@jo@macaw.social
@jo@macaw.social avatar

jo

@jo@macaw.social

Doing silly things with & to hard- and software.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

stfn, to RaspberryPi
@stfn@fosstodon.org avatar

New blog post!

This one took weeks to write. It's about me finding a way to significantly reduce the power consumption of a Raspberry Pi Pico W working as a weather station, collecting environmental data.

I am also writing about powering the Pico using solar panels, and this time it's a success, my weather station can now run indefinitely, powered by the sun!

https://stfn.pl/blog/34-pico-power-consumption-solar-panels/

#RaspberryPi #RaspberryPiPico #Solar #offgrid

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@stfn Nice!

I had a similar project: https://macaw.social/@jo/109841115289284814

I found deepsleep to not work reliably. Program code got corrupted with it. I think I pushed it to max power saving at <3mA idle/lightsleep, with a lot of clock tweaking etc.

In hindsight I'd say 2W solar & 600mAh was prob on the low end of feasible :D

jo, to Steamdeck
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Got myself a . It's a lot bigger than I expect.
But maybe not big enough, I have huge hands and its controllers just about fit but sometimes feel too small.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@WagesOf my hands. bigger controller bits would fit better into my hands. less crampy.

andypiper, to random
@andypiper@macaw.social avatar

Nice review of the by @biglesp over at Tom’s Hardware. (It’s a shame the Pimoroni folks don’t seem to have a Fediverse presence, unless I’ve missed it). PicoVision is a lot of fun, easy to get started coding for, but lots of capabilities that can be explored with more low-level code. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pimoroni-picovision

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@andypiper @biglesp I was thinking of creating a DIY version of this (just stack 2) when I attempted to port Quake to the . But I wouldn't have connected the "GPU" with I2C...

SecureOwl, to animals

Bailey is wondering if you’re authorised to handle the Docusign or if she needs to send it to someone else.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@SecureOwl authorisation by cookies (Bailey can have one, got plenty)

tagesschau, to random German
@tagesschau@ard.social avatar

Bisher nur ein Drittel aus Bundeswehr-Sondervermögen verplant

100 Milliarden Euro für die Bundeswehr - für diese Ankündigung bekam die Ampel viel Applaus. Doch bisher ist nur ein Bruchteil der Mittel abgeflossen, wie Zahlen aus dem Verteidigungsministerium zeigen. Von Mario Kubina.

➡️ https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/bundeswehr-sondervermoegen-114.html?at_medium=mastodon&at_campaign=tagesschau.de

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@tagesschau "abgeflossen" ist genau das richtige Wort...

jo, to random
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Waiting very patiently for my ...

So patient... I've never been more patient!!1! Whaaaaa come on already!!

andypiper, to Electronics
@andypiper@macaw.social avatar

Why yes, I did pay extra for the "pancake packaging" for my project board, thanks seller 🤦🏻

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@andypiper packed flat... 😱

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I've got this theory recently that the settings of most games can be categorized as either "good place were bad things sometimes happen" or "bad place where bad things happen".

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@aeva I (mis)undestood "settings of most games" to mean the Options menu.
For which that categorisation still works lol

grumpygamer, to random
@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

When I started making games I used a .txt file as a todo list, then I moved to Trello, after that I used Notion and now I'm back to .txt files. I crave simplicity.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@eniko @grumpygamer For a while I've tried the Notes app in Win10. But it's utterly unreliable, worst garbage ever.
Switched back to .txt file and Notepad.

tagesschau, to random German
@tagesschau@ard.social avatar

Merz' Kampfansage an die Grünen

CDU-Chef Merz will die politische Auseinandersetzung mit den Grünen verstärken. Sie seien die Hauptgegner in der Bundesregierung. Klare Kante gegen die Grünen - das dürfte nicht allen in der Partei gefallen.

