general-chat

[tardy badger]

I think so?

[dusty citrus]

I'm mind blown everytime I look at these thinking that in the 19th century they were able to do this

not ssure why they would switch from copper to a less conductive metal like aluminium/steel though ?

and I thought the best conductor was gold but apparently it's silver...

[tardy badger]

Strength of the cable

Copper transmission lines had a tendency to corrode and break in high wind events. Aluminum transmission lines are actually much stronger and carry current just as well

[dusty citrus]

Sometimes I wish I was in a space station close to a start to get tons of free power....

Solar panels near mercury facing the sun must be great

[late fulcrum]

It turns out solar panels lose efficiency when they're hot

[dusty citrus]

I suppose they will also have issues too if subject to a huge magnetic field, or a lot of gravity or with radiation too 😄

[late fulcrum]

I don't think they care about magnetism nor gravity. Radiation, they probably just turn into more electricity.

[tardy badger]

I’m curious how large the temperature gradient is on one sided panels or just on panels all together with one side in the sun reaching hundreds of degrees, while the backside in darkness reaching colder temperatures

[late fulcrum]

A big enough low albedo shadowed radiator might do the trick

[dusty citrus]

it's ok just cool it down with peltier chips

who care if the other side of the chip is 2000oF it's space lot of space to cool it 😄

also near certain stars I'm sure the magnetic field in the hundreds of thousands of teslas would rip diamagnetic materials like germanium and silicium in the panels away

[static flare]

he hasn't bought it yet, despite what everyone is saying

[slim shard]

Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

[static flare]

If I were looking at slowly getting parts for a 3D printer which I would slowly assemble, what would be the best guide/list to follow?

[wanton thistle]

I would say the frame first, then then motors, then driver board (+ display). At least then you can test the steppers. After that, its the rest of the hardware, like screws, extruder, etc.
This video seems to be OK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzjJFon4c8E

But on a personal note: Ive bought a ender 3 since it was inexpensive enough and you kind of have to build it anyway. If the build size isnt big enough, there are extender kits out there. You could think of finding a used ender 3 and then buying some Al extrusion.

The only issue I see with that video is that he uses printed parts.

[thick wind]

Depends what type of base you’re building and what your budget is. If you’re interested in a corexy printer, voron is open source and provides a pretty comprehensive walkthrough for building your own.

[static flare]

since I'm planning on buying it slowly and in pieces, my total budget can be a lot higher

[blissful roost]

I'm considering building a 3D printer myself..
I've already got 2x control boards, Sanguinololu models.

[static flare]

the only control board I have is the one from my current one that is, well, terrible

[late fulcrum]

I've been eyeing the Big Tree Tech boards

[blissful roost]

These run on the 328p, so that's about all I know..
Someone gifted them to me, back in... 2019?
They were spares from his own build.

[thick wind]

Most processors are surprisingly sufficient for driving a 3D printer, as long as you have decent enough stepper drivers.

I've been seeing some RP2040 control boards recently, and they don't seem too bad...

Seems like Marlin isn't there yet for RP2040 though, but if I were to get one of those I'd happily jump to Klipper.

[static flare]

So my current 3D printer has NEMA17 motors, which are standard, so I can at least save on that

[blissful roost]

I have absolutely no idea what to do, because I haven't put the time into research.. mostly because I don't have the space or the money. 😐

[thick wind]

328p is certainly less common, as most RepRap boards were designed with the Atmega2560 for more pins and more expandability. However, if you're able to work within the memory restrictions, it's definitely feasible to control a 3d printer with a 328p.
That being said, unless your board comes with documentation and/or prebuilt firmware, it might be easier to go a more traditional RepRap route, or pick up a shiny new 32-bit board instead.

[half iris]

The PIO on the RP2040 seem like they'd be great for real time CNC applications

I've been waiting to see what people do with them

[blissful roost]

Yeah, seems reasonable...
Also, if I build something with the Sanguinololu board to start with, I'd assume it would be reasonably trivial to replace the board later.

[dusty citrus]

for soldering, trying to find safety glass but they all seem the same size ? How do I know it will fit on my large head ?

[quartz wren]

Mornin all!

[dusty citrus]

was thinking of getting these for the minimal order is 3 dispenser boxes of 20

and my price for just 1 are really bad, sellers selling them for 25$ a piece when at that price I could have 30 of them

not sure they are correct though because for electronics as far as I know you need the bottom side for protection against solder or wire flying off or caps blowing up and sending hot shrapnel everywhere

[dusty citrus]

It matters a lot.

This is why builders on a new construction site have the power company run a feeder to a post on the property, and put a meter on it there - and then run Romex to the interior instead of a 200' extension cord.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic-sheathed_cable#North_America

Basically if you run 200' of stranded wire you burn out your saw's motor.

Old school saw motors had lots of thermal mass and could withstand the lower voltage.

New ones are built with low shipping mass designed in; they cannot tolerate the overheating.

Permanent wiring is always better.

Flexible cable is always a compromise.

Even a 6 foot cable on a window air conditioner is problematic if the blade contacts aren't clean and tight. Just feel the plug. If it's quite warm, that's reason enough to investigate further. ;)

--

"The following are nominal current ratings for copper conductors; long runs may require thicker wires to minimize voltage drop."

White: 14 AWG wire (1.6 mm2) for 15-amp circuits.
Yellow: 12 AWG wire (2.08 mm2) for 20-amp circuits.

Orange: 10 AWG wire (2.6 mm2) for 30-amp circuits.
Black: 6 or 8 AWG wire (13.3 mm2 or 8.37 mm2) for 60- and 45-amp circuits, respectively.

So basically if you had an application where you'd want the white jacketed Romex, ordinarily, but had a longer run, you'd bump it to yellow jacketed (bump from 14 AWG to 12 AWG, which is a larger cross-section).

This way the open terminal voltage at the receptacle would be similar to 'standard' (less voltage drop).

In my case it's power cord for hifi radio, nothing in the power cord will make the audio cleaner, that's the job of diode/transistors/opamps etc

[thick wind]

nothing in the power cord will make the audio cleaner
but anything near it could make it noisier...

[dusty citrus]

but what about my safety glass? that's more important and could save a life/or my eyes

[thick wind]

Honestly, having anything in front of your eyes is sufficient for simple soldering.

[dusty citrus]

But it's not logical for me, they don't seem to be adjustable until you fork 250$

so I have no idea if they will even fit my head

[fair summit]

The ones I have used fit pretty close to the cheekbones even if they are not flexible. There are eBay sellers of the foam ones for about $10 each. My guess is that they wear out fast, which is why they're sold in packs

also https://www.webstaurantstore.com/search/3m-virtua-safety-glasses.html

[dusty citrus]

I'm in Canada unfortunately. When I order from the US it adds 30-40$ to shipping + randomly rolled duty fees and taxes to the whole thing

and for batteries it add a base cost of 1000$ even for 2 AA batteries because they now have to be shipping by an hazmat postal truck...

way too complicated/expensive to my taste

Also I'm not sure I can order from many sellers as they ssays "For industrial/occupational use only Not for consumer sale or use"

And this isn't for my job/my factory so I'm not sure if I'm legally allowed to order them

[fair summit]

how about this kinda thing: lab goggles:

https://www.lowes.ca/product/eye-protection/safety-works-impact-and-splash-resistant-goggles-694318

[spice moss]

that could be nice for made as other option for those goggles what have neopixels

[dusty citrus]

that is a good idea, could put leds on the top of these with a small microcontroller and wifi

[fair summit]

lotsa other options at home depot, other hardware stores

[static flare]

i mean, legally if it's not a product prohibited for purchase (like classified tech, or dangerous goods), and they sell it to you, then it's not an illegal sale, whether or not they typically sell that to companies or tradespeople

[dusty citrus]

yeah the one across from me seem to have them. I prefer 3m/dewalt but I'm fine now with my question

[dusty citrus]

my understanding is that these are usually sold in dispenser packs of 24 even the 200$ ones

so they probably don't want peoples to open the dispenser packs and resell them individually or something

[thick wind]

If you just want safety goggles/glasses that fit your head, I would recommend going to your local hardware store, where you can try some on.

[dusty citrus]

yeah I'll go check tonight

[thick wind]

The dispenser packs are usually for workplace distribution. You definitely don't want to buy that many for personal use.

[dusty citrus]

should I get a sort of lab-coat so I don't damage my clothes / get burns from solder splatter ?

[stray wind]

Can't hurt, but I've never had that happen. Sometimes a fleck will hit my hand, but a lab coat wouldn't help that. And the fleck doesn't actually burn me. It's hot for a moment, but doesn't leave a mark.

[static flare]

There's that reason against buying a 20 pack yeah

[stray wind]

It's rarely the solder splattering, it's more likely to be flux.

[dusty citrus]

probably going to buy detachable steel toe but that has nothing to do with electroncis 🤣

I'm just sick of stubbing my toes

The worst electronics accidents I ever had was accidently breaking a pcb and a piece flew off and embedded in my face

and accidently breaking the observation glass on an enclosure that snapped and cut both sides of my hand...

[static flare]

Had some tradies come in to replace the lighting with LED bulbs and such and they left the box there, so now I have a box with ~40 LED bulbs in it

[dusty citrus]

oh and the fire department had to come wiith 4 trucks because of a solder iron that plug directly into the wall but I wasn't the one using it

they left the iron in the block of wood, lot of smoke etc

[static flare]

It's been months and we've moved since then so I just have lots of bulbs and no clue what to do with them

[dusty citrus]

And I was 11, so not my fault, also no instructions given whatsoever

ok so last 2 things I'm missing are thermal protection gloves and class 4 electrical protection gloves for when I play with mains

[dusty citrus]

Personally I'd do an ALS style landing system for going to the bathroom at night with IR proximity sensors along the wall

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

[lusty fossil]

I can't wait to have a large-ish one of these on my wall and a rota of neat art. https://www.engadget.com/e-ink-gallery-3-announced-182802114.html

like 2 ft x 2 ft

[edgy apex]

I did the project dash webinar and now I have to see if I can convince my superiors. Minimum of 50/week but that counts every bag so we have over twice the volume required. Now I just have to figure out my implementation pitch which I can do with our existing infrastructure. All I would really have to do is make a delivery order form, use it to populate the project dash spreadsheet and record bag totals with Salesforce as it goes out the door.

[edgy apex]

I learned long ago that it's best to have an example of something even if it's barebones when dealing with non-technical people.

[late fulcrum]

I saw the iRobot Create 3 in #newproducts and was waiting to see what the price would be, but now it's gone. I guess something in the process of sourcing it didn't work out.

