Tweets
https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/1322217791953448960
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What’s that? Grayscale e-paper support in #CircuitPython? You know I’m adding that to the Open Book, like, immediately. Thanks @tannewt for making it super intuitive! (also, this voting PSA is brought to you by the League of Women Voters, ca. 1920-1925)
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ADVISORY: the sensor ring is looking pretty good :)
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Replying to @yeffrimic
The main board is just a microcontroller board like an Arduino, and it pairs with different flex boards that do different things. (this one has colorful LED’s and an accelerometer)
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Replying to @GregDavill
Oh wow, I like that idea! I’ll see if I can route it with that constraint, and maybe throw both onto an OSH Park order to see which method yields better results. thanks!
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Replying to @hackerb9
…that 4.2", 400x300 display. There are other displays that share the same interface but they don’t physically fit the board, and high DPI panels generally require a different interface and have different power needs. I’ve looked into it and it would be a pretty different project
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Replying to @hackerb9
Hey, thanks for the interest in the project! The bad news is no, it won’t be available as a presoldered board before the holidays; I’m still super focused on the DIY route. As for a higher DPI display, bad news there too: it’s pretty much only designed to work with… (continued)
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Sensor Ring: first enclosure test. the carve-out for the board was a little tight vertically, so I pried it apart just to make sure it was otherwise fitting. Not bad! And we still have 1/4 of the circumference free to add a battery.
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imagine sending this headline back in time 10 years https://twitter.com/BW/status/1321424220161789953
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Replying to @bitshiftmask
Right on, I’ll definitely post updates as I work on it!
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Replying to @josecastillo
prolly going to make a Digikey order for some of the parts just to have on hand: tiny diode & MOSFET, flex connectors for the yet-to-be-designed sensor and power boards, and the tiniest buttons I have seen in my life. (I’d post a real photo, but would you believe, I lost them 😬)
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Replying to @josecastillo
for the record I have no idea if this will work. for all I know there’s some thermal reason for having all the balls of a WLCSP package connected to the board. still, if it could be made, it would be — yes — even smaller! CircuitPython with 2 MB of Flash in 0.3" by 0.5".
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Replying to @josecastillo
basically this is a 45-ball WLCSP, but I deleted all the pads I’m not using from the footprint, which gives me room to route out the ones I do need. It’s a tight squeeze, and with OSH Park’s rules, I do get some tiny clearance warnings. but I dunno, it might be just close enough.
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apologies to non-electronics-oriented followers: this is going to be a bit in the weeds. I did a weird thing last night. a thought on how to be able to use ultra tiny chips, without having to resort to more expensive boards. in short: I had an idea, and I poked some holes in it.
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Replying to @audreydodgen
Anecdotal, but yesterday I voted in Brooklyn ~3 hours after polls opened, and there was almost no line; in and out in 22 minutes, poll workers moving folks through quickly. Not gonna tell anyone how to vote, but personally I wouldn’t line up 4 hours before the line can even move.
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He couldn’t protect his supporters from the cold. He couldn’t protect himself from COVID.
He couldn’t protect his wife.
He couldn’t protect his son.
Don’t leave him in charge of protecting our nation. #vote https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1321436727232339971
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After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private planet where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.
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new sticker(s). Vote early. (for the democrat)
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I sympathize with this: my life was also great, and I’d also love for Donald Trump to hop into one of those trucks and drive the hell out of here. https://twitter.com/NPRmelissablock/status/1320838688373354496
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i can’t help but despair at how much has been lost these last four years. four years ago we all would have been marching over what happened today. hell, four years ago I marched over a hell of a lot less, a hell of a lot more often. have they broken our will? is this how it ends?
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Replying to @josecastillo
If nothing else, I could use the accelerometer and the red LED to make a ring that lights your hand red when you try to reach up to touch your face. (remember that, from the beginning of the pandemic? Don’t touch your face? I’m still terrible at that one.) anyway 6/6; /thread
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Replying to @josecastillo
also ended up ripping a pad from the PCB, which isn’t great, and makes me realize how intensely tiny some of these pads are. still! as proof of concept, it does sort of prove out the theory of having this smol main board with flexy sensor boards that can do different stuff. (5/?)
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Replying to @josecastillo
the bad bit: I can’t detect a heartbeat as well as I could the last time I tried this, and it took me all the way to now to remember that last time I hacked on this, I had breadboarded a low pass filter on the signal from the phototransistor. so I’m basically staring at noise :(
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Replying to @josecastillo
The good bits: temperature sensing works (even if I sincerely doubt a finger is the right place to measure body temperature) and the accelerometer (not pictured) works fine, same as on the Blinky board. (3/?)
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Replying to @josecastillo
This one didn’t work quite as flawlessly. I’ve been calling it “Vitals Board” and it sports a dual red/IR LED and phototransistor (at opposite ends of the flex board), as well as a TMP235 analog temperature sensor and LIS2DH accelerometer in the middle. (2/?)
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Thanks so much to Tom and @Hacksterio for this writeup of the sensor ring project! It really nails a lot of the details & thinking that went into this quixotic idea. After this article posted, I decided to finish the other sensor board that’s mentioned in the piece. (thread, 1/?) https://twitter.com/tomfleet/status/1320839710613381121
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Replying to @tomfleet
One note on the ring, I think I figured out my mistake that’s causing the Flash chip to not function: I left its WP pin floating, where I think it needs to be tied high. briefly tried to bodge a fix yesterday to test my theory, but it’s a tight squeeze to do much there.
