Tom Wardill

Starting to realise that the difficult part of attempting to learn some bare metal microprocessor skills is not the learning.
It’s working out which debug cable you need, and why you don’t own one yet.

Next years #BigProject is to go supersonic.
Done ‘very high up’ with a 25km altitude balloon.

Now I want something that goes ‘very fast’.

And maybe, eventually, flies some of my own code.

Anyone got a supplier for Hermann Miller Mirra (1) parts?
Ripped the mesh on the seat, and all the ones on ebay atm appear to have the same problem...

I bought a new frame.work 13 last month.
I now regret that.

Not only sponsoring people with utterly hateful views, and promoting others with the same, but now arguing that a 'big tent' approach is somehow suitable.
Not even a hint of an acknowledgement that it might be a bad idea to give […]

@tom went away to ride my bike and came back to a big list of useful links.

Thanks everyone, you’re all lovely!

I have fairly basic electronics knowledge, but am designing a few PCBs these days.

Has anyone seen any guides/info on ‘rules of thumb for PCB design’?

I can just about operate kicad, but am missing the knowledge about actual PCB physical design that makes me nervous about wasting iterations […]

@tom making a bit of a mess of the selvedge here, need to do some research about what to do when it’s a miss weft pattern.

A small square weaving frame with 2 colours of weft, and one colour of weave, in a staggered offset pattern.

Packed my travel weaving kit for a weekend away.
Enjoying the small frame for trying to get my head around some simple patterns.

Fun time at Newark National Hamfest, on the RSGB stands in my role as the 'Maker Champion'.

Some great chats about making things, makerspaces, and what the crossover of the amateur radio community and the maker community might look like.

Especially appreciative of the couple of folks that […]

Currently sat on the floor in the middle of my office trying to extract it from post-big-project mess.
I’ve rediscovered at least 3 different projects during this process and am trying not to get distracted.

The boot of a car filled with boxes, bags, and flight cases for the transportation of various technical items. The lower right has a special Space themed project.

Via the power of the mighty mighty Honda Jazz, I am packed up and heading to National HamFest.

Come find me on the RSGB stand talking about how you should make things.

#hamfest #amateurradio #satellites

Tom hit by arm count: 2.

Once while it wasn't actually moving.

Tom hit by arm count: Currently 0.

Because the gears won't stay engaged to make the arm actually spin.
This is my first time straying into the mechanical design field, I have a lot to learn.

I now have to make a spinning arm. It should move pretty slowly.
I will toot every time I get hit by the spinning arm.

Final sprint on the CubeSatSim project for Hamfest.
Building up LED cable harnesses and replacing labels in the switches and then I think the Ground Station is hardware complete.
Got to do a bit more software to fix the mode changing, then work on the satellite rotator.

This message probably […]

I am very sick of running into cases in the GCP API that take a set or a list, but the allowable count is (1), and the only mention of this is deep in the API docs.

A hand holding a 3d printed prototype switch in front of a work bench. The switch is a mix of grey and yellow, and is obviously 3d printed.

Prototypes are continuing. Scaled up a bit as while the ‘life size’ twist-lite replica was fine, I don’t actually have a whole console of them so it looked a bit lost.
Increased the size by 50% and redesigned the top cover to be a bit more printable.
Fitment […]

[Original post on theclacks.cloud]

@ku2y @tom Awesome, thanks for confirming 😀
Now to fit a slip ring and a stepper motor.

@ku2y Oh, now I've actually read the schematic, looks like 5V into J6/J7 would work better.

@ku2y A question, if you have time :)
If I wanted to provide external power to the CubeSatSim without using the USBC connector, would 5V into the 'parallel battery pack connector' on the Battery Board work?

Reached the ‘next day delivery parts scatter’ phase of project crunch.

@ku2y Hey! I saw your comments and changes, looks a lot better than my initial hackery :)
I'm a bit slammed with deadlines coming up, but once HamFest is out the way, I'll sort out a proper PR and stuff.
Thanks so much for having a look!

@nnenov I've been enjoying this series, so fun to watch.

@philpem While that's a bit extreme, I spent quite a while looking for a PoE doorbell that can make my home assistant go beep, as my office is separate from the house.
I did not want one with a camera.

This turns out to not exist? (And no, I do not want to make my own doorbell).

Eventually […]

@Thayer Congratulations! Enjoy the well-earned cake!

@ku2y Realised I've never really said what I'm up to with this thing :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjFw5h951YY

1960s style Mission Control board for demos at events.

Still very much a work in progress, but it's starting to come together. Thanks so much for your work here!

@ku2y Excellent, I'll get that done soon then, thanks!

I'll try and properly implement the absolute orientation sensing at the same time rather than just hacking it in :)

@ku2y I just hooked up one of the prototype versions of these: https://www.tindie.com/products/tomwardill/cm108-radio-widget/ and it seems to just work, which is nice.

The command/control code doesn't appear to be super reliable at actually restarting into the correct mode though. It parses my […]

To get the APRS based Command and Control working on this CubeSat Simulator I need to add a USB soundcard as it's only the beta 1.3 hardware.

Turns out I have a box of exactly them, designed exactly for this.

I do love it when previous projects come into play later.

Having an incredibly frustrating time with a USB project.
FE1.1s chip wired up. Having 1 device connected to it is fine. Having 2 causes a bunch of usb errors and a semi-stable reboot loop.
No idea what's going on, and I don't appear to be able to fix it.