[stoic mesa]

$300 direct from iRobot: https://shop.edu.irobot.com/products/create-3-educational-robot

with delivery in June

[wooden schooner]

I can't explain why I think this server is the right place to post this meme

(reads left to right, top to bottom; no rows/columns)

[dusty citrus]

Coworker wanted advice to build a gaming PC

recommended they do whatever game they wanted IRL instead

it will be less expensive

I mean take a golf game for the price of the most recent EA sports golf game and the specs to run it you can have 50 hours of group courses and a whole set of premium equipment
or 30 hours of group courses + 4h with an ex-League 2 professional golfer. And if you go for an high-end graphic card you can even rent a premium golf cart for 5 years with that money with a in-cart entertainement center, scissors doors and premium alcohol brands

The only exceptions I can think off are flying and driving and even then a basic VFR pilot license in Canada is less than a PC and joystick gear needed to have a realistic experience in flight simulator

[lusty fossil]

The only real reason to build a new, really well specc'd, gaming PC right now is basically to show off. It's so expensive as to be ludicrous. I've needed an upgrade since before the pandemic began and it'll be a while yet if everyone and their brother keeps making NFTs

[dusty citrus]

Managed to get an rtx 2070super when they were just 650 CAD$

friends laughed at me because the new one was coming up, they are still waiting for it 😄

[lusty fossil]

heheh

I had to buy a whole laptop to get "new" specs, and these are mobile models of chips

[dusty citrus]

Like I try to deliever something and accidently run over 6 trucks

[lusty fossil]

I had a 1080ti that suddenly died.

I was very sad. I got it when the 2000 series came out

Now I have like a 760?

It's not great

But I haven't gamed since mid december

[dusty citrus]

if that happens I'll just buy a switch

I don't buy one because I know that the farming game on the switch is a death sentence for me

I'l be soo hooked I'll never buy another game ever and ends up dying from DVT or hunger

[lusty fossil]

I want a switch, but I have some big expenses at the moment

Need to conserve funds for that

[dusty citrus]

animal crossing I think?

[lusty fossil]

I think that's the one

I'm more in it for the star fox and pokemon

[dusty citrus]

when star fox came out years ago on N64 they did a launch event in my city

And I tried it and won against everyone that day despite that it was my first time playing it

and won and n64 and several games. My parents though I had stolen it even though it was clearly in special edition box you could only get from such an event...

I played descent a lot back then and the gameplay was very similar for me

[lusty fossil]

that sounds like a nice memory

[dusty citrus]

not even sure it was star fox, but a space game with low poly starships you could play in some sort of deathmatch

That was back then when parental consent wasn't really a thing 😄

[lusty fossil]

That fits the bill, but I never had a 64, we had one at my grandparents so I only ever played a few games

[dusty citrus]

I think I used a logitech joystick back then that copied the n64 layout too ^

to play descent

[lusty fossil]

we had 1 rumble pack for like 9 cousins

[dusty citrus]

I wish my friends/parents had been there since my play was shown on giant imax style screens was very cool...

One of my proudest moment in my life and no witnesses..

[lusty fossil]

that's how it goes, ain't it

[dusty citrus]

I think it was qualifying with bout of 4-8 players on an "island" of stand up positions

and when you beat all your heat you'd stay and they'd take your name, if you qualified a second time you'd keep playing until they closed, they brought food/refreshments etc

I think it was at la ronde in montreal ?

Hard to remember was a long time ago

It was weird for me because I had only walked in and lived the "e-sports experience" before it was a thing

[static flare]

With the games I've been playing recently, I'm not sure this is good advice

[blissful roost]

Not sure I can build a real, functioning lightsaber... 🤣

[dusty citrus]

I am always worried for a while after re-reading whatif on XKCD

seems so easy for something to go too fast in the atmosphere and induce earth-wide nuclear fission/fusion of the atmosphere

[slim shard]

now you know why particle accelerators must be stopped ;-)

[dusty citrus]

yeah but mass still count a small part

0.5mv^2 the 0.5m is still a small part of the result

[slim shard]

you think noone has thought of sticking a baseball in the accelerator before? technology doesn't stop :-)

very unrealistic for this decade, but fun to joke about IMO

[dusty citrus]

Like that guy who fell out from space could have hit the ground at 0.000002c if there had been nothing to slow him down 😦

[slim shard]

hmmm, now I want to run the math

no, prohibitive effort for the moment, also acceleration reduces time to accelerate

now what if someone fell into the sun from a few planets away? :-)

[dusty citrus]

I did the math 😄 but the last number (2) isn't very accurate

terminal velocity would be 3285 kph but that's not taking friction/coriolis/etc into account

[slim shard]

also would trace amounts of iron help them accelerae further? :-)

[dusty citrus]

and I only did a undergraduate physics course, I'm sure they are other classified/top secret forces to take into account they don't tell you until the graduate/PhD level

I mean they only told me at that point that I exert a very tiny force on the moon and the sun...

Sometimes I wonder if God was eaten by a black hole or died in a gamma ray burst or something

seems so powerful even for these sort of things

[slim shard]

well, I mostly learned from the pancreas song...
"my pancreas attracts every other pancreas in the universe with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them, owowowowooooo"

[dusty citrus]

yeah wish we could have some sort of force radar that would show the location of all the forces being exerted on you

[slim shard]

need a very large screen

[dusty citrus]

ie: if aliens have pancreas too we'd find them that way

[slim shard]

...or an exceedingly small font

[dusty citrus]

anyway only 39 years left before first contact right ? (star trek is based on a true quantum story right?)

[slim shard]

well, I'm hoping for not the kelvin timeline

[late fulcrum]

And the not "Through a Glass, Darkly" timeline

[dusty citrus]

Sometimes when I talk to people interested about these topics IRL and they ask me how I am I answer that besides rotating at 1600 kph around a 12000km sphere I'm fine 😄

[blissful roost]

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the next episode of Picard...

[late fulcrum]

Same.

[slim shard]

I'm watching it, but I regret it all.

[blissful roost]

Ep5 of Moon Knight is really good too. 😁

[late fulcrum]

I've only seen the first couple of eps and I'm still pretty confused

[blissful roost]

Yeah, it does that. Lol

Keeps you guessing

[lusty fossil]

I was only half watching the first episode, that made it much harder for me

[dusty citrus]

Always wondered how fast we'd launch in space if the earth decided to act like an airplane propeller in flight and suddendly stop spining for no reason for a couple of seconds

[blissful roost]

Last episode next week, so just watch them all then. 🙂

[late fulcrum]

Depends on your latitude, but it's generally going to be a bad time

[slim shard]

there was an asimov story about someone wanting more time for whatever reason, which manifested as the earth stopping rotation

[late fulcrum]

What happens depends on several factors, a major one being whether the atmosphere stops too

[dusty citrus]

oh you guys know about neutronium/starskin ?

[slim shard]

inertial dampeners do help quite a lot

[dusty citrus]

I heard a a soup spoon of it weight 100 million tons, trying to find the volume of a gold leaf/a thin layer of film like from a spray and can't figure it out

[late fulcrum]

It's pretty straightforward math.

[dusty citrus]

I don't know the depth of a gold leaf/film from a spray can like the chemical film they use to protect electronics

[late fulcrum]

I thought you meant traditional gold leaf, which is about 120nm thick

[dusty citrus]

I meant whiever of the two is the thinnest

Basically a theorically question came in my mind, if one could leaf something with neutronium to protect it

Quick calculation I think it would still weight a couple of tons

[late fulcrum]

I darkly suspect neutronium is unstable at STP, so it wouldn't be protective as much as explosive

[dusty citrus]

ah I thought the opposite

that it would be the most inert thing in the universe

since it's the most concentrated thing ijn the universe as close as the laws of physics will allow neutrons to be to each other

I mean it can't react (no electrons) and wouldn't seek to exchange neutrons with other blobs of neutrons since it's already at the maximum possible stable version of itself

[late fulcrum]

Let's see, neutrons are about 2.9x10¹⁷kg/m³. A 1cm by 1cm square of something the thickness of gold leaf is 10⁻² x 10⁻² x 120 x 10⁻⁹ m³ = 1.2x10⁻¹¹ m³. Multiply to get the mass: 3.5 x 10⁶kg.

The reason for the instability is due to the odd dual nature of the strong nuclear force: it's attractive over small distance, but repulsive over even smaller distances, this repulsion is what makes radioactive elements radioactive.

However, I am no expert in nuclear physics and could well be wrong, I'm just speculating based on the bits I do know.

[dusty citrus]

another related thing I don't understand is mohs scale

I don't understand how you can throw a rock into a car tempered glass with all your force and it does nothing

but if you throw a sparkplug ceramic top (that exceed the mohs scale of the glass) the glass break instantly

[late fulcrum]

The Mohs hardness scale? While that's a factor, there's a lot of other things going on (compressive force over tempered glass, Young's modulus, etc.)

[dusty citrus]

I thought glass had tensile strength you could exceed by applying enough pressure

not something that is easily bypassing by scratching it with something harder...

[late fulcrum]

It's not just hardness but concentration of force. An ordinary sparkplug probably won't do anything, but a broken one with sharp edges will: the hardness is the same, but the shape and therefore concentration of force is very different.

You can break tempered glass with your finger under some circumstances (I don't recommend doing so, however)

[dusty citrus]

I thought glass acted like a bullet vest and spread the force all over the surface

[late fulcrum]

While glass is protective, the mechanism of action is somewhat different than a kevlar (or composite ceramic) vest

However, in broad outline, you are correct: it's all about absorbing, spreading, and dissipating energy

[dusty citrus]

I had a flood in my home once and the part that scared me is that a faucet will never ever stop unless you turn off the water

they have zero intelligence so the water will just keep flowing and with enough time it would empty the source waterbed and transfer it inside your home

so I have nightmare about it sometimes but with energy

I'm in class and connect a power supply to a 120V socket and the watt reading keep going then I wake up when it's a big blue ball that attract item in the room with gravitational force and the multimeter reads 191 GW 🤣

Probably not a thing in the US with the water meters

I guess above a certain amount they cut it off

Some church had a flooding too and it create a new stream in the city going all the way down the river over a length of 3 miles

[late fulcrum]

There are automatic water shutoffs available

[burnt tendon]

As far as nightmares go, that sounds draining.

[dusty citrus]

I mean I know the electricity one is impossible

As no sockets can put out 191 GW and survives (or anything around it). Pretty sure I'd go blind at this distance at around 25MW so close to a concentrated in a small soccer ball of energy

then I'd burn

[slim shard]

so you won't join my energy soccer team?

