Zynq z015 devboard

[primal orchid]

erm......

I mean something like this. With a small nozzle, and good temperature control.

[rigid jackal]

oh fuu

[primal orchid]

https://tenor.com/view/wow-gif-20411229

Are you not going down the arduino route then?

[rigid jackal]

what other options are there?

[primal orchid]

like you can either use an arduino style board which has the USB connector, processor, voltage regulator and supporting electronics all on one board to Keep Things Simple, or you can manually make your own board.

However it seems that you've used the wrong symbol for your USB connector there

(which is something that a premade board wouldn't make a mistake on)

[rigid jackal]

i was following a guide

[primal orchid]

which guide?

[rigid jackal]

https://github.com/ruiqimao/keyboard-pcb-guide

[primal orchid]

what made you choose USB-C?

[rigid jackal]

i have a spare USB-C cord lying around

[primal orchid]

you probably want the USB_C_Receptacle footprint, not the plug

as your device will have a USB C socket

[rigid jackal]

oh right

[primal orchid]

(but again, a premade arduino style board will already have avoided and solved these problems)

[rigid jackal]

😭

okay fine ill use a nano or something

[primal orchid]

\o/ well done! You've avoided a bunch of problems and increased the chance of it working first time! 👍

[rigid jackal]

lol

okay so now

i need to get these symbols installed

how do you install symbols 😭

[primal orchid]

grab the library files and then configure them in these two windows:

[rigid jackal]

aight

thanks

[rigid jackal]

do i just need the .lib

[primal orchid]

which library are you using?

for which part?

[rigid jackal]

which would you use?

the one i found is 6 years old

[primal orchid]

Which part is the library for?

what symbol do you need?

[plush oar]

I would encourage you not to use a USB Type-C connector. The large number of pins and fine pitch means they are quite difficult, especially if you don't have a lot of experience.

[rigid jackal]

switches and caps

[plush oar]

I too would use a controller board

[rigid jackal]

im using a board now

[primal orchid]

which type of switches are you trying to load the library for?

[rigid jackal]

idk what switches yet, but hte footprint is generic right?

[primal orchid]

the symbol is generic, but the footprint wont be

[plush oar]

I would use something like a TinyPICO. Made here in Melbourne! https://unexpectedmaker.com/shop.html

[primal orchid]

so just use the default kicad symbol for a switch

you don't need to worry about footprints yet if youve not decided what sort of key you're going to use

[plush oar]

https://www.tinypico.com/

[rigid jackal]

maybe idk yet

[rigid jackal]

aight

a SPST one should be fine right?

okay so problem

steno keyboards have 23 keys

23 is prime so its hard to put in a grid

[primal orchid]

3x8 sounds easy 🙂

[rigid jackal]

would i need a number bar?

[primal orchid]

I dunno. Would you?

[rigid jackal]

cant i use chords?

[primal orchid]

I dunno. Can you?

Whats the steno layout you're trying to implement? Got a link?

[rigid jackal]

im not too sure yet

theyre mostly different

[primal orchid]

You need to decide that first so you know how many buttons you'll need!

[rigid jackal]

idk what i need

maybe something like this?

some have the number bars some dont

[primal orchid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype#/media/File:SOFT-HRUF.jpg this seems to do separate buttons for the number bar. interesting.

https://stenokeyboards.com/products/uni-v2-pcb That's a good example of where you can mount a module on the top in the middle 🙂

https://stenokeyboards.com/blogs/posts/why-gateron-clear-switches-are-the-best-switches-for-steno some other information about what switches to use as well

[rigid jackal]

thanks

[primal orchid]

also worth having a look to see what keycaps you're going to use - that'll probably also firm up which key switch you need to use.

https://plover.wiki/index.php/Supported_Hardware hopefully thats a lot of inspiration 🙂

[rigid jackal]

okay @plush oar i admit, the steno kb was a long shot

BUT

im designing another board with an actual purpose

its for an open source astrophotography mount for DSLRs im building

[plush oar]

I'm very interested to hear more

Do you have a local mob to talk with about astrophotography?

If not, Melbourne Raspberry Pi Makers Group (of which I'm an organiser) has a bunch of astrophotographers who you might like to collab with. Ask me for a Discord invite.

[rigid jackal]

sure

[rigid jackal]

not in person, no

it’s the openastrotracker btw

[plush oar]

Invite sent

[rigid jackal]

joined!

[primal orchid]

damn. wasn't even "next week"

@plush oar gets a gold star ⭐

[plush oar]

I was hoping for an ENIG star.

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal Someone I know has a weekly livestream. Several of the episodes has been designing and laying out an ESP32 board. You might find it interesting, and I think you'll learn a lot. Let me know if you want a link.

[rigid jackal]

sure

i think ive done everything i need to get it to boot though

[rigid jackal]

okay so while i wait on the the guy that made the OAT to get back to me

ima work on a fpga

[primal orchid]

Adhd is a fun drug isn't it! 😂 😂 😂

[rigid jackal]

i havent been diagnosed with it

but i probably am

anyway im probably gonna use an ecp5

im gonna have a mother & daughter board sorta configuration

the motherboard just runs the FPGA and the daughter board has all the IO

[rigid jackal]

also @primal orchid this project isnt dead yet

[astral jackal]

Good for u sir

the disease is very annoying indeed (im just joking dw im a diagnosed special dude)

[primal orchid]

Spending the last 2 weeks having done nothing, but then getting a random burst of energy to do something completely unrelated... 😂

[astral jackal]

Indeed!

