Welcome to Making Stuff with Chris DeHut, my unique corner of the web.
Follow along as I explore a variety of subject matters and share those experiences with anyone wanting to watch and listen. Some videos are highly detailed, step-by-step videos such as the woodworking content. Other videos are very focused single subject videos explaining a concept, feature, or technique.
As is typical with most makers, the subject matter will be very diverse and there should be something for just about anyone interested in making things and learning.
Videos are posted at a rate of about 1 per week, usually on Friday.
This is the link to the companion site where you can find links to all the videos. makingstuffwithchrisdehut.com/
All information contained on this channel and on the associated companion website is without warranty, the viewer or user of this information assumes all responsibility and liability.
Just create a location class instanciate one of eac location then add or pop the class into and out of a in_use / unoccupied lists or classes , once you've popped a location out of the unoccupied list the random generator can pick one of the location objects, read its location.address and program a travel plan to suit.
I'm a beginner in electronics, and I'm trying to understand where the value 0.00005 comes from in the code for converting the ADC reading to voltage on the Raspberry Pi Pico. The calibration offset is 550mV, and I calculated the step size as 3.3V/4096 = 0.000805 and can be rounded off as 0.0008, but I still don't understand how that specific value 0.00005 was derived. Please correct me if I'm wrong and clarify this for me.
Good morning robingeorge6672, While reading your question I recalled that .00005 value used as a constant. I looked at the source code to confirm, then I looked through my notes for that story. I cannot recall anything to indicate why that value was used. What is even more concerning is how I got correct temperature readings with that value. The difference between .00008 and .00005 would have a very large impact (13.4 C) on the output. Thank you for bringing that to my attention! I will have to update the source code and retest the results in an actual circuit. THANK YOU! Cheers! Chris
Thanks for the feedback and kind words!! BASSWOOD is the goto carving wood. Cuts easily and has clear and straight grain. Walnut is another wood that carves nicely but is usually more expensive. Cheers! Chris
Unfortunately it is pretty hard to diagnose a problem when the only thing you are provided is the symptom you experience. Check your wiring (most often the problem). Check your connection to PICO (easy to miscount pin numbers) Sensor could be bad (depending on source, frequent cause) If you typed in the code, double check it ( very frequently the cause) Certainly possible, something is wrong in the code I posted. Chris
Glad you liked it. There is 2 mb of flash memory but that is also used to hold you programs, and the information you installed with the UF2 file. If you need a lot of storage - check out my other video on how to use an SD card with the PICO - you can store a LOT MORE data with that. Cheers! Chris
Question: (I am a beginner when it comes to this stuff so bare with me if my question has a super simple answer.) If the switch you used is rated for 10A 660V how were you able to power the switch through the pico? Was it simply because the Switch only needed the Volts and Amps needed to power the LED? I thought the component has to match the out voltage of the controller? If so, does this mean I can buy a 16v switch and use it as long as the application I plan to use it with doesn't output more than 5V?
Good morning himes1821, Electrical and electronics is a complex playground. Switches are rated for how much Voltage and Current they can safely switch on and off. That is their MAXIMUM rating. They can also switch on and off the lowest of voltages and currents. To further explain, purchase a switch rated for at least the voltage and current you plan to control (switch), it will be fine for everything below that as well. I hope that helps, Cheers! Chris
Hi Chris, my script starts with "from machine import Pin, Timer". When I try to debug, the first thing Ï get is an error: "machine not found". My Pico is engaged. What can I do? Regards, Rob
Good morning Robavhtube I never recall experiencing that so I asked Google and found some answers but they varied greatly. Unfortunately I don't have an answer at the moment to offer. When I get in the workshop this weekend if I have time I will try a few things that I think could cause that and if I find anything I will share it. Cheers! Chris
Do you have a link to the fans? Im interested in getting an inline fan that can work safely with solvents. Do these fans work ok with these paints and their flammability? Thanks for the video and love the filter magnets. Im going to utilise that with my filter changes. I plan to use extra inkine filters to remove the smell. Thanks again
Good morning HomeWithDrew, The booth was intended for use with non-flammable paints (wood construction, plastic components etc.) and the fans, while being brushless are not rated as Explosion Proof. Those fans can easily cost hundreds of dollars or more. This is a link to the Amazon store that sells the fans I used. They have more choices today that might be suitable for your needs. www.amazon.com/stores/ACInfinity/page/16FAF5B9-1BA1-499D-AC31-B85736AF165C?ref_=ast_bln&store_ref=bl_ast_dp_brandLogo_sto Cheers! Chris
Good morning Andrewneering, It would be fun if I could, unfortunately, time is not something I have a lot of. Between: life, RU-vid, and my real job, I have so little time left. For my real job (CNC Applications Engineer) I often work in that area (lot's of industry around the airport). If I ever have time while in the area, I wouldn't mind stopping in to see what you got going though. Cheers Chris
Good morning abdulrahmanbadran7849, There is no probe in the spindle, can you be a little more specific? I suspect you are referring to how the tool length is measured. The metal block that the tool touches is wired to the control and acts as a switch to ground. The metal block has a spring-loaded top so that it moves a little and doesn't break the tool upon contact. The metal block is also electrically isolated from the machine whereas the tool is not and is essentially a path to ground for the electrical signal. Hope that helps Cheers! Chris
I only watched the intro to this so far.... But i haven't MUX'ed a uC since the days of shared address & data busses! Wow. (We're prolly same age, so I KNOW your remember that!) 🤪 But i like that it has an I2C interface! 👍👍
Nice job getting me started with graphics on the Pico! Well explained. It'll be at least a week before I actually get to programming, but now I know the steps involved, so thanks a big bunch o' somethin'. (Whatever ya like!) 'scribed! 👍👍 I'll be watching for more!
