December 2021 – ArthurMLago's Blog

Getting started with FPGAs the hard way

Decided to include FPGAs in my hobbies, but doing it in the absolute hardest way possible to get started. For the future, I have an idea for a simple project driving WS2812 led strips.

FPGAs were always part my interests, ever since I discovered them in university, I never failed to be amazed at "prototyping silicon chips". Doing work interfacing with them daily at my job also helped me remember how cool they are. So it was just a matter o time before I actually bought one and started playing with it at home.

However, I wanted to do it the hard way. Ever since I had to power on, program, and prototype with a Kinetis MK06 at the Phoenix Robotics Team, it downed on me that development boards are just convenience. I can save a buck by doing the hard work they do and still learn in the process. So I decided I would try to buy chips directly from digikey, solder them on an LQFP adapter to through hole pins, use jumpers to provide necessary signals and supplies, and find out about programming protocols.

Gyroscope add-on for joysticks: When v1 works better than v2

I wanted to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild again on CEMU. My controllers don’t have a gyroscope so I decided to try to make a PCB that attaches to the controller and feeds CEMU gyroscope data. Didn’t work out, but I learned a lot, and will try again.

So, Zelda Breath of the Wild. If my count is correct, I had already done 3 playthroughs on my friends' consoles, but it wasn't enough, I wanted to try it again on Cemu. But I'm not settling for anything but the best gaming experience, and I wanted the gyroscope features too, which of course was not available with my cheap-ass controllers...Worry not, I have a plan.

3D-print, alginate and plaster for a single part I need

I wanted to make a heat resistant part to hold my soldering iron tips, even right after use. 3D printing obviously wouldn’t cut it, so I had to get creative.

Ever since I was gifted a TS-100 soldering iron, I never had to look anywhere else for soldering irons, except when I was soldering wires for the TS-100 supply voltage. My uncle was also kind enough to gift me a bunch of tips for it, and I only learned the beauty of some of them later on(drag soldering with the bevel tip is just... beautiful). But sometimes, I want to change the tip, and being impatient as I am, I always have to find some janky spot to leave the hot tip at, right after using pliers to remove it.

After getting my 3D printer, I thought I could find a way to make a piece that would hold all my tips, but to get that sweet resistance, I would need to get creative. But let's not get ahead of ourselves... I designed the piece I had in my mind:(I did it with freecad, at the end of this post I will provided the .FCStd that I got all these steps from)

Laser cutting shaped bokeh filters

Classical examples of using my hobbies to support my other hobbies, I use my CP-01 to cut some cardboard into various shapes and use them to create a cool photography effect.

Before taking up photography as a hobby, I had people in my life that loved talking about it, and I was always intrigued about how things worked, and remembering how optics kind of makes sense years after learning it. There was one technique they talked about in particular that I always thought was really cool and simple, it is called shaped bokeh.

How a Telegram Bot did accounting at my house

At the last house I lived in, we had to figure out a way to share expenses in a decentralized way, and finding the best way to settle debts. I made an inefficient, but working algorithm for it, and made a telegram bot to interface with the users.

I've been waiting to do a write up of this forever, it is probably the side project that was most useful for the longest, even though the actual algorithm makes me embarrassed, but anyone that talked with me for more than a couple hours probably already had to endure me talking about it.

Finally bought a 3D printer(with benefits)

I’ve been thinking of buying/building a 3D printer since forever, and now I bought one that also includes laser engraving and CNC functions, the CP-01, but had some trouble getting everything to work.

So, I've wanted to build/buy a 3D printer for a long time, but never had the courage or disposition. My initial plan was to build one, because I already have some spare parts, but a good friend, much more experienced than myself convinced me to buy my first one ready to avoid many problems, and not having a 3d printer to fix them. And so I did, but instead of picking his recommendation, I tried to fulfill 3 hobbies at once and bought a CP-01, which has interchangeable heads for 3D printing, CNC milling and laser engraving(planning to mill PCB boards, laser cut/engrave camera filters for shapped bokeh, and lots of other stuff).

I want to make better bread and pizza

I wanted to make better bread and pizza, so I hacked my oven to have no temperature limit and loose less heat.

So, I have recently taken to baking. YouTube recommended some videos that got me interested, and I decided to dive right in.
Everything went great until the actual baking part. My oven was simply not hot enough, it took me more than double the time recommended in the video, and the final result was not as good. During the baking, I could actually hear the thermostat shutting down the heaters, even at the maximum setting.