so far as to get excited that the code is open source and that you can do firmware updates where as, like you, I am like, 'ummmm, does it maintain 350°C?' Then what more do I need?

[raw jasper]

I do not think it is wise to tinker with the firmware of the hot stick

(also, greetings, fellow Celsius units user)

[dusty citrus]

It's a pity that it is not compatible with smaller tips, unless you push a firmware update

[terse lava]

Do they? I only have the stock tip that it came with which is good enough for my home use. Typically if I am soldering something SMT then I take it to work with me to do it under the microscope.

[dusty citrus]

It's not really cheap either way. 25 it's the iron, tips do cost around 5-10, and a power supply with pd 65w it's at least 12. It's more of a fancy iron

Anything that heats can be used as an iron. There are tons of no name cardridge based irons, for cheaper on ali. Don't have direct experiences tho

As in 2025, I would totally avoid irons that are not cardridge based. Ad heat causes distortions, so you may have tips, that end up worthless as the metal host doesn't host em anymore

[raw jasper]

* anything that heats and can remain at a stable temperature :P

[kindred isle]

I mean, I would imagine worse case scenario it goes full power all the time, at which point it's no worse than your typical no-name dumb iron that regulates its heat by "it's dissipating heat faster than it can produce it"

[terse lava]

Yes, I bought the iron with included tip and added the silicone USB cable direct from Pinecil and then I picked up a 65W PD supply from Amazon for something like $13, HTC brand like the phones but also later picked up a couple of other for only about $10 each which both work fine. So final price to be up and running was a bit over $50 usd. Where as the TS101 would have probably been closer to about $80 up and running. Still all very cheap compared to what it cost to get a quality iron back in the day when you would have had to spend hundreds for a basic Weller. We have an embarassment of riches these day with good quality stuff for cheap.

[dusty citrus]

Bah I mean, as long as it melts solder...
Running at max time, overall it's mostly bad for the iron, although in the cardridge based tips, you can somewhat ignore it

[hollow flint]

If you don't have sufficient desk space, wouldn't going to a makerspace/hackerspace be a better option?

[terse lava]

Ah just looked it up. Apparently the V1 version of the Picecil required FW changes for different tips. The V2, which I have, uses auto sensing of the tip resistance in the cartidge.

[dusty citrus]

Cool, too bad that I got the v1 clone lol

[terse lava]

Not if I just want to solder on a 0.1" pin header or tack a wire onto a switch.

[terse lava]

Also as I mentioned, my work is my makerspace when needed. 😆

[plain tusk]

Dang that's a good price. I picked up the ifixit one when it came out https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-power-series-smart-soldering-iron I like that it has the magnetic cap for the tip, but I'm sure you could find a similar soution for that one for less than $50 😂

[thick wind]

Why do that when I can solder in the backyard with my usb-c capable jump starting battery haha

[hollow flint]

That assumes they have a backyard. I'd assume most people with limited desk space live in a high-rise apartment building in a very urban area.

[thick wind]

I mean, the alternative assumes everyone with limited desk space has access to a makerspace or hackerspace

If you assume everyone who has a small desk lives in a city, that could be true?

Certainly wasn’t for me though

[hollow flint]

Most urban areas contain a makerspace/hackerspace: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

[thick wind]

$50 a month versus a $50 tool. Hmmm….

Ehhh, I already got the tools.

[rotund canopy]

I’m not sure where all these portable irons rank, I guess they’re equally performant

[thick wind]

The cost savings of a pinecil assume you already have a usb pd supply around. For most, I’d still recommend an ac powered iron with basic temp control.

They all can get work done, but a good soldering station feels so much better to use…

I’m still upset I don’t have lab access yet at my new job.

[hollow flint]

If that means not needing the next size up in terms of square footage of an apartment, it could be worth it to some. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLibLXvNY8 puts the circumstance into perspective.

[raw jasper]

(and the maintenance costs for such tools usually work out to be much less, esp. if the hackerspace is in an inconvenient/difficult to access location)

[terse lava]

Well I do have a large backyard with nothing by woods behind me, a good sized house sitting on an acre of land. It is just that in my master bedroom there is this little alcove area that was perfect for corner desk with a window next me on my right which is where my main computer has always been. I could setup a proper electronics work bench somewhere if I really wanted to but I like my corner desk. So it isn't so much an issue with not having room to work or solder. It is more an issue of not having space to setup a lot of stuff out full time. Everything times-shares and when not in use gets put away to make room. So for soldering my iron, solder, wick, flux jar, flux pen, copper tip cleaning pad, and all that stuff are kept in my tackle-box, come out when I need them, then back in the box when I am done.

