Requirement: Place an RGB display panel with an attached MatrixPortal in a shadow box.
Problem: The MatrixPortal sticks out.
Solution: Spin it around with a custom OSHPark AfterDark board.

 

The panel connector is a 2-row by 10-pin header (0.1-inch) with the top two and bottom two pins removed. The bottom spacer is M2.5 12mm with a screw added to provide another 1mm depth.

We're close to publicly releasing UART support for Adafruit.io and WipperSnapper. This would enable a device running WipperSnapper to initialize a physically connected UART device, such as the PM2.5 Air Quality Sensor and Breadboard Adapter Kit - PMS5003, and send its data to Adafruit.io. As always with WipperSnapper firmware, this is all performed without requiring a user to write code.

Below is a sneak peek of the following, but how did we get to this result over the course of a month? What went into adding a feature to Adafruit.io and WipperSnapper Firmware? 

Protocol Buffers: How WipperSnapper and Adafruit IO Communicate

When we developed WipperSnapper, we employed Protocol Buffers (Google's open-source data interchange format) to send data between a Device and Adafruit IO.

What are Protocol Buffers? (via protobuf.dev)

Protocol buffers are Google’s language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data – think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler. You define how you want your data to be structured once, then you can use special generated source code to easily write and read your structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages

The core of this communication revolves around the Adafruit IO website, specifically the component picker form. When you select a UART component on Adafruit.io, it will look something like this:

We live in a breezy area that abuses flags, wind socks, and our patio garden wind chime collection. To keep the collection of wind chimes working, we are always looking for better materials for the annual chime repair ritual.

We recently ditched the UV-resistant nylon fishing line that was usually used for repairs. Despite the UV rating, the nylon line would decay in the sun after a few months. We tried something new (to us) this season; replaced the nylon line with 1/32” stainless steel cable and aluminum crimp ferrules. We're expecting it to stay strong and last a great deal longer.

For lightweight loads such as the hangers for individual chime tubes, the ferrules were sliced in half with a utility knife. The cable was cut to length and ferrules were crimped in place using a ratcheting crimping pliers' 28AWG die. The crimping pliers (Adafruit PID#1213) have a combination die for 28AWG, so only the larger portion of the die was used. Crimping pliers designed specifically for this purpose are available.

Stainless steel cable and ferrules from Amazon

 

An heirloom Harry and David “Pear” 6-note chime from the early 1970s.

(plexiglas sail, striker, and tube spider with brass chain suspension and brass cotter pins; top-hung galvanized steel metric EMT tubes with cable "W" mounts and stainless cable suspension; F#5, G#5, B5, C6, E6, G6 tuning)

 

A CircuitPython Community Bundle color palette and list brightness setter and normalizer tool.

PaletteFader is a CircuitPython helper class for brightness-adjusting color lists and displayio palettes. Normalization is optionally applied to the palette prior to brightness and gamma adjustments. Transparency index values are preserved and associated with the adjusted palette. Creates an adjusted displayio color palette object (displayio.Palette) property that can also be read as a color list.

The Ibanez FL9 Flanger Service Guide was compiled from a collection of original and obsolete information to create a useful guide for maintaining this unique guitar pedal. Credit must be given to the authors of the original 1980s era Service Manual NO. 002 that was used as a template for this updated guide.

November 26, 2022, Cedar Grove Studios

The .pdf version of the guide and detailed repair blog can be downloaded from the project repository:

FL9 New Service Guide (.pdf)

FL9 Detailed Repair Blog (.pdf)

Also available is a KiCAD folder of the as-built PCB design, contained in the project repository:

FL9 PCB Reverse Engineered Design (KiCAD folder)

 

The Idea

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole a week or so ago when thinking about a better way to store all of the dev boards I have for testing. The ideal scenario is to have a lot of surface area to lay them all out so that you can see them all at a glance. No need to dig through anything. One way to do that is with shallow drawers, commonly call flat file storage. I found a flat file cabinet on Craiglist but it was pretty pricey and very large. They are often used for large prints that need to be kept flat. For dev boards, I don't need a lot of area together, just a lot overall.

After seeing creative drawer inserts for the Ikea Kallax bookshelf and some done in cardboard, I realized I could get custom cardboard boxes to fit in each square. I found EcoEnclose which makes custom sized shipping boxes low minimum order ($20) and now have just over 20 boxes for around $40. 10 of the shallowest boxes cost just under $20 and can fit in a single square. (The wood 10 drawer set is $140.)

 

The Details

EcoEnclose has variety of options for the custom boxes: style, strength and inner dimensions. (The use is for going around another box for shipping.)

Just finished live streaming this week. We highlighted last week's learn guide, Talking D20, and showed off clear resin parts (Thanks to PhilB!). Pedro showed off his Dual-Extruded D20 and mentioned the STLs for 3D printers with multi-material capabilities. 

For the prototyping segment, Pedro show his foam-core Tombstone and a 64x32 RGB Matrix. It'll use the matrix FeatherWing and PropMaker RP2040 Feather. Feature wise, it'll have text and graphics displayed on the matrix with accompanying sound FX and a servo-controlled crow triggered with a TOF sensor. Liz Clark will be collaborating with him to write the code in CircuitPython.

I'm working on a synth guitar using PropMaker RP2040 Feather with two 1x4 NeoKey QT boards, rotary QT encoders, speaker, switches and a strum mechanism. Liz will also be collaborating with me on the code, which will be done in CircuitPython using the SynthIO library.

For this week's Timelpase Tueday segment, we were both surprised with the tBulb product from toolmoon. It's a really neat USB powered lightbulb that is meant for attaching to a 3D printed base. Their thingiverse profile has tons of in-house designs that look amazing! Their product is also available to purchase on amazon.

Community makes this week was mostly props, which always fun to see!

Featured Products

Image the SD Card

Download the Raspbian image for sml-s905x from the distro server. Use etcher to image the sd card.

First Boot

The first boot is just like booting up Raspberry Pi OS on a Raspberry Pi. Follow the setup steps to create a local account, setup wifi and update the OS.

i'm working on a big rgb matrix project using the espn API to get data for tracking various sports teams. since it's an rgb matrix it makes sense to display the team logos. however, there are a lot of teams across all of the leagues and images for rgb matrices have to be just so. this part of the project was really intimidating.

however, as luck would have it, the espn API includes links to excellent .PNG image files for each team. i wrote a python script that creates folders on your computer for each set of images, downloads the images, names them to match the team abbreviation in the API, resizes them, adds gamma correction from the image correction for led matrices guide, spits out a properly formatted bitmap file and deletes the original .PNG image

I'm working on a synthio fundamentals guide and have been finding these synth patch symbols very helpful in explaining how things work. Check them out here.

Every week we'll 3D print designs from the community and showcase slicer settings, use cases and of course, Time-lapses! This Week: 

Spider Lamp

By: toolmoon

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6159137

CR10S Pro V2

• Glow PLA
• 60mm/s
• 30hr 40mins
• X:355 Y:279 Z:152mm
• .2mm layer / .4mm Nozzle
• 6% Infill / 1mm Retraction
• 200C / 60C
  
• 162g

 

Now that the awesome eTape liquid level sensor works with Adafruit IO No-Code devices, I figured this would be a good way to add a really accurate sensor to my house's sump pump to track the water level in the tank. I used a simple hose clamp to go through the 3d print and hold it in place on the main sump pump pipe. Then I can slide the device down so it rests on the bottom of the sump pump tank.

Next step is to connect this up and do some tests with Adafruit IO. I think I am going to use the FunHouse board with this.