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2023-02-15 6:34 pm
Hello All. The name is John and the nickname is Crash. I'm working on 74 years of age and am retired. U.S. Navy veteran (1967-1971) Worked A.T.& T. from 1971 until 2004. Got bored and went back to work at Home Depot from 2006 until 2019. Totally retired to Mr. Mom status since. Ham Radio operator since 1978. 98% of the time using Morse Code. Spend every Summer weekend at our Campsite. Taught myself "Basic" on a Commodore 64 then moved on to "UNIX" and some "C" as a Unix System Administrator. It's been over 15 years since my last UNIX program. So that's pretty much gone. When camp ended this past summer I got bored and started playing with Arduino. I am an avid Dronebot watcher. My favorite thing to do is to take Tutorial codes and changing them to something else. One example is combining the Matrix Keypad Lock and the Matrix LED display tutorials and creating a program that let's you select the message you want to scroll from a few pre-coded messages by selecting a number on the keypad. It's no biggie but it's cute. Looking to later have it allow you to sort messages by days of the week for our local club displays. Right now I am working on the MP3/Internet Radio Tutorial. So far I've gotten it to let me select the MP3 file I want to hear or the Internet radio station I want to listen to without having to go back into the program and recompile it. It's not pretty but it works. So that's me. A born tinkerer. Look forward to reading all the posts I've seen and hoping to Gleen some new experimental choices along the way.
BTW I enjoy this so much I even went and bought the DroneBot T-Shirt with the smiling Robot on it. My wife thinks it's Hysterical!!!
2023-02-15 7:02 pm
@crash Hi John, welcome to the forum. It sounds like you are getting back into it without too much difficulty, but if you have any questions, start a new Topic in the appropriate forum/sub-forum and ask away. Good luck.
First computer 1959. Retired from my own computer company 2004.
Hardware - Expert in 1401, and 360, fairly knowledge in PC plus numerous MPU's and MCU's
Major Languages - Machine language, 360 Macro Assembler, Intel Assembler, PL/I and PL1, Pascal, Basic, C plus numerous job control and scripting languages.
Sure you can learn to be a programmer, it will take the same amount of time for me to learn to be a Doctor.
2023-02-16 3:42 pm
My favorite thing to do is to take Tutorial codes and changing them to something else.
Hey John, glad to see your introduction. You know, that feeling of "well, this works, but what if we adjusted this part a bit . . ." is one of the best parts. I enjoy that too, though I try to make sure the demo code runs as shown in the video, first 😉
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're different.
Topic starter
2023-02-21 2:18 am
@jbo I was reminded of an age old maxim in the last few days regarding coding. "Geez boy, make sure you have a copy of your program, either in the system or somewhere on paper, before you go tearing it up experimenting". I had to rewrite the whole thing from scratch before I could get it to work again 😣 Nice to meet you both. I also discovered a new problem. Received two new ESP32 boards this week but they are both too wide for my side by side breadboards. Guess I'll be shopping again........
2023-02-21 2:32 am
@crash Not really sure what problem you are having with your modules and breadboard. Maybe post a picture? Bill did post something about a wider middle gap a few weeks ago and there are some subtle differences with esp32 board widths, but ordering a specific size could be a challenge as they change and substitute frequently.
First computer 1959. Retired from my own computer company 2004.
Hardware - Expert in 1401, and 360, fairly knowledge in PC plus numerous MPU's and MCU's
Major Languages - Machine language, 360 Macro Assembler, Intel Assembler, PL/I and PL1, Pascal, Basic, C plus numerous job control and scripting languages.
Sure you can learn to be a programmer, it will take the same amount of time for me to learn to be a Doctor.
2023-02-21 3:19 am
@crash Oh, yeah. I remember going through that. I will post a link to my question and answer if I can find the link. Ah, here it is.
Basically, one solution suggested, which I followed, was to take two regular breadboards, lay them side by side, then take out the two power rails in the middle, one from each breadboard. Now, you can attach the two partial breadboards together, since they have these nice little dovetail fittings to accommodate just this process. The two extra power rails just end up being "spare." (Note: this is for breadboards from Rex Qualis; maybe they're all the same size and design?)
Another solution might be to get a perma-proto board from Adafruit or equivalent from Electrocookie, and solder some headers on, to make a sort of socket for the ESP-32. I haven't done this for the ESP, but I did one for the Pi Pico, following @dronebot Bill's article:
Build a Pico “Uno” – Prototyping with the Pico
That was really good practice for me. I even put little cork feet on the corners of mine, to raise it up off the workbench. So this might work for the ESP-32. Regular perfboard is also a possibility, though that seems like a lot more soldering.
Good luck!
This post was modified 1 year ago by jBo
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they're different.
2023-02-21 3:30 pm
@crash Bill covered this breadboard/esp32 issue in one of his recent videos. Here is the board he came up with and I also ordered a couple. This is my Canadian link, but just change the .ca to .com and that should work, otherwise google or search your local amazon for THIS
I attached a pic showing 2 different sizes of esp board, both work great now.
First computer 1959. Retired from my own computer company 2004.
Hardware - Expert in 1401, and 360, fairly knowledge in PC plus numerous MPU's and MCU's
Major Languages - Machine language, 360 Macro Assembler, Intel Assembler, PL/I and PL1, Pascal, Basic, C plus numerous job control and scripting languages.
Sure you can learn to be a programmer, it will take the same amount of time for me to learn to be a Doctor.