[dusty citrus]

pretty sure with my small surface area my flux of radiant energy measure would be throught the roof

[sick ridge]

https://youtu.be/s1k1w7SnNEY

[tardy badger]

My favorite part of getting paid at the end of the month is watching all but $9 of my paycheck go to my apartment complex

Thankfully my wife works otherwise we wouldn’t make it

[dusty citrus]

In oh 1982 I think it was, I took a financial management course designed around young adults and common errors they make with money.

We were told 25% is pushing it for the portion of income devoted to housing. ;)

Now it's like 56 percent

or more

[tardy badger]

Well, easier said than done in the current housing market

[dusty citrus]

I've heard it said that 'MBA's' drive up the market using 'tricks' ;) haha

Basically predators let loose.

[tardy badger]

Renting was so affordable at one point but now in many cases is far more costly than simply owning a home

My base rent is $1849 for a 3 bedroom apartment. By the time they tack on the garage rent ($60) and amenities, it comes out to $2000 a month

We opted to get our dog registered as an emotional support animal to save $35 in pet rent

But the real kicker was having to pay even more taxes on my paycheck simply because my wife is working too..

Meanwhile the nations elite are swindling their way out of taxes while the rake in millions. I love the US economic system

But I am entertaining recruiters for the possibility I can find a much better paying job

[dusty citrus]

Around here (NW CT) $1100 might be the bottom of the market, mostly, if you can even find a rental apartment.

[wary herald]

Yeah.... so great

but the american dream, right

https://tenor.com/view/elon-and-doge-elon-musk-and-doge-dogecoin-and-elon-dogecoin-and-money-elon-and-doge-money-gif-21596593

[dusty citrus]

contempt for the rich is just another trick of the rich ;)

People don't just hand you money (usually, lol)

[tardy badger]

I’m not against having wealth, and I am more than willing to work to earn my money but there’s no harm in admitting that they manipulate the system for their own benefit because too many people able to get rich means you’re not rich anymore

[umbral phoenix]

• celebrity worship

[wary herald]

Right...

[wary herald]

Right...

[dusty citrus]

I think you're born/raised predatory in a way conducive to accumulation of monetary wealth, pretty much.

I've never had any interest in the sorts of changes I think I'd have to undergo, to be an accumulator of much wealth at all. ;)

OTOH I think partnerships are possible where there's one that specializes in the money part.

In the instances where I've had offers, I felt they didn't understand who they were offering it, to. ;)

I didn't want to be their surprise.

[quartz wren]

My phone broke the other day

Took the opportunity to get myself an upgrade

But I couldn't transfer all my 2FA

So I had to fix the phone anyway

Now I have two phones

One to use for at home and one for travel

Luckily I was able to just get a bricked phone on ebay and put my old phones motherboard into it

Also fixed the jacked up charger port so that's nice

[wary herald]

Very cool

Also whaddya think

Just as a favicon

[crystal ore]

How wedded are you to that particular font? I'd tend to recommend replacing it entirely, but if you love it, a couple of tweaks to increase the whitespace between lines might help the legibility. The upper-left downward stroke of the "3" is a little weird, and the "I" blends into the "D" somewhat.

[wary herald]

Not at all wedded hehe

Yeah, I'll fix it

I agree

[crystal ore]

But that said, the overall design and shape is cute. 👍

[wary herald]

What about this font

Similar but a little chonkier

[crystal ore]

Better, yeah, though the "3" is kind of clunky. Maybe check the "E" in this typeface and see if it looks sane when mirrored?

[wary herald]

This is the best yet IMHO

Not quite centered tho

Is this more centered??

[crystal ore]

Better, yep. I might suggest playing with the kerning a bit, since the "A" is more widely spaced than the "I", etc.

[wary herald]

Thanks so much for your help

I am getting these fonts from online so.....

It's a gamble I guess

[crystal ore]

Heh heh, yeah. But hey, free fonts! 😁

[wary herald]

Yeah, but free always comes at a price 😉

[crystal ore]

I did the same for my logo, even finding a font that published their source files so I could tweak the letter shapes a bit.

[wary herald]

Nice

[crystal ore]

If you're curious:

[wary herald]

I love it! Creative name too 🙂

Hard to find a domain name that isn't taken these days

I'm just using mine as a favicon for https://www.g3holliday.com and as a logo for my site

[crystal ore]

Thanks!

[wary herald]

Man, the loading time is long

for me

Nah, NVM, it's just a WP admin thing

I signed out and it's fine

[blissful roost]

They still haven't fixed that?!?

If I recall... The 3 main pointers were;
Increase PHP memory limit.
Increase WP memory limit.
Install caching plugin that actually features back-end caching, like WP Rocket.

[static flare]

Just bought a hot air and soldering iron station from Amazon, hopefully it'll be worth the money I spent

[quartz wren]

I like it, sorry I was busy yesterday and missed this, tag me next time and you'll get a quicker response

[tardy badger]

Which did you get?

[static flare]

8786D 2 in 1 Soldering Station with Hot Air Heat Gun, 700W SMD Rework LED Digital Display Solder Iron Station Welding Tool Kit w/Heat Gun Set for Electronics Computer Repairing Phone PCB IC SMD BGA https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09DPDJFCR/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_YTBKVXWE8CF3S3NSCE5B

[tardy badger]

Oh neat

[static flare]

got a nice new laptop today!

[blissful roost]

Sweet!

I finally got my replacement work laptop the other day... Brand new and shiny, not a resupply.

Only ordered it in November...... 😐

[honest moth]

welp, this is rare

just had a triple-a duracell blow its behind and leak electrolytes everywhere on the same mouse I was using this whole time, until I looked and saw fluid coming out of the mouse.

[blissful roost]

Ooooohhh mmmyyyy...

[honest moth]

I cleaned it up and resumed work not thinking much of it. It still functioned by the way, but when I looked again, more fluid. Starting to connect the dots with the loud POP I heard earlier, I took out one of the batteries and ran my finger over the ends of it, and that's when I found the culprit.

Again, it's rare that things like this happen, but like any product, there is bound to be a defect somewhere down the line.

[blissful roost]

One reason I won't use cordless peripherals.

..besides the fact that charging and/or changing batteries is just a PITA.

Ain't got time fo' dat.

[honest moth]

don't really have much choice sadly.

[slim shard]

I was amused to see a mouse battery power graph on a kubuntu install of mine

[honest moth]

both of my most reliable mice [mouses? idk] are suffering from either cable connectivity issues or scroll-wheel failure.

One is just old, as in early to mid-2000's old, while the other probably isn't much younger than that one.

I would fix the one having cable issues, but I don't have the time.

[blissful roost]

"Mice" is correct.

Or Miceses. 😁

[honest moth]

heheh, roger that

Instinctively, I checked my older laptop's battery and realized the thing was still connected during the last time I tried running it, with whatever janky fix I was testing at the time. Disconnected immediately and checked the board or anything else for damage because I thought that was the thing which made the POP sound.

...bloody 'ell, everything is dying on me now, from the backup HDD, box fan/heater's motor, old frankenstein PC, scrap-top, mice, CD player alarm clock, to my sanity.

inahel - [note: i give up completely, so i wont even bother trying to fix this]

AAAAA_

[dusk oracle]

https://gamebuino.com/

this is nice

[blissful roost]

https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go-advance-black-edition-clear-white/

[dusk oracle]

rockchip

overkill for the concept

[blissful roost]

Bloody good chip... Runs Linux. 😎

[dusk oracle]

i could compare it to a psp

looking at it now

yeah i would buy that

i hope this thing has source for days

[blissful roost]

Totally worth it, but the small shoulder buttons require modded to reinforce them.

You may not have the same problems as me, where the actual push button bends in.. but it's worth the caution.

[dusk oracle]

ok good to know

you get ddr3 ram

thats overpowered af

[blissful roost]

Lol

I've only seen it struggle with PSP games, but apparently that's down to the emulator rather than hardware.

[edgy apex]

There was a project that some friends and I were working on a couple years ago. I just dug it out of my basement. It's a raspberry pi racing game with an arduino steering wheel that has rumble packs, there are fans tied to player speed as well as a mister for when the player hits a water barrel. It was about 80% done when covid started so I am going to suggest that we try to finish the project sometime soon.

[tardy badger]

It’s beautiful but unfortunately doesn’t completely work

New version changes the chip select and reset lines to the right pins as I was mistaken on what those should have been

Also disconnected the reset between the FTDI chip and the fpga as it turned out to be a bad design choice.

But overall, I am pleased with what I learned so far with this.

Also realized looking at the Adafruit design that I could get rid of the pull-ups on the eeprom for the FTDI chip

[static flare]

I say new, it was made in 2009. It's new to me

It has all of the fun ports

Serial, parallel, VGA, USB, Firewire, PS-2, S-Video, a CD drive and a floppy drive

[dusty citrus]

Not sure what happened yesterday. I think my head was hit by a neutrino bombardment again(?) and fell into coma. I revived in my bed a few hours later

[crystal ore]

Those darn neutrinos. Never see them coming...

[tardy badger]

except a cool instrument in Japan that detects neutrinos

[crystal ore]

Speaking of cool instruments, don't forget the IceCube detector. 😁

[tardy badger]

lol

[dusty citrus]

I see from AliExpress
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mKZxPp8
I wanted to put it in one or more axis, so I can make a plotter like thing without much of an assle

but seeing on the net the print quality doesn't looks that nice
doesn't exist any similar thing also without ink annoyances? plug and play or mostly plug and play

[static flare]

Tried setting up the hot air station, I'm just kinda worried about it, it just... doesn't entirely feel like it'll work properly

I'll get my wife to test it when she wakes up

[burnt tendon]

tl;dr: Z's having a heated discussion with their wife later on.

[static flare]

that's one interpretation

[tame cedar]

Good afternoon, good people! This may be offtopic but I'm hoping to get ONtopic: Which channel should I seek help in troubleshooting my PiGRRL 2 construction?

[dusty citrus]

@tame cedar I'd have guessed #help-with-linux-sbcs

[tame cedar]

that's where I guessed as well

seems the server just isn't nearly as active as I thought it would be

but thanks anyway!

[dusty citrus]

Comes and goes.

[tame cedar]

you're the very first person to respond to me at all so it is VERY much appreciated, friend

now I know I exist!

[dusty citrus]

;)

Try not paying your taxes. ;)

[tame cedar]

hahaha

nope! Already got my pittance of a refund deposited into my account

beg pardon?

spamming?

oh, does the server have a stupid bot to hassle people that know how to touch type?

