Full Transcript for Spin the Black Circle

00:01:52,660 --> 00:01:57,520 which he future-proofed by adding support for other record sizes too. It's almost all surface-mounted 33 00:01:57,520 --> 00:02:02,440 components and in a later video Patrick introduces a second version of the PCB. The turntable 34 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:07,380 used an Arduino as the brain of the project. From there it was time to work on the turntable 35 00:02:08,140 --> 00:02:13,580 itself. He built the tone arm mechanism into the cardboard box prototype and it worked. He even 36 00:02:13,740 --> 00:02:18,480 added a seven-segment display so you could see how fast the turntable was turning. Patrick 37 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:22,520 walks through how he assembled the motor and pulleys with the turntable. With that done, 38 00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:27,480 the turntable was working except for getting it to the right speed was giving him some trouble. This 39 00:02:27,500 --> 00:02:33,040 took to where he left off four years ago. The record player could play seven-inch records at 33 and a third 40 00:02:33,340 --> 00:02:39,160 or 45 RPM. That was the first video, which was about 20 minutes long. In the second video, 41 00:02:39,300 --> 00:02:43,120 which is about the same length, he talks about the revisions to the record player, like being 42 00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:48,360 able to play all record sizes at varying speeds. Patrick picks up from where he left off a few 43 00:02:48,460 --> 00:02:53,360 years ago and shares a few more challenges as well that he needed to work on. This included the 44 00:02:53,480 --> 00:02:57,460 pickup sensor that lifts the tone arm. He was able to make it work by putting the tone arm to play, 45 00:02:58,100 --> 00:03:02,320 but had some challenges to overcome on when the tone arm picked up after finishing playing the record. 46 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:07,280 After watching the first three videos, you're left with the first two prototypes that Patrick got working. 47 00:03:07,940 --> 00:03:11,580 He then states that in the last couple of years since he had to put the project on hold, 48 00:03:12,140 --> 00:03:16,740 that he has more and different ideas on how to build the turntable and wants to start over from scratch. 49 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:22,240 The next couple of videos in the series on building the tone arm and lift mechanism for it kick off the redesign. 50 00:03:23,700 --> 00:03:27,300 One of the things I didn't really touch on is Patrick's goal to keep the turntable modular. 51 00:03:27,660 --> 00:03:32,680 He envisions that the turntable itself is pretty basic, but then there are five adapter ports. 52 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:41,880 He throws out some ideas for external modules such as a record flipper, a changer, a preamp, a remote control, a control panel of some kind, and more. 53 00:03:42,500 --> 00:03:44,560 This is a project I'm going to keep my eye on. 54 00:03:45,060 --> 00:03:53,580 Patrick is still very young in his journey to build an open source turntable, but he's got

all his progress listed on his GitHub repository, and he's about a third done. 55 00:03:54,220 --> 00:03:59,360 Depending on how much the bill of material ends up being for the project, this is one that I'm itching to build myself. 56 00:04:00,060 --> 00:04:00,920 This is really neat. 57 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:12,140 Like, I think one of the first mechanisms that entranced me as a kid was this little suitcase record player that had the automatic changing capability where it would lift up the tone arm and move it out of the way. 58 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:16,620 And then the record would like come over, come out and one would drop down. 59 00:04:17,090 --> 00:04:20,680 And it's like, like, we don't normally, we don't often see open source mechanisms. 60 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:24,180 Usually the stuff we talk about is software, the little, their little touch. 61 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:28,980 any PCBs, but this is an actual mechanism as well. That's pretty interesting and hard to do. 62 00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:33,640 Right. And I mentioned at the beginning of the article that I came across this via 63 00:04:34,080 --> 00:04:39,300 Gareth Halfacree, who wrote it up on Hackster.io I'll link to his Mastodon profile. And if you 64 00:04:39,460 --> 00:04:43,900 enjoy this podcast, give Gareth a follow on Mastodon. I think you'll enjoy the articles that he posts 65 00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:53,280 because I keep meaning to go to Hackster regularly 66 00:04:53,500 --> 00:04:55,120 because they're always posting really cool news, 67 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:55,980 but I sometimes forget. 68 00:04:56,220 --> 00:04:57,860 So it's good to see his follow-ups. 69 00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:00,040 What's your first one for us, Tod? 70 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:02,580 So I have a new favorite Wi-Fi dev board. 71 00:05:03,020 --> 00:05:09,040 It's the ESP-32 S3-Touch LCD2 by WaveShare, 72 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:12,140 and it runs this fun new OS called Micropython OS. 73 00:05:13,100 --> 00:05:17,380 So this board, the ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2, 74 00:05:18,140 --> 00:05:20,440 what a mouthful, is about the size of a candy bar, 75 00:05:20,620 --> 00:05:27,820 It has a 2-inch 320 by 240 cap-touch screen bonded on top of what's a pretty much standard ESP 32 S3 Devboard, 76 00:05:28,540 --> 00:05:29,480 but it's maxed out. 77 00:05:29,540 --> 00:05:35,720 It's got 8 megs of PS-RAM, 16 megs of flash, it's got an SD card reader and a 5-mixel camera. 