 and welcome to Disco Lady Aida. Hey everybody and welcome to Disco Lady Aida. It's me, Lady Aida, and I'm at my desk doing some electronics and stuff. Let's get right to it, because I got a lot of stuff going on, a mishmash of things. Okay, so first up, the thing I was just working on, it's like, I literally like, you know, I was like, oh yeah, we have to video. Well, let me finish this last thing, is Nine Pedro are doing a project where they're making a little 3D printed box that houses one of our bar displays to make it a little Yule log video player. And else playing around with people who remember a long time ago, I was playing with Arduino GFX library and there's an example for MJPEG viewing. Oh, sorry. It actually isn't a STEM mode, it's a similar one. To view MJPEGs and MJPEGs are basically what you think they're just JPEGs like to put together one after the other and they basically form an animation. And we actually got like fairly good results with it. It was a 480 by 480 display. The 720 by 720, we had to go to CinePak. And you know, since Nine Pedro were saying, hey, let's do this project with a display to do this animation, I was like, oh, let me go check out again. There's a new demo now that is called ESP32 JPEG SIMDEE, which means Simultaneous Decoding. And this uses, I guess in the ESP32, there's actually hardware support for JPEG decoding. And so this takes advantage of that and the quality is actually much, much better and much, much faster. So if we go to the overhead, I can show off. So two things I did to make this, like three demos going on here, to make this faster is one, I'm using Quad SPI wiring. So full SDIO, not Quad SPI, SDIO 4-bit, which means I'm using six wires to communicate between the SD card and the QALIA board. And that uses basically all the free GPIO, but you really want to be able to read very quickly so that the time reading from the SD card isn't what is limiting your decoding. And then this is a QALITY2 JPEG and it looks like really nice. Like it actually looks nicer in person, of course. Let me see if I can zoom in. But it's a, you know, I just did the FF MPEG encoding for this and QALITY2 JPEG, you know, it's not like perfectly smooth and you see a little dithering. I think QALITY3 or QALITY4 could probably do better. And then what they wanted me to do knowing Pedro is when it plays the videos, when the user touches the screen goes to the next video. So this video is a 480 by 480, which is why. And I didn't rotate it, because this is actually, even though we think of it as a long bar, it's actually a very long portrait. So you have to rotate the images, but you know, the QALITY is much, much better using the SIMD code. So that's pretty exciting. So we'll have a guide out and the code will be in here. And then folks who want to use this to, you know, this is a 320 by 820 display. It's not a small number of pixels. And you're getting, you know, 15 plus frames per second. But, you know, I remember what this looked like with the previous code and it was okay, but it was like eight to 10 frames a second. And the quality of the JPEG decoding wasn't as nice. This is definitely, you know, better than CinePak, I think, in coding. One thing I did notice is that like the, the example with the Stargate didn't decode properly. I'm not sure why. This is the washing machine. And then we have like a die-hard video animation. So they're going to put this on like a, you know, continuous loop for, you know, Christmas the evening. And then of course the fire log. So that's working really great. So, you know, slowly getting more and more projects with the quality of board out to get you more pixels. Okay. So that's one project. So I just finished that up. One fun fact, if you go to the computer, if you're like me and you're like, I can never remember FFJPEG commands, use chatGPD because it's like, I'm not going to sit down and learn how to use FFJPEG encoding for like NJPEG and transposing and quality. Like how would I remember like dash Q colon V2? Not going to remember it. So using chatGPD was great. Okay. So that's one demo done. So let's go next up. Oh, let's show off the new Memento pie case. Camera PCBs. So, I'll give you the overhead. So for the camera board, you know, I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I think the hardware is completely done, the software is done, started this project many years ago, but I'm excited to make a little camera board. So I had Phil B. design a really lovely sub-screen here and using a PCB here instead of a piece of plastic. You can see it's very dark, but it's actually use a camera. Hello. Hi. With little cutouts, I made a cutout for the speaker and then, you know, you bolt it on with these SMT hex nuts to keep this in place. And then on the other side is a ring light. So the ring light is using RGBW LEDs. I think I showed this off, but now it's just much nicer. You know, just de-panelize this and it's got this like cool quote on the back. And then this attaches here and then, you know, plugs in and then you can tuck the cable in and you know, we just stop these cables and then in the interface, you can set the light level. So, you know, take a photo of something and then I think I showed the autofocus working to take photos of macro stuff, snap, takes a photo