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I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

pentaton.app

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Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#41

Post by peteforde »

pedda8862 wrote: post #35
peteforde wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have serious beef with ChatGPT's text-based circuit schematic drawing abilities. Even though the model itself appears to be fully coherent about the big and little picture aspects of whatever's "on bench" I have wasted too much time trying to parse its attempts to draw circuits. I consider them actively harmful in their current form. I quietly hope that one of the LLMs will start actually generating netcode that ca…

Without any deep knowledge, I was able to build at least a working board with a mcp server [1]. It’s always about the interface. I had to solder a few parts. Yes there where a lot of vias placed. Nice grid but it worked. [1] https://github.com/mixelpixx/KiCAD-MCP-Server

Thanks for reminding me that that exists! I'll have to give it a try, as it seems to have matured significantly since I last checked.

That said, outside of casual experimentation, I have almost zero need for an LLM to lay out my circuits for me. It's not just that I do have the deep knowledge, but there's so much more to board layout than routing. What parts I've worked with, what I have in inventory and on my PnP.

I also just really love laying out boards, and I'm in no hurry to give that up.

That said, I've found ChatGPT to be extraordinarily useful for part comparisons, getting second opinions on approaches, figuring out resistor divider values, troubleshooting drivers, and so much more it's difficult to enumerate.

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#42

Post by skew-aberration »

the__alchemist wrote: post #27
matheusmoreira wrote: post #20

> I never did this before so there was plenty to learn, from basic electronics and magnetics to high-speed signal routing. How did you learn this? As a hobbyist I found hardware to be quite impenetrable, given the hard mathematics and physics requirements. My attempts to learn this essentially degenerate to taking an informal engineering course. It quickly becomes clear that I'm years away from making something, and…

> As a hobbyist I found hardware to be quite impenetrable, given the hard mathematics and physics requirements. IMO there aren't any. It's mostly about reading datasheets, and connecting pins to each other IOC those datasheets. Maybe the physics and mathematics are more important for analog electronics or designing ASICS? Do you have any specific projects you'd like to build? Post here and we can talk through it. And…

> It's mostly about reading datasheets, and connecting pins to each other IOC those datasheets .. Maybe the physics and mathematics are more important for analog electronics or designing ASICS?

I agree that electronics is very accessible, and I'll add that in my experience as an EEE the main beginner gotcha is bad PCB layout rather than maths/physics.

For a flight controller say, bad layout would manifest as slightly noisier sensor readings and reduced radio range. But assuming this is 4 layers https://www.anyleaf.org/mercury-g4 then you probably know what you're doing :) - ditto for OP's article.

Simple layout rules will take anyone 99% percent of the way to professional results. Ground planes on inside (or bottom) layers, signals on outside (or top). Don't cut ground planes. Decoupling caps close to ICs. Keep current loops small. Vertical traces on one side, horizontal on the other. A single youtube video could teach you all that.

When I used to do this stuff for a job, math/physics was only needed for analog electronics (interfacing to hardware like specialized/novel sensors), optimizing control systems and signal processing, and general cost/efficiency engineering - but you could go a long way without it.

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#44

Post by warpech »

That's incredible! I was thinking about such a project but a quick research didn't show any suitable square-shape LCD monitors. I am glad that turned out to me not true.

I will be happy to participate in the Kickstarter campaign

WDYT about adding something more to the screen than record sleeves, e.g., lyrics display?

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#45

Post by danr4 »

interfeco wrote: post #2

Hey HN, I've finally finished my dream music streamer featuring a vinyl-sleeve-sized square display, a custom carrier PCB for a compute module and a 3D printed case, running a custom-compiled kernel, Alpine mini rootfs and a small C app driving the display. I did not think that this was doable by a hobbyist at all, let alone using free/open source software only (KiCAD, FreeCAD, VSCode). Turns out I was wrong!

did ai help?

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#46

Post by atoav »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #5

> Once I had the design [of the enclosure], I tried to 3D print it on my brand new 3D printer, which turned out to be a disaster. Took me some time to learn more about designing for manufacturing, especially for 3D printing. Would have been nice to hear how specifically it was made to work in the end. > Turns out, cross-fading two 4MP images at 60 frames per second on a moderately powerful single board computer is no…

As a mediatec guy I think the idea that everything needs to be 60 fps is a pest. I understand the idea in gaming, but it is not needed elsewhere. A train stop display can easily do its job at 1 fps or lower. You do not need to display motion at all and the 1 fps you need mostly for blinking things off and on (if there is no dedicated circuit for it).

