chris_gammell

chris_gammell, 26 days ago to random

Expanding on a former wacky idea: I used to have metal shelves on my desktop in my apartment in Chicago, but they suffered from being mounted to a flimsy Ikea table. What if I mounted it to my sturdy as heck Husky rolling workbenches? Would need to be between 52 and 72 inches (shown is 60) and then I drill through the tabletop and mount with bolts that match the threads that the feet normally screw into. Don't plan to move the bench much, plus the weight of stuff on top helps hold it in place.

chris_gammell, 1 month ago to random

Held a meetup tonight where I wasn't sure if anyone was going to show up and 3 others did! Also I forgot that a smaller meetup group is sometimes allows for more in-depth conversations. Just like the old days of setting up meetups. Worked out pretty well in the end.

chris_gammell, 1 month ago to random

I know the answer is "whenever the power company says is cheapest", but from a mental model perspective: is it better to plug in the car to charge on a sunny day where solar is generating excess capacity (on other roofs, not mine)...or better when the overall grid utilization is low, like in the middle of the night?

chris_gammell, 1 month ago to random

Uh, maybe I will be careful around the buttons on this board

chris_gammell, 1 month ago to random

This first week back of TAH, we talked trade shows (#ew24), demos, light up hardware, bluetooth, obsolete processors, sustaining engineering, and more

https://theamphour.com/665-really-long-needle-nose-pliers/

chris_gammell, 1 month ago to random

Oh right, Mastodon

chris_gammell, 2 months ago to random

Just found the "subtractive loft" feature in FreeCAD, and that just made my models significantly less sucky.

chris_gammell, 2 months ago to random

I got a new car! It's an EV and we discussed that and many other battery items on The Amp Hour this week: https://theamphour.com/662-the-non-stinky-car/

chris_gammell, 3 months ago to random

I have been following Pallav Aggarwal's blog since I noticed his posts on the #ch32v003. But I have really enjoyed seeing all the other content on there as well! This week, Pallav joined me on The Amp Hour to talk about #embeddedsystems and consulting on a variety of different projects. It's clear that his passion for technology and sharing his progress has carried him to the point he's at today, and we all get to follow along on his journey!

https://theamphour.com/661-blogging-electronics-with-pallav-aggarwal/

chris_gammell, 3 months ago to random

Alas, the smarthome was not all it was cracked up to be

https://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-660-my-toothbrush-is-broadcasting/

chris_gammell, 3 months ago to random

If I had to summarize my home automation exploration so far, it would be me sitting in a car waiting for my phone to connect to my home Wi-Fi so I can try out pressing the button on Home assistant that triggers the bot that pushes the garage door opener inside my garage

... And absolutely refusing to go get a garage door opener for inside the car

chris_gammell, 3 months ago to random

Got the rv003usb library building and working on my custom #ch32v003 board. Feels like magic. I haven't done much on boards for USB in the past, it's usually "follow the app note, use controlled impedance traces, hope the interface comes up, hand it to fw engineer."

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

Got my #ch32v003 starter boards up and working and communicating with one another. Pasted together some of the samples from the ch32v003fun library to try out GPIO, the included SPI based nRF24 library, and the I2C based OLED (ssd1306) output.

Library: https://github.com/cnlohr/ch32v003fun

Two custom circuit boards communicating over a 2.4G link

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

This week on The Amp Hour we discussed relativistic time differences, building with #riscv components (the #ch32v003), RF modules (#nrf24), silly consumer hardware, underwater electronics, and more!

https://theamphour.com/658-uncle-als-eating-garbage-again/

AI is so useful to have let me generate this groundbreaking image. Thanks Midjourney.

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to SmartHome

Despite working in the electronics field, I never really got into #smarthome stuff. But lately I have been trying out #homeassistant and was excited that a friend from Chicago Meetups, @kbx81, has been working at #NabuCasa on the #esphome project.

https://theamphour.com/657-automating-the-home-with-keith-burzinski/

I spoke with Keith about how to get started as a beginner in the field, but then also how to put some custom electronics to work in a #homeautomation context. I was impressed with how fast I could add a #zigbee device to my HA

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

Welp, I shipped the an old address (apparently JLC has a 'default' address, which I didn't think I had chosen, but must have). Despite DHL saying I successfully re-routed, the box of PCBs is on a truck in Chicago, apparently.

What's going to be faster: the package being redirected from the logistics company...or re-ordering the board, including waiting out CNY? Sadly my money is always on the latter.

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

After stubbornly maintaining postfix mail relays/forwarding for many of my domains, I decided to stop the practice. I just am not good at it and I have lost a lot of comms over the years, including occasional business correspondence (that was the first thing that moved me off this system)

Interestingly, now I'm getting emails from lists I must have been on and soft bouncing for the past few years that I completely forgot about.

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

If I follow a hashtag, does it show me all occurrences across the fediverse? Or just my local? Sometimes feels like I don't see much on tags I follow, but maybe I just follow unpopular things...

chris_gammell, 4 months ago to random

Because I've been working on my habit of a daily journal, a future person (probably me) will one day be able to read about my deep, important goings-on in my life, such as the delicious falafel wrap I had today.

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

Here's me talking manufacturing for a half hour about #golioth hardware with Brenden from #Macrofab. If I had to sum it up: Brenden wants you (ok, me) to use more test points on PCBs. They're free, after all!

https://blog.golioth.io/iot-product-manufacturing-with-golioth-and-macrofab/

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

Uh oh, Chris talking about firmware?? Well I discuss and use #zephyrrtos often for my own projects and for work I do at #Golioth. So this week I asked @kartben developer advocate at Zephyr, to join me on The Amp Hour.

https://theamphour.com/653-benjamin-cabe-nose-zephyr/

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

Got back to releasing a regular episode of The Amp Hour this week...oh yeah, because there's a new baby in my house! I suppose that's news!

We discussed things like semiconductor vendors new oversupply problem, Dr Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale in The Big Short) shorting the semiconductor industry, China cutting of Germanium and Gallium exports (?!), RISC V in various areas, and a lot more!

https://theamphour.com/652-for-a-couple-weeks-there/

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

Yeah, I guess you could say I'm an expert at 3D printing...

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

I always talk about how I love how the holiday period is a great time to clear out the office/lab...and yet I just found a Raspberry Pi 1A in my bin here. Gotta buckle down this year and really get rid of the old stuff.

chris_gammell, 6 months ago to random

How can you educate people from embedded chips, all the way up to massive server racks? If you're @geerlingguy, you do it with kindness and curiosity. I have really enjoyed Jeff's videos! Especially impressed with how he can condense bulky technical topics into consumable content:

https://theamphour.com/651-learning-computing-with-jeff-geerling/