78 00:05:36,540 --> 00:05:40,080 The 5-meg camera is on a socket so you can take it out if you don't want it. 79 00:05:40,720 --> 00:05:46,560 It's also got onboard accelerometer and lithium battery management, so it could be like a little standalone thing, all for $22. 80 00:05:47,700 --> 00:05:49,280 It comes with header pins already soldered. 81 00:05:49,660 --> 00:05:52,360 As you imagine, it's a pretty dense board, so it's a good thing you don't have to solder that. 82 00:05:52,820 --> 00:06:00,180 So you can plug it into a breadboard, but if you do, you'll have to take the camera module off because the camera sticks out farther than the header pins. 83 00:06:00,820 --> 00:06:06,960 Or you could have it like do that some people do with ESP32s where they have the ESP32 devboards straddle to breadboards. 84 00:06:07,780 --> 00:06:08,520 So it's blank in the middle. 85 00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:15,180 But I think most uses for this will be kind of using it just standalone by itself with a module placed into some sort of an enclosure. 86 00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:19,180 There's so much of 3D printed enclosures on Maker World and printables already. 87 00:06:19,560 --> 00:06:21,200 without too much else hooked up to it. 88 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:25,560 Unlike one of my other previous favorite ESP 32 boards, 89 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:28,700 this one's display is only hooked up via SPI, 90 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:30,180 not parallel bus, 91 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,680 so you can't get those blistering fast animations 92 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:35,340 or quick updates in circuit Python, which I like. 93 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:37,460 But it still works, it's pretty serviceable. 94 00:06:38,120 --> 00:06:39,720 The CapTouch driver is really nice. 95 00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:40,820 It's actually pretty high-res, 96 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:42,040 and it's multi-touch, I believe. 97 00:06:42,979 --> 00:06:46,460 The display and SD card do share the same SPI bus, 98 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:48,380 so it's not as fast as it could be, 99 00:06:48,420 --> 00:06:50,900 you'll be streaming video to the SD card probably. 100 00:06:51,540 --> 00:06:54,720 But it's good enough for like time lapse and still photos, things like that. 101 00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:58,700 And there's already a basic Circuit Python firmware for it. 102 00:06:58,700 --> 00:07:00,220 You can go and download right now and install onto it. 103 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:06,420 It sets up the display and works out of the box because it's pretty much just a standard ESP 32 S3 devboard, 104 00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:10,940 which means it shows up as a USB device and a USB hard drive to your computer. 105 00:07:12,060 --> 00:07:14,360 But it doesn't set up the touch screen for Circuit Python, 106 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:18,120 but there is a separately downloadable Circuit Python touch library that works for that. 107 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:26,100 But what's really neat about this particular WaveShare module is that it's the main target platform for Micropython OS. 108 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:34,180 MicroPython OS is attempting to provide an Android-like experience for ESP32 sized devices that have touchscreens, 109 00:07:34,500 --> 00:07:47,640 a complete UI system with touch gestures, an app store, over-the-air updates, and APIs like battery manager, app manager, input manager, and so on to make writing new apps in Micropython pretty nice. 110 00:07:48,420 --> 00:07:51,360 when I first started following Micropython OS a month ago, 111 00:07:51,760

--> 00:07:53,180 it only supported this board. 112 00:07:53,940 --> 00:07:56,260 But now it fully supports six different boards 113 00:07:56,980 --> 00:07:58,260 and six more coming soon. 114 00:07:58,780 --> 00:08:03,080 With two of these are smartwatch style ESP32 Gizmos from Liligo, 115 00:08:03,740 --> 00:08:07,480 another popular maker of little Wi-Fi dev boards. 116 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:10,260 And so we could be having a full 117 00:08:11,580 --> 00:08:14,960 Micropython Android-like OS on a smartwatch soon, 118 00:08:15,500 --> 00:08:16,500 like within the next month or two. 119 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:17,180 It's pretty cool. 120 00:08:17,540 --> 00:08:23,360 I've been poking around the docs and playing around with the Rupple because you can just, you know, it's a Micropython board. 121 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:26,020 You can just log into it as well as while it's running the OS. 122 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:27,600 You can just just poke around. 123 00:08:27,900 --> 00:08:28,980 And it seems pretty reasonable. 124 00:08:29,140 --> 00:08:30,620 The API docs are really good. 125 00:08:31,140 --> 00:08:32,860 I might try writing a little app for it. 126 00:08:33,219 --> 00:08:37,719 But mostly I've been playing around with this WaveShared dev board because it's just nice. 127 00:08:37,860 --> 00:08:47,180 It's really sort of fundamentally changes a display when you can touch it and have that be the input, you know, instead of happy to have buttons on the side or knobs on the 128 00:08:47,200 --> 00:08:52,180 side or whatever. So I've been having fun just playing with just my own little code of like I make 129 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:56,980 little buttons that I push on them. Yeah, so there'll be links on this in the show notes. 