50 minutes break after 5 minutes of cleaning is peak performance

[rigid jackal]

(#electronics message)

getting my ham radio license

after that and exams at school I might try making my own HF equipment

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal What regfile does this computer use? https://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.com/2018/07/gigatron-homebrew-cpu-homebrew-computer.html

[primal orchid]

I love how the first picture on that link is a nice clear block diagram of the thing, which I don't think we ever got 😂

[rigid jackal]

shh

[rigid jackal]

they dont

they use raw registers

[rigid jackal]

emms projects

next up on the list: HF morse code transceiver

[ocean isle]

Eevblog did a nice review of the Gigatron

[plush oar]

This is not a situation I'd use labels. The schematic makes me think about what's connected to what, and in general, code and schematics are better when it doesn't make people think.

[rigid jackal]

i changed it a bit

[plush oar]

Don't quote me on this, but I believe with the ESP32-S3, you don't need a USB UART chip. You can connect the D+/D- pins directly to the port. Thus you also don't need Q2 and Q3.

[rigid jackal]

apparantly that makes it janky

[plush oar]

Sounds hearsayish.

[rigid jackal]

someone said it in #electronics

hang on lemme find it

[plush oar]

Here's the TinyPICO, a very nice ESP32-S3 board I've used on several projects: https://unexpectedmaker.com/shop.html#!/TinyPICO/p/577111313/category=0

And here's the schematic: https://github.com/UnexpectedMaker/esp32s3/blob/main/schematics/schematic-tinys3.pdf

D+/D- on the chip goes directly to the port

Similarly here: https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/110822

[rigid jackal]

#electronics message

[plush oar]

Ok noted. For my board, I'm going to skip that chip.

[rigid jackal]

yeah, it depends how long it will take you to write the software

i probably dont need it but it might be the difference between hours of debugging or 5 minutes of debugging

[plush oar]

My approach is to get hello world working. If that works, I can always use that as a "known-good" to go back to

bbl

[rigid jackal]

stack traces are nice though

[rigid jackal]

big bash league?

[rigid jackal]

its firmware time

[plush oar]

Be Back Later

Interesting

I didn't know one could do wokwi inside VSCode

[rigid jackal]

there is an extension

[jagged forge]

wait how is your vscode connected to discord

[rigid jackal]

thats this thing

[jagged forge]

huh

interesting

neat

[rigid jackal]

its this extension if you want it

[jagged forge]

i don't nearly do enough work for that to look good for me

[rigid jackal]

😂

i leave vscode open in the background so its always open for me

[jagged forge]

I'm not good at fw at all so i just avoid it like the plague

it is not very smart

[rigid jackal]

this is my first time writing fw

i'm honestly enjoying it

gotta love rust

btw i made a repo for the kicad stuff

https://github.com/emm312/CW-HF-Transceiver

the firmware will be done soon

[jagged forge]

most stuff i write is C or arduino, rust seems scary

[rigid jackal]

rust is a really nice language, def give it a shot one day

it mixes functional and object-oriented ideas really nicely

and the ecosystem is really nice

and its faster than most high level languages in most cases

its also safe

the type system is also ❤️

and it is a reasonable goal to stop all runtime errors at compile time

[jagged forge]

I like your fancy words, magic person

hehe

[rigid jackal]

lol

@jagged forge wanna see some rust code

[jagged forge]

sure

[rigid jackal]

wait hang on

[jagged forge]

i am hanging on by the teeth of my nails

[rigid jackal]

i cant find my fancy iterator stuff

[jagged forge]

programmer unable to show normal, regular code

[rigid jackal]

i do mainly language development so if i send some of that it wouldn't be good with no context

[jagged forge]

ah

[rigid jackal]

    fn block_params(&self, block: Block) -> &[regalloc2::VReg] {
        self.blocks[block.0 as usize]
            .instructions
            .iter()
            .filter(|elem| matches!(elem.operation, Operation::Phi(_)))
            .map(|elem| elem.yielded.unwrap())
            .map(|elem| {
                let bb_elem = self.values[elem.0 as usize];
                let s: (usize, RegClass) = bb_elem.into();
                VReg::new(s.0, s.1)
            })
            .collect::<Vec<VReg>>()
            .as_slice()
    }

@jagged forge

enjoy

[jagged forge]

this is CLEARLY meant to be unreadable and obfuscated

[rigid jackal]

its actually not that bad

the first line gets the block of the id block

then it looks into the blocks instructions & makes an interator over them

then it filters them based on if their operation is a Phi

then it goes over every instruction and gets what the instruction yields

wait hang on let me put it in to rust analzyer

its easier with that

okay so it gets the id from the ValueId and gets the value for that id

it then gets the size and type of the value

makes a new VReg for it

and then turns that into a vector and returns a slice to it

its less complicated than it sounds

anyway @jagged forge learn rust and one day you will understand that code

[jagged forge]

but c so comfy

[rigid jackal]

rust is like

C++ if it wasn't bloated and had a good ecosystem + build system + good typesystem

and functional stuff

[jagged forge]

i heard a bunch of people talking about how rust was bloated lmao

[rigid jackal]

its not

[plush oar]

@emm link to discord presence please?

[plush oar]

Proof that Stockholm Syndrome exists.

[rigid jackal]

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=icrawl.discord-vscode

[plush oar]

Ta

[rigid jackal]

man bluetooth is getting a bit annoying

[plush oar]

Seems it talks to the Discord app running locally (whereas I use Discord in a browser tab). No presence plugin for me!

[jagged forge]

[rigid jackal]

you use linux right?

i assume you dont use the desktop app because its a pain to get working?

[plush oar]

Since 1993.

[rigid jackal]

if i remember right you use fedora?

