RandomUser

joined 1 year ago
[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not sure I understand the problem fully, but you want a circuit to operate when you push the horn button, without affecting the horn operation.

Chances are the relay coil is drawing to much power.

Have you thought about adding a transistor to your circuit? It would draw very little current from the horn circuit but should allow you to drive something else. - such as your relay. It would of course require you to do some electronics.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Remember that you are also interviewing them. They won't expect you to know all the answers, but will want someone that they can work with. If you can, answer questions with the STAR method (situation, task, approach, result), but don't waffle. You can use one piece of experience in a variety of ways: teamwork, research, urgent deadline etc.

It's ok to say that you are nervous, they should try to put you at ease.

You may be asked 'trick questions', these are not usually to to you up but to see how you work an unknown problem. There is no right answer. Not knowing stuff is ok. Not being able to think up a plan is less so.

Remember whatever the outcome, this is really useful experience. See if you can get a site tour, ask about the tech used... You can then add this to your knowledge for later. In my experience, industry is frequently several years ahead of academia so you get a good chance to understand the real world.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'd go with a good quality traditional key lock fitted properly in a good door and frame. Security isn't a single point task, it depends on many things so think like a bad person and do what you can to make your property a harder target than your neighbours.

A good lock on a bad door doesn't work, neither does a bad lock on a good door. Everything needs to work together. If you're likely to lose your keys or many people need access a smart lock may be an idea, but good probably isn't cheap. If it's just you and you can keep your keys safe, then I think tried, tested and simple kit is good.

Ultimately though, as ever, it's your risk assessment based on your needs.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 37 points 2 months ago (8 children)

If you watch lock picking lawyer, you may as well just leave it open. Most smart locks seem to prioritise convenience over security. -possibly check that your insurance is happy with a smart lock.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a good chance that it's the capacitors in the PSU that have failed. It's always the caps! Should be a very doable repair.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ermmm.... If you use several pins to get the current rating, what happens if one of the pins fails or gets corroded? Won't you risk generating heat? Think I'd prefer nice big connectors for the power and to keep the data lines safely segregated. Depends on your needs and design I suppose.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

It's like everything, practice slowly, get good form wired in, then when you write fast for exams your writing will be worse than normal, but still legible.

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Practice writing slowly and with good form. Write regularly, give yourself practice pieces. At uni you will be writing FAST, so it'll get worse if you don't keep disciplined.

Alternatively, learn to touch type, and type any work you need to hand in. - if your handwriting is so bad, you may want to make your notes legible to yourself for revision.

 

I want to store a battery powered device long term (decades) as a reference article, it will never be switched on or charged again. The problem is that it contains a small LiPo battery that will be very hard to remove.

Is there likely to be any significant risk I need to worry about? Once depleted will the battery be relatively inert?

[–] RandomUser@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's a lot of Scotland, and don't underestimate driving times. Argyll is good, but can be rather wet any time of the year. Going around now you should be safe from the midgies. Recommend getting onto some of the islands too, and boat rides are always nice. Kerrera is a lovely little island just by Oban. It has a very atmospheric castle, though the teashop isn't as good as it was so pack a lunch. If you like a dram, make a tour of some distilleries, each has it's own character. Argyll has lots of archeology & standing stones if that's your thing. There are loads of lumpy bits of you like walking too. Pretty much anywhere is good, tourist hotspot are ok, but try to get off the beaten track once in a while.

If you're driving, and going onto country roads, please please please learn to reverse.

If you're lucky you may get to spot some wild haggis, but they're quite rare now. The farmed ones are cute but have a nasty bite so be careful.

Also don't neglect the borders, loads of history.

It may not sound your thing, but consider geocaching... It takes you to some interesting out of the way places.

 

Project was to display tide information (time and height) on an LED panel. Fingers crossed the image loads!

OK, it's not an Arduino as such, it's an ESP32, but I programmed it on the arduino IDE. I get the time from an NTP time server and tide data from an API. A bit of messing around with daylight savings times and I display the next four tides on the Hub75 LED matrix. Date and clock is shown on the other side. Every 24 hours I pull new data down and sync the clock.

The good: It works as planned.

The bad: API keys and wifi creds are all hard coded so will need a firmware update if either change. Don't think I have sufficient pins left to allow me to read from an SD card.

The ugly: The wiring behind it is not beautiful. The code could do with a review and tidy. - Maybe even a bit of error handling wouldn't go amiss. Red and Blue are a bit jarring so close together and the blue is a bit swamped , especially when the brightness is turned down.

I may make an enclosure to keep it all together and keep the dust off and add a pir sensor to turn the display off when there's no movement. Or I may get bored and dismantle it!

 

While not quite Arduino, I have an ESP32 (Arduino IDE) project to pull tide data via API and show it on a HUB75 led matrix. I've got most of the parts working separately but not quite got them all together yet. What is everyone else doing?