130 00:08:57,740 --> 00:09:02,900 If you want to see something that is like kind of like this in circuit Python, a while back, Tim, 131 00:09:03,340 --> 00:09:09,360 aka Foamy Guy at Adafruit wrote Fruit JamOS, which many people have contributed apps to. 132 00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:13,120 And so it's got sort of a similar thing with as an app launcher and different programs 133 00:09:13,980 --> 00:09:17,160 run inside of this Fruit Jam OS. But yeah, this, this, this, this, this, 134 00:09:17,180 --> 00:09:22,460 This Micropython OS seems to be taking a much more standard OS approach to things. 135 00:09:22,700 --> 00:09:25,500 And it's really interesting to see a high-level OS. 136 00:09:25,660 --> 00:09:27,100 Like usually we think of OS. 137 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:28,540 This is something fairly low-level. 138 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:31,840 And this is in Python, in Micropython. 139 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:38,680 I think the two really neat things about Micropython OS are that it's a touch-first kind of experience. 140 00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:39,220 Yeah. 141 00:09:39,220 --> 00:09:41,020 But they're designing it with that in mind. 142 00:09:41,080 --> 00:09:42,200 And then two is the App Store. 143 00:09:42,780 --> 00:09:47,100 There are so many Micropython apps out there that it would be great to kind of get the cream of the crop. 144 00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:48,980 in one place that 145 00:09:49,340 --> 00:09:50,720 you know it's coming from a trusted 146 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:52,980 source as well. Yeah, yeah. 147 00:09:53,100 --> 00:09:54,400 Getting sort of a standardize. 148 00:09:54,490 --> 00:09:56,400 Like one of the 149 00:09:56,900 --> 00:09:58,740 downsides of Micropython I'd say is that it's fairly 150 00:09:58,980 --> 00:10:01,320 fragmented. There isn't sort of like one place to go 151 00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:04,180 for some stuff. And so it'd be cool to see 152 00:10:04,300 --> 00:10:05,780 some of these more complicated things 153 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,120 being ported to Micropython OS 154 00:10:08,170 --> 00:10:10,480 and it kind of becomes the place you go 155 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:12,620 to look for a particular Micropython concept. 156 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:15,720 All right, Paul, what's your next one for this time? 157 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:18,400 I have a couple 3D printing stories to share. 158 00:10:18,860 --> 00:10:24,100 I'm a pretty big AI skeptic as I'm not a really big fan of the plagiarism machine that hallucinates. 159 00:10:24,780 --> 00:10:28,600 But two projects I saw left me thinking that this was the neat use of AI. 160 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:33,480 The first comes via Ellen Shapiro on Mastodon, who shared tooltrace.com. 161 00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:38,180 When you visit the site, the tagline is toolbox inserts made in one click. 162 00:10:39,140 --> 00:10:44,200 You put your tools on an 8.5 by 11 inch piece of paper, take a photo and upload it, 163 00:10:44,380 --> 00:10:49,320 and then it generates a gridfinity bin or foam shadow box for you based on the tools in the picture. 164 00:10:49,820 --> 00:10:52,140 You can then download the model to 3D print it. 165 00:10:52,780 --> 00:10:58,240 There's a free plan that gets you three active tool traces you can output in DXF, SVG, or STL, 166 00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:03,720 and a paid program at $8 a month that gives you unlimited tool traces and some advanced features. 167 00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:06,960 Kind of neat how AI can just figure out from a picture. 168 00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:09,340 This is what a 3D model should look like. 169 00:11:10,500 --> 00:11:14,040 The next one is from Tom's hardware is a story about researchers. 170 00:11:14,060 --> 00:11:17,920 at Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Mechanical Engineering 171 00:11:18,560 --> 00:11:21,660 that have created a system that uses multiple large language models 172 00:11:22,220 --> 00:11:24,560 to monitor and correct 3D printers in real time. 173 00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:26,020 This story is kind of crazy. 174 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,280 They used four different LLM agents with a supervising agent. 175 00:11:29,940 --> 00:11:32,740 The first agent takes a picture after each layer is printed 176

00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:34,740 and looks at the quality and for defects. 177 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:38,800 Another agent looks at the printer settings to see if anything needs to be adjusted. 178 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:43,360 From there, a solution planner agent creates an action plan to fix the prints 179 00:11:43,780 --> 00:11:45,740 and hands that off to an executor agent, 180 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:48,620 which uses the 3D printer's API to manage the print. 181 00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:54,380 The article also points out that it does not use a custom LLM trained on a specialized dataset. 182 00:11:54,980 --> 00:12:00,820 It's using the base chat GPT-4-O model and some generalized prompts the Carnegie Mellon team has come up with. 183 00:12:01,090 --> 00:12:02,560 Now, that's a pretty cool use of AI. 184 00:12:03,660 --> 00:12:09,400 Lastly, again via Gareth Halfacree at Hackster.io, he shares a story from Creality 185 00:12:10,060 --> 00:12:12,400 that they've developed the holy grail for 3D printers, 186 00:12:12,860 --> 00:12:14,640 a shredder and a filament maker. 187 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:17,020 Throw your waste filament in the shredder 188 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:18,720 and it will use a dry crush approach 189 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:21,380 to render them into less than 4mm feedstock. 