makkin thing @gbrnt@mastodon.technology

I finally made a new breath sensor that's *better* than the first one! It feels nicer and the modulation is even a little better.

Also the wiring comes out the bottom which is a lot neater. No more wires getting in the way of seeing the music!

I'm not sure this is the final shape I'll go with but I *do* think it looks pretty cool!

Here's my finished painted Ploopy #trackball - I'm not happy with the buttons but I wanted to start using it! I'll do some black / dark grey ones another time I think.

The idea I'm toying with is basically making my own switch. You just have the mechanical part complete a circuit, maybe to something like a battery contact.

There's already a lever I'm pressing down, and I want the activation point to be when the lever is fully down. Why not simplify the whole thing to a switch matrix again?

The only problem I've had so far is finding the right spring/contact for it to hit. I know it exists somewhere, I just need to find it.

On the subject of "more button is more better", the reason I haven't finished off the electro-sax project is because I want to get the buttons right.

Capacitive buttons are just too much of a pain. I need to keep recalibrating or they go all fucky.

The only problem I had with using the Cherry MX style switches was their activation point being too early. I reckon that could be fixed with a custom slider (if I had access to a resin printer to get the quality I need)

I think I just talked myself into yet another project before finishing the last two.

Now I've written it down I'm not sure why I've been thinking so much about offloading the UI to a touchscreen. I almost always prefer a physical UI and it's what I like to design, so why don't I do that?

The audio method is made complicated by the fact that phones have got rid of headphone jacks, but I still like it.

I think the light method is hella cool, and there are probably ways to minimise the transmitted data and make it faster than my initial estimate. (LED matrix?)

Ways I've thought of to do this:

- Bluetooth - not a lot less complicated than Wifi, but maybe less icky? Tens/hundreds of kbps

- Audio - either over a cable (RIP 3.5mm jacks) or coupling through the air (susceptible to external noise). Basically work like an audio modem. Tens of kbps

- Light! - Use camera screen to transmit to photosensor on spec, use light on spec to transmit to camera on device. Data rate is probably LOW (~60bps)

Possible reasons to *want* to connect a spectrometer to the smart device:

- Minimise the UI on the spectrometer (this may not be a good goal, but it would help to reduce the cost of the spec itself to the user)

- Do more processing of the data. I'm not sure how much analysis you'd *want *to do without a PC though.

- Simplify the spectrometer itself (but you're just shifting the complexity elsewhere)

Every now and then I think about small spectrometers (my university final year project was one). Today I'm thinking about ways to have a battery-powered spectrometer communicate with a smart device.

The way I did it in the project was to host a web server on the spectrometer and have it act as a WiFi hotspot. This seems massively overcomplicated and gave me an intense dislike of creating webapps.

Walk without rhythm, and you won't attract the worm

It had to be done

@normandc @fortifieduniverse @M4x Thanks for the FreeCAD help - this is why I was asking about it!

I finally designed the right side of the Schism #keyboard! Because the PCB flips over it's not just a mirroring - most features need to be mirrored, but some need to be added for only left or only right.

@normandc #FreeCAD question I thought you might be able to answer? I'm designing some parts which need left and right handed versions. They have a lot of common base features, with a few different features on top of them.

What's the best way to do that? Ideally I'd be able to edit the base features and have them update in both, while still being able to add the left/right features in Part Design.

We're looking after a cat while someone moves house, and he is *extremely cute and floofy*

I've printed the Schism #keyboard case design and it pretty much works! It turns out I didn't really think about where to put the battery though. Probably just needs a slight indent added so that there's enough space underneath.

I've lubed all the Gateron yellow switches, and it sounds really nice! Needs some sound damping foam underneath, and I still need to print the other half of the case.

The Ryzen 3700X works perfectly in my partner's PC, so I guess she gets the upgrade instead!

I'm now back home and working on the Schism keyboard again. This time on the case design.

The plate gets sandwiched between top and bottom halves, with o-rings surrounding the plate. I've added a small chamfer on top and a large chamfer on the bottom of the case, to make it look a bit thinner.

A friend gave me his old Ryzen 3700X to use (as an upgrade from my 1600), but unfortunately it looks like it won't work for me :(

Updated the BIOS using my current CPU, installed the new CPU and all I get is fans and the CPU error light. I've put the 1600 back in and taken the chance to delete some old entries (Windows) in my EFI partition.

I'm on holiday in Lanzarote this week! It's good to chill by the beach again.