u/frobnosticus

▲ 4 r/maker

Shells, Chassis, Boxes, Housings: There's got to be a better way than 3d printing or vacuum forming. Everything I make seems just...too flimsy for "real life" use.

tl;dr: 3d printing is great for prototyping and quick hit stuff. But the results are just not substantial enough.


I've got a couple projects that are driving me bananas (short a trip as it is.) There are certainly buckets of other projects. But those two are sufficient to capture the spirit of what I'm talking about.

  • The nearly ubiquitous red "desk radio" from cyberpunk 2077. I adore that thing and have wanted to build one since I first saw it.
  • An old school monolithic "dumb terminal"

I've printed the radio in pla as a test to make sure the mesh extractions worked (took some tweaking.) But it, like just about everything I print using pla or petg, just feels like something I made in the kitchen with mom from a kit with Vincent Price's face on the box.

A compound curve terminal housing adds challenges of heat dissipation and the like.

So what's the level jump from 3d printing? Large pieces. Compound curves, reinforceable...

I've got a bad feeling it's "mill out of aluminum and add an enamel finish." Which, as a software guy is far beyond my (current) skill set.

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u/frobnosticus — 11 hours ago
▲ 0 r/hotas

Help an old guy out. 1600M and the other thingie. Trying to get used to them. Difficulty: Ubuntu.

tl;dr: What I'd really like is an app that, when I hit a button or a rocker or...whatever...showed me on screen what the "common name" for it was. I don't even know what the X4 tutorial is asking me to press. (I'm more interested in the generic solution than the game specific one.)

I kinda feel like a fool here. (Not a problem, confusion is my happy place.)

I'm WAY out of my depth. There are a couple games I keep bouncing off of because the controls are too complex for keyboard and mouse. So I've got the 1600M with the throttle thingamabob.

Okay, so they seem to be recognized and the game in question (X4) has a bunch of "load profile for stuff that looks like what you've got" options.

But when they say things like "press button X" is...there a chart of how this maps to these controllers? Does everyone just know what this all is? I've tried diving into the input mapping xml but that's not really that helpful since it's just symbolic names anyway.

Loaded the profile and found....fire pauses, and there's a zoom. But I literally (for instance) can't walk.

Point me to the M that I may R it. (The literal Manual isn't particularly helpful.)

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u/frobnosticus — 1 day ago

EDIT: Awesome! Thanks yall. I skipped specific errors because I figured my problem was entirely conceptual rather than syntactical, which seems right. I'm going to try a few things here before "calling it" and report back.

o7


So, I'm coming back to C++ now that I'm retired and people can't make me use duck type garbage languages anymore. (sorta just kidding. I adore the few I use.)

I have this:

struct ConcreteEvent { *bunch of ints and a std::string or two* };

class ABCHandler {
  public:
    virtual void handle(const ConcreteEvent&) = 0;
};

Sure. no big deal. There are half a dozen concrete implementations.

In the before time I would have done this:

class HandlerChain : public ABCHandler
{
    private:
        std::list<ABCHandler*> chain;
    public:
        void handle(const ConcreteEvent& e) {
          for (std::list<ABCHandler*>::iterator i; chain.begin(); i != chain.end())
          {
              i->handle(e);
          }
        void add_handler(ABCHandler* h) { chain.push_back(h); }
};

Enveloping object owns the handlers and devil take the hindmost.

Nowadays I'm sure I'm supposed to use some std::unique_ptr<> somethingorother. But I've been banging my head against template error message explosions for a few hours.

"In a perfect world" Even the list contents would be some thin concrete envelope, if only for the fig leaf of object semantics.

It's perfectly acceptable for the "HandlerChain" class to have true ownership. But the handlers have to be created outside because some require complex initialization (database/socket stuff, etc.)

If nothing else, what's the right search term? You start looking up C++ list of functions/functors and well...you get everything.

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u/frobnosticus — 16 days ago

So I haven't been a TTRPG guy since the 80s. I love the source material dearly though, but only started diving in after 77 came out.

I keep seeing things like comments on the music video talking about "yeah but she was Militec/PD" (I forget.)

Things like Spider Murphy in the flashback, Rache, etc.

Is there a "If you want the full background story content..." master source book list someplace?

I'd love to catch up.