190 00:12:21,820 --> 00:12:23,660 You then feed this into the filament maker 191 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:27,660 and you'll be able to produce up to about one kilo of filament per hour. 192 00:12:28,660 --> 00:12:31,180 Sounds like alchemy to me turning lead into gold, 193 00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:34,720 but of course, Creality hasn't shared release dates or pricing yet. 194 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:36,980 This, everything is AI. 195 00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:38,520 Really kind of bugs me. 196 00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:41,560 Like, I love all three of these projects, 197 00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:52,300 But the first one where you can make tool inserts, kind of in one click, is a classic use of standard computer vision that's been around for like 20 years, 20 plus years. 198 00:12:53,740 --> 00:13:01,200 And as someone who used to do this kind of stuff, it really kind of frustrates me that the standard machine learning techniques are being just called AI. 199 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:11,140 And like maybe it is doing something with a transformer model, LLM style, or maybe it's just doing standard open CV machine learning stuff. 200 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:25,040 you know, and just, I really wish we had better disambiguation to the terms because I'm like, you know, like some of the stuff that runs locally on your box that's very small and can be, can even be run on a micro controller. 201 00:13:25,890 --> 00:13:26,680 Do we call that AI? 202 00:13:26,940 --> 00:13:27,300 I don't know. 203 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:27,880 I don't think so. 204 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:29,880 I think I'd rather call it some sort of machine learning. 205 00:13:30,700 --> 00:13:31,900 But who knows what this is actually doing. 206 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:37,160 It might be feeding the whole image to Chad GBT, and saying draw outlines around all the tools. 207 00:13:40,759 --> 00:13:43,200 I share your frustration with the term AI. 208 00:13:43,980 --> 00:13:46,460 My spouse is pursuing her doctorate in machine learning. 209 00:13:46,660 --> 00:13:50,280 And we have this conversation all the time where I'm swearing about AI and AI is bad. 210 00:13:50,420 --> 00:13:52,520 And she's like, but AI can be used for good. 211 00:13:52,740 --> 00:13:57,520 And if you look at the work she's doing, it's all weather related, for example. 212 00:13:57,680 --> 00:14:00,220 Can they predict the direction that a fire will go, for example? 213 00:14:02,399 --> 00:14:04,080 And I'm like, that's machine learning. 214 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,140 And so, yeah, we bucket everything as AI to our Dutch. 215 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:07,760 term, probably. 216 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:08,560 It's frustrating. 217 00:14:08,910 --> 00:14:10,100 I mean, I mean, it's cool. 218 00:14:10,260 --> 00:14:10,500 It's cool. 219 00:14:10,500 --> 00:14:11,120 We can have these things. 220 00:14:11,170 --> 00:14:15,860 I mean, the, the, the, using the 3D printing, using A out of fixed 3D printing tools also 221 00:14:15,980 --> 00:14:21,600 feels like a like a classic sort of computer vision machine learning task that they're just using, 222 00:14:21,780 --> 00:14:24,620 let's use four LLMs against it instead. 223 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,000 Seems a little overkill, but okay, whatever, man. 224 00:14:28,140 --> 00:14:30,880 You know, you got your, your chat, GBT tokens. 225 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:31,900 You got to use them up. 226 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:33,840 That's right. 227 00:14:35,220 --> 00:14:36,600 What's your next one for us? 228 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:44,480 The clever folks at Teenage Engineering that makes synthesizers have released an interesting little musical toy, musical microphone toy. 229 00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:49,420 It's the first commercial product for Normies that I've seen that is running Micropython under the hood. 230 00:14:49,940 --> 00:14:51,880 And lets you get out that micropython it runs. 231 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:54,760 It's called the Ting E.P. 2350. 232 00:14:55,420 --> 00:14:58,360 And if you know anything about microcontrollers, that name might ring a little bit of a bell. 233 00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:04,400 The Ting E.P. 2350 costs about 60 bucks and looks like a handset of a CB radio. 234 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:09,260 But it's got three extra buttons on the side, in addition to the talk switch. 235 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,560 You plug its curly cable into your mixer or audio input to a speaker or something, 236 00:15:14,100 --> 00:15:15,080 and you press the talk switch. 237 00:15:15,160 --> 00:15:17,020 Your voice can be altered in a bunch of different ways. 238 00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:18,180 Here's an example. 239 00:15:19,360 --> 00:15:20,840