➡️ https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-100.html?at_medium=mastodon&at_campaign=tagesschau.de

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@tagesschau Was fuer ein Schwachkopf, dieser Merz. Wie kommen bloss solche unqualifizierten Politiker ins Amt???

jo, to random
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Trying to get this OmniVision camera module to work is such a pain in the ass.
Documentation is of course piss-poor: only half the registers are mentioned in the docs, and of that another half is just "debug mode".
So I'm wasting my days on reverse engineering other's code to figure out how this thing works.

Edit: this thing https://thepihut.com/products/adafruit-ov5640-camera-breakout-120-degree-lens

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Got lotsa vsyncs and hsync IRQs out of this now at least.
On to figuring out what the actual data layout is...

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Ooof wasted 2 days on a really embarrassing mistake:
To talk to the camera, you send commands over I2C. Looks like this:
uint16_t cmds[] = {...stuff...};
sendcmds(count_of(cmds), &cmds[0]);

But I had sizeof(cmds) instead.
No wonder this thing was misbehaving: half of all the transfers were garbage.

(Another lesson in API design...)

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

On to reverse engineering the PLL that drives the system clock. 153 MHz pixel clock is a bit too high...

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Figured it out, I think. Can now set the camera's operating frequencies to something that makes sense.

Just not sure how it goes from 24 MHz chrystal to 9.6 MHz PLL multiplier. 🤷

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

I really need an oscilloscope. It's just impossible to figure out the right timing of all those clock and data signals.
Any recommendations?

(some related hashtags for viz
)

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@vsaw Pixel clock from a camera, so around 50 MHz.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Got a scope btw.
And figured out a lot of things... would have been impossible without an oscilloscope.

For starters the signal on the wire was pretty poor: the pixel clock is polluting everything. Maybe EMI? 🤷 A low-pass filter helps a lot.

Now I've figured out the vsync part of the image transmission.

On to hsync: the camera is only using 10% of the horizontal period, which causes an unnecessarily high pixel clock.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

Figured it out, i think

Now how do I actually look at the camera image?
I've tried ASCII art with colour escape codes
But the console connection is loosing bits so much that it just corrupts everything and you cannot see the image. 🙈

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

I have a PicoDV demo base lying around, with HDMI connector. This thing: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pimoroni-pico-dv-demo-base

But... I think they've wired this up all wrong! HDMI's 2-wire DDC goes into separate I2C controller. What's the point of that???
And all the other pins are scattered around with no rhyme or reason. Which makes it hard to find consecutive 8 pins for the camera data connection.

There are cuttable traces for the SD card connector. Good.
But none for the audio chip. Lame.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

I've been at this for a while...

After working around the PicoDV weirdness, streaming pixels from the camera through the into HDMI actually works really well! (Didn't expect that tbh 😆)

All would be well if it wasn't for that pesky camera and OmniVisions shitty documentation...

While the pixels come out neat and tidy, the colours are all wrong.
It's not just mixed up channel order. I've exhaustively tried all combinations.

rasterweb, to random
@rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

I wonder how reliable WiFi connections are on the Raspberry Pi Pico W. Could I set two up to talk to each other and it'll just work, even after I ship it to someone across the country? How reliable is it? Will they always see each other properly?

I haven't done much with WiFi stuff on microcontrollers, and... I know it should just work, but the real world is a harsh environment.

jo,
@jo@macaw.social avatar

@rasterweb The onboard antenna is a limiting factor, I would say. (It's convenient though.)
Pico-W on my balcony to the room adjacent to the balcony with the Wifi-AP, connection reliability is hit or miss. (The application deals with that by just trying again later.)

jo, to RaspberryPi
@jo@macaw.social avatar

My latest project: solar-powered air pollution monitor

  • Particulate sensor
  • BME688 gas sensor
  • a 2W solar cell
  • a 600mAh LiPo battery
  • charger and boost breakouts
  • a Tupperware box as the main chasis
  • and a flower pot holder as the scaffolding

image/jpeg
image/jpeg
image/jpeg

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • osvaldo12
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • mdbf
  • khanakhh
  • megavids
  • tacticalgear
  • InstantRegret
  • normalnudes
  • modclub
  • ngwrru68w68
  • everett
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • tester
  • provamag3
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •