Welcome! Here, you will find my vlogs about making, fixing, or understanding technology and ways to use it in crafty / fun ways. I go over 3D printing & designing, Arduino, Raspberry Pi boards and much more... view on to explore!
I try my best to put things in an easy to understand perspective for all to learn, regardless of what background and education viewers have. My passion is helping others get into technology and learn in a stressless, fun and simple way. I dedicate my free time to study and provide quality content for you! Blog: techwithrita.com/ GitHub: github.com/techwithrita For more right-brained content, check out my creative-focused channel @CraftsWithRita !
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Don't mean to be offensive in any way to anybody, but it's so refreshing to see a lady doing this kind of work. She's admirable, great to watch at night, she's not shouty or in your face, nice and calm just how I Like it, keep up the great videos.
The PCB looks relatively simple (not a dig, just from seeing the wires), so have you thought about designing it in KiCad and getting it manufactured? There are lots of vendors like PCBWay or JLCPCB, I've used both for small projects and it cost me like $5-$10 for 5 boards about that size. KiCad definitely has a learning curve but there are tons of great tutorials on RU-vid and elsewhere on the web. Good luck either way!
Not all wires are "soldable". Some are insanely easy, some got their insolator going crazy when hot, some don't retain tin. The super flex one doesn't seem to be designed for soldering (quite hard to see through video). You learn better through "mistakes". (From that motto I would say that I know A LOT 😂)
I would have switched to a Pi Zero long ago, you can pick the first gen up for around $10, so still inexpensive. But I do understand and respect your determination. I think with the rotating assembly you are overcomplicating it with the individual ball bearings. Good Idea, but seems frustrating and messy. I would print the 2 portions to use a bearing, maybe a 608 or the sort, and have it press fit (or glue) into one piece and screw through the center with the other. it would solve the holding together and should be robust enough to support the head with a good support structure. Then find a thin sheet of just about any metal and cut your own rings; thin copper, aluminum, something you could solder to. You could probably use a flattened out soda can if you wanted to. Use anything to make a "brush" setup as a contactor (or find or buy a set of actual brushes) to ride on the rings for current transfer. I used bare copper wire and some dielectric grease in the past and it worked for as long as I needed it to. For the wiring problems, maybe try slightly bending the pins. I have had the same issues in the past and it seems to help (sometimes) with contact and secureness. And as stated before, maybe you should give some flavor of Linux a try. You could set up your Win PC to dual boot and I do find it easier for working with certain programs. You seem more than happy-ish to work in command line, so doing any advanced setup and installations would be reasonably easy. Plus there is generally someone out there who has already shared ways to solve any problems you may have, and a lot of people who would be glad to help. Most Linux people love solving problems. Oh, and you looked just fine in the video. I don't have a good side, so I never worry about it. But please watch your audio; I had to crank the volume up on everything to hear your voice! Good luck with the project, I can't wait to see the finished bear. Are you going to put him in a Big Blue House?
I have that iron you are using. I got it as an example of an inexpensive iron for a beginner that I presented in a series on beginner's equipment. Personally I think it does a great job. What do you think of it?
I think its’s great just to start with but I do wish it had a more sturdy base as it tips over often & easily, and more insulated handle bc temps past 350c make it scary / stressful and uncomfortable to hold for too long (unless you’re wearing thick insulated gloves). 😅
@@techwithrita I agree on the base. First thing I did was change mine to something a whole lot more stable. I haven't noticed it feeling hot in my hands though. I think you will get over that in time. You might consider the FNIRSI HS-01 as an upgrade. Nice videos BTW. A very fresh perspective on things. I like how you are not shy about sharing your learning experiences. 👍
13:18 you can also remove the adhesive backing on the breadboard, removing the retention bars and using pliers to squeeze/deform them so they’ll grip your jumpers better.
11:48 That’s a 3v motor. In creasing voltage won’t increase the torque much. I’ve done a “stall torque vs no-load rpm” plots and their performance is kinda crappy if you need to get meaningful work out of them without gear box. My solution to get okay torque at 120rpm out of them was to design a planetary gear box for it where the ring gear was stationary and the and the input was the sun gear. The planet carrier would rotate. At the 120rpm. Dimensionally, the gear box was about 25mm diameter and 15mm long. Anyways, it’s doable just requires extra designing
I use a dap of flux (Amtech) to touch up/reflow my solder joints to make them look better. It's a bit more work though, as I need to use isopropyl alcohol to remove any extra flux residue. However, my joints do look better, so I feel it's worth the extra effort.
The breadboards are good until the contacts start wearing out or the pins are not quite spec. Also (not applicable here) if you have digital and analog high gain amps on the same breadboard, we had problems until we just used soldered boards. On the other had I have a breadboard that I still used from college... just for low speed arduino projects now. Nice watching your progress on the Techno-Teddy. This is not a simple project, the difficult projects are always the best though. The skeletal structure for the bear will be challenging too but I think you mentioned you also 3-d print so you got it covered. Luckily, no AI on Techno-Teddy so no Megan movie here. (Lol).
Good decision soldering on a board. BTW...I worked at an electronic firm and the manager would give a verbal warning if he caught anyone prototyping on the solderless breadboards.....everyone uses them though
@@savinvera836 hmm… I wonder why though? I’m really just using it for structure / support since I have no alternatives. This pcb gives the TFT pins a sturdy and even alignment that I couldn’t achieve any other way, not that I can think of that is.