Here's a echo. 240 00:15:23,620 --> 00:15:24,540 Here's distortion. 241 00:15:24,780 --> 00:15:25,420 This is reverb. 242 00:15:27,500 --> 00:15:29,020 This is single sideband. 243 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,180 This is distortion and ring modulation. 244 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:33,220 Distortion and ring modulation. 245 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:35,460 And this is single side band. 246 00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:36,640 down J-Tac. 247 00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:41,300 And then it can also play some sound effects like... 248 00:15:45,139 --> 00:15:46,160 And so on. 249 00:15:49,140 --> 00:15:52,100 So anyway, so as you hear, you got four different sound effects. 250 00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:56,940 You can play, you can trigger, and it's got four different samples you can trigger, 251 00:15:57,320 --> 00:16:01,380 and it's got four different sound effects you can apply to your voice or to the sample that you've triggered. 252 00:16:02,240 --> 00:16:05,020 There are four LEDs on it that let you show which, 253 00:16:05,380 --> 00:16:07,540 which audio effect is currently in play, 254 00:16:08,100 --> 00:16:10,520 and it's got four LEDs to show you 255 00:16:10,820 --> 00:16:13,100 which audio sample is currently set up to trigger. 256 00:16:13,820 --> 00:16:15,940 And there are inputs where you can use 257 00:16:16,020 --> 00:16:18,520 either the talk switch or shaking it 258 00:16:18,880 --> 00:16:21,580 to act as modifiers to change how the sound plays back. 259 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:24,060 And the list of audio effects is pretty extensive. 260 00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:26,360 There's echo delay with adjustable EQ, 261 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:28,060 feedback and wet level. 262 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:29,920 There's distortion with gain and EQ, 263 00:16:30,420 --> 00:16:31,800 harmonizer for repitching. 264 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,240 There's reverb with EQ and spring emulation. 265 00:16:34,520 --> 00:16:34,640 There's re-delayment. 266 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:36,840 There's ring modulation, single sideband, 267 00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:39,680 and single sideband for that sci-fi hymn radio thing 268 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:40,500 that I just demoed. 269 00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:42,120 And if you notice the list of sound effects 270 00:16:42,130 --> 00:16:43,800 and their parameters are greater than the number 271 00:16:43,890 --> 00:16:45,960 of the slots available, so how do you reconcile this? 272 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:48,680 Well, if you plug the ting into your computer, 273 00:16:49,140 --> 00:16:51,320 it shows up like a thumb drive, just like a Python. 274 00:16:52,140 --> 00:16:55,460 And if you edit a config.json file on that drive, 275 00:16:56,100 --> 00:16:58,760 that specifies what effects should be in which slot, 276 00:16:59,180 --> 00:17:00,040 how its settings should be, 277 00:17:00,140 --> 00:17:02,760 and how the handle and shaking input should map to those settings. 278 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:04,860 Oh, and you can also chain the effect, 279 00:17:04,900 --> 00:17:06,620 It's not just one effect per slot. 280 00:17:06,670 --> 00:17:13,260 You can actually have, say, the EQ feeding into the delay, which feeds into the harmonizer, which feeds into the reverb. 281 00:17:13,860 --> 00:17:17,240 So it's sort of like a virtual guitar pedal board in this little microphone. 282 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:19,180 It's pretty cool. 283 00:17:20,199 --> 00:17:26,079 Also, when the little Ting microphone is plugging your computer, you can also connect to its Micropython Repel. 284 00:17:26,939 --> 00:17:28,900 And see the code that is actually running. 285 00:17:29,380 --> 00:17:34,500 The T-engineering guys have created a custom build of Micropython, version 1.2.5, I think. 286 00:17:34,860 --> 00:17:37,720 that is a handful of custom built-in modules. 287 00:17:38,060 --> 00:17:42,720 One is called Effects for audio effect chain management. 288 00:17:43,300 --> 00:17:46,460 One is called UI to manage the LEDs, accelerometer, and buttons. 289 00:17:46,980 --> 00:17:50,260 And one is called SPL to handle loading and triggering the samples. 290 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,980 And then the entirety of the main.m.p.i is just reading that config.json file 291 00:17:56,400 --> 00:18:00,640 and setting up the various settings of those various custom modules. 292 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,620 So there's not much logic to the actual main.compy. 293 00:18:02,700 --> 00:18:04,380 It's mostly just setting up the various. 294 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:07,720 settings of the internal custom modules, then letting it run. 295 00:18:08,340 --> 00:18:12,040 I was hoping it would have more in its main.P.Y, but it's pretty incredible that we can actually 296 00:18:12,300 --> 00:18:16,920 edit this file, and we can actually change what everything does. Like, I can make it behave 297 00:18:16,990 --> 00:18:20,440 in entirely different fashion. I can even make it play sounds all by itself without me touching 298 00:18:20,470 --> 00:18:26,560 any of it. Now, if you're familiar with Circuit Python, the ability to have these audio effects 299 00:18:26,590 --> 00:18:31,120 and chain them together is very similar to what we've been able to do with the built-in audio 300 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,120 effects module in Circuit Python. And the type of effects, 301 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:36,120 the circuit python has is very similar to. 302 00:18:36,820 --> 00:18:38,760 But the circuit Python approach is more configurable 303 00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:40,540 and exposes much more of the ability 304 00:18:40,540 --> 00:18:42,140 to drive the effects in creative ways 305 00:18:42,300 --> 00:18:46,040 like with modulators and connected to various parts 306 00:18:46,120 --> 00:18:47,880 of your other Python code. 307 00:18:48,700 --> 00:18:50,280 The Ting Micropython can't really do that. 308 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:53,220 So it's sort of like the Ting's effects 309 00:18:53,270 --> 00:18:55,060 are like a small guitar pedal board 310

00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:57,680 that just does these handful of things, 311 00:18:58,080 --> 00:18:59,460 but Circuit Python's audio effects 312 00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:01,900 are more like an entire modular synthesizer 313 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:03,440 that's acting like a guitar pedal board. 314 00:19:04,600 --> 00:19:12,400 And now, as you might have noticed by the name, the Ting EP-2-3-50 is running an RP-2-2 under the hood. 315 00:19:13,100 --> 00:19:17,060 I've taken my Ting apart and verified it's got a 2-meg flash, leaving about 1-meg for samples, 316 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:22,800 and it shows up as almost a standard RP-2350 UF2 boot device. 317 00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,180 I've not been able to get a circuit Python loaded on it yet, 318 00:19:26,380 --> 00:19:32,020 because I think they might be using some of the RP-2350 security features to only allow signed firmware. 319 00:19:32,940 --> 00:19:34,800 But it's pretty cool that that exists. 320 00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:39,200 It makes firmware updates for this little box really easy, of which teenage engineering 321 00:19:39,230 --> 00:19:40,140 has already released a couple. 322 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:44,140 So one of the first things they did when I got it a couple weeks ago was to flash it with 323 00:19:44,140 --> 00:19:47,200 the latest firmware, and it actually fixed a small problem that it was having. 324 00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:50,420 So yeah, I hope that there's a way that we can put our own firmware on here. 325 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:54,260 I'd love it if they release their version of Micropython because that would be really cool. 326 00:19:55,660 --> 00:20:01,440 In the show notes, I've got a couple of links to both some YouTube videos of people showing 327 00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,620 how to use this, how to configure the Ting with the config.jsons file. 328 00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:11,180 There's also an online preset editor that someone has made because it shows up as a USB device. 329 00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:15,480 If you're running a Chrome-based browser, you can use this and you can essentially change the configure. 330 00:20:16,070 --> 00:20:18,840 Dot JSON via a little web page. 331 00:20:19,120 --> 00:20:20,540 Yeah, that's, it's pretty fun. 332 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:23,120 I'm really encouraged to see real products using Micropython. 333 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:31,180 If you want to see one in action, check out the Wednesday, February 25th show and tell on the Adafruit YouTube channel. 334 00:20:31,260 --> 00:20:31,420 Right. 335 00:20:32,420 --> 00:20:34,120 Dan, aka Bartlebeats, 336 00:20:35,780 --> 00:20:37,460 demoed one right at the beginning of the show. 337 00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:38,940 So that was pretty cool to see it in action. 338 00:20:39,030 --> 00:20:40,100 Oh, yeah, I missed that. 339 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:41,740 That was yesterday for us, right? 340 00:20:42,060 --> 00:20:42,160 Yeah. 341 00:20:42,450 --> 00:20:42,880 It was. 342 00:20:44,940 --> 00:20:45,280 Very cool. 343 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:47,900 All right, Paul, what's your next one for this time? 344 00:20:49,060 --> 00:20:51,060 Have you ever wanted to build your own game controller? 345 00:20:51,940 --> 00:20:56,360 Tommy B. did, and he was inspired by the original steam controller from Valve software. 346 00:20:57,140 --> 00:21:00,440 And by inspired, I mean, he took the idea to the next level. 347 00:21:01,140 --> 00:21:04,600 A shout out to Cooper Dalrymple for sharing this story in the Adafruit Discord. 348 00:21:05,580 --> 00:21:09,760 Linus of Linus Tech Tips recently had Tommy B on his show to show off his open split deck, 349 00:21:09,860 --> 00:21:12,040 and by split it does exactly that. 350 00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:14,700 You can split the game pad into two halves, 351 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:17,820 kind of similar to how the switches joycons work individually. 352 00:21:18,740 --> 00:21:22,300 He also created additional pieces you can attach to the middle of the two halves 353 00:21:22,630 --> 00:21:25,560 to put it back together that makes it more ergonomic. 354 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:27,520 Now, if you've never seen a Steam controller, 355 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:30,960 think a big game pad with two track pads where your thumbs go, 356 00:21:31,380 --> 00:21:32,120 instead of joysticks. 357 00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:34,480 And that's exactly what Tommy B built 358 00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,740 with two track pads as well as the two joysticks 359 00:21:36,900 --> 00:21:37,940 that you're probably used to. 360 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:40,460 He created two custom PCBs, 361 00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:42,540 one for the left half and one for the right. 362 00:21:43,140 --> 00:21:46,260 It runs on a Nordic NRF 52840 microcontroller 363 00:21:46,740 --> 00:21:49,160 and also features gyro support and haptics. 364 00:21:49,860 --> 00:21:51,960 Tommy B talks about that the track pads are optional 365 00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:53,140 when using the game pad, 366 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,100 but gives you an extra level of control that makes it unique. 