Tweets
Replying to @SianaGearz
A piezo buzzer is, but this is technically a magnetic speaker; I had the term “buzzer” in my head because this one is really only able to produce a single tone, which feels more buzzer-like and less speaker-like.
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Replying to @josecastillo
I could address all this by moving to 0402 passives, but that conflicts with my goal of making the thing DIY’able; I remember a time I found even 0603’s unapproachable. Point is, everything’s a tradeoff.
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Replying to @josecastillo
yea wow playing with component placement and I think something’s going to have to give. Definitely no room for an RGB LED. I’m having trouble even placing the tiniest speaker I could find and finding room for anything else. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/db-unlimited/TE034003-1/12700671
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Replying to @SnepOnSecurity
Dang yeah I had a feeling that would be my answer… something in the realm of ‘you might get away with it, until you don’t’. I can probably find room for a transistor though. thank you!
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Replying to @josecastillo
One note on the speaker: I’m testing this now, and driving a tiny 17Ω buzzer with a square wave from a pair of GPIO pins, I can actually get a decent beepy 4000 Hz tone. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this? It’d definitely save me the space and expense of an audio amplifier…
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Replying to @josecastillo
• V2 will use a SAM D51 to leverage CircuitPython deep sleep
• I’m going to try to fit an I²S microphone in here
• Also a single-tone speaker
• Battery will be a tiny 301012 LiPo (easy to find on Aliexpress)
• Meant for folks to DIY; this isn’t a thing I plan to mass produce(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
As promised: design files for the first draft. Again: don’t make this; I think a version 2 will start to materialize later this week. Some notes on that in a followup tweet… https://github.com/joeycastillo/PyPen/tree/main/firstdraft/
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Replying to @asnar002
That might honestly be a bit too magic if I’m being honest. There was a Moleskine gadget that used special paper and a pen with a camera to digitize notes as you wrote them, but what I’m doing is orders of magnitude less fancy. https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/moleskine-smart-writing-set
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Replying to @josecastillo
Direct link to the post. I admit the calculator UI is a bit wacky, but it’s usable — and besides, I’m more interested in all the other things that you could do with a powerful low-power microcontroller in your pocket. This does have ML written all over it! https://blog.adafruit.com/2022/03/22/recreating-a-calculator-pen-with-samd21-and-circuitpython-josecastillo-microchipmakes/
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Replying to @EdgeImpulse
oh god ten minutes later I just got the pun!
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Thanks so much @anne_engineer and @adafruit for sharing this writeup of the PyPen! Here’s a video of the calculator in action, calculating the meaning of life and the area of a circle with radius 5 (plus a brief interlude demonstrating exception handling in response to a typo 🙂) https://twitter.com/adafruit/status/1506263940195618818
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Replying to @MakeAugusta
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RT @hackaday: Marvel at the high technology behind the humble ballpoint pen.
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/tech-hidden-in-plain-sight-the-ballpoint-pen/(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
Tried a new starting word tonight. It could have gone better. Wordle 276 5/6*
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⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟨🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩(original)
Replying to @MakeAugusta and @mLedwon
Too subtle. Maybe: https://twitter.com/TubeTimeUS/status/1473466287493844992
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Replying to @mLedwon
they’re just sitting on my application for quartermaster!
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Replying to @arturo182
I ordered them that way so that the down button would hit ‘plus’ first, then ‘minus’, etc etc. basically the up button advances through numbers and the down button through operators (though they both wrap around to each other in the end).
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Replying to @arturo182
You almost nailed it actually! The 13 is just
tap
tap
tap, tap, tap
https://gist.github.com/joeycastillo/076179b97d0784619fc125583f77f38a(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
oh my god y’all I just wrote a simple calculator app for the pen in CircuitPython and broke into the most over the top gigglefest. like I cannot explain why this is so hilarious to me but it’s been five minutes, I went to fetch my camera and I’m still laughing, it’s so ridiculous
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Replying to @kfury
SAME! I think there was only one word left for me and hard mode made me brute force it. (tho I guess I did ask for hard mode…)
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Replying to @josecastillo
“On February 27, we watched as a doctor tried to save a little girl hit by shrapnel. She died. A second child died, then a third. Ambulances stopped picking up the wounded because people couldn’t call… and they couldn’t navigate the bombed-out streets.” https://archive.ph/DAEYf
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“With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, Russian forces could do whatever they wanted. If not for us, there would be nothing. That’s why we took such risks to be able to send the world what we saw.” https://archive.ph/DAEYf
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Replying to @josecastillo
I’ll share design files for this tomorrow, with the caveat that I don’t recommend building this first draft. It won’t work on battery, and if you end up using a SAM D21, the EXTCOMIN pin isn’t sleepwalkable. Still: I’ve learned much of what I need to know for the second draft! :)
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Replying to @IcePhoenixe and @CircuitPython
of course! It’s a Sharp Memory Display, part number LS012B7DD01, available at DigiKey: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/sharp-microelectronics/LS012B7DD01/5054063
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Replying to @josecastillo
Battery clips arrived and I have to say, the one LOLworthy fail of this first draft is the piece I kind of assumed wouldn’t work anyway: there’s no room for a coin cell under the flex cable. No matter; I already sense that a lipo on top is going to be the way to power version 1.0
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Replying to @josecastillo
HUH! At the suggestion of @the_prepared colleague @whoismarkspicer, I dug out the smallest lipo I have on hand (40 mAh) and would you believe, it fits! This would be on the order of 4 hours active use, but with sleep mode it could be far longer in standby. Like months longer… 🤔
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Replying to @josecastillo
https://twitter.com/professorcraven/status/1505971202426351617
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Replying to @josecastillo
intermission, while I wait for one last part for this board. There were a lot of paper craft fit tests, both before and after I ordered this design. Even some simulated display tests — here reimagining a Sensor Watch display in extreme widescreen. Also: a bit of wasted plastic :(
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Replying to @RWB93174525 and @CircuitPython
FWIW I’m also not certain if this is the “correct” connector; I ordered it ages ago with the LCD and it’s been in my parts bin ever since. I forget how I arrived at choosing this part.
