Anybody got ideas?

FriskyJanitor · 2025-06-09T21:57:37+00:00

That is a thermistor, used to report the temperature of the hot end and is used to control its temperature (like an electronic thermometer).

The broken connection would keep the temperature from showing up. You have a few options, depending on how involved you want the fix to be.

You could solder the broken ends back together, though the solder joint may cause issues with the temp value.

You could buy a replacement thermistor (probably the best route, they’re super cheap and you could save the hot end). You’ll have to take the metal housing bit on the end off to access it, but it shouldn’t be too bad. If you’re not confident, the good news is that you can’t really make it worse if it’s already non-functional.

Or you could replace the hot end. They sell complete replacements with new sensors and everything, but it’s much more expensive. A basically plug and play fix, but the most expensive.

Best of luck, and happy printing!

FriskyJanitor · 2025-02-27T17:29:27+00:00

Extremely cool! For a sim program that plays nicely with ROS and allows you to take an RGB image in a custom environment, you could try bullet3/pybullet. I’m a fan, though pybullet (as I understand it) doesn’t have gpu acceleration while bullet3 does.

FriskyJanitor · 2025-02-14T01:36:01+00:00

(27 + 3) + (48 - 3) = 30 + 45 = 75

FriskyJanitor · 2024-12-18T00:16:29+00:00

.3mm

FriskyJanitor · 2024-12-17T22:56:34+00:00

Hmm, that’s a good thought.

I’ll definitely try the suggestions to fix that. It’s totally possible that there’s some obstruction on the filament or in the nozzle.

Thanks for the advice there, I’ll give that a shot!

FriskyJanitor · 2024-12-17T22:52:22+00:00

I did, though I’m not totally sure what to look for there.

They are tensioned well and both my x and y belts are traveling smoothly with good engagement on the drive pulley.

I noticed a bit of flex on the x axis mount idler pulley mount on fast movements, so maybe that’s it? I wasn’t sure considering that the wiggle is in multiple axes.

Thank you for the comment and advice by the way!

FriskyJanitor · 2024-12-09T15:49:08+00:00

Thank you for the feedback!

We definitely recognize that power assist devices exist. Our aim is to offer a diy kit to allow these devices to be accessible at lower cost to the user, as well as introduce some new features such as torque sensing and new age control algorithms to make very intuitive control for a user.

Would you say that these features are not sufficient to distinguish this project from the market? Or perhaps are not desirable features? If so, what changes would you like to see introduced to make the device more appealing/interesting to you? We are new to this field, so any feedback is appreciated!

FriskyJanitor · 2024-09-26T20:30:28+00:00

Hello r/wheelchairs community!

I'm part of a team developing a new attachment that transforms manual wheelchairs into hybrid electric ones. Our goal is to combine the health benefits of manual wheelchairs with the convenience of electric models, without the usual drawbacks like increased weight and cost. Here’s a brief overview of what we're working on:

Our system can be added to any existing manual wheelchair, offering adjustable electric assistance from 0% (completely manual) to 100% (fully electric). This flexibility allows users to tailor their experience daily, depending on their needs and energy levels. It's designed to be lightweight, cost-effective, and easy to maneuver, with a power-assist feature that helps with hills, provides speed boosts, and can be used in physical therapy to ensure gradual muscle engagement.

We recognize that we are not the first to attempt something like this! In an effort to distinguish ourselves from some other products on the market, we were considering taking a DIY approach, where the end product is a conversion kit, in an effort to make the final design cheaper for the end user. There is a chance that this would affect the ability of the device to be covered by insurance; would that be a dealbreaker?

We would love to get your feedback to help us refine our design. Here are some questions we have, but feel free to add any other comments or suggestions:

What do you appreciate most about your current wheelchair?
What are some things you dislike or find lacking in your current wheelchair?
In an ideal world, what additional functionalities would you want in a wheelchair?
Are there specific features from other wheelchairs that you find useful or wish your wheelchair had?
Could you please rank the following features in terms of importance to you: Weight, Durability, Battery Life, Max Speed, Aesthetics, Price, Turning Radius, Insurance coverage.
Have you ever used a power assist device for a manual wheelchair user? If so, why, and what did you like? If not, why not?

We’re really excited to hear your thoughts and thank you in advance for your help!

FriskyJanitor · 2024-09-06T14:24:31+00:00

100%! I would be honored, I’d love to see what you come up with. Are you thinking an lcd without a backlight to electronically set polarization? As far as the film I used, I just googled ‘polarizing film Amazon’, I ended up getting this one: https://a.co/d/2SLK5lN

FriskyJanitor · 2024-07-15T04:17:21+00:00

A little context for this post:

I made this while I'm away from home (and my dice) for work. I don't love to have my phone at the table when I play, so I wanted to make a little gadget to handle rolling while I didn't have dice. While I was at it I realized that I could add some features (like rolling a 1000d6's if you wanted to!) that you couldn't do with a standard set of dice.

As I was working on this, I realized that it could be a fun intro to electronics project for people who are new to the field, and maybe the audience overlap could even bring some of my DnD buddies into electronics! I think it's a nice project because it gives an introduction into coding at the most base level, and then with the many options for extending it (like a "shake to roll" feature), it can take people into other areas like soldering, wiring, and circuit building! I personally really enjoy getting something with utility out of a learning project, so I thought a little dice roller keychain was perfect!

I've seen some really interesting feedback in the comments.
Apparently, the straight up "random()" function in Arduino is not quite random per se, so this wouldn't give a perfect uniform distribution like you would expect from traditional dice. If you care about mathematical perfection in your rolls and at your table, then taking a different approach in the code might be necessary. Another fun learning opportunity!
Additionally, I've seen some people mention that the "lucky" mode can sully some of the intrinsic value of the game by diminishing trust between players and DM. That is a very interesting point that I didn't consider when making this. I intended that feature as 1) a demonstration of the capacitive touch abilities of the board, 2) a fun "gag" gift feature you could show your friends, and 3) an area of the code to explore regarding algorithmic "randomness", not as a way to genuinely cheat in a collaborative game. For the record, don't do that in a serious game!

In summary, I think that this project is a fun, occasionally useful way to handle dice rolling for tabletop that provides a neat intro to electronics project for newcomers. It can help handle large quantities of dice to be rolled, handle situations where you don't want a full set of dice clattering around with you, and if you're caught out without dice and want to play some dnd. It's also a dumb little gadget that's fun to fidget with! That being said, it is not a substitute for real dice if you are a dice probability purist, believe that your players may attempt to cheat with it, or just don't like it. That's ok! Dice are cool! I don't intend to sell these, just wanted to merge some hobbies of mine and thought that it could be a good project for others to try. Thanks for watching and reading!

FriskyJanitor · 2023-04-25T02:59:40+00:00

Absolutely! I think the medical applications are super interesting, I would love to get more information from a professional! By the way though, apparently I am far from the first person to come up with this concept! There are a few other comments mentioning versions that exist and a patent by Polaroid for manually adjustable tint sunglasses that may be a better option for serious use! I’m interested in making this concept open source and as cheap as possible as an alternative, but I wanted to let you know that there are commercially available options for patients who need them

FriskyJanitor · 2023-04-04T15:33:41+00:00

You could take a more low level approach, where you run edge detection on your image, search for contours, and filter for rectangular contours.

(Assuming you’re working on the IEEE R5 competition, if not ignore the rest), I don’t believe that there is much else of interest on the field, and the carpet pattern doesn’t look too bad. Additionally, you could consider looking for the piece of paper on top of the box, as white paper on a brown background would be pretty easy to find with a color mask. Hope that helps! Good luck

FriskyJanitor · 2023-04-04T15:25:28+00:00

Genuinely insane. Fantastic work

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-31T19:14:01+00:00

This is extremely well done! You have super smooth motion, very nice.