367 00:21:56,700 --> 00:21:57,980 Well, that and it splits in two. 368 00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:00,920 The parts will run you about $250 to $300, 369 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:03,660 but you'll have enough parts to probably build another one. 370 00:22:04,120 --> 00:22:08,020 And for context, the Steam Controller retails for about $250. 371 00:22:09,420 --> 00:22:10,060 Check out the video. 372 00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:14,540 Tommy B, who guests on the Linus Text Tips show, is very well-spoken and engaging. 373 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:16,840 I really enjoyed the video of him with Linus. 374 00:22:18,060 --> 00:22:24,100 Related to GamePads is Joypad OS, an open-source universal game controller firmware. 375 00:22:25,060 --> 00:22:29,860 You build a dongle, and they recommend using an Adafruit KB2040 microcontroller 376 00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:31,960 that allows you to use your game controller 377

00:22:32,120 --> 00:22:33,840 like a PlayStation or Xbox controller 378 00:22:34,060 --> 00:22:34,840 with other platforms. 379 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:37,180 They also support building the dongle 380 00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:40,380 using a Siege Zhao ESP 32S3 board, 381 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,980 the Raspberry Pi Pico, and a few others. 382 00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:45,100 The project has excellent docs 383 00:22:45,180 --> 00:22:46,700 on how to build and install the firmware 384 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:49,080 and even includes a page on hardware compatibility 385 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:50,900 with links to buy the boards, 386 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:53,160 pre-built controller adapters, and more. 387 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:56,580 They've also launched joypad.aI 388 00:22:57,140 --> 00:22:59,840 where you can pre-order a USB or Bluetooth dev kit 389 00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:00,280 for $50. 390 00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:03,340 The DevKit is a USB pass-through adapter 391 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:05,480 running Joypad OS that allows you to connect 392 00:23:05,740 --> 00:23:07,960 any USB controller to the DevKit 393 00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:09,780 to allow you to remap buttons, 394 00:23:10,020 --> 00:23:12,300 create macros, and more before it reaches 395 00:23:12,380 --> 00:23:13,460 your PC or console. 396 00:23:14,540 --> 00:23:16,280 They're building towards a Joypad dongle, 397 00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:18,460 which is basically what the Dev kit will turn into. 398 00:23:19,060 --> 00:23:20,560 Its tagline is one device, 399 00:23:20,780 --> 00:23:22,420 any controller, any platform. 400 00:23:23,300 --> 00:23:25,000 So 50 bucks to get a custom dongle 401 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:26,420 to allow you to use your game controller 402 00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,380 on other platforms is a bit cheaper 403 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:29,680 than the OpenSplit deck. 404 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:31,880 but they're two very different things. 405 00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:34,900 The open split deck is incredible. 406 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,400 My wife, she likes to play some video games like I do, 407 00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,520 but she mostly plays it on the switch 408 00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:43,780 because she finds the kind of hunched over nature 409 00:23:43,820 --> 00:23:45,880 you have to have when you're grasping a controller 410 00:23:45,940 --> 00:23:47,900 to be kind of hard on her shoulders after a while. 411 00:23:48,300 --> 00:23:49,380 And so she likes to have the switch 412 00:23:49,540 --> 00:23:52,720 because you can play with your shoulders open, 413 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,120 your hands open, and it's much more comfortable 414 00:23:55,300 --> 00:23:56,360 for a long-term gaming. 415 00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,700 But we've not been able to find a similar type of 416 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:01,040 but controller for like a PlayStation. 417 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:06,060 Like there's like the accessibility controller stuff for PlayStation, but that's really

for 418 00:24:06,460 --> 00:24:11,320 people who need much more critical sort of like controller needs. 419 00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:16,100 And so it's like surely someone makes a switchlight controller for the PlayStation, but no. 420 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,760 But now, yes, we can make our own. 421 00:24:18,780 --> 00:24:19,660 You can build your own. 422 00:24:20,820 --> 00:24:21,760 You got the bill of materials. 423 00:24:21,980 --> 00:24:25,340 One of the things he calls out is buying some of the parts directly from ATA fruit, like 424 00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:25,900 the batteries. 425 00:24:26,060 --> 00:24:27,580 So you know, it doesn't start on fire. 426 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:28,220 So I like that. 427 00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:29,000 He called that out. 428 00:24:29,100 --> 00:24:29,460 Yeah, totally. 429 00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,600 But yeah, it was a really fun video to watch. 430 00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:32,640 Oh, man, that's great. 