Good morning jeffro, Glad I could help and thanks for the kind words, much appreciated. Have fun with your project and keep us updated on the progress. Cheers! Chris
As CPU clock speed increases, debouncing gets harder. Imagine an infinitely fast clock, and this method breaks down. The only way to guarentee the position of a switch is to wait for it to settle down (10 milliseconds or so) or to sample its state multiple times (counting those samples) until you are statistically satisfied.
Good morning davidgari3240, Thanks for sharing that great information! Everyone will do battle with switch bounce and every bit of information helps. Cheers! Chris
Good morning c0zn1c, The A3144 is primarily a digital switch meaning it is either ON or OFF and it is an open collector signal thus not suitable for providing an analog signal. Out of curiosity, I just wired one up to see if there was any small transitional range you could use but did not see anything I would consider useful. Cheers! Chris
Hi Chris! Thanks so much for making this! I was wondering for a complete newbie how one might stream video like an mp4 to a display like this? Thank you!
Good morning owlytv , Being that it is a SPI interface I am not sure if that can handle the amount of data to display video. I have never looked into it but there are certainly some very clever programmers that may have been able to make that happen. As a side note, the Mini Cooper now uses a large, round display for their dashboard, I love the looks of that. Cheers! Chris
Oh boy,those hard drives bring back memories - my first job was as a computer operator & the night shift we'd do backups onto those, ch aging them over when we filled their 10MB! The next shift would have to load them into a car to take to the off-site storage. Those were the days!
Good morning slinco65 , Thanks for sharing that experience. Isn't that crazy - backing up on to those massive drives to store only 10MB. Further, being only 10MB having to haul those monsters out to the car and driving them to offsite! That little amount of data can be backed up in an email and sent to myself! Cheers! Chris
Sadly a long way to come for the show. However we have a number of museums dedicated to the history of computing here in the UK. My favourite is the The National Museum of Computing which is housed at Bletchley Park, site of the Colossus computer and code breakers from WW2.
Good morning Peter, I agree, that would be a very long travel for one of these events. With the rich history of computing in the UK, I would expect something like that might exist, if not maybe a group can start something. The big difference is the awesome interaction with the people that used them or collect them and the sharing of their experiences and wisdom. Cheers! Chris
Thanks for showing off my early "Laptops" that I brought to VCF Midwest! I also had a great time at the show, so many interesting conversations talking about computing in years past.
Good morning SteveMaves, How awesome those are your laptops! Thanks for sharing that information and thanks for being part of that great "festival". Am I correct in assuming all the exhibitors their share a tremendous passion for sharing their wisdom about the early years? Cheers, and thanks for posting! Chris
Good morning gordonw9208, Thanks! It has been a lot of work and right now it is very overwhelming. There is so much to do all at once but we are very close (about 6-8 weeks) from starting some experiments running a single Zoomie or perhaps a couple. Cheers! Chris
Good morning RCWalletVacuum, I am glad you enjoyed that. I figured there is a lot of people that have never been to one of these events and they would love to see this stuff. Try to make time next year if there is one in your area. Cheers! Chris
Good morning oraflores, Glad you enjoyed the "trip" with me on this one. I really wanted to just have a full day of nerding out there but my back had other plans that day. Next year I shall try again and I may try to do some indepth stories - there is an insane amount of wisdom at that show! Be sure to mark your schedule for next year Cheers! Chris
I remember those 14" 10MB Drives, with WAAAY to many TTL Chips! In 1976, I DIDN'T want a game machine, so I chose the Heathkit H-8! They were the only 2.
Hello tubeDude48 ! Those 14" drives are BEASTS! I really wanted to take that one home but simply don't have room for much more stuff. A Heathkit H-8!!!!! That was an amazing piece of kit. Cheers Chris
Hi. just received my set to upgrade my hobby cnc. in configuring those switches in the stepper drives, I'm in quandary as to what to use - FOC or PWM? Hope you can enlighten me.