[plush oar]

I rarely install anything that's not part of the distro, because otherwise keeping things up to date is a pain

Right

[rigid jackal]

get appimage installed and use the discord appimage

its easy

thats how I did it at least

you can disable update checking in some rando json file

the appimage might do it itself, i dont remember

[plush oar]

So let's imagine there's a vulnerability found in the compression library libz. Such things have happened (and just this week an exploit was found in xz, a similar library.

[rigid jackal]

yeah i've heard of that

[plush oar]

Libz is used in hundreds, if not thousand of apps

[rigid jackal]

yeah

you probably already had it

iirc it was found from testing ssh

[plush oar]

Right

If you only use distro software, then just the system copy of libz needs to be updated, and your system is completely protected

If you use appimage/flatpak/snap, or static versions of apps (I'm looking at you, Zoom), you'd need to go update them all individually

[rigid jackal]

it depends how it gets linked

[plush oar]

Right. I want one copy on my machine, that is updatable early and definitively

[rigid jackal]

i bet you could find discord on the dnf repo somewhere

[plush oar]

Not as part of fedora, because fedora is pretty militant about including only free and open source software

[rigid jackal]

right

[compact trout]

holy cow

[ocean isle]

I stopped installing Discord om Linux because I was getting sick of the "It's your lucky day!" announcements that happened more and more frequently lately. When that happens, discord stops working completely until you download a new installer from their website and manually install it.

If you just keep the app open day and night, it just keeps working without problems, but when you accidentally close it or it crashes, and there happens be an update, you can't just tell it to keep using your current version

[compact trout]

i only ever use the webapp

[rigid jackal]

you can disable that prompt from a config file

[ocean isle]

when was that posted? Last time I searched how to disable auto-update was 9/20/22

[rigid jackal]

june 27th 22

[plush oar]

Yo @rigid jackal. You'll have seen the message I've posted on another server. I hope you will read it carefully, paragraph by paragraph.

I'm still here, and I can talk with you over here. Others however, will be able to see our conversation.

[rigid jackal]

yeah thats fine

[jagged forge]

https://tenor.com/view/wentworth-allie-novak-sheila-bausch-gif-18663486

[primal orchid]

Ooooooh. What's going on? I'm nosey!

[rigid jackal]

tldr: we are in another server together and they recently imposed very strict rules of talking to minors, which @plush oar believes are unpractical to meet so he is not gonna talk to me or any other under 18s there in protest

[primal orchid]

weird rule, but..... I guess that's their decision. We'll still talk to you here 🙂

[plush oar]

The rules are well intentioned but poorly written. Taken literally, it would be impractical to talk to a minor. I'm just following the rules.

[rigid jackal]

yeah

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal And just to reiterate, the rules that make it impractical to talk with you in that other server are still in place, so I shan't be talking with you there.

[rigid jackal]

yeah alright

what bit of them is impractical for you - most of that stuff is on my end

[plush oar]

"Adult supervision is required for under 18's at all times"

[rigid jackal]

yeah well i guess i'm breaking it every time i talk in the server then

[plush oar]

Well yes.

And there's no discretion allowed here. "At all times" is pretty clear.

And it's not "an adult should know you hang out here", because that's covered separately earlier

[rigid jackal]

yeah that bits unreasonable then

[plush oar]

I've tried to talk about this with VK3TWC, without success.

[rigid jackal]

it seems to be there more for the sake of it being there than actually enforcing it

also @plush oar it might not be a good idea to share callsigns outside of the communities where they are shared

if you have them you are 1 google search away from getting their address

[plush oar]

You mean home address???

[rigid jackal]

yep

i think its only for the older apparatus licenses which are being phased out but they might have a new system soon so i'm still being careful of where i share mine

[plush oar]

I've also given an undertaking to the group to not communicate with minors in private channels, so I will be ignoring any DMs you send

[rigid jackal]

(i have a class license, no online database from the ACMA for them)

[rigid jackal]

its just a link

more of a thing i wouldn't send here because its the callsign database but i have no intention of getting a reply from it

[plush oar]

I take your point about callsigns and personal info

Pleasure talking with you about radio stuff, and I look forward to talking again soon. I'm off to bed!

[jagged forge]

wait what

they have to have an adult with them when texting on the server at all times?

[plush oar]

IKR?

[jagged forge]

what hecking server is this?

jesus

[winged matrix]

doesnt say parental supervision so maybe just be in a video call with them and supervise them yourself assuming you're an adult ^^

[plush oar]

I'll post the full rules for the amusement of all a bit later.

[primal orchid]

Do you need adult supervision? 😂

[plush oar]

https://tenor.com/view/deep-sigh-head-shaking-gif-14949932

[ocean isle]

what is this hecking server even about? It can't be dating, gaming, or other well-defined 'theme' that binds people together through a common interest, because they're literally segregating people

[winged matrix]

from context here i assume its about amateur radio stuffs

[rigid jackal]

it’s a makers club

[primal orchid]

Adults only makers club?

For.... Adult things?

[winged matrix]

||nah else id share more servers with them||

[jagged forge]

since we don't share servers, no you wouldn't

[rigid jackal]

"The Melbourne Raspberry Pi Makers Group (MRPMG) is a community platform for over 18's (Adults). We recommend that anyone younger notify an adult in their family of their presence on this server before they begin interacting with others. Adult supervision is required for under 18's at all times. If you are under 18, have notified an adult in the family of your presence on this server, you should have conversations with everyone else in the existing community (shared) channels which are visible to everyone else. PLEASE AT ALL COSTS AVOID having direct/personal contact with others on this server, this is for your own safety. Please notify the moderators of any concerns you may ever have."

the rule has good intentions behind it

its just..