[somber spindle]

don't quench the tip in the mug

[terse lava]

But then how will I get that delicious piney flavor?

[somber spindle]

you said the woods are behind you, go get some pine needles, and then take out your rotavap and do a distillation of pine needles

[terse lava]

A lot of them seem to be fairly similar in performance. I did get myself in a bit of analysis paralysis when I was trying to choose. I am sure any of the final 2 or 3 I looked at would have all been fine. On my 65W supply, the Pinecil gets from room temp to 350°C in under 15 seconds. A 100W supply would probably heat it up faster, but I think I will get by without that additional 5 seconds saved. 😆

[plain tusk]

Most is probably a stretch, and even if there is one that doesn't mean it's close to you, you can get to it, or afford to pay for it

[hasty quarry]

My dad had a large mirror in our backyard and used it to point the sun into a window that looked really cool with a sun ray in his opinion

I probably mentioned this before here, but he asked me if I could make a robot that would perfectly orient this mirror so that there’s a sun ray directed there all the time, just for fun

The math was neat and really simple in principle, I simply inverted the vector reflection formula so that the reflected vector points where I want, and it gives me what the normal vector of the reflection plane (the mirror) should be, but now I have to actually see how I’ll build this

I’m not really familiar with what mechanism I could use here actually. Stepper motors sound like the right choice but what’s a good two-axis yaw-pitch mechanism I could use as a reference?

[vestal pier]

Dual-axis solar tracker?
https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Dual-Axis-Solar-Tracker/

[thick wind]

If you’re referring to the mechanical design of the two-axis tracking, most pan-tilt assemblies should match what you’re looking for. They’re often designed for a camera on micro servos, so some scaling or adaptations will be needed for a large mirror.

[chrome vale]

I have a question about MCP2221A, Does the shipment comes with header pins or without

https://www.adafruit.com/product/4471

[thick wind]

Not an adafruit rep, but from my experience my boards from adafruit come packaged with the header pins loose in the bag.

[plain tusk]

This pic they included suggests to me that they're included but unsoldered

[raw jasper]

I think that's what Hem is implying by saying "loose" :)

[plain tusk]

Yep! Just hopefully adding to the clarification. I can't tell if by "comes with header pins" they mean soldered/unsoldered or in the shipment at all vs not

[sturdy dawn]

64x64 panel with the s3/m4 driver

Acrylic panel over it

Its me ronald raiden lol. Changed that name

[chrome vale]

Thanks for checking, I just wanted to know if the header pins comes with the package or not, don't care about soldered or not.

[plain tusk]

Regardless, it's worth having some on hand incase you want to use nonstandard headers. Sometimes I swap mine out for angled headers, female headers, stackable headers, etc

[ancient rivet]

yep. they come with the header pins. most often it's a strip or two that ends up being more than needed. i.e., they aren't custom cut to length per board.

[hasty quarry]

You guys shipped 3 days earlier than USPS said

Dang

Well I guess that’s more of a USPS underestimating themselves thing

[dusty citrus]

I may have a power issue with a usb series
Without getting those usb power checkers, do I have a way to check for power?
If I indexed have a power issue, what should I do? All the power comes from usb
Idk maybe an array of capacitors, or adding batteries, to have an external source of power outside of usn

[night crescent]

SHOW and TELL 5/28/2025 https://youtu.be/12fTfDLeUac

[night crescent]

10% off! Use code: powerpeek on checkout, expires 11:59PM ET! https://www.adafruit.com

[terse lava]

https://tenor.com/view/david-ortiz-wicked-smaht-wicked-smart-big-papi-red-sox-gif-22314638

[plain tusk]

Highly recommend having one of those usb checkers around. They're pretty cheap now and I use mine way more often than I ever thought I would

[cosmic grove]

Hello

Is there any promo codes for Adafruit

?

I did WELCOME

But is there any others?

Hello

Is anyone there

?

I think chat died

crickets chirping

[plain tusk]

😂

[cosmic grove]

What’s so funny?