Hello mariomanus3176, It would help if you could provide me with some more information about your setup. Most probably, you will not use PWM though. Cheers Chris
@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Thank you for the response Chris. First off, I'm just a hobbyist with no engineering background. On the process of upgrading my open loop diy CNC based on a Chinese 3018 with nema17 drivers to close loop. Ordered a set of 4 nema23 stepper motor and HBS57H drivers. The manuals I found online for the drivers were not that complete on how to set up its switches. Also tried looking for information at forums but still skeptical with what Im doing.
@@mariomanus3176 I am not familiar with that software and controller, but it sure sounds like it should be configured for Step & direction outputs and therefore your stepper drive would need to be set the same way.
A walk down "Memory Lane", first laptop I purchased was the Sinclair 1000. Interesting video!!! My wife walked past and I said all these people are suffering from "Lack of Youth" no young people there. Are those Peltier devices on the table in back of you? Just wondering
Good morning donaldhoudek2889 , Isn't that cool! I never recall seeing a Sinclair 1000 laptop -a British only system perhaps? Or are you referring to the Timex Sinclair 1000 (of which I have one hanging on the wall of cool stuff I use as the background in my more current videos)? Yes, very much a "lack of youth" event - I didn't feel old at all there! Peltier devices? Could you be more specific? Cheers! Chris
Hello nigelworwood8530, It sure is a trip to see all that old hardware for both the consumer and business markets. It amazes me the evolution of computing, how much changed and seeing it all at one time, sort of like a time travel machine. Cheers! Chris
Hi Lee, Yeah, I should have mentioned that to you but I had forgotten about it myself until the day before the show. Be sure to check it out next year! Cheers! Chris
Good morning ppatrickd799 , Unfortunately, the design is really custom to the component you want to store. Being that they are simply square or rectangle, it should be pretty easy to design your own with most any CAD system. Cheers! Chris
Important video, made the same experience. Sadly in Germany Ardafruit retailer's are scarce and overpriced and or unreliable (one piece 18€ or straight out not delivering and scamming you). One is better off buying some PS5 Hall Sensor analgogue stick replacements on ebay for 8€ and soldering those to pcbs harvestet from cheap ones.
Hello RTSFan1337, Thanks for sharing your experience. It is unfortunate there is so much garbage being sold like this so bringing awareness to the problem may help save someone the same frustration. Chris
In your example you have a 'while True' loop that only has a very short delay of .0001 seconds. This delay is very important due to the way that interrupts work in MicroPython. Under the hood there is a two stage process: when a pin change is detected an internal interrupt handler sets a flag. A scheduler will see this flag and call the users interrupt handler. Without the short delay in the 'while True' loop, a 'busy loop' is created that never gives the scheduler a chance to run and the users handler will not be called. To let the scheduler run, loops should have a call to utime.sleep() or machine.idle(). I discovered this the hard way!
You are correct, it is always a good idea to have some sort of delay in a loop. It appears to be more of a problem in Python that in any other language I have programmed in. Thanks for sharing your experience. Cheers! Chris
Greetings, Thank you very much for the video! It is very helpful! I would appreciate if I could ask you for a quick clarification. I am planning a small project: I want to attach a high-accuracy temperature and humidity sensor to RPi Pico and record measurements into an microSD card. The SD card will be connected via SPI interface, and the sensor needs to be connected via I2C bus. My question is about power: I will provide power to the SD card adaptor by connecting to PIN40: VBUS and I will provide power to I2C by connecting to PIN36: 3V3. Is my thinking correct? Thank you!
Good morning! PIN 40 VBUS will have 5V at it from the USB supply, I am not sure of how much current is available but suspect it would be enough to power and SD card device. PIN 36 3V3 can provide 3.3V at 300 mA which also should be enough to power your sensor. I am guessing at this because I have no idea what specific devices it is you are using. Sorry I can't be more specific. Cheers! Chris
@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Good evening! Thank you for the response. Much appreciated! I am using Grove - I2C High Accuracy Temperature and Humidity Sensor (SHT35). For some reason it took me a long time to find the microPython library for this sensor! The datasheet states that "the sensor operates on a wide supply voltage range of 2.15 V to 5.5 V, making it compatible with a variety of assemblies". For some reason I thought that I need to provide 3.3V to both the microSD card and the sensor. For the microSD card I will use the same setup as you demonstrated in the video. Thank you!
Chris, this is the best explanation of the reasoning behind using a frequency of 1000 Hz that I have found. Thanks for explaining why almost all the PWM coding I have seen uses 1000 Hz.