[plush oar]

The founder of the club has many years experience in running groups for kids, and the legal requirements and pitfalls therein. He has seen how things can go wrong, and I don't mean inappropriate behaviour, I mean court cases.

In his opinion, the way to avoid the grey area that can lead to court cases, is to lock things down so the grey can't happen.

The mods and admins of the group (of which I'm one) all hold Working With Children Checks, a state-issued certification to say we don't have any convictions or anything on our record that would present a legal block to working with kids. https://www.vic.gov.au/working-with-children-check

[primal orchid]

So you've got a working with children check, but aren't allowed to talk to someone under 18?

[plush oar]

In this group

[primal orchid]

and Raspberry Pi is for adults?

[rigid jackal]

he is, hes just boycotting the rules

[plush oar]

I'm as hard-nosed as he is, but we go about protecting kids differently. As the founder, it's his prerogative to set the rules

Yeah, the founder talks often with young @rigid jackal, which ironically puts him at odds with the very rules he wrote.

[rigid jackal]

the funny thing is, i didn't even realise that bit was in the rules anyway

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal We're meeting this Sunday. You need to get the dude's attention before then.

[rigid jackal]

how? do i just send a ping

tried sending something the other day but it wasn't responded to

[plush oar]

My suggestion (which you didn't hear from him). Get your mum to write him an email saying that as your parent, you disagree with the phrase that prevents you and I from talking over there.

[winged matrix]

xd

[plush oar]

I understand he's already emailed your mum, so she'll have his email address

Back later

[rigid jackal]

that might be a bit weird to ask my mum though

[plush oar]

I also think it would be to walk your mum through our discord server to show her what's there, and get her to read the rules.

[rigid jackal]

"hey mum a stranger on the internet wants to get rid of the parent supervision rule"

[plush oar]

Your choice. That's my advice, that's all.

No, with the way that one particular part is worded

[rigid jackal]

i don't even follow that rule anyway 😂

[plush oar]

That's your choice, and the choice of the other party. I don't feel I have the choice, because the rule is there in CAPITALS.

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar check the server 😄

[plush oar]

Conversations are happening.

[ocean isle]

I guess that discord topic being local to a specific area makes it more attractive to groomers

[rigid jackal]

not really

why would they go to a server full of grown adults with only 2 or 3 under 18s

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar guess what its time for

another project

ill actually finish this one though

10 minute project max

[plush oar]

Excellent!

And awesome to read of your DXing

[rigid jackal]

how can I improve it?

should probably post in #electronics

[compact trout]

what does it do?

[rigid jackal]

it’s an antenna trap

basically just a filter

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar what do you think?

[plush oar]

Looks like a thing!

Maybe increase annulus size on the C1 holes, but otherwise, yippee!

[rigid jackal]

I am gonna use coloured silkscreen for it

gonna put the club logo on it 😄

mmmm... silkscreen

[primal orchid]

https://tenor.com/view/maybeeeee-try-not-to-laugh-gif-12778510

[rigid jackal]

speaking of it.... new project idea

ft8 transceiver

[golden edge]

lmfao this is so true

[winged matrix]

• get completely sidetracked due to something you learn during research for the project

[nocturne basalt]

The only advantage working for a company, you HAVE to finish your projects haha

[jagged forge]

• you get money to do so!

[nocturne basalt]

haha yeah

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar @primal orchid guess what

i’m gonna finish the morse transceiver

[plush oar]

Yippee!

[rigid jackal]

i found a friend of a friend that designs this sorta stuff

[rigid jackal]

was scrolling up for my regfile screenshot, what’s the spark gap in this for?

they are terrible for emi

[primal orchid]

Can't be as bad as the emi from a motor surely? 😂

[rigid jackal]

i’m not sure but spark gap transmitters were banned for being really noisy

instead of transmitting on 1 frequency it did entire sections of a band at one

[winged matrix]

did you link the wrong pic or am i confused

[rigid jackal]

i was looking for a screenshot of my thingy and came across that schematic with the spark gap

[winged matrix]

on a scale from 1 to 10 how blind am i if i cant find the spark gap

[golden edge]

far right neat the motor connector

I'd say a solid 5 tho

[winged matrix]

ahhhh

yeah 5

xd

would love to see the pcb layout for that

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal Spark gaps are only hella noisy if you get a spark across it, which in normal operation, won't happen here

That's the top level schematic for an autopilot for my boat: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kWuzHooS4Fmwunc19

Boats get hit by lightning. Although I also have transient voltage suppressors on the board, all external interfaces also have spark gaps to act as a discharge method of last resort.

Seven spark gaps along the bottom edge: https://photos.app.goo.gl/rZQdJ1LkEdbghCBM7

[rigid jackal]

looks good then

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar @primal orchid does looking at this beauty make up for the pain and suffering from my other schematic 🤤

i still have a bit more but it looks pretty

[primal orchid]

Definitely looking better!

Purely from an aesthetic point of view I'd probably space some bits out a bit more, and I tend to not put labels directly on a component pin and instead put them on a trace, but that's very much just personal preference.

How's the rest of your schematic looking?

[rigid jackal]

hang on I’m having dinner now, will send a ss too

[primal orchid]

• Does that bit pass ERC?

[winged matrix]

without knowing for sure that it does because i usually dont draw it like that.. why wouldnt it?

[primal orchid]

to me that looks like two logic gates driving the same output net?

[winged matrix]

ye

with the same inputs as well

so eh

who am i to judge his function xd

[primal orchid]

I don't think KiCad is clever enough to detect that!

[winged matrix]

pretty sure it is

[primal orchid]

Pretty sure it isn't!