@@techwithrita At some point you might want to consider designing your own PC boards, that way you can avoid the situation you experienced here with the crowded connections.. There is a learning curve to it, but the cost is rather affordable these days with companies like PCBWay and JLCPCB that will make your boards for under $10 delivered. As for PCB design software, DipTrace has a pretty shallow learning curve and a freeware version that will work for most hobbyist needs.
I had an on board oscillator fail on my DE0-NANO right when I finally had time to try and make a gameboy advance VGA output video converter. Failure is always anticipated !
Wish I could talk with you, but since one who makes first move is taken for granted by the other one, I just surrender and let life decide with my 100 % mentally assumed probabilitty that you will reject ! I am sure you would reject the proposal ! So be it and I should just be content with just watching your video once in a while , but yet again I had a wish that I could talk with you
We're rooting for you. Trust me you are not alone. It can be SO discouraging when everything is going wrong. You just feel like at every turn you hit another wall. We hear you. Trust me it's not just you.
Btw the ESP32 shoud be easier than the pi and faster mcu to mcu .The pi is more supported but the esp is not far behind. you should be able to do much more with the ESP also so good choice. Its ok to rant I hope it gave you some room to finish . I wish i knew what exactly you are trying to accomplish.
the through hole slip ring is way over kill. Think about your neck ...you dont have that system and you work just fine. I dont think you are making a "demon" bear that needs to do a 360 rotation. As far as the microphone you can use cellphone microphone (4mmx 2.5mm x 1.5mm[h]) you only need 2# or two pairs. you basically need a comparator and the loudest sound is the direction the head turns.
as far as the bear goes...is the bear to walk? the reason I as is because you seem to be looking for a way to get your electronics mounted? hear is an idea. Use foam body and the fur is the skin. So the foam would be your structure and when everything is finished put the bear fur over it. By the way your video quality is fine
hi ..i am sorry if I am totally clueless to what your project is , RU-vid just recommended your feed . just wondering why are you using a disply for the eyes movement. I would think that mechanical eyes would be easier and more realistic. But if you insist , why not use LVGL to do this...super easy and its free.
I had problems with those jumper wires. Some of them had bad crimps and making intermittent connections. Check all of those jumper wires with ohmmeter and toss any that have intermittent connections. Not worth the trouble keeping them around. In fact I would just cut the connectors off on all of the batch that came from the same package and keep the wires if they are worth keeping i.e. if they have enough wire strands. It is hit and miss on the quality of those jumper wires depending on who makes them. I usually make my own jumper wires. Those Dupont connector shells and pins are inexpensive. There is nothing worse than troubleshooting intermittent problems due to faulty wires and switches.
I would also highly recommend VSCode with PlatformIO. I just cannot understand how people can use the Arduino IDE for more than 2 minutes. It has no completion, none of the thousands of plugins you could install, very little control over the build process… it's just extremely basic, and really not suited to do anything serious. Switching to VSCode + PlatformIO + plugins was a game changer for me, I could finally use real tools like in my actual job (many of them the same), and it just made so much more sense than using an "IDE" built for high school students - that's definitely what it feels like to me. If you switch there is a little bit of a learning curve but it's not bad at all, especially with the countless examples you can find on GitHub.
1. Stop using breadboard and those connectors, both sucks. 2. Use Linux. 3. Either solder your prototype or send the pcb to a factory and solder the components yourself.
I've found using PlatformIO with VScode is much easier to deal with and more stable than the arduino IDE once you get it set up. Especially for ESP8266 and ESP32 boards. Because you're working with libraries and some more advanced stuff I'd recommend swapping. It's not as beginner friendly but it allows you a lot more freedom and flexibility. Also, if you're only going to let the head swivel in a fixed arc you don't need the slip ring. The wires won't get twisted. If you want to let the head swivel all the way around then the slip ring is a good idea.
I use Visual Studio Code for my ESP32 projects. It's not as user friendly as Arduino IDE, but it's good to know how to use both IDEs in case something doesn't work in one of them. I think we all understand your frustration with this project as tinkerers. Looking to help where we can. Good luck with your project.
ALL the technical difficulties..😂 Never went deep enough to have to create a library, but I'm no good with C++. Better with Python Sounds interesting though! Good luck!
Hahah holy shit this is awesome, I have ADHD too and randomly just got into all this mechanical engineering stuff, so it's so great to finally watch a video from someone else that doesn't know all the terms and stuff. I was shocked when I first heard someone pronounce soldering the other week, I will forever pronounce the "l" I dont care lol
One thing I have to do in the firmware is change the maximum temperature of the hotend and the bed, in my case I need to print polyamide or pa-cf which is a high performance engineering polymer with carbon fiber, the complicated part is changing the firmware and in research I saw that the standard hotend is not suitable for this, but it supports it so I'm going to do it and my printer is in a marine compression oven and the board and filament are outside, in this case I made the modification on the ender 3-pro
@@techwithrita Hi, thanks for replying. Looks to be a good vid, but I could not make it to the end due to the musak. Personal choice I suppose. I am building a FrankinClock on ESP32. Could not decide which clock to make, so I'm doing them all :o) Have a virtual fake Casio FW91 (the most faked watch in the worked) on a tft screen, a LED matrix, a 7 x 4 segment LED and a 1.2" oled (so far :o) Problem I am running into is having different pixel size on the 2ic bus (128 x 64 and 128 x 32) and tft screens with different drivers running on the spi bus. Have not yet found an instructional of how to mix different screen size or driver. Sound module is coming next, so will randomly have cuckoo, big-ben, chimes etc :o)