Good morning Peter! Thanks for the offer of help. Depending on how this next couple of weeks go, will help me decide how much help I need. With all the development, debugging, and changes happening right now, it is very hard to see what is around the corner. At present, I am still fighting what are problems with localisation that are seemingly impossible to fix - it is like playing the "whack-a-mole" game. Thanks very much for offering a helping hand and I will keep you posted. Cheers Chris
Rightfully so! There are so many different combinations of "relay modules" out there that it is very difficult to determine if one will work over the other just by their description. Especially all the cheap varieties found on Aliexpress and Amazon. At issue is two things: Voltage and Current draw. While the voltage may be 3.3 volts, it may require .25 amps (250 mAmps) which the PICO cannot supply. Some modules provide a connection for the external power source. From the PICO you are only supplying the Logic signal (ON or OFF), which then controls a "power switch" for the external power to control the coil. My suggestion is to buy from a reputable supplier (Sparkfun, Adafruit, Digikey, Mouser, etc.) and review their documentation. Cheers! Chris
Aside from a website like Digikey or Mouser, I am not aware of any such "catalog". One thing is for certain though - THERE ARE A LOT OF ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS!!!!! Cheers! Chris
Hey Chris ... so you are going to programm each and every route by hand??? But that's what Dijkstra's Algorithm (also known as A-Star or A* Algorithm) is for. You just need to setup the roads and "costs" once and thats it. It can calculate ANY route in zoomtown - no need to program all of them by hand. Another benefit: if you "close down" a road for maintenance reason, all handmade routes will fail but the algorithm still works and finds the 2nd best route (avoiding the closed down road of the best route). I am pretty sure there are ready-to-use versions of Dijkstra's for python.
the setup will need 1. all the "knots" (=points where you have several possible ways to go). a knot would be each parking lot and each crossing 2. for each knot it needs the "neighbours" = other knots that could be reached from the current knot. note: knot a could lead to knot b but knot b NOT to knot a -> one-way-road 3. for each neighbour it needs the "cost" of travelling. this is usually the distance between the two knots multiplied with a factor (which could be < 1 for the roads AROUND the city and > 1 for those THROUGH the city ... or all have factor 1 the use the shortest way regardless where it goes along) So the workload for setup is not too big (especially since zoomtown is very symmetric). For sure less work and more flexible than hard-coding all routes :) If I counted correctly, zoomtown has 52 knots and each knots leads to 1-3 other knots, most of them with same cost as many others due to the symmetry.
Good morning Tomek! I actually had written the software originally to use Dijkstra's algorithm and only decided to not use it recently. These algorithms all work on the principle of "Shortest Path" which is great for shipping, and even for navigation for non-commercial vehicles. However, even navigation systems have options to choose from Shortest Path or No Highways, or Use Highways. The reason I decided against using it was specifically "Shortest Path" as that would direct ALL traffic through the "city center" creating a LOT more traffic in that area. ZoomTown was designed with the outer bypass "highway" to alleviate congestion in the center areas. To make the traffic flow more "natural" I decided against those routines in hopes that a human "most likely me" will be able to add randomness to the flow of traffic, thus mimicking how people actually drive. Once the trips are created, they are saved so it is essentially a one-and-done process. During the last week or so I have been able to get all the marker tape on the guidelines, and get all the magnets into the roads and get all the parking barriers back up again. Yesterday morning I started to expand all my trip testing beyond the area seen in last weeks video. So far it is working pretty good. Programming each trip to test takes about 15 seconds, with the primitive graphic simulation so it isn't that difficult of a task either. I was hoping to take of the USB cable this weekend as there is very little interaction I have with the Zoomie anymore. Once I do that, testing gets easier as I won't need to make sure the cable doesn't snag on something. As Steve Woodgate mentioned regarding the QR sensor, perhaps for ZoomTown version 2, this could be yet a follow on experiment. There are different algorithms that all accomplish the same result (get from A to B) but they do it differently. You also indicated that there is a means of adding "weight" to one road over another, that would be interesting to see as well. We could be having a lot more fun with this well beyond the original experiment :-) Cheers! Chris
@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut do you still have the code for your Dijkstra's adaptation? I guess you used the knot-to-knot distance to have it calculate the best route? Then please try increasing these values for the inner-city-ways drastically (say multiply by 100 or so ... we pretend these road segments to be longer than they really are so they get a lot more unattractive for Dijkstra). In that case these roads will only be used if *no other possibilty* is found (e.g. if you want to reach a parking lot in the city you have to go to the city, it's not possible without) ...
@@tomek3633 Darn it, I hit the wrong button and just deleted my response... You described the routine in a way that I had not heard (seen) before and I just realized the power of this routine. I am really tired right now after working in a very hot customer shop today (100 degrees F). I will respond with a email message tomorrow morning. This is spawning a whole new idea that will be AWESOME - I think. Cheers! Chris
