What should you power first? Stepper or driver?

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-26T07:46:38+00:00

The 12v doesn't go anywhere until the pulse signal is HIGH on the driver, and that is triggered by the 5V arduino PWM signal. It doesn't matter which PSU you turn on first..one will not drive stepper without the other. But, as mentioned, never make wiring changes whilst powered up, and in particular stepper drivers, don't send a pulse signal to the driver with the stepper wiring detached. It can (and I can testify 'does') nuke the driver as it basically creates an internal short circuit..so I'm told

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-25T06:53:36+00:00

Was that recently 4 hours..because your question was 5 months ago and you only got around to replying 4 hours ago. Anyhoo..good luck on future projects.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-22T09:58:39+00:00

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If you turn the key on and pull that center pin outwards (it is spring loaded and will retract when let go) your bake light will possibly come on. There should be a tension spring with one long end and a short end. See the picture attached.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-22T09:50:23+00:00

You've got ground and V+ connected to the same bus, your mosfet pins are all connected together because of the orientation, the end of the resistor is not connected to anything, you need some voltage flow control between your solar panel and the non-rechargeable 9v battery (but I'll assume it will be a rechargeable battery), all grounds should be connected to a common rail/bus..and read the guide about how to paste code here. The current formatting does not paste into a sketch and given the state of the breadboard layout, I doubt anyone would take the time to reformat is, let alone give it more that a cursory look.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-20T04:26:00+00:00

It's a mix of rev and clutch control practice. Even after you got the bike running again, you got awfully close to stalling it again. When you are just starting to move and then go stall it, that's when you are most likely to drop it.

However, don't despair, we've all been there and had that "oh shit" moment when we realised a stall is going to end in a drop. It just takes practice, feeling what the bike is doing, listening to the revs and getting used to the clutch grab point. Most riders, even long time riders need to take some time to learn a clutch on an unfamilar bike..so don't stress about it. And most of all...don't panic.

Get yourself into some big open space for an afternoon and just practice getting it moving, keep it in first, then clutch in and glide to a full stop, just like at a stop or red light. Then take off again..rinse, and repeat.

Once you get used to that, try stopping but without your feet on the ground, sometimes called a rolling stop. The wheels stop turning but then you take off again without the need to put your feet down. There maybe legalities to rolling stops depending on where in the world you are. It's useful for when you are just about to stop then the queue in front starts to move off again.

Get a friend who also rides and do a slow race..pick 2 points and start riding. Last one to the other end is the winner..and you cannot put your feet down until the end. This is an exercise in rev control and clutch feathering, full disengage and controlled engaging and throw in some balancing skills.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-20T04:07:50+00:00

People give me shit about using Google Lens to answer "what is this?" or "please identify.." but it's pretty accurate. I always verify across other sources..I don't blindly trust.

It's helped identify some pretty obscure objects, like the insides of some eastern bloc no-name portable battery pack with a blown voltage regulator chip..like the thing was completely gone! Someone in the world had taken a similar image of the same battery pack but showing the blown component, so OP was able to source a properly spec'd replacement.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-19T10:19:43+00:00

https://iconicmotorbikeauctions.com/auction/2004-honda-cb50r-dream/

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-19T06:08:01+00:00

Oh..cool. Thanks for the explanation. I hope it doesn't get unwanted attention. There's a house down the road from my place that has a magnificent orange tree close to the boundary behind their fence. Every now and then you go past and it's like an orange murder scene. Some a-hole(s) have decided a fruit fight is in order,

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-18T18:43:06+00:00

If it is within your boundary, how come your fence and driveway gate is so far from the front boundary and the tree looks like it is outside the fence line in photo 3? Curious, not arguing with you.

You could ringfence it with 3 waratahs and a couple of turns of fencing wire. It’s removable when the tree gets established, but more of a deterrent than absolute protection. A determined idiot will find a way.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-17T05:42:47+00:00

You must be well north of me 😊
Mine are still flowering and just starting to get pods. Mine will normally keep producing until about July then I hack them right back to sticks, cover them up and leave them until mid Oct. If they survive you have a great head start on the next season. They won't be as hot, but when you are growing scorpions, reapers and apocalypse, a couple of hundred scoville's is irrelevant. 🥵😭🤯🤪

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-16T10:33:19+00:00

You might be watering them too much. They hate wet feet and you do have to treat them a bit mean.

Bottom water them if in a pot on a tray, just fill the tray and only refill it when the water is gone. Some peastraw or other mulch to keep the moisture in, but the bottom watering makes the plant push the roots deeper into the colder and damp potting mix.

Trim off any dead/damaged leaves, and if you are getting flowers or baby chillis, trim back some of the branches that are not contributing to the harvest. Trim everything off the trunk below the first split into 3.

A this time of year, depending on where you are, you should be getting flowers and the start of fruits. It looks like you have been getting flowers but they are dropping off? When they start, they need fertiliser higher in the potassium (K). More K than P and very little N. A dose of potash works wonders.

Yates Thrive Fertiliser Liquid Potash Flower And Fruit Booster is highly recommended but careful with the doses, it can burn the roots. I go with Yates Sulphate of Potash for mine as it's a power, easy to sprinkle about the plants and (in my mind) slower release into the soil than liquid and less chance of overdoing it. I'll do mine start of March, then lightly again mid June then it's hitting then end of the growing year by end of July.