431 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,140 Yeah, yeah, we might be making one of these 432 00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,940 because I've been wanting to get her into some of these crazy PlayStation games that I play. 433 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:42,100 Well, keep us up to date on your progress if you do. 434 00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:42,540 Totally. 435 00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:45,780 All right, what's the last thing for us this episode? 436 00:24:46,260 --> 00:24:50,040 All right, so my favorite nutty synth professor, Sam Bartle, 437 00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:52,320 aka Look Mum, No Computer on YouTube, 438 00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,280 is the UK's surprise entry for Eurovision 2026. 439 00:24:57,380 --> 00:24:59,320 If you've never seen it, Eurovision is a yearly, 440 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:04,820 bonkers musical contest that's broadcast on TV everywhere. It's just insane. I highly recommend 441 00:25:04,980 --> 00:25:09,180 watching some clips on YouTube right now if you've not heard about it. And Sam's particular 442 00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:14,840 flavor of insanity will fit right in. His performances on his homemade, animatronic, modular sense 443 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:19,280 are incredible on their wackiness, but also with his deep musicality. I hope he wins. 444 00:25:19,780 --> 00:25:23,300 It'll be interesting to see how he's kind of a nerd like us. It'll be interesting to see 445 00:25:23,460 --> 00:25:27,760 him in front of a huge, huge audience. So I've been following Sam's YouTube channel for about nine 446 00:25:27,780 --> 00:25:32,280 years. He usually hooked me by showing simple synth circuits that he turns into proper 447 00:25:32,780 --> 00:25:38,840 synth modules for his homemade modular rig. One of the best for me was his simplest DIY audio 448 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:44,200 oscillator video that uses a single transistor, capacitor, resistor, and LED to make a really 449 00:25:44,380 --> 00:25:49,560 nice setting score of oscillator. It's surprisingly musical. For less than $10, he made a five-voice 450 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:57,740 drone synth with this circuit. This sounds amazing. And his online delivery, if you remember, like 451 00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:59,640 the very considered synth designer. 452 00:26:00,020 --> 00:26:03,420 His online delivery is almost exactly the opposite to Morris Klein's. 453 00:26:04,420 --> 00:26:07,340 Every circuit Sam makes as he hand drills the panels, 454 00:26:07,540 --> 00:26:09,740 Sharpies knob panels, and soders over live circuits 455 00:26:09,900 --> 00:26:12,000 make you almost expect a disaster to happen. 456 00:26:12,540 --> 00:26:14,600 But of course it never does because Sam is a professional, 457 00:26:15,300 --> 00:26:16,860 but he's exceedingly fun to watch. 458 00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,200 Other great videos of his that I liked over the years 459 00:26:19,340 --> 00:26:22,320 are his Furby organ, where he takes 45 Furbies 460 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,160 and hacks them into a nice woodenclosed organ, 461 00:26:25,780 --> 00:26:31,520 or the 1,000 oscillator megadron synth that takes that simple oscillator circuit from before 462 00:26:31,900 --> 00:26:34,020 and multiplies it by literally 1,000. 463 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,880 The final result takes up a whole wall because he made it a proper synthesizer, 464 00:26:39,020 --> 00:26:44,840 so every oscillator has individual controls for pitch and how it connects to the rest of the circuit, 465 00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:46,260 the synth circuit. 466 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,200 He's built a ton of other gear and his builds are explicitly for him to perform with 467 00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:54,300 because he's also a professional musician, often on tour. 468 00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:59,160 With all these huge builds, though, Sam has needed a place to put them all, so he created, 469 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:05,900 This Museum is Not Obsolete, a real physical museum of experimental and old technology in Kent, UK. 470 00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,040 You can go there and play on some of this gear that you've seen in his videos. 471 00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,660 There's other amazing artifacts there as well, like old test gear and ancient telephone switching equipment, 472 00:27:15,220 --> 00:27:17,180 all of it hooked up and able to make cool noises. 473 00:27:17,660 --> 00:27:23,800 If I'm ever, like, next time I'm in the UK, I want to make a field trip to Kent to visit this place because it just looks incredible. 474 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:25,480 But yeah, go Sam. 475 00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,580 I hope you win Eurovision. 476 00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,720 And you said he's representing the UK, so it's not just some small country. 477 00:27:32,900 --> 00:27:35,060 It's one of the larger countries in Europe. 478 00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:39,280 Small town boy makes it big. 479 00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:40,880 That's awesome. 480 00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:43,620 Well, that's our show. 481 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,700 If you're interested in getting a free sticker, visit the homepage of the bootloader.net for the order form. 482 00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,680 You can also visit the homepage to see our show notes and transcripts. 483 00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:55,860 Until next time, stay positive.