[plain tusk]

You joined the server and the first thing you did was ask for promo codes, then complain that it's dead because no one answered you within 10 minutes when it's late at night for many folks here. I just found that an amusing way to join the community 😅

[cosmic grove]

Oh

I’m used to hanging out in server with 500,000+ members

[hasty quarry]

I can’t stand those servers

50 conversations happening at once, you say something and it’s a dice roll for if someone replies to you

[tardy badger]

Those servers are the primary reason for threads so you don’t get lost in the ether

[celest fiber]

I'm actually surprised there are almost 39k here. That's pretty good!

[terse lava]

Maybe those servers can answer your question then. 😆
Adafruit does a lot of live video shows for things like new products, pick of the week, ask an engineer, etc. and often those shows include promo codes usually good either for the duration of the show or until the end of that day. So you might peek in on some of those. The Pick of the Week is a half price promo but only on that product being showcased. Ask an Engineer will usually have a 10% off your entire order code.

[cosmic grove]

Ok

[weary fiber]

Getting a TON of "mail delivery system" errors at work... but we aren't sending out emails

It seems like someone is sending lots of spam emails (which get rejected) and the return address is set as our business email

Trying to determine how worried I should be about that >>

[weary fiber]

welllll apparently it's worse than I thought. A random hacked EXIM (email server) in AWS ap-south-1 is sending spam email with the envelope-from and return-path set as our business email (without TLS of course).

And they sent SO MANY that our business email got blacklisted everywhere. Even sending emails usually (TLS on & being sent from prod.outlook.com) gets "acceptable use" rejections.

[raw jasper]

Is the breached MX server part of your company network?

Does your domain name have valid SPF and DKIM records?

[weary fiber]

Spam email rejection (censored business email w/ emojis):

Remote server returned '554 5.0.0 <eig-east.smtp.a.cloudfilter.net #5.0.0 smtp; 550 KRiSuZS4BCFxwKRiSuwWAL - <⬛> message rejected AUP#SNDR>'
Original message headers:

Return-Path: <⬛>
Received: from ec2-13-234-81-74.ap-south-1.compute.amazonaws.com ([13.234.81.74]:60541 helo=[127.0.0.1])
      by shared038.arvixe.com with esmtpa (Exim 4.98.1)
        (envelope-from <⬛>)
    id 1uKROD-00000003z62-37kA;
    Wed, 28 May 2025 19:44:58 -0500

And the rejections we get when sending official emails (censored sender/receiver emails)

Original message headers:

Return-Path: <⬛>
Received: from [52.96.65.21] (port=1326 helo=DM6PR20MB3209.namprd20.prod.outlook.com)
 by shared038.arvixe.com with esmtpsa  (TLS1.2) tls TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
       (Exim 4.98.1)
     (envelope-from <⬛>)
 id 1uKf1t-000000025HY-0057
  for 🔴;
  Thu, 29 May 2025 10:18:49 -0500```

spam ones are coming from a random AWS compute cluster, ours are coming from prod.outlook.com and have encryption enabled

[raw jasper]

It's been at least 10 years since I last ran an MX server, but IIRC if you do not have valid SPF and DKIM records on the business domain so that receiving servers can tell which activity comes from authorized servers and which doesn't, it would not be unexpected for the receiving servers to blacklist your entire domain in such an event

[weary fiber]

interesting >>

[raw jasper]

The MS 365 admin center should have been very grumbly if you hadn't done that, though

I remember using
https://mxtoolbox.com/dkim.aspx and https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx to check

[weary fiber]

>>

[raw jasper]

How about SPF?

Also, how in the world did you not notice that you were unable to deliver to gmail until now?

[weary fiber]

surprisingly it's worked until now

[raw jasper]

Normally gmail should have dropped your mails

[weary fiber]

(not the sysadmin tbf)

[raw jasper]

And microsoft was very insistent that people should set them up by sending mail to admins throughout the last few years

(I was on MS Exchange until recently)

[weary fiber]

Beginning to sound like we got infiltrated harder than I thought, at least enough to mess with DNS records

I'm just office staff with a tiny bit of technical knowledge, so not super my problem

[raw jasper]

But I thought the AWS server was not a business asset, just some rando using your domain in the From: field

[weary fiber]

Yeah, but like you said, gmail would've dropped our emails if we had no DKIM records before. Seems to imply they were somehow removed

[raw jasper]

(Also, do not discount the probability of the sysadmin just neglecting to set (some of) the relevant records up. It's not super uncommon)

[raw jasper]

At least it's not your problem! 🍾🍻

[weary fiber]

Currently beefing up my C++ knowledge by studying fundamentals more, and

this hurts my brain a lil

[tardy badger]

Be sure to look into clang tidy and cpp core guidelines

Super helpful for writing clean and effective code

[raw jasper]

+1, a linter is always useful regardless of language

I need to actually sit down and learn proper C++ too

[terse lava]

That's just crazy talk.

