the black thing at the bottom is a big capacitor for the flash.
We thought we’d have a look at one of my broken Nikon cameras today. The good news is that the back came off without too much hassle (once we found the screws behind the viewfinder surround). The bad news is that the picture above shows what you see next. The service manual now says you have to unsolder some of the ribbon cables and remove the rear circuit board. We are presently summoning up the courage to do this…
I’m in the process of re-becoming a member of staff at Hull University. Things have changed a bit since I started. For one of the jobs I started back in the day the induction consisted of “Welcome to the department Rob. You’re giving the second year networking course. It starts next term”. Actually, I may be being a little unfair here. I think I did get sent on a DEC VMS system management course too.
Anyhoo, nowadays employers are much keener to make sure you know stuff. I’ve had to do seven training courses about things I thought I knew everything about but it turned out I didn’t. Today I did my Data Protection training. I knew a bit already, but what impressed me about this stuff was that people have sat down and thought about the implications of data breaches and what constitutes good behaviour by those holding data. Then they’ve made some sensible, enforceable, rules.
Now, if we can only make it illegal for companies to collect data about us when we publish things, and illegal use collected data to recommend other things, we might be on our way out of our current mess…..
What do you get if you buy a camera marked as broken? You get a broken camera. What do you get if you buy a camera marked as “tested and working - just needs new batteries”? You get a broken camera. My Nikon Pronea 6s has arrived and, although it looks lovely and makes all the right noises it also fails after I’ve taken a few shots. Oh well. I really like the look of the camera, and I like the idea of using old film. And the cameras are very cheap.
But my quest for a working one is going to have to continue…
When we were in Leeds last Saturday I went into the Lego Store and bought a box of their “pick and mix” bricks that they have at the back of the shop. Then I went home and did this. Do I need help?
I keep getting the size wrong though…
Spent a chunk of today designing and printing a thing. It's going to be aweseome.
When we get it working…
Spent a very happy time developing some films today. I learned some stuff:
Using a tank which can develop three reels at a time is kind of a great idea, but you need to mix up a lot of chemicals.
It’s much easier to have multiple developing tanks so that you can develop lots of films in sequence without having to wait for the tanks and the spirals to dry out.
I took the pictures at Bridlington and Comicon.
One of my highlights of a trip to Leeds was a visit to West Yorkshire Cameras. They started off in the Corn Market and then moved to a spiffy shop in the Grand Arcade. I’ve bought quite a few bits and bobs from them over the years and always been impressed by their knowledge and enthusiasm for analogue photography.
And now they are closing. You can read a detailed explanation on their website. Essentially they took a look into their crystal ball and decided that the long term omens were not great. The only tiny piece of good news is that their closing down sale looks like it will be awesome. They are applying progressively larger discounts over time, so you can buy something at a reduced price or wait for the next price drop and gamble that nobody else will make a move on it.
Tests shot with the new old camera…
I thank them for their service over the years, and I wish them all the best for the future. And yes, I did buy a camera from them - for old time’s sake….
Took the big camera onto campus earlier this week. I’d paired it with a Contax lens and I’m really pleased with the results. The university campus really does look good at this time of year.
You can find larger versions of these, plus a few more, on my Flicker stream
Eveyrthing Working
We had a great Hardware Meetup last night. Not a huge number of people, but an awful lot of expertise. I took along a new ESP32 device I’d just received from China. I was planning to use it in place of the Wemos D1 Mini device that I’ve been using for ages. I was making the switch because I couldn’t find any drivers to connect a D1 Mini to my shiny new Snapdragon powered laptop. Imagine my amusement to discover that the new device I’d bought used the same CH340 usb interfaces as the D1 Mini and wouldn’t work either. Wah.
But then Ben didn’t believe me when I said that there are no CH340 USB-to-serial drivers available for my Snapdragon powered Windows 11 notebook. He did some digging and found me the manufacturer’s proper download site: https://wch-ic.com/downloads/CH341SER_EXE.html I installed the ones from this site and they worked a treat. This is a big win for me. It makes the new notebook even more perfect.
