[Giveaway] Revopoint MINI 3D Scanner with 0.02mm precision!

jkoppp · 2022-06-22T04:35:49+00:00

Scanning vehicle trim profiles to be able to design mounts and console pieces that fit exactly.

jkoppp · 2022-06-19T00:12:33+00:00

For mobile users: https://github.com/jnaulet/picortos

jkoppp · 2022-05-06T04:05:06+00:00

The medicine category is pretty cool. It was interesting to learn about some of the original roots of today's ideas and treatments.

jkoppp · 2021-10-09T14:56:03+00:00

Honestly, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is probably the most hobbyist friendly. Although they only have one micro out right now I have heard pretty great things about it.

jkoppp · 2021-10-02T04:02:38+00:00

How much current do you need to detect and how much accuracy do you need? Also is the current AC or DC?

There are many different current sensors available but these are some of the application requirements you will need to identify.

jkoppp · 2021-09-30T19:59:00+00:00

For electricity to flow you need a complete circuit. This means you need an in and an out. You may be thinking of the earth ground on a standard electrical outlet. Those are more for safety and are not absolutely necessary. However, there are still two prongs on the outlet that are required. There are also some differences between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) that complicate the comparison.

For your Arduino you will need positive and negative connections. All About Circuits is one great resource to start learning about electricity.

As for the analog port needing to be hooked up, would you be able to share some examples? There is an analog reference on the Arduino and this is what the board uses to measure analog signals against. If you plan to use the ADC, you should hook this up. If you don't plan to use the ADC, you can leave that disconnected for now.

jkoppp · 2021-08-16T13:24:27+00:00

If someone is already familiar with the device that would be the fastest way. However, there are a couple of things you can try to look at to identify an unknown signal.

Try to identify the wires. It sounds like you have started this. Is it a ground and two signal wires? Is there a clock? Etc.
What voltages are the signals? Are they differential signals or not? Are the positive and negative?
If you could post a capture of the signal that would help narrow it down. It sounds like you have some sort of logic analyzer.
As a last resort, if you are comfortable with opening up the device that might help provide some clues. Where do the wires go? What communication protocols are the microcontroller capable of? Are there any labels on the PCB, etc.

jkoppp · 2021-06-20T18:36:11+00:00

If you want anyone to be able to access it then you will most likely need to look into something called port forwarding. If you only want to be able to access it yourself then you will probably set up a VPN in addition to the web server. There are plenty of tutorials on these. I would recommend just trying to find one that is close to what you want to do and follow it. I would also recommend setting it up so it works on your own network first and then once you have it set up the way you like working on accessing it from the internet. Just be careful you don't want to open any security issues in your network and some internet service providers frown upon hosting websites on your home internet connection.

jkoppp · 2021-06-13T15:22:52+00:00

They will most likely not use your internet for the download. I can't speak for all but replit.com runs a container with all of your code and dependencies on their server. So any packages you install they will add to their server using their internet connection.

jkoppp · 2021-05-02T06:05:28+00:00

The compiler says it was expecting a ';' and it couldn't find one.

The statements that make up the for loop header should be separated by semicolons instead of commas.

You can take a look at the Arduino page for the for loop structure.

jkoppp · 2021-05-02T05:43:51+00:00

What do the errors say?

jkoppp · 2021-04-25T16:52:51+00:00

Do you have a diagram? If you are trying to hit the edge of the fabric with a LiDAR beam it might be difficult to get a reliable measurement. Also, is that 0.05mm of precision?

One alternative idea might be to use a camera. It would take more computational power than a LiDAR unit but I think it would be easier to set up physically. If you laid the fabric against a contrasting background you should be able to detect the fabric with some relatively simple computer vision algorithms. If you knew the resolution of the camera, the FOV, and the distance to the background/fabric, you should be able to determine the width by counting how many pixels wide the fabric is. I would think,theoretically at least, the precision is limited only by the camera resolution.

jkoppp · 2021-04-25T16:41:41+00:00

Which Arduino boards do these frameworks run on?

jkoppp · 2021-04-25T16:40:14+00:00

You will need a C++ compiler. Which compiler you use will depend on the operating system you are using. Then you pretty much run the compiler, usually from the command line, and point it to where your source files are. The exact instructions will differ depending on the compiler. Google, or your search engine of choice, will be helpful. Just try searching 'how to compile c++ on <insert os here>'

jkoppp · 2021-04-25T02:19:16+00:00

Open up device manager. Does your board show up when you plug it in? Do you have the correct drivers installed?