[dusty citrus]

They tend to throttle paste-ins so I tend to time mine as if I'd gone onto something else and came back to it, later. ;)

It's a moderated server.

The Arduino discord is usually active.

[tame cedar]

afraid it'd be a complete tear down and rebuild to make the PiGRRL an ArdGRRL ;D

[dusty citrus]

;) Most people who use Arduino or other microcontrollers own at least one RPi3 or RPi4. ;)

[tame cedar]

psssh, I own 3-4 of EACH! Now I just gotta get INTO this hobby like I keep promising myself....

now that I know the existence of this server, though, I think this shall be the Spring of Tinkering!

[tardy badger]

looks at ice5lp4k lead times

looks at wallet

sighs

[lusty fossil]

I'm there wallet wise with the switch

Wait we've talked about this

I want one

[tardy badger]

Yeah, electronics hard in all regard

At $8 for a single for the shortest lead time, I wish I had $80 to buy 10

Or 25x for $174.25

Thankfully I still have 2 left

[lusty fossil]

Oof

[wary herald]

Nope....

[wary herald]

No problem 😉

[quartz wren]

Also has to be when I'm awake for the ping to get my attention 😛

Lol went to bed early last night

I'm installing a shelf in the storage room of the lab building either today or tomorrow so I can start organizing stuff

[quartz wren]

@wary herald do you know what low background steel is?

I may know where to find some

😄

I'm going to try and make a Geiger counter

Completely from scratch

[blissful roost]

I used to work on WP sites everyday, as a Linux SysAdmin... But I left that job in 2018.

[static flare]

I'm loving this snappy new OS I'm using on my new laptop

[edgy apex]

I always start off Sunday morning working on a project. This week I added a new feature to my nerf scope remake which rotates the camera when you rotate sideways. I have to do some testing to make sure it's not disorienting or an inverted view
https://youtu.be/v1zteX_I7m0

[spice moss]

cool

[static flare]

just got my hands on quite a few blasters recently

[edgy apex]

I sometimes have trouble figuring out what I want to do so I labeled a diagram of the screen with the pitch values from the imu and had it working soon after.

this is all it takes to do the rotation

    if(pitch <= -1 and pitch >= -1.5 and camera.rotation != 270):
        print("left")
        camera.rotation = 270
    elif(pitch >= 1 and pitch <= 1.5 and camera.rotation != 90):
        print("right")
        camera.rotation = 90
    elif(pitch >= -1 and pitch <= 1 and camera.rotation != 0):
        camera.rotation = 0
        print("normal")

[wary herald]

Mmm no

[wary herald]

Ah, so you know the 10 second loading times

haha

[blissful roost]

Yarp.

..or more, depending on plugins.

[wary herald]

Yes... Yoast SEO added like 2

[blissful roost]

I recall one site where 10 seconds was just TTFB.

[wary herald]

Ouch

[blissful roost]

Rather

[wary herald]

How many plugins did that one have

[blissful roost]

Lots

[wary herald]

I would guess

[quartz wren]

Steal produced before mass nuclear testing contaminated steel production

Required to make a high quality Geiger-Mueller tube

[wary herald]

Wow, expensive??

[quartz wren]

I know of segments of rails that came from a project completed in 1929 as far as my research shows but began in 1905 iirc, and these chunks of steel have just been sitting a few feet off the side of a local trail untouched for almost a hundred years

And are mostly overgrown by the forest

[wary herald]

So no

[quartz wren]

So I can probably get some for free with a hacksaw and nobody would notice or care. The rails were discarded there, aren't even in their original places

It's normally very hard to get

[wary herald]

Definitely not expensive lol

[quartz wren]

Hence why I'm being extra careful about any location data

[quartz wren]

Demand has spiked recently and you can mostly only get it from shipwrecks

[wary herald]

Sooo maybe

[quartz wren]

So normally yes, quite expensive if you can get it

If this is what I think it is, it's quite a find

Because I found it when I was a child and didn't consider the implications

And then I remembered it the other day and decided to look into the origins

[wary herald]

So 1930s steel

??

Before nukes

[quartz wren]

At the latest

That's when the project finished if my research is correct

Could be as early as 1905 steel

Next time I'm hiking in the area I'm going to bring a hack saw and get a sample

[wary herald]

Low-background steel is any steel produced prior to the detonation of the first nuclear bombs in the 1940s and 1950s. With the Trinity test and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and then subsequent nuclear weapons testing during the early years of the Cold War, background radiation levels increased across the world.[1] Modern steel is contaminated with radionuclides because its production uses atmospheric air. Low-background steel is so-called because it does not suffer from such nuclear contamination. This steel is used in devices that require the highest sensitivity for detecting radionuclides.

That's my research lol

[quartz wren]

If it is what I think it is I'm just going to send it off to be machined like it's any other steel and make no mention of its rarity

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/think-smart-gif-22411928

[quartz wren]

Ask for the turnings as well as the tubes

[wary herald]

I can't even find any on the internet

[quartz wren]

That's my point

If you can find it

It's freaking expensive

I'll send you some at cost of shipping if it is low background once I've had it confirmed

😉

There's plenty there

For maybe a hundred or so Geiger counters

[wary herald]

I can tell....

After you make yours, maybe sell the rest??

https://tenor.com/view/6m-rain-wallstreet-make-it-rain-gif-8203989

[quartz wren]

I mean... Yeah I could

I was thinking sell some to cover the cost of machining

Then use the turnings to sell

[wary herald]

Yes...

[quartz wren]

And machine all of it that I get into tubes

[wary herald]

Nice

I gotta go, sorry

But interesting stuff

[quartz wren]

Then I can sell the tubes, assembled Geiger counters, and low background turnings to be used by people with induction furnaces

[quartz wren]

See ya later

[wary herald]

https://tenor.com/view/bye-friend-farewell-so-long-gif-25205750

[dusty citrus]

doesn't exist a lang/framework that is able to make webapps, apps for different platforms with the same keywords? I do see that c# and dotnet might do the work but dunno, I did not look too much at the doc, but at a first glance it looks like that the keywords do change into the designed system, then there's js and nodejs for web + react native for desktop, but I guess that stuff does change ; I really dunno what to look for

[late fulcrum]

C# and .net aren't portable. Apple makes it rough on companies that offer portability to their systems but there are some products that do.

[dusty citrus]

like what? ; c# and .net aren't portable in general or just apple?

[late fulcrum]

Not portable in general - they're designed to lock you into the micro$oft ecosystem

[dusty citrus]

then some alternatives?

[fading hare]

Python. Ruby. Perl. Go (with some caveats), Rust (with some caveats). PHP. Node.js. Take your pick. They are all portable.

However, those would mostly get you server-rendered applications out of the box. If you're looking for something with an SPA frontend like React or similar, that's in the same language... Then Node.js and React. They're both JavaScript.

[late fulcrum]

I'm on my phone so I don't have access to that information

[dusty citrus]

but don't I need some different libraries to be able to write for the web or mobile or desktop or other platforms?

my best deal would be something that I don't need to relearn different keywords to be able to do the same things, dunno if I'm explaining myself

[late fulcrum]

Yeah there are frameworks that offer that

[fading hare]

nope, you can embed JavaScript apps on mobile as well, and on desktop with Electron

That is if you are looking to write "native" applications for mobile and desktops.

However, you can most of the time get away with just building a solid website that works on mobile and desktop.

I am not sure what your application is intended to do, but there are of course some limitations to using JavaScript and similar, mostly when it comes to interfacing with hardware and such since Electron and similar are sandboxed.

@dusty citrus perhaps if you tell me a little bit more about your specific use case I can make a more specific recommendation. What are you wanting to build, in general terms, and where/how do you want to run it?

(I'm a full-stack dev going on... 30 odd years now)

[dusty citrus]

actually I have almost 0 experience about apps/websites, so I wanted to exploit the occasion to learn

[fading hare]

Fair enough. It helps to have a general idea of what you want to build. If you do not have a specific project in mind, pick something you would want to build as an exercise.

[dusty citrus]

one is basically a shop, where you could update the items by either a form in it or an excel file, + payments (I suppose I can use stripe) and contact forms
the other one basically an interactive ar thing

[fading hare]

So, there are varying depths of rabbit holes for a shop. You can build one from scratch, or you can use something existing. How many products do you intend to catalog (this is a very important question) for instance?

[fading hare]

The AR thing I cannot help you with, I have limited AR experience.

[dusty citrus]

thousands

[fading hare]

I would recommend Magento in that case. I know, it's a bit unwieldy and can be annoying, but it'll hold hundreds of thousands of products and still function on a relatively small server footprint (compared to other shops).

I have had awesome experiences with Magento, performance-wise, but it's definitely a bit of a beast. However, there are plenty of folks on gig/contractor websites that have Magento experience.

[dusty citrus]

I wanted more to learn something that you can build from yourself and for free
it's not something urgent, but just for fun

[fading hare]

It will also allow you to import from CSV and all kinds of other formats.

Magento is free to use.

But, if you want to build something... I would suggest Python and the Django framework.

Use PostgreSQL as a database.

(You can run sqlite in development if you'd like of course)

Why do I say Python and Django? A few motivators exist:

• Django has a very well established framework for working with data models and ways to display/query these models via a web UI
• You will only have one attack surface (as far as your app goes), your dynamic website with server rendering (React will introduce several different layers that can be exploited by an attacker)
• Python is easy to learn and carries over to things like CircuitPython and other Python things like machine learning
• You can write very effective web interfaces with Django
• Python/Django are very portable, and very "compact" in that they do not require a whole ton of things installed on a server like if you were to use Laravel Octane or similar
• the networking/server piece is already taken care of for you, so no need to mess with http/s servers like with Node.js

I would write a proof of concept in Django, and once you have it the way you like it, you can quite easily switch your endpoints around to rendering REST API output instead of Django HTML templates and hook up a React frontend.

[dusty citrus]

but all of it isn't just for web dev?

at first I was using mozilla resources, but I found them quite boring, so I asked there...

[fading hare]

If you want to learn just React or Svelte, I would recommend trying Strapi for a backend and then just design your data in Strapi and interface with it from React.

[dusty citrus]

btw thanks

[fading hare]

Any time.

[fading hare]

All of Python?

https://strapi.io/
https://www.djangoproject.com/

[dusty citrus]

django

[fading hare]

Django can be used to deliver just an API if that's what you want.

