it's in and it's built and it FUCKING WORKS, at least like 80% of the way - I haven't fully put it through a full round of testing yet but every single functionality I've tested - including things that were first-time builds that I hadn't prototyped yet, like the adjustable LDO on the output and the double schmitt trigger falling edge detector, all seem to work! I even splurged a little bit and got some trans knob caps trans-heart .

What I've been up to

Show

I don't know what to tell you, read 'em and weep. The board is built, you see it, it goes hard. Pretend my soldering isn't shitty and I cleaned the flux off. duck-dance

Full list of things that work:

  • Output voltage control knob works, tested open loop (top end is supposed to be 16 and it's closer to 15.5, I might just not worry about it.)
  • Output current control knob works, tested through a 1K resistor.
  • Timer and knob work from 2 to 10 seconds.
  • Lights work*, although I think I killed the 555 timer by soldering near it with the board powered yikes-1yikes-2yikes-3. It worked great for a few minutes and then I soldered in S1 and it stopped working.
  • Foot pedal and probe work.

I don't know if it has any new bugs when specifically connected to a human being. I suspect that if I were to try to use the current sink on the low side of the probe, which I'm bypassing right now, it'd be whacky - I never made an effort to resolve that bug, and I think I might just descope that to get this thing done at all. I'm already longing for a fresh start on some things that I think I can get by launching into the microcontroller-based version of this. There are already enough redundant safety measures in place for me to feel comfortable, although I'd really like to test the JFET current limiter, which I didn't populate because I couldn't source a good JFET and I also couldn't be assed to determine the correct resistor value. I'd really like either that or a current limiting diode on the high side of the amplifier before I call this done. That's going into the next rev. There are also some non-breaking bugs that I still need to design out, like for example I designed in 20K potentiometers for the current and time control, but Alps Alpine only makes 20K potentiometers in audio trim, meaning the knob angle isn't really one to one with the output. I need to replace those with different values. Other little things like that too.

Next up

I'm going to work with the board for a bit and see how it handles! I need to get some hands-on time with it to truly learn how it works, what it's missing, and what I need to change. I'm also kind of just looking to reap the benefits of this thing personally to be honest, I'm getting really tired of shaving angery

(plus i'm meeting some girls who are kinda into this thing and might wanna go hour for hour on some mutual aid electrolysis time over comfort shows and snacks on the couch crush shy)

I think the "alpha" model of releases was a mistake. Because of the nature of hardware development, I think I'm going to change to a "release candidate" model - it makes it clear that any RC board isn't ready to be used, and it allows me to promote any one at any time once I've designated it good enough. So, I'll begin work on RC2 once I'm deeply familiar with this board!

I'm also deeply neglecting the site, mainly @Edie's jekyll port that I really deeply truly appreciate and I never figured out how to apply the patch for. I'm sorry friend 💔 Can you work with me to get that patch applied? I tried to tackle it on a super low executive function day and I just made so little progress applying your patchset and I wanna have it up so bad but it was fighting me and I needed rot time and I quit trying after like twenty minutes kitty-cri-screm

Any ways to help?

There are kind of a few things actually! In no order of priority, with loose guesses at difficulty:

  • Getting the library I'm using updated with 3D models. It's not super necessary but having cute renders is always cool, and it'd be handy for anyone who wants to design an enclosure. Not hard, not easy.
  • Fixing some of the footprints, particularly making sure all the knobs look the same, making the font nicer, etc. Not super easy.
  • Doing a JLCPCB cart catalog audit. I think I'm close to everything being in JLCPCB's catalog? I'm not sure though! If there's anything missing I'd love to know so I can try to design it out in RC2! Kinda boring but not too difficult.
  • some more?? i'll edit them in in the morning i'm up LATE

If any of these things sound like a thing you want to make an attempt at, let me know! I'll work with you to get you started.

sloppy post today, this is deeply not accessible for non-technical audiences and leaves a lot out, so please let me know if you want deeper explanation on anything and i'll add detail! I just wanted to make sure i got my post up to let you know I'M STILL FIGHTING BABY kris-love

i'm still very not settled with the move, and burnout is closing in with my job and my new trans social life, but I'm at equilibrium, I'm okay to keep spending the amount of time I am on this, but I wish I could be spending just a little more. Life is okay though. Great, even. meow-melt

As always, stop by, hang out, say hi, ask questions, tell me what you've been up to, design review me, however you'd like to be involved is good by me! I'll see you in the comments 🥰