and then I think I unplugged the SD card but Python powered camera. So the last piece is going to be getting the main board done because it's the prototype but those PCBs are on the way too. And then I made a little tester for this ring using a QtPy RP2040 with a BFF NeoPixel board and then when this plugs in, it cycles. I mean, it's incredibly bright, but in person. I can make the brightness a little less. It does white, hold on. We set this, sorry, we start. Okay, so it does a rainbow swirl and then it pulses white. So it's like a really quick way of checking that it does all the RGB and then the pure white color is like a warm white. The only thing is I think that this is so bright. It's actually, let's go to the computer real fast. I think it's actually browning out. So let's edit this real fast. Oh yeah, brightness, way too bright. Let's save it. Okay. Oh yeah, so now go to the overhead. The magic of interpreted language, I can see now it's much less bright. Doesn't blind you as much. A little white halting, something weird with my math. Let me comment this out. Okay, rainbow swirl and then. Yeah, I think there's something wrong with my math. Fate to white, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I think there's something wrong with my division. It's like taking too long. Should be like one second step. Maybe I'll do faster step. Oh, you know what? I don't need that much brightness, hold on. Yeah, there you go. So full color and then white and then rainbow. Okay, cool. Okay, so that's my little tester, so I'll get tested. And then let me see the last thing. Oh, I got some also some RGBW neon, which is kind of cool. So I do like the RGBW stuff. So this is, let me plug this guy in this. This guy in this. So I like these like rounded neon strips. This diffuser is like a silicone, it looks really good. So let me test this out. Plug in white, black, and then I'll just touch this. You know, it's like a nice rainbow look. So it's Neopixel, this is a little metal clip and then this is the white. So it has RGBW. So I think I'm gonna stock this because it's a nice, a nice, very flexible. And like you can kind of twist it in different ways. Neon strip. And it's like good for outdoor stuff too. And then this is like a metal clip that you can screw into something and attach the neon. The only thing that's dental and knowing what the neon is, it's you can't cut and re, like you can cut it but you can't like put it back together. Like once you cut it, it's kind of permanent. It does have a little cap. You could like theoretically remove, I think, and then cut this shorter but you can't. It's not like Neopixel where you can join it together if you wanted to, the stuff you can't. So this is sample that I got and I just checked it out. And then let's see how we're doing on time. 11 minutes, okay, cool. And then last thing, so let's go to the computer. So the last thing I've been working with, Timon on a project, which is a replacement for the TFP401, which is a, I don't like to T-Place. Which is an HDMI to RGB decoder. Cause I wanted to make an RGB decoder for these cool, you know, bar displays and round displays. So like, you know, if you just had HDMI, you could plug it in. And the TFP401 works quite well, but there's a few trade-offs with it. One, it's expensive. It's actually been out of stock for a while. I just got a couple, so I'll be able to get the TFP breakouts back in stock. And it doesn't have I2S decoding. Whereas the ADV 7611, so this chip has, so the only thing that's annoying about this is you have to configure it over I2C. You have to like send it the commands to configurers, the TFP401, the nice thing about it is it just pops up directly, you know, like whatever HDMI it gets, it just like pushes it out to the display. The ADV 7611, you do have to configure it over I2C, so you need a separate chip. But it has I2S decoding, and it's actually fairly inexpensive right now. Even though it's an old chip, you know, I'm seeing it on a bunch of distributors for like three or four dollars, which is a pretty good deal. I also found, I picked up one of these boards to go to the overhead. This is a Lantium, how long is this? This is a, hold on, Lantium LT-6911. And this is also, this is HDMI to MIPI, and they also have one that's HDMI to RGB. And these are very inexpensive, but there's like NDAs all over the place. And they have a version with a scalar, but it's like you need to program this firmware. It's an AD51. And I basically have to make this decision, do I want something that's a scalar, which basically means you can send any resolution that will remap it to wherever the display is, or do I want something that doesn't require an NDA? And I'm actually gonna get running. And this is like a tough engineering challenge. But I decided, let's go with the ADV-7611. It has the iTrust decoding, which I think is cool. So you can do HDMI video and it'll have audio output, but it doesn't do scaling. So whatever you send it is, it's gonna be one to one pixels. I think that's okay though, because as long as the, almost every thing that has HDMI output these days, whatever resolution you give it, it will do the scaling for you, like pretty much, almost always. And also I think, especially for the round displays, I don't think you want scaling. I