Tweets
Replying to @anne_engineer
100 duck-sized horses!
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Had a great time hanging with @dcelectr and another friend (not on twitter) in the virtual forest tonight! Admittedly there were a few technical glitches, but overall, the thing worked: connections were made; insights were shared.
I could see making a weekly thing of this.
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Replying to @josecastillo
we here!
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If anyone wants to demo the virtual forest hangout (or just say hi!) feel free to drop by. Firefox or Chrome needed. It’ll ask for mic access (no camera!) and headphones are required (you’ll give everyone echoes otherwise). If it glitches out, just reload. https://forest-hangout-public.glitch.me/
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Replying to @theavalkyrie
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Replying to @theavalkyrie
I find your work so magical and beautiful (srsly, I was reading Castor & Pollux docs last night, and it made me wish I was into synths because wow). The fact that all that magic and beauty and engineering came from your brain is 🤯. Congrats on a productive (and impressive) year!
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Replying to @cpan_pevans and @tindie
That exact thing happened to me last month in both Safari and Firefox on the Mac, and on mobile. I forget how I actually ended up setting vacation mode, but I think it involved booting up a Windows VM.
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this trend is going to end with Unilever buying an ad that’s just the word “soap”, a picture of a bar of soap and a call to action to “tweet #soap”. people will do it of course; marketing teams will co-opt dadaist absurdity, and we will be forced to invent something even stranger
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holiday vibes: january 2020 / december 2020
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Replying to @anne_engineer and @adafruit
Thanks and I definitely will, happy holidays to you too!!
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ESP32-S2 Open Book makes an appearance in Python on Microcontrollers this week; thanks @adafruit and @anne_engineer for the mention! Some really excellent projects in this edition of the newsletter. Check it out! https://twitter.com/adafruit/status/1341753186110083076
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Replying to @genuinebyte
I put some useful stuff there, mostly thoughts and notes that were too big for tweets. But in the end I think what I needed was just a blog: something I could do on my own terms, without being stuck on a treadmill of guilt over not producing enough content (especially this year).
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Replying to @genuinebyte
I actually have another battery that works with Feather headers installed, and it’s still pretty thin. I designed the keepout area with four battery options in mind, two higher capacity ones from Adafruit and two thinner ones I found on Aliexpress, accommodating both use cases :)
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“Unlaunched” my Patreon page at last, and I have to say, the whole experience made me sad. Sad I wasn’t better at it, sad to leave it behind, sad the sad finality of unlaunching; I can’t even go back to see my posts or people’s comments. Made me wish I had never signed up at all.
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RT @1lenore: So you know how they said that Thanksgiving gatherings would lead to Christmas funerals? I just heard about a Thanksgiving tra…
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My iPhone was kind enough to remind me it’s the third anniversary of NOT doing the epic hike I’ve been planning. In 2018 a government shutdown stopped me. 2019, border patrol activity. And of course 2020, generation-defining global pandemic lockdown. Same time next year, I guess?
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Replying to @pdp7 and @rabid_inventor
If there’s still room, I might try to wrap up this SAMR21 design I’ve been hacking on. I had been working in four layers, but it would be ideal as a six-layer board.
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Replying to @dcelectr
Oof, that is not great. I would love to get something working with the ED060SC4V2/GDE043A2, but they require a lot of pins, and the more complex power requirements add a lot of parts to the BOM. These simple SPI displays hit a real sweet spot in terms of price and ease of use.
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Replying to @dcelectr
Waveshare still has them, albeit at a markup. I think if I want to continue using this screen it’s going to require a bulk order from the manufacturer, Good Display; they say they can arrange production with a MOQ in the ‘several hundreds’.
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Replying to @RWB93174525
I hadn’t heard of them, thanks for the recommendation!
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Replying to @dcelectr
It’s on AliExpress, pretty large area-wise but yea, thinner than a lot of components on the board! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32927730430.html
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oh look a new battery for the Open Book S2 and it is s l i m ! Thinner even than the JST-PH ports on the side. Wouldn’t work with feather headers, unfortunately, but an option for someone who wants the thinnest possible gadget.
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Replying to @tomfleet and @oneonlygriffin
FWIW the Tibet thing was its own bill, and it passed the House earlier this year, but the Senate never took it up. I imagine a lot of these things are pet provisions for one member or another; they’re just hanging ornaments on the tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree_bill
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Replying to @josecastillo
Anyway, I know it’s glitchy and there are other tools for this, but I like the simplicity: no signup, no client, no company behind it. If you can open a browser tab, it’s there. Hope folks can make use of it this holiday season. (PS: NAF has other environments you can play with!)
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Replying to @josecastillo
Hard truth tho: I don’t know enough about web tech to move it further. I wondered if there was a way to do distance-based adaptive bitrate streaming (high quality for people who are nearby, low for the din of other partygoers), but TBH I don’t even know Javascript that well. 4/?