    • 410757864530_dead_follicles [she/her]
      ·
      5 months ago

      I'm very uncomfy around patch files in general, I've never worked with this development workflow before, so I'm just going to take a bit of time to get up to speed!

      first things first - the repo and the site are actually not connected right now, the site is just some raw HTML I wrote and the repo is blank, iirc? So I couldn't tell if you were patching from the repo or the site. I found the official guide at https://git-send-email.io/, but that appears to be more for sending patches than accepting them, so it wasn't super helpful to me. I just downloaded the contents of your email and tried to use patch directly on the contents in my working directory, but it looked like it threw some errors and I got scared off. Do you have some time to work with me on it tonight? I think I'll make a matrix account so we can talk about it, if you have one yourself and like that method of communication!

      • ∞ 🏳️‍⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]
        ·
        5 months ago

        the repo and the site are actually not connected right now, the site is just some raw HTML I wrote and the repo is blank, iirc

        Yes. I know.

        So I couldn't tell if you were patching from the repo or the site.

        I made a new jekyll project then put the current site (the HTML that is on sphynx.diy) in that jekyll project. Then I committed it for the repo.

        but that appears to be more for sending patches than accepting them

        Yes, that is why I mentioned this link https://man.sr.ht/git.sr.ht/send-email.md#applying-patches back when I asked to send it to you, because I assumed you didn't know how to apply patches, it should be helpful.

        I just downloaded the contents of your email and tried to use patch directly on the contents in my working directory, but it looked like it threw some errors and I got scared off

        Yes you need to use git am instead, see above link for a bit of help.

        Do you have some time to work with me on it tonight? I think I'll make a matrix account so we can talk about it, if you have one yourself and like that method of communication!

        I probably do. Note that I am in Denmark/UTC+2. Yes I have a matrix account, it should be available on my account here on hexbear (the "send secure message" button).

        • 410757864530_dead_follicles [she/her]
          ·
          5 months ago

          Hi, I'm gonna bang my head against this for a bit! No need to look for matrix replies or anything, I'm going to work on it solo for now because of timezone reasons and also because I'm more in the state for casual work and not intensive, active work. I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you for your help <3

          • ∞ 🏳️‍⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]
            ·
            5 months ago

            Ok. You can always HMU anywhere you feel like if you need help.

            You will probably need to download the email[1], open the email and click on the three dots (next to filter), then click export. This will download a .eml file. Move the downloaded .eml to the sphynx-site folder and open terminal/git[2], then write git am name_of_file.eml. You should now have my commit in git log and the folder should be populated with a lot more files.

            1. if you use protonmail through the web browser, if not I'm not sure what you need to do, depends on program ↩︎

            2. I use git on the terminal, again, if you use something different it depends on the program ↩︎

            • 410757864530_dead_follicles [she/her]
              ·
              5 months ago

              hi! Perfect timing, I just sat down to conclusively definitively follow your instructions to get this patch implemented and then set up CD onto https://sphynx.diy. I'm honestly not opposed to you having push access to a branch, but I just have to get settled into the repo first and reacquaint myself how Jekyll projects are typically organized. I'll let you know when I'm up to speed with where you're at and then there's a good quantity of site things to be done 🥰

              edit: holy shit patching with eml files is easy I don't know why I was dreading this so much. 4 minutes. The CD job failed, I didn't really expect it to pass on the first try, but I'm going to go into debugging that now

              edit 2: i fixed the build script chicken-bop I went down a somewhat (entirely) unnecessary rabbit hole of getting bundler installed as a user gem instead of as a system gem for the problem to be totally unrelated and just be system binaries anyways. Might change it back, might not. The important thing is that pushing jekyll automatically uploads HTML to the site. I can finally start writing blog posts and guides and stuff. Thank you :meow-hug:

              • ∞ 🏳️‍⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]
                ·
                5 months ago

                Cool. There are a few things now because of your changes: .jekyll-build is no longer needed. But bundle exec jekyll build should still have JEKYLL_ENV=production (... Maybe? For good measure lets just do it). environment: site: could be removed if upload: had $site changed to sphynx.diy.

                If I am going to get push access can we have a mailing list for sending patches to?

                Also, I have a sourcehut account if you need it for something: https://sr.ht/~hackerncoder/

                ... And maybe more

                The CD job failed, I didn't really expect it to pass on the first try

                I didn't either, I added it exactly to figure out how the builds worked.