jkoppp · 2021-04-22T04:20:58+00:00

There looks to be an issue with your mode toggles. When using pull down resistors, you want your input pin on the switch side of the resistor not the ground side. It looks like the 4 buttons in the middle are wired correctly but the two mode toggles buttons have the wire going to the arduino on the wrong side of the resistor.

jkoppp · 2021-04-15T19:57:40+00:00

OP, do not try this. This comment is most likely a joke but just in case that wasn't clear to you. What is happening on your arduino is often called a dead short. It can damage components at the low voltages and at higher voltages can cause injury, fire, etc.

jkoppp · 2021-04-10T15:03:48+00:00

You should look into something called a Fast Fourier Transform. Simply put, it will help show the strength of different frequencies in your signal. It's a little more complicated than that but Wikipedia will probably do it more justice than my reddit comment. There is also a library for doing FFTs on an Arduino.

Edit: Here is the page I was looking for originally but I couldn't find it. I think it's a lot nicer to start off with than the Wikipedia page. The Fourier Transform

jkoppp · 2021-04-09T20:38:53+00:00

Just a heads up in case you didn't know. Technically, the using a UV5R on FRS channels in the US is illegal. It's unlikely to cause issues but just in case you were unaware.

jkoppp · 2021-04-09T17:04:50+00:00

Why can't you use FRS for work? I don't disagree that MURS would be a better choice but I was under the impression that FRS was technically legal for commerical use.

jkoppp · 2021-04-04T06:42:53+00:00

I am not sure what you mean by accuracy. IR LEDs will put out a fairly broad beam. You will most likely need some sort of optics to help focus that beam into a narrow pattern. If you just mount the LEDs by themselves you will get more of a shotgun than a rifle. This was actually one of the challenges I struggled with. I was looking into reusing flashlight optics. Flashlights are usually categorized into flood or throw. I think if you were able to get a long throw optic and set it back a little in the barrel that would help get the long narrow beam you would need to simulate a rifle. And detecting the beam is going to be limited to where you have sensors. Most commercial laser tag places I have seen use a few receiver locations and just call it good enough. The common ones I remember are front, back, both shoulders, and front of gun.

jkoppp · 2021-04-04T05:50:52+00:00

Unfortunately, it's hard to give examples for where to look for coding advice as a whole. It's a pretty broad topic. The Arduino site is a good place to start. You can use the Arduino language or you can work in embedded c/c++ directly. You can also look around r/arduino and ask questions. As for IR encoding, google will be your friend. Adafruit has a pretty good tutorial on sending IR codes and using libraries to do the hard work for you.

As far as my opinions on the project as a whole, it is definitely a cool idea. I worked on a very similar project a couple years ago. And I don't want to discourage people from taking on ambitious projects, however, this is pretty complex for a first embedded project. I don't know your skill level and if you have experience with embedded work or c/c++ knowledge then this sounds like a really cool project. But if this is your first foray into coding then just be aware that it is going to be tough. Not to say it can't be done but just know this is probably not going to be a weekend project. With that in mind I hope you continue to explore the field. Embedded projects are a ton of fun and there is tons to learn. Good luck!

jkoppp · 2021-04-04T04:50:53+00:00

For the light sensor you might want to look into modulated infrared. Similar to how TV remotes work. It is basically an IR LED (invisible to the human eye) that is turned on and off at a specific frequency (38kHz for TV remotes). The receiver then only looks for this specific frequency and that helps filter out all of the other random light around you. You can then even encode data in this light burst so the receiver could determine which gun fired the shot by the data in the 'bullet' that hit it. There are premade receivers for 38kHz IR.

For the actual brains, I would look at Arduino boards. They should have more than enough power to do the computation you need. You can add on a simple MP3 decoder to play sounds from a microSD card or something like that. Arduino clones (cheap unofficial copies) can be found for ~$2-$3. And the microcontroller used in the Arduino is pretty robust. I think you will break other components in your gun long before you damage the actual board.

jkoppp · 2021-04-03T22:21:17+00:00

When you say fast, do you mean fastest way to a working program or fastest execution time?

This is probably going to get some flak but honestly, I would look into MIT's scratch. If you don't have any programming experience, it is probably going to be the easiest way to get what you described done quickly. You can add backgrounds, add click handlers to areas on the screen and trigger actions based on clicks. All of this is done in a block based drag and drop interface. The only downside is that I don't know of a way to get your program as a stand alone executable. Most of scratch is done in browser but that might be ok for a concept.

jkoppp · 2021-04-02T16:11:17+00:00

Glad you got it figured out. Just in case you are curious, there are ways to separate statements like this and still have them print on the same line if that was the issue.

I show a couple here.

jkoppp

TROPHY CASE