Tweets
Replying to @josecastillo
+bold and italic styles, but now it’s coming up on 3:30 am and I’m more likely to commit the subjective experience of my forehead hitting my keyboard than syntactically correct C++ 😴
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Replying to @josecastillo
RTL scripts tonight, plus tasteful page margins. From the top: English, Hebrew, Kannada, Arabic (isolated forms), Russian, Arabic (connected script), Spanish. Getting there!
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The Open Book project isn’t stagnant. I just have to work on some software before I can commit to the hardware. Also some hardware, before I can commit to the software… https://github.com/joeycastillo/babel
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Replying to @MicrochipMakes and @motherboard
Very much a work in progress but I finished routing the next version of this over the weekend. Haven’t built it yet, it’s like pre-pre-alpha. Adds a SAMD51, stereo audio, status pixel, and an extra Flash chip for this Unicode-related thing I’m working on… https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book/tree/master/Open%20Book%20Feather
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My only prediction for the #AppleEvent: a slide about the new iPhones and Phil Schiller saying “these go to eleven.”
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Replying to @MTRNord
Bit by bit! The project is only a couple months old. I have an Arduino sketch that can read a book (plain UTF-8 text, not ePub just yet) and keep your place on the SD card, but now I’m thinking I want to do it all in @CircuitPython, which means some work porting some things over.
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Replying to @chestertester2k
Considered it, even played with some larger panels, but the 4.2" is a lot of bang for your buck. $18 in small quantities, fast refresh, not too cramped. The 5.83" is nicer, almost Kindle-size, and can use the same driving circuitry — but it’s 2x the price: https://zh-tw.buyepaper.com/c/e-ink-display-0371/1.html?&Sort=5a&Price=10-150
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Replying to @Panelvw
Eventually I’m hoping to toss a SAMD51 on there and make it its own Feather board; that’s the point where I think it’d be a fully formed widget for people to use. For now though the plans are just out there if anyone wants to build along at home :)
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So this is rad: a #CircuitPython V console on the eBook Wing! It’s funny: at the same time I was waiting to assemble the second version of the board, @tannewt was building displayio support for 4.2" e-ink screens. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. /cc @adafruit @brentrubell
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Replying to @josecastillo
The only quirk of this version (so far) is that the top mounting holes are a little close to the edge of the screen, but I think it’s close enough; if I ever make a Rev C I’ll add like a millimeter to the top of the board to make it clear.
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Boards for Rev B of the eBook Feather Wing came in last week, and I spent some time yesterday assembling one. It works! And since it’s #opensourcehardware, you can build one too: https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book
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Replying to @morgulbrut
This was really helpful, thank you!
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Replying to @josecastillo
…signal pass to the headphone jack, while blocking the DC component." I think that makes sense. I think R8 is there to limit current going to the headphones? And R9? Something about a high pass filter? I confess I’m not an EE, just a hobbyist trying to grok as much as I can :)
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Replying to @josecastillo
(2/3) “The DAC on A0 drives headphone jack J1. Ferrite beads FB1 & FB2 isolate this analog circuit from the rest of the board. R6 & R7 act as a voltage divider on AVCC to set the bias of the output signal; then C6 is a coupling capacitor; it lets the AC component of the output…
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Electronics friends: I’m trying to make sure I understand everything about the board I’m about to make, and I’m still not 💯 about this headphone output circuit, which I borrowed from another open source schematic. I know it works. But is this description a good start? (1/3)
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FYI, tonight at 7:30 EDT I’m going to try to hop on the @adafruit show-and-tell livestream to show off the eBook Feather Wing project and demo books of the world. I think this will be the link: https://www.youtube.com/adafruit/live
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Up late last night tweaking, and I think this is the eBook wing rev B! Changes:
* Fixed my wiring mistakes
* Replaced the 2.5mm headphone with a 3.5mm jack (oops)
* Added a 5V option for the JST ports
* Brought UART pins out
* Wrote long rambling README :)
https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book
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Just a note: if I’ve blocked you, it’s probably because you bought an ad and it appeared in my feed. It’s a personal policy: I see an ad, it’s from someone I don’t follow, I block the account. Nothing personal, I’m just trying to return to the ad-free @twitter that I once loved.
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Replying to @andychilton
If you do want to make this, do wait for revision B of the PCB, which I’m working on now; there were a couple of crucial design errors in rev A that required some trace cutting and extra wires to fix.
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Replying to @andychilton
I also need to find cheaper versions of some of these parts; the Feather connectors alone are over $7 of that BOM. Come to think of it, @adafruit, any leads on where you get those slim surface mount Feather headers like on the PyGamer? Are they on Digikey?
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Replying to @andychilton and @oshpark
The PCB’s run $64 for 3 or $128 for 10 (OSH Park prototype or medium run), and the parts are something on the order of $47 per board, the screen being the most expensive at $21. So it’s expensive to make one, but you could make 3 for $68 each or 10 for $56 each.
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Replying to @cogliano
For the first couple of wings I made, I used maker paste and hand soldered (fine tipped iron + hot air reflow). But for this one, a friend was giving away his reflow oven, so I used that and it was awesome! If hand soldering I’d stick to 0805 sized parts; 0603 were _really_ tiny.
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Replying to @cogliano
For real, I came across your blog post earlier this year when I was starting on this project, and it inspired me to think that I could build these things myself. So thank you for that!!
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Replying to @tomfleet and @pwavrobot
I just read in the datasheet that the screen acts as an I²C master for an external temperature sensor, so didn’t want another thing driving the bus.