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Replying to @tomfleet
I was gonna say, that looks a lot like that smol 3.3v regulator i used on the ring! Something in that direction?
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RT @tarahaelle: You need this thread today. Trust me. https://twitter.com/Faith_Salie/status/1320153269205929985
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Replying to @josecastillo
the last thought though and the big one: I think this is as small as I can go with inexpensive prototype PCBs. still, I picked up one WLCSP chip just to understand the size and WOW is it tiny. you could make like sensor earrings with something this size. above my skill level tho.
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Replying to @josecastillo
anyway. again, this is a toy project, just R&D to see what I can learn and do with small things. future notes tho in case this gives anyone ideas: wireless charging. how cool would that be? could a flexy charging board be made for the other side that got its power wirelessly?
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Replying to @josecastillo
haven’t had a chance to test the battery operation yet, but one thing is that to keep it small, it doesn’t have onboard charging. my thinking was that the charging circuitry could live inside a charging dock; it would be a pretty simple circuit and only require three connections.
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Replying to @josecastillo
yesterday the board was all about light and motion; the one today is mostly about heartbeat and biosensing, with a dual IR/red LED, phototransistor and analog temperature sensor. (and an accelerometer bc why not). point is, it’s meant to pair with different ideas of what to sense
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Replying to @josecastillo
so at its core, it’s basically a very minimalist SAMD21 board targeting CircuitPython, with a Flash chip for program storage. similar idea to the temperature hat concept: there are nine pins at the bottom that you can use with a flexible sensor board of whatever design you like.
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assembling some more sensor rings this AM. this is a hilarious toy of a project and I don’t know how much sense it makes to “document” it per se, but the design files are here and I figured I should at least put some notes in a thread while at top of mind. https://github.com/joeycastillo/Sensor-Cap/tree/main/PCB/Main%20Boards
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Two dads, David Letterman (73) and Donald Trump (74) discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has affected their teenage sons.
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Replying to @josecastillo
the big fail so far: for some reason the SPI Flash chip isn’t working, so I don’t have room for both the LIS3DH and Dotstar libraries. this is why I’m just running a rainbow demo, instead of reacting to motion like I’d hoped. Anyway. I’m sure I can figure it out. to be continued!
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Sensor Ring update: baby’s first flex boards! Blinky board first; it’s four Dotstar LED’s and an LIS2DH accelerometer. Successes so far: data is coming in, colors are coming out, and again: small! Just waiting on tiny batteries now; then time to 3D print a ring-shaped enclosure.
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…yes https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1318707740504514561
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Replying to @Hamitron
I feel there’s so much subjectivity to picking a project that I’d inevitably mistrust the formula… like if the math says project X is the optimal thing to do, but I can’t get an oddball project Y out of my head, I’d probably do Y and convince myself that it’ll make sense someday
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Replying to @AlexGilbertson
Awesome! And I definitely hear that; surface mount soldering was daunting at first for me too. I learned a lot (almost everything really) from Adafruit’s guides and videos, and tried to choose reasonably friendly-sized parts for the E-Book Wing. Hope you end up taking the plunge!
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finally finished the E-Book Wing build video. took a few weeks longer than I had hoped, owing to, y’know, *gestures vaguely at everything*. Audio isn’t perfect (like, the subway keeps passing by), but I think it gets the information across. Anyway. Onward. https://youtu.be/0Bsh1q2tqaU
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alas, sensor ring is on hold, as my flex PCBs seem to have become hopelessly lost in the mail. been watching them bounce from Brooklyn post office to Brooklyn post office for 8 days now. debating whether I should wait it out or just reorder; bet they’ll get found as soon as I do.
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Replying to @josecastillo
“There were other comments… ‘the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat’ and one that read ‘I bet if I put a gun to his face he’d cry like a baby.’ Now Morgan was showing him two more red ties. ‘The bright red will show up better in photos,’ Morgan said.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/17/kevin-van-ausdal-qanon-marjorie-greene-georgia/
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This is a heartbreaking read. How a QAnon-aligned candidate will end up coasting into the House unopposed, while her opponent who preached sanity was forced out of the race terrorized and broken. Pieces of this read like surrealist dystopian fiction. (1/2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/17/kevin-van-ausdal-qanon-marjorie-greene-georgia/
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while taking notes tonight I noticed my gel pen has the name “vision needle” on the side, and honestly that feels like a lot of pressure
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REMINDER! If you want free Vote For The Democrat stickers, fill out this form and I’ll send five of them your way! I’m just going to keep doing this until Election Day arrives (or I run out of stamps). https://forms.gle/SzhAtT47L8CXhyYb6 https://twitter.com/kr4dio/status/1316409546101981184
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We have got to get this man elected. #voteforthedemocrat https://twitter.com/johnbisognano/status/1316916855504883712
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Replying to @josecastillo
This project is is me at my most quixotic. Like, I prolly could’ve just bought an Oura ring. This is less practical, probably less battery life, & data transfer is going to be closer to blinking an LED than Bluetooth. But gosh, it’s fun to see how far you can get DIY’ing a thing!
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Replying to @anne_engineer and @oshpark
For now I’m just calling it “Sensor Ring,” tho I haven’t figured out the shape of the ring enclosure. I’m waiting on two flex PCB’s for different rings, one with accelerometer and Dotstar LED’s to make a light, and another that’s aimed at measuring heart rate :)
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