“You must be ready to give up even the most attractive ideas when experiment shows them to be wrong.” - Alessandro Volta
30/09/23: From the depths of my brain I finally remembered that I thought of this, it’s been a thought for months, but now is the time! Not entirely sure on how to describe what this is but I’ll try. It’s a skinny piece of card on the end of a cardboard tube, the card thing can kinda bend like a finger due to a string attached to the top of it which goes through the tube and connects the a servo motor which bends it . Or at least that’s the plan. Here is a little schematic of the geezer. (If I didn’t make sense here please email me at: [email protected] writing things are not my strong suit… do not ask about my English language GCSE… we don’t talk about that. OKAY!) Anyways, I’ve sourced a long cardboard tube from an empty roll of plastic wrap it’s nice and sturdy and should be a good length. And I have ordered a servo motor off of eBay (3 BLOODY POUNDS!!! Unbelievable!) and also an ultrasonic distance sensor to see if I can make the grip(?) of the claw increase as an object moves closer to it… but we’ll do that later. For now let’s just get the basics working.
6/10/23: FINALLY, the servo arrived (remember this cost me 3 pounds!!! Still mad about this. If you know anywhere I can but parts
for cheaper please email me.) now time to put it together.
It’s a bit ugly looking… (here). I kinda just glue-tacked the servo on idek how else to put it on… TAPE, I could use tape… nvm
that would leave a residue and I don’t want to tarnish my brand-new (3 pounds!) servo motor. Okay, now time to wire it up and
write some code on my arduino UNO rev 3, I bought it a few months ago and I think it’s amazing there should be a new one releasing soon
which looks sick! It’s got like SMD LEDs on it, I have no idea what I would even use the LEDs for but it’s cool and it’s got wifi
on the base model and it’s like multiple powers of 2x faster than my lousy rev 3 in every conceivable way, but hey Christmas isn’t too far away
hehehe. ANYWAYS, code, it’s been a bit since I’ve written in c++ (arduino edition) but it should be like riding a bike, you’ll
never forget.
okay code written, let’s see how it runs… !? Servos can only turn 180 degrees!! What is this madness!
I’ll have to move the servo and physically up try again… it’s pretty late though and I’ve got to be up early tomorrow so we’ll
continue another time.
10/10/23: Okay, servo has been moved up and all seems to be working well. Now lets hook it up to a breadboard, add some buttons to
sellect how much the servo should rotate: 0, 90 or 180 degrees.
All wired up now and all the code has been written... YIPEE it works!!! Here is a photo of the final project so far until my distance sensor comes. But for now we are done!
13/10/23: Ultrasonic distance sensor has arrived!!! Lets put it together!
So for this I think im going to add a button to togle between using the distance sensor and using the three preset buttons, just for a little bit of fun. Okay all built, now to add to the code. Oh wait how do I even use this sensor thingy??
Time to copy and paste from google! i love copying and pasting code - its my favourite thing to do. Done - now to rewrite it slightly to aply it to my senario... There's way to much maths for this. I have to use ratios in order to convert the distance into
degrees for the servo. Okok all is done now lets see how it runs...
I mean it works but its a bit shakey with the sensor bit but I think thats the sensors fault. So i am actually done now... Crazy.
Here is the final image + video and here is the final arduino code written
in C++ (dont mind the names of some of the variables... It helps me remember them for some reason).
03/10/23: I have decided to start this project to test out how transistors work. I drew up a sketch of the S-R latch using
logic gates(here).
Now I've drawn out each individual logic gate using transistors (here)... Not entirely sure how to connect them together yet but we'll get there.
Okay, okay I think I got it... oh wait nvm... Oh... hmmm... Ive taken apart and put it back together like 5 times im starting to think I might be the problem
but we must move and conintue until the end!!
Okay, so. The problem. I've been connecting the emmitter some of the transistors to the emmitter of others which I now think is a big nono. I'll take a break for a bit and work on it tomorrow.
6/10/23: I tried showing the breadboard to my computer science teacher who couldn’t help and to my physics teacher who also couldn’t help but he pointed me in the direction of someone who he thought could help, but he couldn’t also… :/
7/10/23: After doing lots and I mean lots of school work I think I’ve finally found time to try to fix my problem today
Oh ok cool. There’s another way
to draw out an S-R latch using logic gates.
here we go: an S-R latch using NOR gates (here). I’ve shoved all my electronics part into a corner somewhere to “clean” my desk but I’ll try
to put it together physically tomorrow (or whenever I have time)
03/01/24: I just recently remembered that I orded a few 555 timers from ebay like 3 months ago and they've just been sitting in a drawer for a while. But today i have decided to venture into the world of ICs starting with the most common one, the 555 timer.
So I've printed out some of the data sheet while watching a youtube video explaing how the timer worked. Aperrently theyve got 3 opperating modes: Astable, monostable and bistable. Astable not requiring a trigger, monostable requiring only a single trigger input
to send a signal and bistable requiring 2 trigger inputs, one to activate and one to deactivate. Pretty cool.
So I've found a good looking circut diagram for the astable mode to base my project (Thank you DroneBot Workshop on Youtube). now time to actually build it!
:^/ nothing ever works the first time you do it. Whats the problem here?.. Oh pin 1 just isnt grounded. It should work now.
YAY! the LED is turning on and off! Awesome, this is soo cool! Here is a video of it (working on the floor because my brother was using my desk :/
04/01/24: So plan for today is the monostable mode of chip. Let's see what we can do. hmmm this is harder than I expected. I think ill come back to this late.
04/01/24: This project has been in the back of my mind ever since I purchased my first guitar pedal for my bass. A cheap little distortion pedal. But now im looking into more effects like delay and reverb. But they are EXPENSIVE. So why not just make one myself??? So I took to youtube to see if anyone had said how to make one. I found a video that utilized a PT2399 IC, a chip manufactured for use in kareoke machines. The video contained a link to a stripboard diagram of the pedal. But I currently do not have access to a soldering iron, so to the breadboard we go! I've mapped everything out on how I think it all connects but into a cirut diagram. Now time to order the parts and see how it puts together in person. Wait... £25 total on ebay!!! hmmm. I might have to put this on hold for a bit until I get the funds for this. I don't know how lond that would take.
19/04/24: Umm... 3 months. My bad! So anyway, I finished building the pedal like a while ago i just forgot to update the website:/ It's not like anyone reads this but ykown its fun! Okay so what I ended up using for the final project: A "PT2399 Microphone Reverb Plate Reverberation Board". What a name that is! it was like 3 pounds on ebay so why not.
I think the hardest part of this project was figuring out how to solder to the input jacks. I could never get it to stick, but i ended up getting it in the end (kinda). Oh yeah this was the first time I used a soldering iron so it took me a bit longer to complete than it would your average bear but its done now so thats all that matters.
For a casing i ended up using an empty tub of yoghurt which works suprisingly well. Like its the perfect size.
ANYWAY here it is in all its glory(?)