Or maybe It's a different symbol I've got

[rigid jackal]

it’s on purpose

it’s a current sink

[winged matrix]

because i regularly run into that mess when i accidentally have a connection selected while moving a symbol

[winged matrix]

i mean thats just due to the symbol and the drc settings, doesnt really have any implication, youd get the same result any time you wanna connect the symbols like that

[rigid jackal]

i’m probably gonna give it something like a 9V supply to sink even more current into it

[astral jackal]

Someone remind me

what was this project abt

[rigid jackal]

a morse code transceiver on the HF bands

[astral jackal]

ah

[rigid jackal]

following a recent revalation it will also do FSK digital modes

such as..... ft8!

[astral jackal]

niccee

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar can you give me a hand with easyeda2kicad? im trying to get a footprint loaded

ran the command, symbol is in find but i cant find the footprint library to load

(yes i ran it with --footprint)

nevermind, figured it out! thanks for letting me know about that software in the first place!

[plush oar]

Great news that you got it to work.

Having footprints and 3d models on demand is making me very lazy!

(I haven't routed this or fixed the silkscreen)

[rigid jackal]

its pretty

🤤

the amplifier layout turned out quite nice

[nocturne basalt]

What type is the left connector?

[plush oar]

The style is XT30. XT30 and XT60, by Amass, are really excellent 2-pole high current power connectors.

They are polarised, fit snugly, gold plated, nylon and cheap.

[nocturne basalt]

https://www.tme.eu/nl/details/xt30pw-m/dc-connectoren/amass/?brutto=1&currency=EUR&utm_adgroup=&gad_source=1

like this one?

[plush oar]

Yes!

[nocturne basalt]

Cool, thanks!

[plush oar]

Designed for 30A continuous. XT60 is bigger and designed for 60A continuous.

[nocturne basalt]

are those thesame connectors commonly used in LiPo packs?

[plush oar]

Very popular in the RC world

[nocturne basalt]

isn't it half?

[plush oar]

Yes

[nocturne basalt]

aa

[plush oar]

Hmm?

I don't know, perhaps

[nocturne basalt]

the metal handels 15A and the plastic 30A according to the datasheet🫤 🤔

[plush oar]

They are good as a general purpose power connector in the lab

And I've replaced all the 12V connectors on my boat with XT60s. They are much safer than the "accessory plug" (cigar lighter) style, which overheat and fall out if you just breathe on them.

[nocturne basalt]

haha

[rigid jackal]

@primal orchid thoughts 😂 has my pcb design improved

[primal orchid]

Nice! No idea what it's doing but looks much better!

Not sure what r3 and r4 in that photo are doing. They look like they're on top of the connector!

[rigid jackal]

it’s a radio 👍

[rigid jackal]

yeah they’re far enough in the actual editor

[primal orchid]

Doesnt the editor and 3d viewer match? O.o

[rigid jackal]

i don’t think so, it wouldn’t let me place it if i did it how it looks

[winged matrix]

that still looks reaaaaallly close

what is that, 0.2mm?

[primal orchid]

Whats the courtyard on your usb-c connector?

[winged matrix]

my guess would be 0

[rigid jackal]

teag faur

yeah fair*

[primal orchid]

Although actually the 3d model of the usb connector isn't actually correct on that footprint anyway

[winged matrix]

yeah it looks shifted to the back at second glance

[golden edge]

sexy round tracks

[sterile pumice]

15A continuous 30A peak iirc for XT30

[jagged forge]

yes, 15 continuous

but realistically... lots of safety factor there

[nocturne basalt]

Don't get fooled by other connector brands then haha, not all of them take into account temperature etc. there are some brands that e.g. spec their connector at 5A but this is at 125 *C temperature raise. But Deutsch for example has all their specs at a respectable 25*C

[jagged forge]

i've seen xt60 run "fine" at 160A peak, 120A sustained (for like 3-5 seconds)

and 80A peak on xt30 i think

but those are very short transients

[nocturne basalt]

3-5 seconds is not reallly sustained haha

[jagged forge]

longer than a transient, shorter than "continuous"

but yeah^^

[nocturne basalt]

haha

[plush oar]

Yo @rigid jackal, if you're on Reddit, reach out! https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/s/d9X3OdJ3Mz

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar @primal orchid latest schematic

i still need to choose a FET but thats it

[primal orchid]

Looking so much better than previous ones!

I was actually going to reference you yesterday when talking to someone who had a very "oldschool emm" approach to schematics 😂

[rigid jackal]

this will be my first 6L board

[primal orchid]

oooooh! How's it going?

[rigid jackal]

alright i guess 🤷 figuring out how i should do ground planes and power planes

[rigid jackal]

forgot to post it

@golden edge rate my layout n routing

[winged matrix]

holy inductor

[golden edge]

what are those goofy blue traces

[winged matrix]

6GHz WiFi

[rigid jackal]

oh SWD traces

i think im gonna delete the rounding on everything

[winged matrix]

i think im gonna delete myself

lol

[golden edge]

rouding works best if you routed everything with 90° angles first

or if you have the same distance between your angles everywhere

[rigid jackal]

i did it just to see if it looked nice, im probably gonna not have it at all

dont need it

[sterile pumice]

that inductor is pretty small 🤣

[uncut shell]

nice render

[rigid jackal]

wait you’re here?

any pcbs?

[uncut shell]

just joined and was designing yesterday

[rigid jackal]

@rose sparrow started adding everything to the cart on lcsc and that opamp is out of stock 😭

i think i'm gonna choose one of the ones mentioned in the ti datasheet on current sensing

[rigid jackal]

oh yeah i dont think ive ever shown you, my first board:

[rose sparrow]

Check the input voltage range especially

RRIO opamp is what you are looking for

[primal orchid]

Gives me some PTSD seeing that again..... :-p

[rigid jackal]

😭

[true topaz]

Whats this

[rigid jackal]

my morse and ft8 radio 😄

[rigid jackal]

@plush oar @primal orchid what do you guys think, good schematic?

quickly spun up an esp32 devboard

i just have to figure out how to wire up the CC lines

[primal orchid]

"5.1k resistor to ground for each" is my usual go-to. What's it being used for?