Most cinema films I watched projected from analog film looked perfect at 24 fps. Heck some anime loocks better at 5 or 10fps than it would look if the motion was fluid at 120 fps. Why would a display at a train stop need double the frame rate of a cinema classic that still looks completely convincing? Because some gamers decided they can't play below 60 fps?

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#47

Post by dnpls »

interfeco wrote: post #2

Hey HN, I've finally finished my dream music streamer featuring a vinyl-sleeve-sized square display, a custom carrier PCB for a compute module and a 3D printed case, running a custom-compiled kernel, Alpine mini rootfs and a small C app driving the display. I did not think that this was doable by a hobbyist at all, let alone using free/open source software only (KiCAD, FreeCAD, VSCode). Turns out I was wrong!

This is an awesome project! I think it would be a great use case for a color e-ink display, I imagine it would consume way less energy.

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#48

Post by psd1 »

bobjordan wrote: post #29
matheusmoreira wrote: post #20

> I never did this before so there was plenty to learn, from basic electronics and magnetics to high-speed signal routing. How did you learn this? As a hobbyist I found hardware to be quite impenetrable, given the hard mathematics and physics requirements. My attempts to learn this essentially degenerate to taking an informal engineering course. It quickly becomes clear that I'm years away from making something, and…

Building something useful in a circuit design using off-the-shelf ICs and components doesn't require a very deep understanding of the theoretical basis for why it works. There's really no need to be gated by thinking that overly complex mathematics and physics concepts must be fully understood before building. Most electronic parts datasheets have example circuits and layouts that can be followed to get a working des…

A purely logic circuit with impedance-matched chips, sure. However, when you need to drive a load, you quickly need to learn about flyback diodes, pullup resistors, and chokes.

You find yourself on forums reading posts like "yeah, that's an n-junction unit, you'll find the circuit much easier with a p-junction. Try ANP1058 and forward-bias the gate", or other such gnomic directives.

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice, as she fell down the rabbit-hole.

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#49

Post by psd1 »

eahm wrote: post #43

Sorry but ...a Mini PC with foobar2000, remote controlled via phone/web and a monitor for the full screen cover and done, that's what I'd do.

Me too, in the general case, but the square display was a key requirement. And i can see it; op is displaying LP covers; it needs to look good

I think i'd just make the bezel for the display and putty an SBC onto the back with an HDMI converter dongle. I'd likely order a custom picture frame with some rococo moulding, for the anachronistic effect, and display nondescript oils when not streaming.

Re: I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music

#50

Post by trashb »

atoav wrote: post #46
mananaysiempre wrote: post #5

> Once I had the design [of the enclosure], I tried to 3D print it on my brand new 3D printer, which turned out to be a disaster. Took me some time to learn more about designing for manufacturing, especially for 3D printing. Would have been nice to hear how specifically it was made to work in the end. > Turns out, cross-fading two 4MP images at 60 frames per second on a moderately powerful single board computer is no…

As a mediatec guy I think the idea that everything needs to be 60 fps is a pest. I understand the idea in gaming, but it is not needed elsewhere. A train stop display can easily do its job at 1 fps or lower. You do not need to display motion at all and the 1 fps you need mostly for blinking things off and on (if there is no dedicated circuit for it). Most cinema films I watched projected from analog film looked perfe…

> 60 fps is a pest

I agree. Even for gaming just the fps is misinformed. It doesn't account for latency and is kind of a arbitrary limit that became industry standard.

Consider a 60fps or 144fps stream can still be out of sync for example you might have experienced watching the same video stream on two different devices and one is more ahead compared to the other while both are the same framerate (one having higher latency from the source).

24fps is good for most real video, animations even dial back to way less animating on 4s, 3s or 2s is common practice. However while gaming you may want higher fps (usually corresponds to lower latency) to allow you to respond in a timely fashion mostly because our brains are quite slow. For embedded applications even if there is movement it should never ever need a 60fps source.

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