So then it was on to the project for the evening. I’ve been meaning to add a Connected Little Box which can display text messages. I bought a little LCD panel for the princely sum of 2.64 It comes with an adapter that lets you use it from I2C, which makes the wiring much simpler. I’ll do a detailed post about it later. We found the drivers, added them to my PlatformIO project and had the LCD panel working in about ten minutes. Pro tip: if you can’t see anything on the screen you should adjust the contrast.
So, half an hour before the end of the meetup I had got everything working that I’d brought with me. The next meetup is in two weeks on the 27th of November. I’ll have to bring along something more difficult next time.
In the meantime Brian and David were playing with a rotating Lidar sensor and Richard was showing off new kit and working on an old-school embedded device.
And we rounded if off with a nice meal at the Omlette. Good times.
The Rabbit took this picture. There were actually more people in the audience than this.And all the stduents present had two legs.
Did a Rather Useful Seminar today all about ChatGPT. I said I’d put up the slide deck for the talk, and here it is. Thanks for being a wonderful audience and asking such good questions.
It’s not pretty, but it works..
Update: Turns out I’m an idiot. You can get ARM drivers for the CH340 device. You just have to look in the right place:
https://wch-ic.com/downloads/CH341SER_EXE.html
This is still a good read, and you can use this technique with any device which doesn't have a USB to serial adapter. But I'm now very pleased to be able to report that my Snapdragon powered Copilot laptop is one step closer to perfection.
Sometimes we tech enthusiasts find ourselves on a slightly unconventional path — such as using an ARM64-based computer, like a Snapdragon-powered Windows PC. Here’s where things get interesting: while the Wemos D1 Mini, an ESP8266-based board, is fantastic for IoT projects, it typically comes with a CH340 USB-to-serial converter chip. And here’s the catch: as of now, CH340 doesn’t have ARM64-compatible drivers for Windows. This leaves us in a bit of a bind.
The solution? We’re using an FT232R USB-to-serial adapter as a workaround, since FTDI (the maker of the FT232R) does provide ARM64 drivers. So, we’ll connect the Wemos to our computer through the FT232R and deploy code without needing native support for the CH340. Let’s walk through how to set this up.
To start, let’s make sure we have the ARM64 drivers installed for the FT232R.
After installation, plug in the FT232R USB-to-serial adapter, and you should see it listed as a new COM port in your device manager. With this setup, we’ve successfully created a bridge to work with the Wemos D1 Mini on ARM64 Windows.
Now let’s handle the wiring. This is where we make the magic happen, letting us put the Wemos D1 Mini into programming mode without needing native CH340 support. Here’s how to connect each pin:
| FT232R Pin | Wemos D1 Mini Pin |
|---|---|
| TX | RX (D10) |
| RX | TX (D9) |
| GND | GND |
| DTR | D3 (GPIO0) |
| RTS | RST |
Explanation of the Connections:
To enter programming mode:
With everything wired up, it’s time to program the board. Here’s how you can do it:
Using the Arduino IDE:
Blink example, and click Upload. The Arduino IDE will handle the DTR and RTS signals automatically to put the Wemos into programming mode, so you don’t need to press any buttons.Using PlatformIO:
PlatformIO can be used for uploading code, but it sometimes leaves the DTR and RTS lines in a state that holds the Wemos in reset or bootloader mode, preventing it from running normally. Here’s the straightforward fix:
Remove the DTR and RTS cables after upload.
It’s a bit messy but reliable. Once the code upload completes, simply disconnect the DTR and RTS cables from the Wemos. This lets the board reset itself and run the uploaded code without being held in bootloader mode.
Using esptool.py:
esptool.py:esptool.py --port COMx write_flash 0x00000 firmware.binCOMx with your port and firmware.bin with your firmware file. This should automatically handle DTR and RTS toggling as well, but again, you may need to remove the DTR and RTS cables afterward to let the Wemos run normally.If the Wemos isn’t entering programming mode or starting correctly after upload, try these steps:
Using an FT232R USB-to-serial converter on an ARM64-based PC with a Wemos D1 Mini lets you sidestep the lack of CH340 support on ARM. Once set up, you’ll have a reliable way to deploy code to your Wemos, gaining the flexibility to use ARM64 computers for your IoT projects without limitations.