think you want one to one pixel, so it'll look really good. Like I have those RTD 26, you know, whatever, or 2660 boards, or 2668, and they have a scalar. And honestly, they look really crummy, and if they're scaled, you're really best off just using the native resolution when possible. So this is design that, so I don't have time to do like designs as complicated as much anymore. So I hired Tim on to do this design, but he did a really great job. So over here, we've got the DVI HDMI, you know, standard size port into the ADV 7611, and then we've got the 888 RGB output with like, you know, it's also like the reds, you see the reds here, and then blues, and then greens, and then, and then these are the sync and clock and pixels. So this is 888, we'll do 666 afterwards. There's the EDID, I squared C E prom. So that will have to be programmed depending on the, what, you know, what you want the ADV to present at. So it should match the resolution. And then the I squared C, that's the interface for the ADV to program it. And then we've got a buck converter because it actually draws a lot of current. Anything with the HDMI decoding isn't gonna draw a lot of current. Sorry, that's, sorry, this is the boost converter for the backlight. Sorry, I lied. This is the boost converter for the backlight. And then down here is the buck converter, 3.3 volt output from USB-C. And then there's also a 1.8 volt regulator, you need both. And then down here, this is the CS4334, which is kind of a generic I2SD coder. Doesn't need I squared C configuration, it just like takes whatever it gets and gives you audio line level out. And then this is a line level out into the headphone jack. And then since you do have to program the ADV, you know, and also, you know, you want to maybe read the resistive touchscreen. And this is an analog digital converter for the touchscreen to give you I2C. So you do need a chip that kind of is gonna do all the like work of like configuring the ADV and like making it pop up in the right setup. And so we put an RP2040 down here with some flash memory. This is a secondary bus for the, a power supply for the TSC. Debug port, boot reset. But, you know, it's not like too bad. Let's see how big this is. This is like two inches by two inches. It's like, it's actually, you know, fairly small. And should be able to drive various HDMI to RGB outputs, you know, fairly nicely. So we're going to send out this prototype soon. Is it going to work? I don't know. We're going to find out. And then hopefully I'll use chatGPT toward the driver because it's like, there's like a bazillion libraries. Sorry, registers for the library. I'll have it work in circuit Python and Arduino. There's a, there's a Linux kernel driver at least. That's nice. We'll use that as well. This could be nice. And then I'm going to start with just replacing the RGB 888 display driver that we've got. But I'll also make it work with these, you know, cool bar and round displays. This is like another bar display I've got. So, yeah, so that's that. I think I got to everything on my desk. Let's go to the great search. Well, I great search for you by digikey. Thanks to digikey every single weekly day, user power of engineering to help you, yes, you find the things you need on digikey.com. Lady, what are you looking for on digikey.com this week? OK, so sorry, some of my notes behind the scenes. So I take notes before the videos. So this week, well, first off, I want to point out that the digiWish 2023 is running right now. You can get free stuff. I can't get free stuff. I'm not eligible. The biggest tragedy of doing stuff with digikey. But that's OK. You can get stuff for free. All you have to do is post with the hashtag digiWish on a variety of social networks. You can do one entry per day. And the thing you have to request is $100 or less. I have a lot of Adafruit stuff that's stock. That's 100 bucks or less. You get like a PPK. I saw some people looking for wire strippers. Pick something that's like, you know, $80, $90 range and post up and they pick one person every day to get free stuff. And they've been doing this for a very long time. This is actually one of the oldest social media events that digikey has done. So I've never won again because I'm eligible. But I know people who have and it's a joy to get something for free. So check that out. So this week I saw we got a request for somebody who was using a Raspberry Pi and they were using the Raspberry Pi 5 to do like continuous data logging in video. And they're like, well, what micro SD card should I use to make sure that I don't have failures in the field, especially if you're using it for industrial purposes, you're going to have this Raspberry Pi outdoors or it's like, you know, part of a mobile or seafaring data logging system. The most delicate part of the Raspberry Pi is definitely the micro SD card. You want to make sure that's well specced. And they said, can I just get like a, you know, micro SD card from, you know, online, whatever e-tailer. And I said, well, if you do that, you're going to, you know, they're inexpensive, but they're not designed for industrial use. They don't have guarantees for how often you can write to them. Can you write to them continuously for a very long time and how many years and temperature