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u/frobnosticus — 19 days ago
▲ 2 r/esp32

tl;dr (at the top because I'm not a psychopath.): Is there a table (or place I should host a table) of dev boards and supported features and libraries? (beyond basic capability comparison charts?) Things like Micropython/Arduino framework support?

EDIT: A note about espboards.dev: It's an incredible resource with just truckloads of data. But it still doesn't seem to quite cover the "dev setup" differences that are getting me all torqued.


I adore this architecture. I really do. Please don't take this as petulant redditor complaining about Espressif. It's 137% not that. These things have absolutely shocked me with their flexibility.

My problem is I'm a casual user (though a systems programmer.) So every few months I'll reach in to the bin of boards because I want to spin something up.

And, because I'm NOT the most stable of all humans I end up in this loop:

  • Whups. That doesn't have wireless. Fair enough.
  • Okay this has wireless but I can't find a mini usb.

Then the fun stuff...

  • Can I use circuitpython/micropython with this? Well...looks like they have it for the C6-1N8. But is that "close enough" for the C6-1?
  • Ah, screw it. I'll pull up Platformio. Ah, yeah, there's the board. Oh crap. It doesn't support the arduino framework, just espidf (too new.) Fair enough.
  • Okay here's one. A NodeMCU. That's...ooh, Wroom based no circuitpython. (Not that I'm married to CP/MP. I just sometimes wanna spin something up quick as a goof.
  • Nope. I've got 327 of the NodeMCUs. Heck, maybe I should just pull out an 8266....yeah that's not gonna work.

fast forward:

  • Oh, that LOOKS like a CYD. But it's a different sub-model so I can't flash cool weallknowwhat on that.

The last time I went through this I said "screw it, I'm gonna use Pico 2Ws" and after 2 hours (please laugh with me at my madness) I found out that no, I didn't have a bad batch of Pis. I had a charge only cable. I looked back at the "don't use these" box of esp32 dev boards, back to the cable and wondered...

"To make a long story...err...to stop shy of a Russian novel"...

I'm trying to start a new project and I'm bouncing off the same crap again.

I'm starting to build myself a little spreadsheet of these things because I can't seem to find one that's at this "Okay monkey, that's a phillips head screwdriver and you've got a flat head screw. Stop that" level.

It occurred to me that the answer to "Am I the only..." is ALWAYS no. So...a simple page with a chart and some pics for easy board identification? Maybe as a github repo? I know lots of pieces of this for this board or that are scattered across the innertubes.

If it's out there, by all means point me at TFM that I may R it.

EDIT: Formatting.

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u/frobnosticus — 22 days ago
▲ 2 r/fo76

tl;dr: Rule #1: Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose. But rule #2: Play how you want. I ain't here to yuk anyone's yum.

I love my nice quiet hidden hunting rifle build. I get between 2k and 3k from a roost before I even get agroed.

But I keep trying to join events now, thinking at L90 I'd be able to contribue, and I'm getting absolutely flattened.

There are half a dozen players around in full T60 with Gatwhateverthehecks just bouncing all over the place.

Do I just have to hold my nose and figure out how to play with PA on a sneak speced character now in order to contribute?

What say ye?

(Also:

  • Why, when I go in to my favorite hunting grounds do all the mobs suddenly drop dead at once? It happens all the time. Log in, clean up inventory, head to Welch...see a bunch of mole miners milling about, blink, and they're all dead. What gives? Didn't used to happen.)

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u/frobnosticus — 24 days ago
▲ 4 r/maker

EDIT: I'm a doofus. I just tripped over "infrared touch frame." I'm going to start with that and see if it serves well enough.

TL;DR: I want to build the "big touch screen desk/table" but don't even know where to start looking. Yes I fully acknowledge this is utterly beyond my current skill set.

I REALLY want the touch screen transparent 30"ish monitor. But I'm not sure that's even real technology.

If I could do design and development work on such a thing I'd be unstoppable. (He says, with the full awareness of "real productivity is right around the next blind corner" delusion.)

If I separate the ideas of display and interactivity (which I suppose I have to do) then the display problem goes away. I could just get a big monitor and rip it out of it's case.

But precision multi-point touch interface without using an array of cameras in the naive sense..

For 5 figures I'm sure there some conference room nightmare. But I don't have that to spend on this and...I mean, where's the fun?

But this "can't possibly be THAT much of a nightmare" to build, can it?

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u/frobnosticus — 25 days ago