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Replying to @RWB93174525 and @CircuitPython
I used a Molex 0527460871, but I may shop around and see if there’s a compatible version with a flip lock; not a fan of the slide lock, but it does work! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/molex/0527460871/3044843
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Replying to @RWB93174525, @fast_code_r_us and @adafruit
Yep! Specifically this one. Alas, not recommended for new designs — but so slim! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/sharp-microelectronics/LS012B7DD01/5054063
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Replying to @arturo182 and @CircuitPython
that’s a great idea! I do need to figure out some things first though, like the final answer on a battery and how to make the snap fit more robust. I’m not terribly good at this part yet, but I did this to learn :)
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Replying to @josecastillo
but second and more importantly: IT WORKS! And runs Python, because that’s another joy of using the SAM D21 for prototyping: @CircuitPython always “just works”. Also, I didn’t have a name for this when I designed it; but once I realized it was going into a pen, I couldn’t resist.
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Replying to @josecastillo
y’all. great success. First off: the pen is a pen. No battery as of yet, but that’s not much weight; so far it feels balanced in the hand, and size-wise feels reasonably in line with other pens in my arsenal. (Forgive the black tape; my snap fit skills aren’t quite there yet)
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Replying to @josecastillo
Fully assembled! Well, y’know. Mostly assembled. Successfully took the bootloader too; one of the joys of using the SAM D21 is you can just pretend it’s a Metro and use @adafruit’s latest UF2 bootloader release.
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Replying to @deshipu
It’s a 32k crystal for the RTC, in case I want to do clock-oriented projects with it. I know there are a couple of internal 32k clock sources, but I sense that this will be more accurate.
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Replying to @josecastillo
cooking… (not my best solder paste job; that 8-pin connector is gonna need some rework)
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Replying to @josecastillo
what do I want? a rechargeable battery, an LED, a microphone and a speaker. I also want to use a low power SAM L22 microcontroller; alas I don’t have any of them on hand, so this first draft is also designed to work with a SAM D21 (of which I have 9 leftover from another project)
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Replying to @josecastillo
This first draft is missing a lot of features I want in the final version. It strips it down to the bare essentials: power, MCU, display. I want other stuff on here, but that’ll mean moving to 0402 parts; this version should be easier to assemble and validate some of my thinking.
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Replying to @josecastillo
if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to use this thread to unpack some of my process. Because while this may look like the gadget, it isn’t. You’ve heard the adage “plan to throw one away because you will anyhow”? Lately I tend to intentionally make a “first draft” version of things…
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Replying to @josecastillo
UPDATE: boards have arrived!
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Replying to @josecastillo
this one was harder than it had any right to be. Wordle 275 3/6*
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟨
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩(original)
Replying to @v1nc1nt
NICE!! This isn’t one of mine; you built this yourself?
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Replying to @josecastillo
*phew* Wordle 274 5/6*
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩(original)
Replying to @josecastillo
Progress! If you think about it, technically I’m only missing one piece.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Pretty good! Wordle 273 3/6*
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟩⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩(original)
OH MY GOSH THIS IS INCREDIBLE! Worldle on the Sensor Watch! The UX for this is absolutely brilliant. You make your guess and the wrong letters vanish; flashing letters are present in the word, but not in the right place, and solid letters are locked in. 🤯 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qbBpQ7b1waE&feature=youtu.be https://twitter.com/tertty2/status/1504952108856008706
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Replying to @magnetic_tape
Oh I promise, if there are delays it will only be because of supply chain stuff. Sensor Watch is my #1 priority.
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Replying to @tactiZity_
Don’t want to answer 100% until I’m out the other side of the process, but my sense so far is that it’s staggeringly reasonable. The one thing is the minimum order quantity; some manufacturers require 10000 MOQ, others will work with you at lower volume (but higher cost per unit)
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Replying to @josecastillo
The timeline: I expect to get all the “Special Edition” Sensor Watch boards shipped out by the end of this month; once those are out the door, I should have the parts in for this and the time to work on it. It’ll probably be a Tindie joint; aiming for Q2. To be continued! /thread
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