ESP32 would be cool! Also left available the three pins used by the Airlift feather wing, so it can stack. https://www.adafruit.com/product/4264
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Replying to @tomfleet and @pwavrobot
Yep the error is that in the boost circuit, VGL/VGH should be named PREVGL/PREVGH. Luckily it was easy to cut traces and reroute. Other tweak: the Feather’s I²C lines shouldn’t connect to the display’s. Rev B will come; goal is to make it an open hardware, DIY device for reading.
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okay WOW! Super mega thanks to @tomfleet for helping me debug this board; after rerouting two mislaid signals, the eBook Feather Wing lives! So much more still to do, but I’ve had this idea kicking around since March, and it’s amazing to finally see it work. /cc @adafruit
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Replying to @tomfleet
No luck with the ZIF connector, contacts are on top like they should be, but the more I stare at the schematic the more I realize you’re right, my boost circuit does look wrong. I think it’s fixable though; gonna hack on it tonight. Thank you again!!
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Replying to @tomfleet
No worries, thank you so, so much for your thoughts on this! You’ve led me down some interesting avenues, I’ll keep looking into it and let you know what I find.
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Replying to @tomfleet
I think PREVGH and VGH are just different names, I was borrowing from Adafruit’s schematics and the circuits looked almost identical. Now though I’m seeing: Adafruit’s lacks that 10K pulldown, and the inductor has a different value (68µH vs 10µH). This is promising.
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Replying to @tomfleet
Yep, on my board I can read an SD card and list files, so the SPI bus is functional. And the eInk panels I got for my board work fine when plugged into the test board. Hmm…
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Replying to @josecastillo
And then a board shot, because even though it’s a work in progress, @oshpark did such a beautiful job with the PCB. (the scratch marks are me fixing a known design error)
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Replying to @josecastillo
It’s almost like my commands aren’t making it to the screen. Confusing. Ordered an SPI protocol analyzer to try and understand what’s going on, but figured I’d ask Twitter if anyone’s seen something like this when working with eInk.
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Replying to @josecastillo
More details: I’m trying to make a DIY eBook reader. 1st photo shows a Feather M4 displaying text on a demo board for this eInk module. If I take that same screen and plug it into my wing? Static appears, and the screen doesn’t update.
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Any #eink on #microcontroller hackers ever see something like this? Designed a Feather wing based in part on @adafruit’s eInk schematics; I’ve assembled two now, and both display the same behavior, weird horizontal static. Eagle files here: https://github.com/joeycastillo/Feather-Projects/tree/master/eBook%20Wing
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we could have stopped this in 2016, you know. https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/1151639430194532353
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Replying to @josecastillo
UPDATE: @SlackHQ will try to update itself to remove your dark mode. Lock the file to prevent this from happening: sudo chmod -R ugo-w /Applications/Slack.app/Contents
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If anyone else is freaking out that their #slack #darkmode hack stopped working this morning, thankfully you can still download an old version here: https://slack.com/intl/en-ua/downloads/mac /cc @SlackHQ
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Timelapse of today’s solar #eclipse in South America, as seen from @NOAASatellites’ #GOESEast. Shout out to @hellodotfirst, loved watching this on my desktop with your app Downlink!
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Dear Democrats: @POTUS was credibly accused of rape last week. His administration thinks children in cages don’t deserve toothpaste or soap. If you watch tonight’s debate and think anything other than “literally any of these candidates are fine,” what the fuck is wrong with you?
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If you didn’t vote for the Democrat in 2016, congratulations! This is your fault.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-need-to-prepare-for-a-complete-reversal-of-the-role-the-supreme-court-plays-in-our-lives/2019/06/11/b492d894-8c5b-11e9-adf3-f70f78c156e8_story.html(original)
The labs at #wwdc are amazing. So far I’ve been to 3 watchOS labs. All my questions have been answered and all my problems have been solved. I even got to speak with one of the engineers who wrote the actual Apple Watch calendar app. In short, Better Day 6 is going to be bananas.
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Replying to @the_byrdman
I want to! But need to tweak it one more time; designed it for an older GPS module that’s no longer available, would want to update it to work with the new one that has a different pinout.
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Mad scientist May continues with the Hiking Log v2 board! Last year I built a contraption (2nd photo), a Feather with GPS and a temperature sensor to log weather on my treks. Updating it this year with better sensors and onboard microSD, on a custom purple #pcb from @oshpark.
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Measure twice, strike once. A couple of weeks ago I mocked up some enamel pins for my side project app Better Day (left); they just arrived (right), courtesy of @madebycooper. Hit me up if you’re gonna be at #wwdc; I have a couple hundred to give away. https://www.betterday.app
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Replying to @josecastillo
I’m no aviation expert, but I do design things. Look at these side by side. An engineer was tasked with changing this design — one that’s at the heart of the two #737MAX crashes — from one that offered more granular control and more information, to one that offered less of both.
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This story is wild. Where the 737 had two switches with different functions related to runaway trim cutout (disable autopilot / disable all electric stabilizer controls), the #737MAX replaced them with two switches that do both things (primary / backup). https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-altered-key-switches-in-737-max-cockpit-limiting-ability-to-shut-off-mcas/
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Replying to @audreydodgen
I’m more annoyed that Jamie just negated 71 episodes of character development in like 7 seconds of loading up a horse.
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Replying to @FriendlyWire and @adafruit
The plan is to stick to plain text, perhaps Markdown later. I’ve been working on a fork of Adafruit-GFX that can display all of Unicode Plane 0 for multilingual support: https://github.com/joeycastillo/Adafruit-GFX-Library
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Replying to @NoManJourney
Not joysticks, just buttons; the rubber nub gives them a cushiony feeling, but they just go on and off. https://www.adafruit.com/product/3101
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Replying to @josecastillo
After a night of coding and 3D printing, this DIY ebook idea is starting to take shape! Shout out to @adafruit; eInk breakout friend with the assist: https://www.adafruit.com/product/4224
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