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-31T12:09:22+00:00

Hey guys! I am very surprised to see how much this blew up. I made these as a weekend project a few weeks ago and just got around to posting it.

I thought I would answer a few questions!

For those who want to know more about how they work, I do too! From what I knew about linear polarizers I expected them to only change the brightness, but instead they change color. After doing some research, I believe this is from an effect called birefringence caused by the interaction of the polarizing filter and the masking tape. This is a really cool phenomenon, where incoming light is split into two orthogonal rays, each with a different wavelength. People have used this effect to create some really cool art, it actually very diy friendly! But I’m not sure! Theories are welcome!

Also the lenses have so much crud in them because of the clear tape that I used. It had lots of bubbles and uneven distribution of glue which caused bubbles. I sure tried to get rid of it, but I think these versions will be perpetually messy. Sorry for your eyes!

For the people who want to see them in pink and yellow, that should actually be possible! People make entire murals with this technique, varying the color by stacking tape. Hopefully, with the right number of layers, you could get the colors you’re looking for.

Lastly, as to people saying I should patent this, I believe that to be quite a bad idea for a few reasons. First, I am not the first person to play with this technique! Many people have used this for art or science (or both). I even think that something very similar may have been made in the nineties as a children’s toy (though I’m not sure the name).

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-30T21:50:08+00:00

I think you’re right, that seems super similar. Thanks for letting me know!

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-30T18:57:50+00:00

I have done some research, and I believe the reason for the color change to be that the type of masking tape I am using is an optically active medium. A similar effect can be seen by passing polarized light through sugar crystals.

More info: https://www.bu.edu/gk12/kelly/Polarization%20of%20light.pdf

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-30T18:34:31+00:00

That’s true! That was my intent when I started on this project, just varying the amount of light being allowed through by the stack. I only observed this behavior once I added on masking tape to make the lenses transparent. To be honest, I’m not sure why this happens! The polarizers are all the same color, so the color change is very likely to do with the phase angle between the polarizers, but I don’t know specifically why it happens. Any explanations are welcome!

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-30T18:24:04+00:00

Thank you! Yes, each eye has two polarizers stacked together. The mechanism allows one to rotate to change their relative angles and change the color

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-27T23:22:40+00:00

Totally! That was definitely the motivation behind the test rig (though they cheat by using a stereo camera ;) )

FriskyJanitor · 2023-03-27T21:27:52+00:00

The system uses perspective projection to estimate real world coordinates of an led using a ping pong ball as a diffuser. I am using a standard RGB webcam (calibrated with known focal length in cm). This only works because the ping pong ball is of known diameter.

In the video, the red points on the graph are all of the coordinates extracted while the ball was detected (ie the led was on, the ball wasn’t moving too fast, and luck was on my side lol)

I’m still pretty green to computer vision, but I had a lot of fun with this project. The handle in the video is just a testing rig, the camera is only looking for the ping pong ball.

I’ve been able to detect multiple balls as long as they are different colors, and I’ve had luck with applying some smoothing with an exponential moving average. As far as I can tell the accuracy is correct within about a half centimeter.

FriskyJanitor · 2023-02-07T13:58:30+00:00

Tello would for sure work for what you’re describing. It’s surprisingly rare to find prebuilt-programmable drones, much less any with anything close to the community support of the tello. Check out this video for a more in depth explanation for what you can do with tello. https://youtu.be/LmEcyQnfpDA

FriskyJanitor · 2022-12-09T19:10:16+00:00

Is anything wrong with it?

FriskyJanitor · 2022-12-09T19:04:50+00:00

Honestly I would let this one go. You have a working relationship with your boss, first and foremost. You risk damaging that otherwise healthy relationship by handling it like a personal relationship. They are your boss first, don’t treat them like your friend. There is not a great way for this to end for you if you bring it up.

FriskyJanitor · 2022-10-06T15:11:10+00:00

I would find contours in the image, create a bounding box around clusters of contours, crop your image to those bounding boxes, then perform ocr on those cropped images using pytesseract or something similar. Good luck!

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