M5Stack ATOM Matrix ESP32 Development Kit

[Chris Savage]

Speaking of ESP32, I saw this on Adafruit for $16.50

[Jeff_T]

I had not seen this device before and it reminds me of the BBC Microbit in many ways, the M5Stack Arduino programming interface, UIFlow, is much like MS MakeCode where you can program with a Blocky type IDE which you can toggle to examine the equivalent Micropython code or vice versa.

Because of the onboard features a beginner could learn a lot without any additional hardware, you can slip it in your pocket and take it anywhere so yes I think that is a pretty good deal.

[Chris Savage]

UIFlow, is much like MS MakeCode where you can program with a Blocky type IDE which you can toggle to examine the equivalent Micropython code or vice versa. that is a pretty good deal.

Speaking of such things, I wanted to show how easy it is to hook a serial LCD up to a Raspberry Pi and talk to it, so I used Scratch to write the code to display a simple message on a Parallax Serial LCD. Ironically, the hardware is still connected (the three wires between the R-Pi and the LCD) after all these years.

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After looking at the I/O pin assignments chart I connected the LCD to the R-Pi I/O header (GND, 5V, TX).

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The first task was to just send raw text to the display. A simple, "Hello World" example.

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The next task was to be able to send control codes, such as those used to turn on the backlight.

I really need to see if the program is still on this R-Pi, but there are two things slowing me down. The first is that I haven't set up the monitor yet. The second is that I do NOT remember the password for this device. It has been years since I used it. These photos are from March 22, 2017!

[Jeff_T]

Hi Chris, was it this tutorial https://savagechats.com/index.php?topic=266.0

I looked at that tutorial quite a while ago and I meant to try it out, the ssd1306 0.96 and the 0.91 are ridiculous cheap on Amazon I just need to motivate myself to order them.

While I think about orders I also need to place an order for a Cytron dual channel motor driver, I stripped the motors out from a Shark robot vac, I think there were 6, and I would like to see how much control I can get with the 2 drive wheels which have encoders built on.

[Chris Savage]

Hi Chris, was it this tutorial https://savagechats.com/index.php?topic=266.0

No, those are OLEDs on Arduino using C. I am referring to a Raspberry Pi Model B+ with a Parallax Serial LCD connected to it and running Scratch, which compiles into JavaScript code.

While I think about orders I also need to place an order for a Cytron dual channel motor driver, I stripped the motors out from a Shark robot vac, I think there were 6, and I would like to see how much control I can get with the 2 drive wheels which have encoders built on.

Six motors?!? I figured half that. Two for drive and one for vacuum. What purpose do the others serve in that vacuum?

P.S. - If you look back up to my earlier reply, I have added the photos. 

[Jeff_T]

Hi Chris, sorry it took this long to get back to you but December has been pretty hectic for me.

The 6 motors are the 3 that you mention 1 x vac motor which is brushless, 2 x drive wheel motors with gear box with encoders, 2 x motors for the front 'pick up brushes' that guide the debris into the vacuum area and 1 x brush roller motor with gear box.

Now that I am back on track so to speak I have so many mini projects I want to do I really need to be ordering a bunch of parts

[Chris Savage]

My robot vacuum is named, "Wall-E" and is an iRobot Roomba 671. I bought it more than three years ago, and I have to say, vacuum technology has changed a lot since then. I finally took this out of the box two months ago. I have to say, I'm not very impressed with it. I remember it was quite expensive at the time I bought it.

Here are a couple of videos of it running yesterday (Sunday) and seeming to get stuck in the same area.

Very weird. Several times it errored out and asked me to move it to a different area, but it kept making the same types of mistakes.