[rigid jackal]

programming the esp

[sterile pumice]

52 ohms is very little for that led in the top left

even on 3.3v

you want more like ~600 ohms

[rigid jackal]

i put it into an online calculator

[compact trout]

for how much current?

[sterile pumice]

Well I'm telling you out of experience, 52 ohms will have that led literally blindly bright, it will put spots in your eyes

It should be 500 ohms+

Otherwise it will hurt your eyes

You want to aim for <=3mA through that led

[rigid jackal]

i’ll put 600 ohms then

[rigid jackal]

i found it in the data sheet

could have been max current tho

[plush oar]

Recently I found I had to use an 18k resistor to not have a green LED be too bright. I think I needed the current to be 0.12mA.

This is me using 3 pots to vary the resistance to get equal (and sane) brightness and determine final resistor values. Note the red and yellow pots are 202 (2k) and the green pot is 203 (20k).

@rigid jackal The TPS272C45D has an internal 3V3 regulator. It may or may not supply enough current to replace the AMS1117

We've had this conversation before, but I see you're still using a UART chip and those transistors, with an S3 🙂

Your Rsns is 10k, but the datasheet generally shows 1k

I'm not sure what you're doing with Vbus and +5V. I'm kinda guessing the SS34 is there to prevent backfeed of voltage from a shield/hat into a computer (esp when the computer is off). Except that the diode is the wrong way around to do this.

On most schematics I've seen, power coming in from the USB Type-C is called Vbus, then it goes through a Schottky to a net called +5V. That +5V net is what's then fed to the regulator, the UART, and the shield/hat connector.

Be aware that you'll lose around 0.25V across the SS34.

[rigid jackal]

I removed that whole IC and replaced it with FETs that do low level switching instead, much easier

I fixed that diode issue too

I left the ch340 just in case, plus the board looks too empty without it 😂, I think I’ll just leave the regulator though, IDK how much current that regulator can supply

[rigid jackal]

will replace it when i get home!

[rigid jackal]

🥳

[primal orchid]

Happy New Year! What is it you're making there?

[rigid jackal]

happy new year! it’s my morse radio which is now for a different mode called FT8 😄

[rigid jackal]

gonna design a xc7z015 devboard 😁

[primal orchid]

Damn! Feeling confident?

[rigid jackal]

a bit - I have great mentors that i can ask for help

[rigid jackal]

hi @plush oar @primal orchid ! how have you guys been?

if you two have time i have a schematic that i made for school that I could use some feedback on:

its for science week at school - my teacher came to me on wednesday asking if I could design a weatherstation PCB for kids at school to take home to record data which can be retrieved at the end of the week

[primal orchid]

Hello! Not bad! How's things been with you?

Nice clean schematic! Nice labels and net names. Good to see!

Is it just doing temperature / pressure logging from the bme?

Interestingly when I was in year 8 ( back in like 1999) I did my own weather station thing for a science project! Was so much fun. Did a rain gauge and anaemometer too. Used a pic to log it all.

[rigid jackal]

great!

[primal orchid]

How long do you expect it to last when on battery?

Do you need a smaller battery with some form of RTC on there? It's one thing to log the data but you need to know what time it's been logged for it to be useful.

[rigid jackal]

yep - i don’t have time to add anything else

[rigid jackal]

at least a week - and I have the VBATT pin hooked up to the lithium cell I plan to put on them

I’m gonna have it go into sleep mode and log every 10 mins from an interrupt

[primal orchid]

Is the charging circuit a proven design?

[rigid jackal]

it’s all mostly copied from the reference schematics in datasheets

[rigid jackal]

that sounds amazing! maybe my school will want me to expand it for next year and I could add a rain gauge too 😁

whoop - i found a mistake

the V- pin on the BQ297 is now connected to after the protection FETs

[primal orchid]

personally if I was doing this in a short period of time, I'd just be making a carrier board to use an existing module and then add on the temperature sensor on top of it.

Is it meant to be used outside to log external temperatures - do you have a suitable box to stick it in?

[rigid jackal]

hmmm fair - I could do that

yep! my teacher is taking care of the box

[primal orchid]

Do you know the power usage of the thing? As in will you have to do active power management of the sensor to make it run for a week? Guess it depends how big a battery you stick in the thing and what it's power draw is like.

[rigid jackal]

the power use of the sensor is measured in the uA 😁

anyway - do you spot anything that will make it not work?

[primal orchid]

Nice!

Is the SDO shorted to ground on the BME part the way you put it into i2c mode?

[rigid jackal]

yep!

it selects its address

[primal orchid]

I'd say when doing the PCB, give yourself lots of room and test points too in case you to need to rework any bits.

How many are you making?

[rigid jackal]

20

and here is the PCB

i only put testpoints on the power rails - IDK what else would really be useful

[winged matrix]

everything :D

[primal orchid]

Eeeeeeverything!

Signal lines, stick a couple of Gpio out to pads as well just in case. Maybe a status LED would be good so that the kids can know when it's doing something (e.g so they don't sit and think it's doing something when it's a actually off)

Actually I do see D1 there. Is that just the charging LED?