[dusty citrus]

I have no idea of what I'm talking about, so I guess that I'll pick just one and then decide lol
thanks though

[fading hare]

Give Django a try! I'll be here if you have any questions!

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.0/intro/overview/

[wooden schooner]

What did "full stack" mean 30 years ago?

[fading hare]

Also:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.0/
There are tutorials there.

[fading hare]

I guess you're caught on the "but full-stack apps have phones and internet and stuff" and you are trying to make light of the fact that I used the buzzword? Well. Full-stack dev, 30 years ago, meant a few things. The internet is only about 25 years old (for most of us). But, you still had backends and frontends, didn't you? And databases? What those frontends were is completely irrelevant.

[tardy badger]

Today in: Looking at someone’s job title and assuming they need help with hardware because their day job is in software

I posted how I found some hardware bugs on a design I’ve been using to get back into the hardware design groove

And a person hopped on saying “I design PCBs without mistakes so software engineers can focus on software”

Like yes, my day job is software engineering but if you look at my profile you’ll see I ran a hardware design business for a while and only closed it due to the part shortage and just not having enough time for everything

[dusty citrus]

also one last question
what's the point of learning multiple languages if most of them do the same things?

[fading hare]

Depends on what you want to do with your skills.

[tardy badger]

Because different languages have different applications

Pythons main focus has been data analytics for instance

Only over the last ten years has there been an effort to run it as an embedded language

C/C++ are still far superior in terms of speed and complexity and tend to be the choice for really complex embedded systems

[fading hare]

Python's main focus has been data science/analytics IN ONE RELATIVELY SMALL NICHE of software development.

[tardy badger]

But MicroPython and circuitpython fill a huge gap in getting people into embedded, especially where Arduino struggled

Mostly because Arduino still relies heavily on C++ and Python is closer to natural language on structure

[fading hare]

There's tons and tons of websites and command line apps written in Python.

[tardy badger]

Yup

That’s true, Flask is great

[fading hare]

Django is pretty awesome too, if you're wanting to learn.

[tardy badger]

And JavaScript does the same thing. I think it mostly comes down to how lightweight you want your web app

[fading hare]

JavaScript on the frontend is a whole'nother beast, though.

If I were to recommend something for you to write your SPA application in, right now, with minimal effort? I'd recommend SvelteKit on top of Strapi.

But, the original ask was to write an application, from scratch, in some form of language. Trying to write a backend AND a frontend at the same time, especially when involving React or similar can be a grueling task.

Hence why I recommended Django. Not because it's the best, fastest, and whatever, because I can give you some recommendations there as well.

Want massive amounts of data, served at sub 10 ms? DAX on top of DynamoDB (it's going to cost you, though) and Go micro-services in Lambda functions, hands down.

[tardy badger]

I honestly prefer vanilla front end with either flask or node backend

[fading hare]

Go has some of the fastest runtimes on Lambdas.

[tardy badger]

I also love using MongoDB though it isn’t right for every application

[fading hare]

Node is pretty slow in comparison.

MongoDB is fantastic.

[tardy badger]

I’m planning on learning Go at some point

[fading hare]

We're only talking apps that serve thousands of requests per second here with the Node/Go comparison, though.

[tardy badger]

I don’t really use Node for speed, it’s just fairly robust and you can serve webpages in just a few short lines of code

[fading hare]

Node can be super fast. Depending.

[tardy badger]

Sure, 100% agree

[fading hare]

It's just slow to load in a Lambda function because of the nature of its JIT.

Go is compiled, so it's light-years faster.

[tardy badger]

It doesn’t scale well for super large scale applications though so I see a lot of Java back ends

Java web applications are a pain to spin up though

Or that’s been my experience anyway

Kafka is cool though

[fading hare]

People are just not very good at Node.js. 😉 It can scale just fine.

You have to be aware of the limitations and scale accordingly.

[tardy badger]

I used Node to build a social media web app for a hackathon once

[fading hare]

But yeah, it's no match for something like Elixir or Go.

[tardy badger]

Paired with MongoDB and simple authentication with JWT, super cool for like 4hrs of work lol

Won first place

[fading hare]

nice

[tardy badger]

First prize was an Oculus Go which I have but don’t really use much lol

[fading hare]

lol

nice prize though

[tardy badger]

For sure, I never had a VR headset before so I was excited

Anyway, so my comment above about someone assuming I needed help designing PCBs because I had a small few hardware bugs in a design

I was honestly a little upset about the comment because I’ve designed hardware before that worked well first go, yet somehow because my job title was software engineer, I shouldn’t bother myself with designing PCBs because I should focus on software

Like, I get people trying to hustle and pick up design work developing PCBs and whatnot but dang.. look at my profile before saying what was said

[tardy badger]

Anyway, I took a deep breathe and responded professionally because it was LinkedIn

[fading hare]

My favorite are the ML people that call themselves "scientists."

[tardy badger]

I mean if you have a Ph.D and research new machine learning applications that haven’t been discovered, then yes

[wooden schooner]

There is a case to be made that it is not actually science. The job title is Research Scientist but that's largely for political reasons.

[tardy badger]

I mean, scientist is a pretty broad term

Someone who uses the scientific method to test the validity of a hypothesis in a manor that is repeatable

If you’re a researcher you’re very likely doing science

Not always but there’s a strong possibility

This is isn’t applicable to to like economics, theology, and business Ph.D though and similar fields of study

But that said, you can be a scientist and only have a bachelors or even a masters

[wooden schooner]

A few gripes: ML research these days is very not repeatable (cherry-picked examples etc). Geoff Hinton's papers (probably the biggest name in neural networks) are very, uh, impressionistic in terms of positing unsubstantiated claims about biomimicry as justification for why the neural net performs well end to end, when in reality the reasons are not known

[tardy badger]

Though funny enough, where I work the highest engineering technical level is “scientist” lol

[tardy badger]

Sure, that’s valid

Data Science more broadly is one of those areas where the line of actual science and shotgunning the analysis is blurred

[dusty citrus]

doesn't exist a website that does list in a chart different specifications that then can be filtered?

like when I do look up for a chart about electrical conductivity all results are about metals, but nothing about compounds, mixtures and excetera

unless I do search those in specific, but then the results will be vague and painfully long

[orchid zephyr]

"Bass"

[real falcon]

add arms to middle right, and you got nifty bot

[velvet pelican]

so does anyone here know why when i hook a laser to a 12v battery for a car with resistors in line to bring it down to the proper voltage why it may not be allowing the laser to fire up? works fine on an arduino with the 3.3v pin

[crystal ore]

I'm guessing you may be misestimating the current it needs and getting the wrong resistor value.

[velvet pelican]

maybe amps? or something else? kinda out of my range of understanding as to why this wont work... also have a voltage meter that i can hook up just need to understand what i am looking for

so maybe too little amps

[crystal ore]

To a first approximation the laser acts like a LED, so you'd want to pick a resistor as a current limiter, not a voltage divider per se.

[velvet pelican]

ok so if i drop in some specs for the laser then the resistor i need could be found?

[crystal ore]

Yep

[velvet pelican]

alright one sec let me grab them

~Dimensions: φ12x38mm( without PCB circuit size)
Output Wavelength: 532nm (+-10nm)
Power :<5mw
Laser Shape: Dot
Beam Divergency: <1.5mard
Shell material: Brass
Circuit Control: ACC line
Reverse Polarity Protection: Yes
Working Voltage: DC = 3.7V
Working Current: I <250mA
Warm-up time: None
Operating temperature: 0 ℃ ~ +40 ℃
Storage temperature: -10 ℃ ~ +55 ℃
~

this thing is super bright. using it as a line laser for a mill but i want it to run off a 12v battery as thats what the motors i am using for the adjustments and the engine run on

[crystal ore]

That current rating is a little vague. Maybe aim for 100mA for initial testing, which would need about an 80-ohm resistor in series to drop 12V down to about 4V.

[velvet pelican]

80 ohm alright ill look up my colors... or it might be labeled in my pack of resistors.

then if that doesnt fire it go lower?

[crystal ore]

Yep. Lasers tend to have a threshold current below which they don't lase, so if it doesn't light at 100mA, use a lower resistor. The limit of 250mA would be around 33 ohms, so don't go lower than that.

[velvet pelican]

there they are full light... splitting 3.3v

alright ill try that out. the help if much appreciated @crystal ore

is*

[crystal ore]

I should forewarn you that it's also possible that these lasers have their own voltage-regulation circuitry instead of being more or less a raw diode, in which case they might not react the same way and could even be damaged by trying to run them from 12V without an intermediate step-down converter.

[velvet pelican]

i mean if they do get damaged they are only 15 bucks so no biggie. at that point though ill grab a proper converter over the resistor route

[crystal ore]

Cool. Good luck with the magic smoke test, heh heh. 👍

[velvet pelican]

besides one hemlock board off the mill is 20 bucks and it takes like 5 minutes to cut. the lasers will only make the setup time that much faster

currently its like 30 minutes of setup due to this mill being an antique

eventually i plan to use a lidar sensor to find when the blade is at the top of the log and stop the motors at that point to it makes manual adjustments minor ones. the laser is to give a visual point of reference for the blade run point

[velvet pelican]

well i tried with a 68k and a 47k resistor with no success

checked it with the arduino and its not burned

hooked it directly to 12v amd it fired up for a split second then stopped then hooked to arduino again and it worked fine

so it must have its own safety setup for over current and voltage situations

[static flare]

well, it's clear i have no clue how to use my hot air gun

[late fulcrum]

There is a huge difference between a 47k (47,000Ω) resistor and an 80Ω resistor.

[blissful roost]

But did you consider an infinite resistor?

[tardy badger]

That’s the ideal (op amp inputs)!

Lol Intro to electronics humor

[velvet pelican]

Well with the labeling on the cheapo resistor pack I bought it says the ones labeled 47k are 47ohm resistors… guess thats what happens when ya go cheap tho

[wary herald]

I've done this before, and my laser needs at least 3 amps

[orchid zephyr]

I started making an esoteric programming language when i have an english essay i have to get done, why am i like this

[velvet pelican]

Yeah i found some old 15 ohm resistors i had and chained 3 together and it fired up. Gotta love them mislabeled resistor kits tho lol

Wonder if 47 ohm will work too

[dusty citrus]

I hate how you need 800$ of tools to change a 10$ part...

makes me really angry

especially when it's something I'll likely only change once ever

[velvet pelican]

What part?