gradient. Also, I found a couple other kind of funky things that you can get with micro SD cards if you get them like industrial style. So let's go to memory cards, just click on memory cards. So let's just only look at active because, you know, just minimize the number of options to search for. So like I said, did you key stocks a whole bunch of SD cards, they're not going to be like the inexpensive like two bucks a piece. Hey, you know, this is just something you pop in your GPS or your camera and just to, or, you know, your phone or whatever, just to get a little bit more storage. These are definitely going to be for industrial uses with single board computers. And so they're going to be more expensive, but they're going to have more guarantees and a wider temperature range. So the first thing to watch, to check for is what class you want. So the class is basically how fast you can write and read from the micro SD card. You know, you can check Wikipedia for a full document of every class setting, but basically the higher the number, the better the class. And once you get to class 10, there's like subclasses. So class three is going to be the faster. I think it's about a hundred megabit per second, read and write. And if you're doing, you know, video or AI data reading, you want to like buffer to, you know, you're not using RAM for your buffering, your buffering stuff, the disk somehow, you should definitely get class three, which is also going to be called U3. Class 10, UHS three, U3. So it's going to be the fastest. And, oh wow, you need like one terabyte for real? Geez, that's expensive. But you want a one and a half terabyte, guaranteed class 10, U3 SD card? That's cool. Anyways, you can order them. But we're not going to get a one terabyte. We're going to get, you know, eight, 16 or 32. So let's look for that. Okay. So there's a couple of options available, a couple of vendors, each vendor's going to have their own thing. So first up, let's just do normally stocking. So all these are going to be micro SD because that's kind of what you're going to get. I did notice a couple cool features. So ATP, they had a guarantee of five years or two years, with also, you know, documented reliability for insertions and also mean time to failure. They also guarantee their sequential reads and writes, which is kind of nice. Of course, if it's not sequential, if you're like jumping around, it won't be the same. And there's also ones that are, so you can see all the different options. And there's a slightly less, slightly lower warranty through it. A slightly less, slightly lower warranty, three years, not five years. There's also, let's see, was it APACER? I saw one that had, let me see if I can power it. It had a guarantee for, if you had power lossage, it would like actually be able to recover from it. But even like things like, you know, the amount of current draw, like that's actually unusual, like for low cost. Micro SD cards, you're not gonna have guarantees for that. Guaranteed humidity, guaranteed operating temperature. They have ones that go, you know, negative 40 to 85. These are good for outdoor use cases. And try to think what else. Yes, some of these have like guaranteed for random reads and writes and bus mode. Oh yeah, power failure management, which I thought was kind of neat. So, you know, some of them have extra air correction, power failure management, guaranteed that not only will they do wear leveling because all micro SDs do wear leveling, but they will do like even wear leveling and they'll make sure that like, you don't reuse the same area multiple times. So you have the longest lasting for, you know, especially if you're using something like a single board computer and you're logging a lot of data and the logs get cycled, you're gonna be writing to the micro SD card constantly. So a lot of options, I mean, you'll wanna check, you know, what is the size that you want, but you know, even something like this one, UH3 class, so, UHS class three. And if you need, actually let's go look at a temperature range for select one. So let's maybe pick one that does, you know, that full negative 40. And then, yeah, this one, for example, 500 in stock. And also some of them I noticed, they will guarantee supply. So if you register with them, they will tell you if they discontinue the card and give you a last time buy. So if you have spec'd a card for your use case and you're like, okay, I don't want to go and we spec other cards, they guarantee that you'll be able to supply you for at least like a year past the end of life date. So check out some micro SD cards for industrial use. Again, not, you wouldn't get this for your switch. You'd get this for a single board computer or something that's outside or doing data logging. You're sending it to space. These are some good options. It's my great search. Wait, wait, wait. And thanks so much for joining us this Sunday evening. We'll see everybody throughout the week. We have a whole bunch of shows and more as it hits December, don't forget you can get stuff on Ageford Store. We also give certificates and more. Please support an open source, hard work company, trying to make and share as much as we can to do good and bring people together. We'll see you next week. Thanks everybody. Have a great night.