ChatGPT wrote this. But in the “style of Rob Miles”
Update: Turns out I’m an idiot. You can get ARM drivers for the CH340 device. You just have to look in the right place:
https://wch-ic.com/downloads/CH341SER_EXE.html
Well, this is irritating. One of the reasons I got my fancy new Arm powered CoPilot PC was to write code for my little devices, including ones powered by the Wemos D1 Mini. The D1 Mini uses an ESP8266 connected to a CH340 usb to serial adapter chip which provides the link to a connected computer. On every other PC I’ve used (including a day of release MacBook Air with a brand new Apple M1 processor) this just worked. On my shiny new CoPilot PC, less so. Unlike Apple, who seem to have been able to get device drivers to work over their processor emulation, the Microsoft Prism emulator - which runs existing PC programs written for Intel hardware - doesn’t work for drivers.
So there is no way I can plug a D1 Mini device into my new machine and deploy code to it. I’ve tested ESP-32 boards (these are newer and probably what I should be using anyway) and they work fine. But I rather wish I’d done some due diligence before parting with cash for my new machine.
Strong advice for anyone who fancies doing embedded development with one of these Snapdragon powered platforms - make sure it can talk to the hardware you are using.
It’s not heavy. It’s cheap. Bought a single lens reflex auto exposure camera from Nikon for the princely sum of five pounds plus delivery. And I got an extra lens too. It looks very stylish (at least for the 2000’s) and in clean condition. Only two problems. It uses film that isn’t made any more and it might not work. But it should be interesting. It arrives next week.
Went to York today. Did part of the trip on the bus. Above is what the Rabbit thought of the scene.
I’d also taken the Instax Evo, which is a hybrid instant camera which takes digital pictures which it can then print. The camera has film filters you can apply to make things interesting. Today I’m using “Light leak” and “vivid”.
It’s not a great camera, but it does make great pictures. Particularly if someone is kind enough to scare the pigeons just before you take your shot.
Worth a visit.
I’m liking my new Windows Co-pilot machine. One further tip. If you want to use Node.js on your machine, make sure you install the X86 version not the ARM64 version when downloading from Node. The ARM64 version installs OK, but then explodes into a million pieces when you try and do anything with it.
This is probably not the most aPposite picture
I’m trying a new media platform with a view to becoming an ex-X user. You can find me here.
We’re trying something new with the Hardware Meetup next week. Afterwards you are welcome to join us at “The Omelette”, a Hull institution which just happens to be opposite the central library in Hull, where we have our meetups. If you want to join us for a nice meal and talk some tech (or whatever) it would be lovely to see you.
We’ll be meeting in Hull MakerSpace in the library from around 5:30 pm and then heading over to The Omlette at around 7:00 pm
I took this with the Fujica Half I bought a while back. I’m really quite pleased with it. We’d were walking down by the bridge foreshore and I thought the rider and the bike made for a good shot.
I was tidying up my Kindle subscriptions and I came across these two. Sad face.
Guess where I took this
I’m liking my Copilot laptop. Today I loaded it with Visual Studio Code and then tried to do some embedded stuff with PlatformIO. And I hit a snag. The problem is that PlatformIO notices that the computer is powered by an ARM processor and then tries to use ARM versions of all the software it brings in. This does not end well. The compilers I want to use for the ESP processors are only available for Intel X86 processors. The solution to this is to tell PlatformIO to use Intel/AMD for everything by creating the following environment variable.
PLATFORMIO_SYSTEM_TYPE=windows_amd64
Search for “Edit Environment variables” and then open the Systems Properties dialogue to do this. Then add the environment variable above, reboot your machine just to be sure everything can see it and then everything works. This means that PlatformIO will run slightly more slowly because it is now running on an emulated processor, but it still seems pretty sprightly to me.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
Make your own programming language. Find out more here.