[dusty citrus]

need to remove a freewheel from a bicycle and put it on another wheel

[velvet pelican]

Also. Make your own tools if uts gonna cost that much or try to find something used and then ebay it when finished

Or go to a bike shop and pay then to do it

[dusty citrus]

my bike shop are apparently not available to order/repair anything for the next 10 years....

so I have to do it myself and buy everything

[velvet pelican]

So my 47 ohm resistor started smoking. Got any suggestions on good resistors to handle the 12v power?

[dusty citrus]

Either they can't order(don't want) the parts or they have a long queue for bike repair

And since I've been looking at videos it's endless inflation of stuff to buy and I'm not even sure that will be enough

From what I gather I need a 12$ freewheel hex tool and a 250$ to put it back but not with too much pressure (same tool as automotive bolts on wheels/rims)

• an hex wrench to grip the hex tool and remove it (which cost about 80$) + 40$ of grease

[static flare]

id say to try and find a higher wattage resistor for your needs

[crystal ore]

They do make big chunky resistors out of material that looks like white ceramic, rated for multiple watts or more.

Or even in kind of metal heat-sink cases too. "Power resistor" is a good search term.

[tardy badger]

I have some 0.1ohm 5W resistors lol

Massive

[dusty citrus]

massive ? not sure they need to be for 5W

I'm looking at a manufacturer out of curiosity and they have 2-3W resistors that are about 70mm long and 5mm in diameter, 5W probably not that bigger

they also have fridge sized 750 Kilowatts resistors 🤣

You know, for when your project scale up ?

10W seems to be 7mm

[dusty citrus]

my cheap wires from kits would probably burn way before the resistor anyway

then the caps would break acid like a d&d black dragon 🤣

Like I've been wondering if I can use 10 of them and make a toaster by having them glow red hot

[late fulcrum]

What tool?

[late fulcrum]

Ah, that tool. Go to an automotive store that lets you borrow tools like that.

[late fulcrum]

They tend to change resistance when they get that hot

[dusty citrus]

torque wrench I think

is what I meant, the other one is a combination wrench in the right size (30-40 ish) or a set of them

right size mean I need to bring my wheel to the shop to try a couple and see which one fit

I'll possibly also need freewheel grease (40$)

I guess that's why they charge 80$ for a basic bicycle check-up every spring

but eh the n00b book is 40$ and has pictures. Could be worse, like with a car and the 6000$ ESD computer per make/model/year + the 1000$ a month subscription to get access to the service manual

also it's very unlikely that my bicycle will fall on me and kill me, so don't need hydraulic jacks

[late fulcrum]

Wow, I don't buy cars like that!

I made a bike stand out of PVC pipe, works fine

[dusty citrus]

me too it's called standing up from the seat chain up 😄

the wheels are gone, if speeder bike was possible I'd make one 🤣

[late fulcrum]

I suspect it's possible but we don't yet have the knowledge to implement it.

[dusty citrus]

well I read somewhere you just need 10 tesla to levitate a human, can't a carry this on my bike on a box above the rear wheel ?! 🤣

I mean, must be like volts, not much tech required for just 10 tesla 😄

[late fulcrum]

Pfft, that's assuming a bunch of stuff that's not justified. I could easily lift a human with a hundredth of that much magnetic field, but I'm guessing speeder bikes aren't magnetic anyway.

I do remember the magnetic frog levitator, that was a cool demonstration

[dusty citrus]

bah I guess I'll do a last try to rent tools before I buy a bunch of park tools...

[late fulcrum]

Look around for free loaner tools (a couple of auto parts places around here offer that)

[dusty citrus]

If it was of any use to electronics it would be different. Also sucks to buy a 40$ combination wrench just for one job/one size when I could buy some more flexible options that would also potentially works for electronics as well (like a power ratchet tool....) even thought it's in the 300-400$ range

yeah I'll take a look but automotive tools aren't the best fit, bicycle companies have specific bolts and a specific tool usually work better for bicycles

and if you use some automative tool for filling a tube for instance it's just going to blow up (too powerful for fragile stuff like a bicycle)

and I never bought any tools before so yeah, I don't even know what most of them are called

[late fulcrum]

I think the only specific bike tool I have is a chain tool. But I do have a mini torque wrench set made for the bike market, but it gets a lot of use building robots, 3D printers, and the like. I just use generic hex tools, they work fine for me.

[dusty citrus]

Like I recently learned there is more than one type of hammer

[late fulcrum]

I have an auto body hammer that's good for a lot of different jobs.

[dusty citrus]

yeah but freewheels (now?) have holes in them so a specific adapter is needed to fit them in a wrench

I though it worked liked that too, but apparently it's not a generic nut anymore

[late fulcrum]

I guess I haven't run into that (yet anyway)

[dusty citrus]

Looks like that

the outer hex part is the same but the outer part has to fit the mechanism inside the cassette / freewheel

[late fulcrum]

Funky. Tools like that I generally carve out of iron pipe with a rotary tool.

[dusty citrus]

But my problem isn't those anyway since they are just 6-7$

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, they're just adapter shells

[dusty citrus]

My problem is the universal outer part

I don't even know what size of combination wrench these are and since you have to use a lot of force I figure a long arm combination wrench would be best (ie: automotive)....

[late fulcrum]

I'm guessing 1/2" drive, but there are only a few common sizes in use.

[dusty citrus]

They probably are in the 25-40mm range since the inner part have to fit a 20-23mm hole in the cassette/freewheel but I won't know until I get them (can't find anything on google for their size)

[dusty citrus]

I'm so jealous when on youtube I see peoples with huge workshop that can repair anything from 10mm to 40 feet....

[late fulcrum]

Yeah, would be nice, but that's not the reality for most of us

[dusty citrus]

yeah, I'd probably do something like that if I had an unexpected windfall. ie: using the big repairs to finance the smaller one because they usually give much more money

like this guy was repairing mining trucks shocks (so around a 2-3 cubic feet part) by removing metal from it/reshining it/adding metal to it with some sort of a much bigger version of electronics solder wire

and the cutter he was using to dig into the metal was bigger than 4 human hands alone

huge lathe-type tool too in the workshop

[dusty citrus]

My 2nd wish would be to live on a dyson sphere/ringworld built around a star for the free energy to power all of this 😄

also renting a place in an industrial zone to host all these tools would basically cost 12000$ per month on a 5-yr lease paid upfront

apparently they don't run off 120 or 240V and you need a special plan with the power company and a warehouse/industrial building hooked to something that allow for 480V+ sockets and 600 amps and the correct wiring and fuses

and the water meter is generally a bit more expensive (industrial rate) and water is generally needed to cool down "industrial hobbyist" grade tool

[honest moth]

You ever just want to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwoG7Cg1f5I&list=PLxS-UCCRvaGB8I0uDf_WipPQWOGnIIOLQ&index=2
unleash all of your fury?

[dusty citrus]

Also apparently you need 3 peoples to even power something like that on, a qualified operator with a state permit, an OSHA/safety person to determine you can safely turn it on with a lockout/tag plan

and the "owner" ie: yourself

[honest moth]

[sorry, didn't know you were still conversing.] qwq

[dusty citrus]

They won't even sell it to you if you can't prove you have a qualified technician/osha qualified person

[dusty citrus]

to me discord is like an mlb stadium so it's fine if people "cut" conversation, part of the service being provided

• my conversation is not to someone specific and more like ramblings/rant

[honest moth]

True, however, I still see it as a bit rude and being rude was not my intention.

Doesn't really matter if it's online or offline, cutting people off is still cutting people off, at least that's the way I see it.

[dusty citrus]

Also warranty service isn't like walmart, ie: you can't just walk somewhere nearby and ask for customer service. They have to send someone over (at your expense wheter part of a plan or not) and usually almost nothing is free since the thing was throughly tested before leaving factory

and replacement parts can take months to make

Learned all of this when I was trying to maybe start a restaurant business, glad a paid 22$ to figure out it wasn't for me. It was financing a 5-years commercial lease that stopped me...

[velvet pelican]

Ill have to find some then. Was fun frying the little one I had

[velvet pelican]

Sounds like a plan. Thank you

[dusty citrus]

I like "security by cost" like voyager probes have instead of "security by obscurity" 🤣

[late fulcrum]

I thought it was "security by being a billion miles away and running software that only 4 people understand"

[velvet pelican]

https://www.amazon.com/10W-Ohm-Resistors-Wirewound-Replacement/dp/B0936X2C24/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=3U9V8IEGJFKQX&keywords=47+ohm+resistor+10+watt&qid=1651540329&sprefix=47+ohm+resistor%2Caps%2C233&sr=8-4 do these look like they will be chonky enough for 12v car battery?

[late fulcrum]

The car battery isn't the determining factor, it's the power dissipation. Take the difference between your laser voltage (3.7V?) and the supply voltage (12V), and multiply by the current (0.25A?) to get the wattage you need to dissipate.

[static flare]

What's the rated current and voltage drop of the laser diode?

[late fulcrum]

I wouldn't be surprised if the amazon ones were ¼W resistors hiding in a fancy (looking) housing.

[static flare]

the resistor value itself is also important, cause that's what puts the laser diode in the right voltage range

[late fulcrum]

Z bringing the wisdom

[velvet pelican]

see this is the knowledge i dont have to be able to apply yet

been learning too much plumbing and the electronics has taken a back seat

[late fulcrum]

It's just slightly different math with the same numbers. To get the resistor value, take the difference between the supply voltage and the laser voltage, and divide that by the laser current.

[velvet pelican]

so i need the amps

which = current right?

[late fulcrum]

Yes, current is measured in amperes (or amps for short)

[velvet pelican]

i know its a 5mw laser

[static flare]

With these guess numbers, you'd probably want to go for a 5W resistor, but your actual numbers would probably be different

[velvet pelican]

doesnt give the amps so i would have to convert to get those

[late fulcrum]

Didn't you post Working Current: I <250mA earlier?

[velvet pelican]

uhhh maybe

[static flare]

What does the laser diode have on it?

[velvet pelican]

i cant remember all the numbers

[late fulcrum]

Which seems way off for a 5mW laser.

[velvet pelican]

i think alot of those numbers are probably way off... welcome to amazon with a chineese company sending the info for the product

[late fulcrum]

Yup. Maybe measure the current it draws from the supply where it does work.

[static flare]

wait are those specs you posted right? cause if so, then we can work with that

[velvet pelican]

yup

i will gladly order from somewhere reputable

if i know it will work

[late fulcrum]

We're dubious about those specs, however. 3.7V times 0.25A is almost 1 watt, which is a lot for a 0.005W laser diode.

[velvet pelican]

digikey radio-shack

[static flare]

that makes sense

[late fulcrum]

Unlike gas lasers, laser diodes are pretty efficient.

