More "Maker" Oriented Forums?

[For The Popcorn]

Is anybody familiar with more "maker" oriented where people share projects, discuss Innovations and unique solutions to problems?

No offense, but these things aren't a focus here, and sharing ideas and projects, discussing different approaches to solving problems (and recognizing that there is no single "best" solution) doesn't attract much attention here.

After a while, explaining how to calculate LED resistor values to somebody that just wants the answer rather than the knowledge of how to calculate it, explaining that LEDs in parallel are a bad idea, explaining that the charred crater where a mystery component used to be is a symtom of the problem, not usually the problem itself grows old. The question of how much you can exceed the ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM RATING of a chip grows old.

Any suggestions?

 

[rjenkinsgb]

The "Replica Props" forum could be a possibility?
People trying to recreate gadgets from movies & scifi etc.

There is someone trying & discussing how to make just about anything one there:

Replica Props

Show and discuss your replica props from movies, tv shows, comic books, and video games.

www.therpf.com

 

[Papabravo]

It is entirely possible that for a variety of reasons this and similar forums have completely outlived their utility.

 

[AnalogKid]

grows old. grows old.

Not to the person seeking advice.

ak

 

[AnalogKid]

Any suggestions?

Browse less often. Seeing the same questions once a month instead of every day will seem much less repetitive.

ak

 

[AnalogKid]

And, just in case I haven't pissed off anyone yet . . .

Any suggestions?

Don't go into teaching.

ak

 

[alec_t]

No offense, but these things aren't a focus here

Aren't the items found under the 'Electronic Projects' tab of this site to your liking?

 

[shortbus=]

Are you meaning making electronic things or just things other than electronic?

If the latter, have you seen what Google has to say?

maker oriented websites - Google Search

 

[For The Popcorn]

Mostly things electronic. I like seeing what other people are doing (and stealing the good parts for myself ), and showing off the things I have done.

Here's a recent example. Years ago, I laid out a USB–UART/I2C interface board based on the Microchip MCP2221. I recently came across that board that never did work and had another go at it. This time, I decided to use all of the features of chip:

● USB-UART interface

● USB-I2C interface

● Four multipurpose GPIO lines that can be
○ Digital GPIO
○ 10-bit ADC × 3
○ 5-bit DAC
○ UART TX & RX activity LEDs
○ I2C activity LED
○ Interrupt input
○ Adjustable duty cycle clock output

Microchip supplies an I2C terminal app for Windows, Apple, Linux and Android, and it can be controlled directly from a PC using Circuit Python commands (haven't mastered that yet).

I think this will be useful for quick&dirty tasks like testing out I2C commands easily or for simple data collection tasks. But sharing things like this here usually goes over with a resounding THUD, often with a side of unhelpful criticism.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Mostly things electronic. I like seeing what other people are doing (and stealing the good parts for myself ), and showing off the things I have done.

Sounds a bit like me! I have more projects on the go than I can remember, some that have already been in progress for years, waiting for time, parts or inspiration.

Examples:

Recreating the first two computers I built in the 70s, with the same CPUs & I/O etc., but far more compact form using PALs/GALs rather that dozens of TTL IC for the glue. (6800 with MIKBUG, on a single eurocard, and a 6809 OS/9 system with disc interface on three eurocards - both originally were in 19" rack cardframes).

A large tracked robot with stereo vision & LIDAR etc., using a Jetson nano & ROS based control.

A full size animatronic raven using a PIC with seven servos, sound module and speech recognition module.

Spot micro quadruped, also with a Jetson.

Radio control for testing, calibrating and limit checking the various robot servos.

Openmower lawnmower (just waiting for the prototype control panel PCB, as I used a different chassis to the original designer).

Endless bits of home automation; for that at the moment, a Jetson based offline speech recognition system.
(The main system is based on Homeseer, but that uses Microsoft built-in speech rec with is very poor).

A toolchanging 3D printer, needing a new X axis system designing as the X rail I used is not precise enough.

Numerous PIC-based gadgets & designs for all sorts of stuff.

Test gear; A thyristor tester, a graphical display optical encoder tester with adapters for various machine tool connector types & pinouts, a noise source for audio testing, a few 16 channel switch + light boxes for PLC program testing etc. etc.

Audio gear - PCBs to build a preamp design I wanted, but no boards were available for.
Microphone PCBs to upgrade cheap fake condenser mics to studio quality.

And who knows what else I've forgotten at this instant,

I just like building and programming things! But nothing is really relevant to this forum, unless someone asks a question related to one of them.

A do put some stuff on my web site or youtube channel, but only a fraction of it & often just bits of educational or novelty stuff.


The "Projects" forum on here is titled as if it is purely for people requesting help with or ideas for a project they are working on.

Possibly the admins could add a new and separate main category for displaying or showcasing peoples projects working or work-in-progress projects? That may also bring a few more people to the forum.

 

[For The Popcorn]

Wow, you do have a lot going!

Speaking of home automation, I'd like to migrate to a local server and try to get everything into the same ecosystem. IFTTT integrates most stuff pretty well, but some features are limited. A pet peeve is Google voice that sometimes misses words, so it decides that "turn on living room light" means turn on EVERYTHING with "light" in its name.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Homeseer has an add-in for Amazon Alexa that does work very well for voice control - however that is on line, and the add-on available in the UK only supports on-off commands.

Apparently the US version of the add-on is vastly more capable?

I originally used HAL2000 (Home automated living) when that was first released - it has really! good speech recognition.
Up to V3 it was great, as they has a specific UK English version and the support from the user forums and user-created stuff was great; but they seemed to abandon that, then only add support for some US-only hardware. I stuck with it through a few more versions, but no devices were added for EU compatible Z-Wave - and then a new forum with a "No bug reports (no criticism)" rule, or something like that.

They are still going, and now may support some EU stuff - but the new forum with crazy rules was the end of it for me.

Also, Homeseer is modular and there is a vast range of add-ons for just about any device you can think of, plus web & MQTT integration etc.
The only downside is the poor voice recognition.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Wow, you do have a lot going!

That's just the stuff that seems relevant to this site.. Also a home studio, repairing guitars, bits of model engineering etc..
And actual work - faultfinding & upgrading machine tools & machine control systems, plus now electrical work and refits on trams!

 

[tepalia02]

For project sharing, Hackaday, Hackstar IO, Elector are good places.