Category Archives: Learning

Interlude #7: ElectroneX 2024 Debriefing | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

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This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video on this show’s homepage which is here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I tell you about the SWAG (Stuff We All Get) I collected this year at ElectroneX.

I had the very good fortune to meet Dave Jones of EEVblog fame. He was nice enough to take a photo and mention my channel on X.

And as if things couldn’t get any better I then went on to meet Nicholas Vinen of Silicon Chip fame. For the record, the very first thing I ever said to Nicholas Vinen was: “is that a spectrum analyzer?” :P

I mention that the channel’s logo a version of the Hacker Emblem. There’s more info on the show’s website.

My business cards were designed by DAC Design and printed by ClickMedia.

My business card holder is this one: Business Card Holder, 1 Pcs Build in 40 Card Slot PU Leather Business Card Wallet for Credit Card, Business Cards, Men, Women (Black).

The companies who gave me SWAG that I mention in this video are:

I mention my One PCB to Ruler Them All from Adafruit which is part of my costume.

The cheap wire cutters I mention are these ones: Aokin1PC 170 Universal Pliers DIY Electronic Diagonal Side Cutting Nippers Wire Cable Cutter 3D Printer Parts Hand Tools.

As I suspected J.Burrows is a stationary brand. Must have stolen someone’s pen! Whoops! :P

You can read more about Pogo pins. I’ve never used them myself. Looking at them I’m not sure how you would mount them to a board. Lot’s of things to learn!

You can find more info about the probe tweezers I mention in the video over here: Yum Cha Probe Tweezers.

My cheapo multimeters are these ones: DT830B Digital Multimeter. My slightly less cheapo multimeter is this one: DigiTech QM1323 Multimeter. The multimeters I am saving my pennies for are these ones:

Check out the line of Peak test instruments. When I’m rich I am gonna get the full set!

My capacitor testers (and discharger) I mentioned are these ones:

You can find more about my Maxitronix Xin1 Kits. I am making videos as I work my way through them.

You can find the STM micros I showed you over here:

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe!

Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

FNIRSI DC580 Power ModuleThis is an image of the product.

Let’s go shopping!

Homework

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This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. Lovely to see you again, as always.

I ended up getting these cards printed at clickmedia.com.au to take with me on Wednesday to ElectroneX:

John's business card for In The Lab With Jay

I mentioned Iain McGilchrist, he’s a psychiatrist who dabbles in philosophy. I think he has a really excellent and interesting view of things. It’s hard to summarise his position but he is very interested in the difference in perceptive capabilities of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. He has a YouTube channel over here: @DrIainMcGilchrist and if you search for him you will find many a fascinating interview.

You told me to check out Succession (TV series).

I found the Four Corners video you mentioned, over here: Self-defence or genocide? Asking Israel’s powerful voices about Gaza | Four Corners.

I mentioned Eben Moglen, who has a website over here: moglen.law.columbia.edu. I find Eben inspirational. He’s always talking in grandiose eloquence about the importance of free software, if you search for him on YouTube you are bound to find something of interest.

I mentioned Annie Jacobsen, she’s a pretty interesting cat. She has written a number of books on conspiracy-theory-like topics. I recently read her book Nuclear War: A Scenario.

I have a note here that says “positive view on nihilism” but I forget what that was about. Something I wanted to tell you, now lost to time. But searching for ‘positive view on nihilism’ turns up a bunch of interesting results! (Oh. Wait. Found it! It’s a video I wanted you to see: Optimistic Nihilism.)

Oh, another note I don’t remember: “void of ‘huh'”. I assume we were being hilarious.

There is an urban myth that the first human projectile that made it into space was a manhole cover from nuclear testing facilities for Operation Plumbbob in 1957. I dunno if it’s true, but it’s a good story!

Channel News #3: Announcing Mini Projects | Learning Electronics In The Lab With Jay Jay

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This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video on this show’s homepage which is here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

Silly Job Title: Amp Alchemist

In this video I announce the new Mini Projects. These are a new feature of Silicon Chip magazine sponsored by Jaycar. Each month two or three Mini Projects get published in Silicon Chip, and we will be building those projects together on the channel each month!

If you’re interested in Silicon Chip magazine (it’s really good!) then I would certainly encourage you to subscribe.

In this video I misspoke and said this was the “May 2004” issue of the magazine, but of course it is the “May 2024” issue of the magazine! Unfortunately I missed that errata during editing and didn’t include a title clip correction.

I don’t understand what happened that caused that video corruption we saw earlier in the video. I suspect the workstation I was using to record the video had some other processing task which interfered with its recording speed or something? Hopefully this is not an ongoing problem. It’s not a problem I have seen before.

Update: ElectroneX has now been and gone and my write up about the day is over here: My day at ElectroneX with my friend. I got my photo with Dave Jones!

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe!

Following is a product I use picked at random from my collection which may appear in my videos. Clicking through on this to find and click on the green affiliate links before purchasing from eBay or AliExpress is a great way to support the channel at no cost to you. Thanks!

Kaisi Soldering Tools With Desoldering PumpThis is an image of the product.notes

Let’s go shopping!

Fixing compile_commands.json for VS Code and Linux kernel sources

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I have my Linux kernel sources setup like this:

-------------------
Fri Jun 14 00:35:24 [bash:5.2.15 jobs:0 error:0 time:2449]
jj5@virtuoso:/home/jj5/repo/git/git.kernel.org/torvalds-linux
$ git remote show origin
* remote origin
  Fetch URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
  Push  URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
  HEAD branch: master
  Remote branch:
    master tracked
  Local branch configured for 'git pull':
    master merges with remote master
  Local ref configured for 'git push':
    master pushes to master (local out of date)
-------------------

The scripts/clang-tools/gen_compile_commands.py runs just fine:

-------------------
Fri Jun 14 00:35:28 [bash:5.2.15 jobs:0 error:0 time:2453]
jj5@virtuoso:/home/jj5/repo/git/git.kernel.org/torvalds-linux
$ scripts/clang-tools/gen_compile_commands.py 
-------------------

But there is a problem with some unknown clang options, as you can see here:

Problems with clang commands in VS Code

So I wrote this collection of sed scripts to delete the problematic options:

-------------------
Fri Jun 14 00:11:28 [bash:5.2.15 jobs:0 error:0 time:1013]
jj5@virtuoso:/home/jj5/repo/git/git.kernel.org/torvalds-linux
$ cat jj5/fix-commands.sh 
#!/bin/bash

main() {

  set -euo pipefail;

  cd "$( dirname "$0" )";

  cd ..;

  local file="compile_commands.json";

  sed -i 's/-mpreferred-stack-boundary=3//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-mfunction-return=thunk-extern//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-mindirect-branch=thunk-extern//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-mindirect-branch-register//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-fno-allow-store-data-races//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-fconserve-stack//g' "$file"
  sed -i 's/-mrecord-mcount//g' "$file"

}

main "$@";
-------------------

Bug fixed! Thanks to my mates on IRC for helping me fix this one. This clangd extension for VS Code seems to work really well.

p.s. another possible solution is here.