[tardy badger]

I hope that comes across as a gif lol

[weary fiber]

day 2 of trying to figure out the practical difference between lvalue and rvalue references

[tardy badger]

One is a temporary value not set to a variable, the other is a defined variable that has a set space in memory

Well, more nuanced and complicated than that

But that’s the gist of it anyway

[weary fiber]

found a pretty good explanation here https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2006/n2027.html#Move_Semantics

but yeah, learning more fundamentals, and

??????????????

"mutable const" this language is insane

(exaggerating, but the verbiage is unclear to say the least)

[hollow flint]

That reminds me of the interior mutability concept in the Rust programming language (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch15-05-interior-mutability.html).

[weary fiber]

Took me a sec, but their first "OK" example is saying "you're not allowed to change the value at the address p points to, but you ARE allowed to change WHAT it points to"

idk I have a couple issues with this

1. "const refers to the left unless there's nothing there" is a weird exception. I get that allowing const int aligns more with other languages, but I feel like more internal consistency (forcing const to always apply-left) would be better

2. It seems like "mutable" in the first example is just a hack-job to make up for the fact that const int * p ACTUALLY means int const * const p

Seems like it'd be simpler for int const * p (AKA const int * p) to just mean "a variable pointer to a constant value"

[glacial whale]

what is c3?

[weary fiber]

Chaos Computing Conference, a tech conference in Germany! It's a pretty unique place-- lots of VERY knowledgeable speakers, stuff ranging from BLE protocols to (legal) NATO radio hacking to putting SPDIF over global fiber networks to hacking macos usb controllers

Various speakers can be seen wearing cat ears, and sometimes ongoing events in other rooms include "group meowing"

It's kinda peak lmao

[glacial whale]

Ohhhh LMAO, thank u now I've learned something new

[weary fiber]

A trans friend of mine in germany went & described it as "hacker-tgirl mecca & a tech conference at the same time"

[plain tusk]

Not sure how familiar you are with C++, C and programming languages in general, but if you're just getting started, I feel like you're a lot better off just jumping in to writing code and reading similar examples to things you want to do than getting deep into the weeds of some of tese definitions and terminology, which can be quite esoteric and often pedantic.

If you are already familiar with the other parts, by all means carry on, but I wouldn't say it's the best way to start getting into a programming language or programming in general

[weary fiber]

Oddly enough, a lot of this is motivated by a small project

I've written my own data structures before for uni classes, but only ever in java & far more focused on CS fundamentals than speed

BUT

right now I'm trying to write a custom binary heap class that handles in-place edits and 8-byte key/value types

It's for a discrete-math number-series algo, and needs to handle hundreds of millions of pushes/reorders/entries

I have a suuuuuper basic version using std::priority_queue, and it works fine, but it's only 5x faster than a typescript equivalent

[grave acorn]

Hello guys
I need some help here
Is there anyone here who can deal with logical circuits in the multisim program?

[dusty citrus]

don't ask to ask, just ask

[hasty quarry]

I guess they’re just demonstrating that mutable overrides constness. The thing is, non-const things become const when you instantiate the object itself as const

They’re showing you very explicitly, but “mutable const” does implicitly happen

Mutable is good for caching. Say you have an object that could or could not be declared const, and it has a member function that needs to do some work to return, and the work it does could be cached. If the instance is const, where are you supposed to put that cached work? You can’t change anything

So you (very carefully) make a mutable variable to put that there, so you can still cache if the user of your class declares you const… You should probably keep it private though, exposing a mutable member sounds somewhat ridiculous

[shy orbit]

Hey guys, I have a project where Id like to control 2 12v high torque servos, and adafruits 2inchish color display. i am having trouble deciding the best board to run it. i like the metro express rp2040 but its out of stock. are there any good alternatives? i just need basic 12v servo control which i suspect will work with 5v logic. im aware of adafruits servo controller which i plan on using. this will run on a 12v source so will be nice if it can accept 12v input.

any suggestions?