Also as its an end user thing - label your silkscreen nice and clearly! Some people may be interested to see "ah this is the sensor, this is the battery circuit". Also label LED functions too. E. G. "red flash = it's taken a sample" or something

[rigid jackal]

yep!

yeah - i almost forgot 😁

😁

[rigid jackal]

ordered 20 of them!

[cold python]

Wow, ordered 1 year after the start of the thread

That's impressive

[primal orchid]

Emm's been through a lot of different projects in that time in this thread! 😂

[cold python]

Oh lmao

I thought that it was all the same project 🤣

[primal orchid]

@cold python - this is Emm's classic workflow 😉

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal G'day! Nice board.

I haven't done any electronics in months. I have to finish up written work for my masters. I'm planning to embark on several new electronics projects (and finish old ones) when that's done.

I'm planning to get into power electronics: 10s of amps, 100s of volts. I expect to be letting smoke out.

Energy from solar, LFP batteries, and car charging (and hopefully convincing my EV to grant access to its battery)

[rigid jackal]

oh wow! definitely let me know how that goes

good luck with your masters too - what’s your thesis on?

[sterile pumice]

Be careful with that stuff

[plush oar]

No thesis. Master of Counselling, w/ specialisation in couples work. I already have my client hours (which I've loved), I still have to finish writing up some case studies then I'm DONE.

In the meantime I've started studying horticulture at TAFE. @rigid jackal knows what that is. For everyone else, it's the government vocational college network here

@sterile pumice yeah I have a healthy respect for that stuff

I see some people on youtube doing mains power stuff on breadboards, with wires going everywhere and it scares the hell out of me

I will have a separate workbench for mains stuff, with a GFCI/RCD. I will work only with electricians gloves on, and eye protection. My screwdrivers are the insulated shaft ones.

I don't plan to have anything powered up when I'm at the desk: Wire everything up and power it up with me on the other side of the room

I have a nice piece of polycarbonate I'll be observing from behind

I will do set up for ways to discharge big caps before I power up the circuit, eg, switch across cap with resistor, so when the experiment is over, I can push that button and do a safe discharge

Measuring voltage on a board (and observing waveforms) is a normal part of designing these circuits, and I'll do that by hooking up the test equipment before the cct is powered up. I won't be probing live circuits

I have a fire extinguisher next to the bench, and one outside the door

There is no single thing which can guarantee your safety, but if you have enough layers ("defence in depth" strategy) you can bring the risk down to acceptable levels

I'm a sailor. Analysing risk, and reducing or mitigating that risk is a part of sailing.

[sterile pumice]

I don't know if it's possible for mains AC stuff, but something like a variable power supply with current limiting

I know there's variacs but dunno about current limiting

[plush oar]

@rigid jackal I sailed solo from Melbourne to Hobart and back 😎

Interesting idea

I can see that would help in two risk areas: fire and electrocution

[rigid jackal]

fun!! im planning on trying out sailing soon with a mate who has lots of experience

[plush oar]

That won't help with electrocution, a few mA in the wrong place can kill you

@rigid jackal awesome!

I think the only benefit of current limiting is fire prevention: if you know your experiment won't draw more than 2A, limit the current to that. Maybe it will keep the smoke in. So, not really for personal safety, which I think I have covered in other ways

I want to make a 48V to 230V inverter. That's essentially programmable voltage and current

I have been buying some Chinese power converters and reverse engineering their circuits

I'm also working on a derivative of this: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-1kW-MPPT-Solar-Charge-Controller/

[rigid jackal]

1kW of power + an arduino is crazy work 😂

[coarse kelp]

Well, it is a perfectly valid cheap and simple mcu

[plush oar]

You wouldn't believe how much Chinese stuff just uses an 8051, which makes the ATmega328 in the original Arduino look luxurious!

I'm working off a derivative that uses an ESP32, so there's a bit more grunt there.

https://github.com/fl4p/Fugu2

[coarse kelp]

Thought they would be random chips from wch

Like those things that only have documentation in chinese

[rigid jackal]

right - that looks much nicer

[ornate slate]

mains is dangerous but not likely to kill you with PPE and a bit of training (so long as you do not have one of a number of heart conditions). You'll be alright 🙂

It's good to stay aware but not scared, if that makes sense

RCDs will allow you to get a pretty good zap before they trip too, and will only trip if current is not returning through the neutral - if you somehow bridge hot and neutral they may or may not trip

[plush oar]

Agreed

[rose sparrow]

Where are you studying? One of my closest friends has been teaching that stuff for a number of years. In his own practise, he deals with couples cases that get sent to him because they are too volatile for anyone else to handle

Practise is in Mt Evelyn

[plush oar]

Swinburne. I did my placements at Relationships Australia, the industry partner

@rose sparrow did you have thoughts about my power electronics risk reduction strategy?

[rose sparrow]

It all sounds fair. You can use larger resistors permanently wired across the large capacitors which won't work as fast as switched ones and will consume power continuously, but then you can't forget to hit that switch

[rigid jackal]

the photos from JLCs x-ray inspection look so cool

i should really look at my boards with the silkscreen layer hidden cause i can see like three things there that i coulda routed better

[coarse kelp]

I like how you can just barely see the bondwires on some of the chips

And the contact pads (?) on the die

Unrelated, but why do the capacitors show up much darker than resistors

Is it just thickness

[rigid jackal]

well theyre MLCCs

[coarse kelp]

But aren't resistors generally built in a rather similar way?

[rigid jackal]

nope

[coarse kelp]

Huh, didn't know

[rose sparrow]

I forgot the best and cheapest way to limit the energy going in a mains circuit: an incandescent lamp limiter. Various power settings available, and comes with free visible fault alert...

