s0 @s0@cathode.church

It's been a bit of time, but I finally designed & routed the PCB for the control module of the #HapticHeadband project! I still need to confirm and order parts but then I should be ready to order PCBs for both and get to assembling and programming.
I've placed all components only on the top to allow for fitting a lithium cell behind it, and placed 2 battery connectors in parallel to allow for a cell either side if that fits better on the headband. #tinkering

Freelance project I’m working on atm is an installation piece with 3 huge bare LCD panels suspended in a space and lit from behind, showing a constantly changing NN-generated animation of stained glass windows with live composed music. It’s one of the more original and interesting projects I’ve worked on.
Here you can see one of the panels displaying video over the fibre HDMI link and custom power harness I’ve designed. #tinkering

Local Australian raven had a bath in the fountain and is grooming themself in the tree here.
I love watching birds

Lighting designing again

It is a most beautiful 14°C sunny autumn day in Sydney. I only wish I hadn’t forgotten a scarf and my sunglasses. Much sneezing.
[image cw for eye contact]

New work toy arrived heck yeck

What a sky to catch on the way out of work.

Comrade’s shiny new touchscreen is going great! #tinkering

Finally got my trans flag patch sewn on my backpack, yay!

Comrade the 3D printer has a new 7” touchscreen to control it via KlipperScreen. It’s a great project, I can definitely recommend! More functionality than I expected built in to the interface. Printed a little bracket with magnets to mount it over the stock touchscreen which doesn’t work under klipper.
#tinkering

and some pretty board renders!
The two mid holes are for mounting -- might be a press stud or sewn on. The two holes lower down are to anchor a tiny flexible bracket to hold the vibration motor.

Tonight's work -- minimal changes to schematic, just repurposed the unused opamp as a buffer for the 1.25V reference, thanks to @RileyStarlight.
Got it all routed without much difficulty -- 4 layers really is nice! One lovely untouched ground plane and 3 signal layers. #HapticHeadband #tinkering

Progress is being made on the #HapticHeadband. Spent several hours researching, simulating, checking and tweaking the analogue section. Thanks a bunch to all the fedi pals who had great advice for me.
Had to add several passives to hopefully make it work right, but managed to still squeeze them all in on the 25*30mm PCB. Tomorrow I might make a first pass on routing...
#tinkering

What could it be??? Apart from a rats' nest...
( @starless you may be interested for 100% coincidental reasons...) #tinkering

Electronics pals! Care to help me a bit with analogue fun?
I'm trying to make an amplifier for an electret mic, to measure 'loudness' with a 12-bit MCU ADC. I'm using a 2.5V rail, with low voltage op amp MCP6001R. In theory (and from what I could test with Spice) this should work -- but I'm not really sure what levels to expect out of the electret. Is this 5x gain ok do you think? I'll probably populate a 100k pot on prototype PCB.
Otherwise, does it look ok? I only need 10-100hz sample rate, but ideally fairly accurate/low-ish noise. Will the diode screw me completely at low values? If so, how best to take an 'absolute value' with decent accuracy but low sample rate?

So I went to the Asian grocery, and bought a packet ramen of a kind I’d never seen before out of curiosity. When I opened it I was confused to find this packet with a bunch of scary warnings… turns out it’s one you can use with only access to cold water, like an MRE?! You arrange a little double-boiler with the packaging and put water on the mysterious exothermic sachet to heat it up… weird!

@futzle @virtualwolf @stibbons new toaster installed. Will update with post-toast review later

Installed and already nearly full… well, it’s working! #tinkering

Tonight’s makerspace project: a rack to store spray cans in. Currently they’re sort of tossed in a box and I’m sick of it. This is designed to fit perfectly under my ikea Bror bench.
#tinkering