[velvet pelican]

well like i said before im not too concerned about burnout as they arent all that costly

and its for something that makes money so replacement is gonna happen here and there

if a log hits it it will be needing replacement

[late fulcrum]

You could attack it one of two ways. You could divide the output wattage by the supply voltage to get a possible current value. Alternatively, you could take that suspiciously large 0.25A value from the spec sheet and back off somewhat.

[velvet pelican]

could go lower or ya know just burn the log in half

[static flare]

pretending those numbers are accurate, 5W would be good, anything less than 2W at least would probably burn out, but 5-10W would be a good place to be

[velvet pelican]

probably grab them 10W then

[late fulcrum]

The failure mode of a laser diode is an interesting piece of physics, which explains why they're so sensitive to voltage spikes. What happens if they get too much current is they convert that power into light with remorseless efficiency, and the physical pressure of all that light in the microscopic laser channel fractures the facets.

[dusty citrus]

well the protocol/frequencies etc are very open

but "When earth sends data back to Voyager, our transmit power is 20 thousand watts."

[velvet pelican]

its interesting seeing this thing have a line and then bits of laser that are like fractures from the main beam

[late fulcrum]

"Very open" yes, but you need an enormous dish and some serious microwave amplifiers to get the signal there.

[dusty citrus]

a 20000 watt radio is illegal in pretty much every country for individual use + if it's even legal to send in that frequency band

yeah hence my "security by cost" 😄

The next step is "security by nuke". Like the 10 MW Duga Radar

That is a technique I like to use in games as well, put my most important gear in a radioactive biome that also charge it

[crystal ore]

Some people are trying to leverage that sort of inaccessibility specifically for security purposes, heh heh. https://cryptosat.io/

[dusty citrus]

"Kardashev scale 3 civilization proof encryption" 😄

[crystal ore]

Do they seriously say that? Oh, dear.

[dusty citrus]

nah just thouguht it would be funny

[crystal ore]

Ah, gotcha.

[dusty citrus]

Also I wonder if they ever though of time traveler when declassifying stuff

Like I was reading the declassified U-2 training/service manual on the cia site and wondered what would happens if a civilian read time aloud before going to sleep in 1959

Had that sort of discussion with a teacher before

apparently a lot of things become possible with sci-fi magnitude of power (the main characteristic on kardaschev) and/or if you are orbiting a black hole

also scientific notation 10^9 seems close to 10^10 jusst +1 on the exponent but it also mean you can run off 1000 things that use 10^9 with something that does 10^10

[crystal ore]

Not 1000, just 10.

[dusty citrus]

ah yeah my bad

[crystal ore]

The CFO of Google, whenever he'd give a presentation to the company, was fond of starting off by saying, "Now, just remember when I give you the numbers, that a billion is a thousand million..." 😁

[wary herald]

Power converter??

[late fulcrum]

It's worth specifying, as a UK billion is a million million.

[dusty citrus]

I look for instance at the total mass energy of earth (5.4x10^41) which boggle the mind. is that when some evolved stars hiccups they send gamma rays 100 times more powerful than that

And it's just an hiccup or basically the amount of blood (1 drop) I lose from a kitten scratch for a human body...

[tardy badger]

Making a pocket py gamer thingy because why not

[dusty citrus]

I can just imagine a kardashev type 3 civilization somewhere in galaxy where they have something like discord to get help for the DIY projects and peoples asks how to plug the 1x10^40W dyson sphere around a star to their small personal 10 miles asteroid to power their 70 cubic kilometer small project

Like their "arduino like" starter kit comes with a megawatt power supply, fridge sized megawatt range resistors, 2ft diameter dupont wires etc

[blissful roost]

I'd expect more like.... "What wires?"

[dapper hatch]

LOL. Just has an email from a client about some work they want from me. Their description of the project contains the phrase 'fully production ready prototype' 🤣 An fine example of an oxymoron.

[pallid summit]

Why army needed to learn this ???https://youtu.be/HSWCJwAmAgY

[pallid summit]

😅

[dapper hatch]

I made them a meme. Shall it send it to them?

Can't post here, two images, a cardboard camera vs a real camera.

[blissful roost]

It's a fine example of some kinda moron..

[dusty citrus]

Need advice: I need to clean under my washing machine but it's tighly connected unlike my dryer and difficult to move. I'd rather clean under it but I can't find something to lift it on both sides about 4-5 inch high so I can securely put my hands under it while using a broom (and I don't want to have my hands crushed obviously)

To look under it I usually use a locker lock to lift it an inch, but I don't know what to use to clean under it and I thought car jacks would be a bit overkill

any suggestion???

[dapper hatch]

Do you have someone that can help? If so, block of wood and a leaver. You lift the front edge with leaver, they put the wooden block under it.

What I have done, although used a upside down saucepan as the block of wood.

[dusty citrus]

No I live alone, I know one day when I move I'll have to disconnect it myself but the warranty isn't over yet and it void the warranty if I don't use the store employees to move it and I doubt I can connect it back securely. Would cause a lot of problems too if I can't reconnect it because I live in a "rich neighboorhood" even though I'm not and we don't have a public laundrymat anywhere around

[dapper hatch]

Ha ha, is funny how that makes up the word oxymoron. Maybe not a coincidence.

[dusty citrus]

Block of wood seems good, lifting it isn't the problem since I can do it with a lock and put rolling pin it's keeping it lifted without it falling/tipping over

I had a materials course when I was studying engineering and I don't like how steel act when it break (no warning)

so I prefer elastic materials like wood for this kind of job since they elongate before they rupture

[late fulcrum]

And an interociter?

[late fulcrum]

The armed forces had some decent courses designed to take raw recruits to enough skills to repair/maintain fairly advanced electronics in a short time. It's a little tricky to find "hard" ferrites with squareish B-H curves today, but I managed to find some.

[dusty citrus]

not very familiar with sci-fi besides asimov/bradbury

but from what I read on wikipedia if I had a kit like that I'd just put it in the trash. Doesn't seem to be worth the efforts

Same category as "opening old phones/remotes for useful parts"

[late fulcrum]

I'd be more interested in the bead-sized 30 kilovolt capacitors than the fridge-sized megawatt resistors.

[dusty citrus]

the wikipedia article doesn't list any specific part like a 30kv capacitor though 😄

and I mean, why use a capacitor when you can just store/retrieve excess energy into/out of the nearby star?

electrical tape is so amazing, found some during the archeological dig of my apartment was going to throw it

but it immediatly fixed a problem I had for a couple of weeks

I mean even if it's a millenia old(bought it in 1996) if it still sticks....

[dusty citrus]

There was also 40$ in the archeological dig

[thick wind]

That's like saying "why save money when you can just throw it into the bottomless pit known as the economy?" The concept of storage may be the same, but the scale and context are important.

[dusty citrus]

I imagine a capacitor of this scale getting lost and someone crossing the orbit of earth one day and we are all excited about the 10 miles long spaceship

but turn out it's just a big capacitor 😦

I mean I've seen chip with several resistor (resistor array)

I suppose that exist for capacitor too ?

yep there is such a thing as a capacitor array in a chip too

[dusty citrus]

I dislike coins in lucite blocks so much....

Like for a specific year all coins were entombbed in lucite blocks and are worth a fortune if they aren't

But these blocks are basically bullet proof, cut proof etc etc only way really is to dip the block in liquid nitrogen then use a hammer / use acetone on the leftovers on the coin

but with that long it bonded and collectors all told me it's impossible to get them out without damaging the coins

I guess I found my weight to lift my washer 😄

Pretty sure not even a truck could break it...

grrrrrr

It's hard to see but there is a faint 1mm dent at the top where I tried a powersaw to break it 😄

so my test is that I basically leave it under the item to lift for 24h

if it doesn't break or slide off it's good enough for a furniture lift

[static flare]

I just had someone warn against clicking on links with https:// because: If anyone ever sends you something with https:// im their message, chances are it's a Phishing scam

[dusty citrus]

I'd just warn them about :// because it doesn't give the complete picture

:// is a way to launch various programs if they are present on the computer when clicking a link like that

They might think it's ok from such a statement to click on file:// or ftp:// telnet:// ssh:// or less well known links like wss:// gopher:// news:// etc

[thick wind]

Links in general are suspicious. If there's no prior context for said links, always use caution, especially if it's an external link you can't recognize.

[dusty citrus]

also if someone claim to be from discord support reply then block them, discord support go throught blocks

[stoic mesa]

Well, I do not know. I send emails with https:// links in them daily in great quantity.
Sure, these are emails to people I know, part of discussion of a project.
Better statement: if someone you do not know sends you a link, do not click on it

[dusty citrus]

Capacitor lifting off in someone face 😦

I don't click on anything found in an email, except when a vendor puts that into the regular discourse cycle.

Like Quora - I'll click on those because I get a login without my password or username; That counts.

[honest moth]

TLP + CPUFreq.

= Molotov Cocktail.

and i did not realize this until much later

[umbral phoenix]

The only (rare) email links I'll click on are when: (1) the sender is trusted; (2) the link is fully spelled out and is not a link shortener / redirector / mass emailer; (3) the destination URL is trusted; (4) the link does not contain tracking (complex paths, unique IDs, query strings, etc.). On phone, where you can't hover, I try to avoid email links but in a pinch manually cut-and-paste so I can bail if it looks sketchy.

[quartz wren]

I click only links I've requested from specific automated systems on sites that I navigated to manually (password resets etc.) or people I trust after getting context about the link

But usually the people I trust send me links on discord, which gives me a nice preview of it

[dusty citrus]

question: doesn't exist like a framework for building drivers for desktop?

[quartz wren]

Happy news! My ruby tipped 3D printer nozzles are arriving today

[quartz wren]

I'm sure they do exist (definitely for Linux), however I'd expect things for windows to be commercial software, terribly implemented, insecure, or built by yourself

You are talking about low level device drivers right?

[dusty citrus]

yeah like printers, input devices and desktop

[quartz wren]

I mean, depending on the hardware it could range from simple to downright impossible without so much reverse engineering work it would be easier to design from scratch

(for driving existing hardware without public documentation)

[dusty citrus]

for commercial work Microsoft does require like an expensive certifications

but anyway, for framework I do mean something that you write once, for different platforms in this case, linux, windows and macos

[quartz wren]

Your best bet is to look for the specific hardware you want to try and modify the drivers for and see if there's an open source driver you can use as a base

Hmm

See, cross platform driver framework development would be a bit fiddly... The operating systems actually have different ways it loads and operates the driver software so you would have to parse between what's the device protocol and what is the OS interface to that

Between Mac and Linux it would be easier

Because they're based on similar structures

Note: all of my driver development is done onboard low capability systems I've developed either from the ground up, hardware and all, or microcontrollers driving hardware with a serial protocol

But I have done some surface level reading on how it's done in current systems so I can uh... Borrow some concepts for my own operating system development

[late fulcrum]

Oh ye of little imagination

[late fulcrum]

There are driver skeletons for common device types (character and block, ioctl devices, etc.)