[plush oar]

Nice

To be honest, I'm more interested in reducing personal risk of getting zapped

[rigid jackal]

the things im gonna have to do to get usb c hooked up to my fpga

😭

i mean i can probably reduce most of the blocks to a couple FETs

[compact trout]

You can get a single chip that will handle most of that for you?

[rigid jackal]

wait really, where?

i need UPLI and all the chips that do it seem to only do OTG

[sterile pumice]

You want USB C with ulpi?

Use a ulpi to USB converter

[rigid jackal]

yes but they don’t have CC pin logic

at least not the ones i found

[sterile pumice]

Ofc they wont..?

PD is entirely seperate from USB, they are just ganged together commonly

Ulpi to USB data wise

And you can use a CC chip for power

Some CC PD chips have a comm interface so you can configure then in situ

SPI or I2C usually

If you want a fixed PD power in I think there are some with strap resistors for config

[compact trout]

Yes sorry I didn't mean the ULPI, I meant the PD controller since that seemed like the bulk of what your diagram is doing.

[rigid jackal]

well this is a nice surprise - cranked out 3 hours worth of work today and ive finally gone from being intimidated by all the pins to not having enough 😁

[jagged forge]

i think i kinda missed what is going on here, what are you building?

[rigid jackal]

a devboard for the xc7z015

[jagged forge]

huh, nice

bit above my paygrade that thing hehe

do you have an application for the SoC or is it just a learning project?

[rigid jackal]

might be putting some ADCs on it so I can use it for data acquisition & SDR stuff but its a bit of both ig

[rigid jackal]

with the amount of writing AMD has available on it its actually not that bad

[jagged forge]

i could probably do it with enough interest, yeah

really excited to follow this^^

[rigid jackal]

dont hold your breath - its existed as a stagnant folder on my desktop for months and i only just picked it up again 😂

hoping to have schematics fully polished by the end of november though if i have enough time

[jagged forge]

i know that

currently am chipping away at an 8685 moisture sensor... with moving and other irl things + other hobbies... well

also doesn't help that work now is also EE stuff so the energy to do it at home is kinda dwindling

[rigid jackal]

yeah.. im still in school so i dont have that but i'm kinda debating if i want to do this as a career or keep it as a hobby

what sorta EE do you do?

[jagged forge]

95% control electronics for house heating systems / solar / heat pump stuff

small to mid sized production batches, very customer specific hardware

mostly just a simple MCU with some communications, measurement and a 230V side with some triacs / relays

it gets old kinda quickly hehe

i dropped out of uni (couldn't stand the academic ways of teaching / learning) and am now doing EE on a trade school level while trying to get enough references / projects out for it to not matter

from seeing what a lot of EE bachelors projects were... the level isn't too high anyways

[rigid jackal]

oh shame - at least its not on the other end of the spectrum i guess!

[rigid jackal]

yeah... i hear theres so many students that do it cause they see it has good pay without realising they need to actually be interested in it to do anything well

[jagged forge]

yeah doing just what uni teaches you is kinda... nothing

we see so many EEs get out of uni being not really suitable for practical work

[jagged forge]

i kinda miss the challenge to some extent

that's why i'm trying to get a bit more into documentation and software in my personal stuff

i'm REALLY bad at software hehe

[rigid jackal]

software is fun

love being able to test my creations without holding my breath on shipping and a bunch of money for a couple weeks

[jagged forge]

heh

yeah no i'm getting there it just takes forever

it's hard to find stuff that is involved enough to captivate me and then not so complicated that i end up getting frustrated

i can't stand doing projects just for education's sake, they need to be somewhat useful

[rigid jackal]

my latest software venture is a build system for HDL projects 😁

not too hard and its perfect in that regard - maybe you could make something similar

[jagged forge]

huh yeah good point, getting a bit deeper into build systems and not just using platformio

[rigid jackal]

yeah 😁 what languages do you normally write?

[jagged forge]

just C

[rigid jackal]

Zynq z015 devboard

[sterile pumice]

mmmmmmmmmm bga

[rigid jackal]

yup

[sterile pumice]

6L time

ViP

[rigid jackal]

im debating using ViP

i dont want vendor lock in to just jlc

[sterile pumice]

it will help with bga significantly

[rigid jackal]

i mean would it really matter

[sterile pumice]

depends on the exact bga but yea

if its a small and tight bga very much so yes

if its large and spaced out/with good depops not so much

[rigid jackal]

its 0.8mm with 485 pins

[sterile pumice]

.8mm pitch?

what ball size

[rigid jackal]

not sure but i can fit a trace in between balls & vias

its actually not that bad

[sterile pumice]

What size vias

Do you have proper clearance setup for the ball pads?

[rigid jackal]

.4/.2

[rigid jackal]

yep 😁

[sterile pumice]

Interesting

Pretty sure that's not gonna be a free size

It's either .4/.25 or . 4/.3

[rigid jackal]

oh thats fine

actually no min drill diameter is .15

[sterile pumice]

Yeah but everything below .25 is extra

[rigid jackal]

site prices it at $53 aud so 🤷‍♂️

same as if i dont upload gerbers

[sterile pumice]

Hmm

[golden edge]

.2/.45 is free

At jlc*

[rigid jackal]

.2/.4 should also be fine

[golden edge]

but $$$

[rigid jackal]

it didn’t add any extra charges when I uploaded the gerber files

[golden edge]

teyll probably ask for some more money byafter

it happended to me

[sterile pumice]

Their site usually won't auto set things like minimum track width/spacing and minimum via sizes

[jagged forge]

they'll be like "pwease pay fwor 4wire kelvin"

[lusty wren]

Does that include components/assembly, if not what is the total for each unit

[rigid jackal]

probably like $50-80 when made in scale ig

(AUD)

wait no more