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Replying to @josecastillo
Live demo here; I’m around. WARNINGS: it broadcasts your mic, so be prepared. HEADPHONES REQUIRED or you’ll break the forest for everyone else. You’ll need Firefox or Chrome. And if it gets to more than about 12 people, it’ll prolly start to glitch. (3/?) https://forest-hangout-public.glitch.me/
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Replying to @josecastillo
We used this for virtual parties during the first lockdown. Mostly NAF demo code, with some tweaks to positional audio so folks could break off into clusters and have their own conversations. You can fork your own instance and use it with friends. (2/?) https://glitch.com/edit/#!/forest-hangout-public
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so here’s a side project that I never finished, but should probably throw to the world in this dark pandemic winter: the virtual forest hangout. WebRTC, networked-aframe, positional audio. Link in thread; gist is, it’s a way to hang with friends that doesn’t suck like Zoom. (1/?)
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Replying to @dronecz
AHH, never mind, got it! I don’t know what the default frequency of the S2’s I²C bus is, but when I specify 400 kHz the IO expander works. Which means MVBook works. Which means that while I need to test some more (especially with wings) this is a big step in the right direction!
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Replying to @dronecz
Probably going to play with it some more later this week. For being a full brain transplant to a new platform, I’m pretty pleased with how much works off the bat, but when things don’t work, I don’t yet have the immediate instinct for what’s wrong like I do with the SAMD book :)
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Replying to @dronecz
update: had it working with CircuitPython but weirdly my code stopped running; still investigating that. Got the language chip to burn. MVBook works (MicroSD, Babel, screen all functional), but my I²C IO expander for buttons isn’t working. Hardware seems right; could be SW issue.
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Replying to @theavalkyrie
emo bath, primal scream therapy, I think this year healthy is whatever works
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Replying to @anne_engineer
I might return to it in the new year! I started on something, but quickly realized that when it comes to RF, I’m like the dog in the meme:
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Replying to @GregDavill
It’s funny, that’s the first part I noticed when searching earlier this month, and I thought it was the exact one Adafruit was using until I saw the pin order. Tabbed between the board and the data sheet several times thinking I was taking crazy pills.
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Replying to @MakeAugusta, @digikey and @nwsayer
Wondering your thoughts on this connector — looks like the same pinout, USB 2.0 only so not too many pads, but with the through-hole posts for extra stability. Seems like with paste in hole, it could work well? https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/USB4105-GF-A/2073-USB4105-GF-ACT-ND/11198510
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Replying to @bitshiftmask and @digikey
Sure! The all surface mount one is USB4110-GF-A (I’ve tried this one, it’s in the board I’m testing right now) and the one with the through-hole posts is USB4105-GF-A. Digikey has links to SnapEDA footprints for both: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/gct/USB4110-GF-A/10384548 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/USB4105-GF-A/2073-USB4105-GF-ACT-ND/11198510
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Replying to @timonsku, @oshpark and @digikey
I also picked up one part from Digikey that was not hybrid, but entirely through-hole, although this feels… somewhat less standard.
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Wow, thank you to everyone who responded! There seems to be broad consensus that 1. through-hole style is far more durable, but 2. could make for added challenges manufacturing, although 3. it’s likely a moot point for small batch / DIY assembly. So I have an answer! Right it is. https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1340706433868939264
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Time to choose: what style of USB-C connector do I want to use? Currently using the style on the left, but also seeing the style on the right in lots of projects. Is one more durable? Making a @digikey order this week and would love to just buy a bunch of one and be done with it.
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putting the ESP32-S2 Open Book through its paces this weekend. it’s a small thing, but I’m pleased with this addition to the battery charging circuit: configurable charge rate. I’ll let the silkscreen explain.
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Replying to @kevinneubauer
This happens to me constantly when the ‘categories’ for items overlap. Like, a USB dongle could totally be lab stuff or office stuff, just depends what mood I was in when I last put it away
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epilogue, 27 days later: I found it while looking for something unrelated. now there is a new thing I cannot find. 🙃 https://twitter.com/josecastillo/status/1330602612098560000
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Replying to @ChengduLittleA
Yeah I dunno, it was this weird viral thing that was happening in my timeline late last night
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Replying to @ChengduLittleA
Apparently you just click the button? Tried it earlier with carp but deleted the tweet. I don’t pretend to understand it 🙃
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just read the instructions
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Replying to @illdred
No white smoke, though the failure mode was definitely “this smells funny” and the flex cable got warm to the touch. Thankfully my test code only brought up the power rails for a couple seconds; the screen remains functional, and I think I’ll nail it with one more board revision.
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Replying to @josecastillo
Well this was a solid, hilarious fail. Good bits: I implemented the PMIC circuit correctly! It’s generating ±15 and ±20V, which is an improvement over January. Bad bit: I wired the connector completely upside down: 15 volts going to the -15 rail, data lines all wack. Closer, tho!
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Replying to @theavalkyrie, @AliceDProjects and @oshpark
Honestly, I would second this recommendation. Got it as a ‘beginner’ scope, and it is certainly adequate for very basic situations like this, but I feel like I outgrew it pretty quickly and I’ll need to upgrade to something more real before too long.
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I’m nothing if not consistent: tonight my #digiwish from @digikey is a 1490-NRF-PPK2-ND (which seems to be selling like hotcakes — seems like every day there’s a dozen fewer in stock!)
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Tonight: assembling the final board in last week’s OSH Park order. full disclosure: I have no idea if this one is going to work. I tried to do a board like this in January and it’s hard to overstate how miserably I failed. But I’ve learned a lot since then, so, fingers crossed!
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