[sleek radish]

would anyone happen to know of a type of light that cats are interested in ? thinking of making a tangible replacement toy for a laser pointer. from what I've seen, they don't care about LEDs

[late fulcrum]

Cats are more interested in motion than the presence or absence of light, or its colour.

[dusty citrus]

probably different for every cat, preference for a specific cat probably follow a probabilistic quantum wave function

But I disagree about motion because I often would spy on a cat while prone on the floor, with one eye hidden behind a corner and they'd charge like a bull. Only 1 out of 11 didn't have that specific gene.

[sleek radish]

hm, maybe a lens over an led to focus it into a small dot similar to a laser ?

maybe they would be more interested in the light that's focused on something than the LED itself

[thick wind]

Don't think it's that simple to do. If you've ever tried to use a magnifying glass and the sun to burn stuff, the light may converge at a point, but it won't do you much good if it doesn't converge right at the surface you're aiming at.

You could just use a bright light and a long tube for a small spotlight, but i don't know if the length would make for an easy-to-use cat toy...

[sleek radish]

oh that's a good idea. I was thinking of having the light mounted above something that the cat can interact with. say a series of switches or something. the size shouldnt be an issue

[orchid zephyr]

lasers rely on coherence, LEDs are incoherent, and cant be turned into beams without massive amounts of energy loss

[dusty citrus]

It's ok, gamma ray burst are also and incoherent light source and can be seen millions of light years away

Doesn't matter with enough power 🤣

[fossil scaffold]

Not to mention, IIRC something about étendue conservation means you can't use a lens to focus light down to a point smaller than the source...

[dusty citrus]

I learned on xkcd that the source image on a magnifying lens can't create an image that is higher than it

[fossil scaffold]

Yeah, that's where I read that too haha

[dusty citrus]

ie: if you have the whole sun as the source in a magnifying lens you cannot burn something more than 7000oC

Which is a bit scary

"Put magnifying lens over wasp nest, wasp nest start fusing hydrogen"

[fossil scaffold]

Step aside TFTR

Wasp Power

[orchid zephyr]

yeah, the massive energy losses are why we are even alive

[lusty fossil]

Aw shucks, first time ever Samtec has not had something I could make use of. Feels weird.

[quartz wren]

Lasers are built different™️

Those can be focused effectively down to the wavelength of the light you're using given high enough quality optics

[fossil scaffold]

Oh fascinating! Lasers and optics certainly go over my head, but it's always something I love reading about.

[quartz wren]

If I remember correctly it's as a result of coherence of the waves

Even if you've got a single wavelength source you're still suffering the issue that you're not synchronizing the phase of the waves

[dusty citrus]

and incoherent apparently can't be made coherent

[quartz wren]

It can you just have to make something lase with it

[fossil scaffold]

I've wondered about wave phase. I have a roommate who does work with lasers and I've visited his lab. I had a few questions about light-wave phase and he mentioned something about coherence.

[dusty citrus]

I think https://www.msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/as/technology/5/ast5_1a.html goes over coherent/incoherent basics nicely

[fossil scaffold]

I'll add that to my reading list.

[dusty citrus]

It's kinda like point light and spot lights/directional light in 3d software

they are different and both types are needed

[fossil scaffold]

OH!

Yeah I've done enough Blender that analogy makes sense.

[fossil scaffold]

Ooh classy

[dusty citrus]

I really like my powerful led flashlight because it's an omnidirectional light source and is nice when power is out too

[fossil scaffold]

A good 18650 flashlight is a lifesaver

[dusty citrus]

but from afar it sucks at illuminating a particular object and guiding a projectile with rocket to it

[quartz wren]

Lasers (simplified) make incoherent light coherent by reflecting light back and forth inside a chamber through a medium and allowing some of the light to escape

[brisk spire]

Found this for $25- supposedly it works. Worth picking up even if it didnt, it looks too cool. Is this something that I could do the xy graphing technique on?

[dusty citrus]

but lasers are excellent at illuminating a particular object and guiding a projectile to something 🤣

[fossil scaffold]

The old electron gun oscilloscopes are very cool.

Very fun for oscilloscope music/rendering

[dusty citrus]

Radars are another example, you usually use a long-range omni-directional one to find lot of threats

[quartz wren]

I'm making one

[brisk spire]

Agreed, never had anything like it. Unfortunately it's 14in deep and that's over half of my table depth so it's not really practical to keep on my desk all the time :/

[dusty citrus]

and then use a narrow-beam directional one to track a particular target over a reduced range

[quartz wren]

But with modernized control hardware and software

[fossil scaffold]

[quartz wren]

I've got a bare tube I'm going to develop control hardware around that can be switched by a microcontroller between different modes and input setups

[fossil scaffold]

I've been wanting to do some stuff with radar at some point.

[dusty citrus]

me too, but it involve sending micro missiles on wasps 😄

[brisk spire]

I wish electrical equipment tended to be wider rather than deeper, but I guess I should've built a deeper bench instead lol.

[dusty citrus]

hopefully one day...

[quartz wren]

An old test fit pic from before my lab was built

Woops forgot to attach just a sec

Umm

It's on my old phone

[late fulcrum]

Yes, that one will do X-Y (it looks like that's the most clockwise setting of the TIME/DIV control)

[quartz wren]

I've got it posted somewhere though I just have to find it

[brisk spire]

Sweet! I've got to learn how to use it. I've only every used one of those DSO kits.

[dusty citrus]

so far the only thing I found that might work against wasp is directly a drone propeller under a wasp

[fossil scaffold]

tasers work pretty well

[dusty citrus]

illegal in my country 😄

[fossil scaffold]

oh right

[dusty citrus]

All I can use to defend myself is a can of raid in my backpack

[quartz wren]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/879830312111181886/883050429276094475/20210830_140930.jpg
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/879830312111181886/883050429510996088/20210827_201554.jpg

[dusty citrus]

Which I do to remove mosquitos from my path when coming down from the movies 🤣

[fossil scaffold]

oh wow :o

[dusty citrus]

enclosures 😦

[quartz wren]

It's getting a bit of a different configuration in its final iteration, something along these lines but with the number panel flipped for cable management reasons

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/953309375882215516/967849725699166260/20220424_110645.jpg

[quartz wren]

Why the frowny?

[dusty citrus]

I wish I could do that

[quartz wren]

Oh

[dusty citrus]

construction is my big weak area in electronics

and hold me back on a lot of things

[quartz wren]

It's just a can with a bunch of holes drilled in it

[dusty citrus]

the other one is my fear of being killed by my arduino after it passed a mosfet/transistor

[quartz wren]

I drew the hole markings for the CRT using a sharpie and tracing the tube

[dusty citrus]

I get scared when I see motors that can do 925 amperes at peak 😦

The helpers here mentionned it's not a dangerous as I seem to think but still

[late fulcrum]

I've taken to designing my enclosures using the sheet metal mode of the free version of Fusion 360 and having them laser cut.

[quartz wren]

I suppose I'm fortunate to have grown up with a childhood that would make you gasp at every sentence

[dusty citrus]

bah I used to play with radioactive compounds and poisons from antique 1950 chemistry kit

[late fulcrum]

It's a miracle I survived my childhood, but I emerged with a solid working knowledge of what is and isn't dangerous.

[dusty citrus]

But the difference is that I didn't know and the manuals were really good and had me calculating formulas, orbitals, energy etc

[quartz wren]

Yes but did you build an elevator made of palettes into a tree using a unicycle wheel as a pulley and a bucket of bricks for a counter weight? 😉

[dusty citrus]

no was never much of a mechanic and left mechanical engineering because of that

[quartz wren]

I've been swinging a hammer since I was in diapers (literally) and I've been using power tools since I was a young child so it kind of just comes naturally to me

[dusty citrus]

I have really bad fine motor dexterity too so when I played that game to pick plastic bones in holes surrounded by metal contacts it would ends up slammed in a wall because I couldn't do it 🤣

which is why I can't solder under says 1-2mm

[quartz wren]

Oh boy I've got some indisputable skill with soldering

Just a sec

[dusty citrus]

If I won the lottery the first thing I'd probably buy is those soldering robots that apply solder with nanometer precision

[quartz wren]

@dusty citrus

Did this by hand

[dusty citrus]

My version would probably looks like a solder wire ingot

you'd think it was a silver ingot at first glance 🤣

[late fulcrum]

Normally I use paste and hot air, but I hand soldered this with a fine tip just to see if I could.

[quartz wren]

I didn't use a fine tip

[dusty citrus]

If I use a lot of flux or stencil apparently I can make up for my lack of dexterity

but what would be really great is some sort of binary molecules on the board

Like no matter what I do a chemical that prevent any solder from getting on a specific point

[late fulcrum]

That's what soldermask does, basically

[quartz wren]

This is the tip I used to do that

https://imgur.com/0yIRbpk

Yes I've since upgraded tools

[dusty citrus]

I saw a bunch of SMD tutorialss and they just seems to dump tons of liquid flux so the solder doesn't adhere to the board and brute force it

[quartz wren]

The trick? Gravity and surface tension modulated by flux

[dusty citrus]

then use a soldering gun to melt it following spec so the chip adhere to the contact point on the board

smd resistors seems to be really easy though

I bet even me could do it with just an iron

[dusty citrus]

what model/make of soldering gun/station(/iron) you use ?

[tardy badger]

Gotta brush up rtos, i2c, Bluetooth, and embedded c tonight. I’ve got an interview tomorrow that I did the first interview for barely 4 hours ago 😀

Companies really do be moving fast

[quartz wren]

I use a cheap $20 soldering iron from the hardware store

[tardy badger]

Except Google, I do my second round of Google interviews next Friday but it’s likely this other company I’m interviewing with will already have a decision before then

So wild

[quartz wren]

No temperature control or anything, just a heating element on a wire

With a tip

(yes I know there's more to even a cheap soldering iron than that but not much)

My soldering iron maintains temperature because its heating element increases in resistance as the temperature rises. That's it.

And you know what? It gets the job done.