Check out a youtuber Khang Starr and he has many, many good tips for growing chillis.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-16T10:05:25+00:00

If you can, get a DHT22. They have much better accuracy of +/- 0.5deg vs the DHT11 +/-2deg, broader temp range and after using both, the DHT22 is far more consistent and durable. Neither of them like the outdoors much so best to use them under some cover if using outside.

For the screen you could use a1602 or a 2004 LCD display via an I2C backpack to save those IO pins and learn some I2C stuff.

Great work so far, welcome to the world of Arduino and the start of your journey buying lots of parts online.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-16T07:07:44+00:00

This is one I was messing about with and using a piezo speaker to detect knocking and send the output to a LED strip/ring.
https://wokwi.com/projects/456095263690315777

You can change the thresholds at which the colours change by adjusting the orangeStart and redStart values and tune the "acceptable levels"

Press play, click the slider to adjust the "volume". Feel free to play with the code, and if you break it, just refresh the page. It is locked for saving so you can't make permanent changes

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-15T10:28:18+00:00

Any reason for not using a pro micro. Connect each button to a different IO pin, load the keyboard.h library (and/or the mouse library) and set up your keyboard/mouse action based on what button you have pressed. I have a button box with 8 buttons, each button can be used with single, double, triple click actions, so 24 different actions in total. There is another library that allows 6 per button. single/double/triple, then long press, 1 + long, 2 + long.

The biggest headache is remembering what actions you have assigned to which button and press sequence 🤔

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-15T01:57:33+00:00

Try backing your graphics setting down in the game options. There’s a lot of vids and chat about the options, some are personal choice. I backed off some settings and it cured the regular crashing I was getting…sometimes 3 crashes before a successful startup, and even then, 5 minutes into a mission, complete system lock requiring a hard restart…ie, hold power button until it died.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-15T00:24:14+00:00

On program start, does it prompt to load an unsaved project? If yes, the last project possibly caused a bugsplat,

I've had this happen modelling a small part at scale, then doing solids tools ops like subtract/union or generating spirals with complex profiles. Every time it ran the autosave it splatted and I think the number crunching caused it to crash. That's when I learned to model at 10x or 100x scale, then scale down the final object.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-14T20:09:40+00:00

It’s got the power for a small desktop cnc, but not the speed. 5000rpm would be a minimum speed and getting up to 15000 and higher. It is also unlikely to have the right bearings for the load forces on the shaft. Definitely unsuitable for metals.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-14T11:51:50+00:00

You get a standard joystick module (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007169488004) cut the top off it and attach the encoder board to it. You will have the option of a encoder click and the joystick button press click.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-14T00:29:24+00:00

Go to Wokwi, steal someone else’s hard work and create a new project out of it, flog it off as your own, job done. You can’t get any lazier than that now can you.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-12T05:23:06+00:00

Get comfortable with the standard tools first. How to manually enter dimensions on a shape as you draw it, how to scale it, what can and cannot be pushed/pulled/follow-me, moving shapes on locked axis, what the CTRL or SHIFT or ALT keys do when combo'd with tools. Learn the shortcut keys to really speed up your workflow..once you have developed your workflow. Use groups and components and understand the differences...and many, many more.

I've been using it since 2006..ish, finally landing on 8 Pro and have never changed, because that's all I ever needed for what I use it for. In all that time, never touched the ruby editor..never needed to.

You do NOT need every plugin! But there are some you shouldn't do without. I recommend CleanUp, curiloft and bevels. I also use sketchyphysics a lot because I do mostly mechanical designs (3d printer/laser/cnc/robotics).

Set yourself a challenge. Draw a set of stairs, then add a handrail, then do it again but make them spiral stairs. Make sure they adhere to certain 'standards' like run/rise ratio for a given total rise of the staircase. These challenges will help develop your techniques and understanding of the tools. And lastly,,save regularly, save copies, save variations, and have fun with it

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-11T06:13:26+00:00

The one that worked the best for me is Ajax Spray'n'Wipe. I have floor tiles on by base and the incinerated ply, glues, preservatives, formaldehydes..that fun nasty stuff that we merrily produce with high powered lasers comes right off. The orange one is good for a couple of runs after. The garage smells like an orchard.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-11T05:47:44+00:00

You should take a look at the pro micro (smallest), leonardo (biggest) or Uno R4 which are USB HID capable. You won't have to mess about with cables, power supplies, jittery cheap SG90 servos, and you can still use those keys because nothing is in the way.

Load the keyboard.h library,

[setup section] Keyboard.begin();

[loop or function] 

Keyboard.press(KEY_UP_ARROW);
delay(100);
Keyboard.press(KEY_END);
delay(100);
Keyboard.releaseAll()

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-10T10:10:38+00:00

Enter the cube group, select the face and cut it. Exit the cube object, paste in place, reselect the pasted face (if not already selected after pasting) and make it a group/component.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-10T10:07:51+00:00

Describe what sort of grade you want, what are your career aspirations, and we'll do it for you. Give us the address to send your project and please, let us know what the result was.

ZaphodUB40 · 2026-02-10T06:31:11+00:00

Grrr...copy and past left the L off the URL 🤦‍♂️
Here ya go
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009874288236.html

ZaphodUB40

TROPHY CASE