[plain tusk]

All sorts of MCUs could do that. It depends on your budget, physical size requirements, what all you're looking to compute on it for the display/control, what you're comfortable programming for, etc. If you want something with an RP2040, could you just pick a different ada board also based on it? Maybe the feather? https://www.adafruit.com/product/4884

[shy orbit]

ill probably go with a feather. i think i have one even. I tend to forget the specs on the various boards I have so tend to just get a new something for projects even if i have a bunch. I think I suck at programming, but always seem to beat my face against the keyboard until it works lol. Certainly love adafruit stuff though

[night crescent]

Desk of Ladyada – nOOds and Boosters A-Plenty ✨🧵 We are Boosting nOOds, testing chargers, and hunting UV LEDs! Wrapping up new designs & exploring UV LEDs for costuming for blacklight flair.
https://youtu.be/k-4OAAM1SQs

[reef vapor]

Hello, when will these be in stock? GEO241DA-0540

[hollow flint]

According to https://octopart.com/1466-adafruit+industries-61582075, Mouser has 74 units in stock.

[hollow flint]

BTW, for future reference, the Adafruit product ID is 1466, not GEO241DA-0540.

[reef vapor]

Gotcha! Thanks friend

[misty dawn]

So I made a dumb mistake and need help from someone who is hands-on with orders at Adafruit to fix it.

[lapis anchor]

Your best bet is to email [e-mail] with your order number 🙂

[misty dawn]

Already done

However I'm not confident it'll be intercepted in time.

[fair summit]

orders submitted before 11am Eastern time often ship same day. An email to support@ is the right thing to do. Often just cancelling the order is the easiest thing, instead of modifying it.

[kindred isle]

So I decided to go with Digikey to make my prototype boards. Apparently you actually need to make an account to do this. No biggie. Toss all my details in, make a password and... wut?

[raw jasper]

I guess you'll have to make an entirely alphanumeric password :(

FYI, it can take a few days for your account to be approved post-creation

[kindred isle]

Actually, it's not even that straightforward. Checking the generated password it contained the following special characters:
@ } & ?
Of those four, which do you think was the offending one?

[raw jasper]

??

[kindred isle]

Also, hopefully verification is what's stopping me from adding boards to my order.

? is a good guess, but no! Surprisingly the offending character was & of all things.

[raw jasper]

IDK, I had to have my account verified as a non-US citizen residing outside the US. Your mileage may vary

[kindred isle]

Time will tell. Currently when I try to add boards to my order it just says that "A marketplace item cannot be shipped to your address and has been removed." I can't even double check that I put my address in correctly. Again, presumably because they're verifying me.

[raw jasper]

You could send them an e-mail just in case?

[kindred isle]

I'll wait until they say something one way or another.

Undoubtedly they're going to either activate my account, or ask me questions. Once the account is fully activated, if I still can't add boards I'll ask.

[raw jasper]

Yeah.. IIRC you go through the verification again once you change addresses

[kindred isle]

Weird. Especially when you consider that you're free to order whatever parts you want (just regular parts) without even having an account at all.

[somber spindle]

There are lots of laws and regulations that apply to a manufacturer but not a retailer. Especially if there are custom parts being produced.

[raw jasper]

Dunno, that was not the case for me when ordering. But, again, outside the US and I was ordering an export-controller part

[valid spoke]

What's the correct channel to ask questions about the products

Trying to figure out if this is as bright as the 7in screen with the RA8875 can get

There is a pin for backlighting but I also see a part in the code that adjusts it so I'm not sure if it's necessary

I'm looking at the schematic

And I see a backlight pin on the left but don't see where it's refeence on the right

[plain tusk]

That is…alarming. It usually means the implementation is poor and likely subject to haxx 🫠

[plain tusk]

& is used for encoding special characters in HTML, e.g. © is how you would add © or ⇪ for unicode characters like ⇪

[thick wind]

What display do you have? I know the adafruit ra8875 has solder jumpers to increase the current output of the constant current backlight driver, but it’s best to check the display data sheet to see how much current the backlight expects.

[raw jasper]

For maximum security, make sure to regularly rotate your mummy: 𓀾𓁀𓀿

(I wonder how many people's devices can render the hieroglyphics)

[plain tusk]

Hopefully any that support unicode, which is supposed to be most these days

[raw jasper]

Eh, you also have to have the relevant fonts installed.. IME, mac systems tend to render most things you throw at them, on linux everything works as long as you install all the "extra" fonts (I have had trouble displaying Hangul and "extended" Chinese characters in the default configuration), and windows is hit and miss

I always make sure to install all language font coverage packages on my linux systems, because I do not enjoy getting squares instead of lingual characters

Even if I do not understand the language, somebody clearly went to the trouble of composing a message