rwillett

Randomisation is not in V1. Scatter winding appears to be how Fender wired these things, basically hand wound trying to make it near but with imperfections. At the moment my focus is getting anything down, neat is a bonus. If the winding pattern can be reduced to a function, then everything is easly possible. What you are describing above is what I would call typewriter winding (just made that up), you wind to the end and then instead of winding back carefully and slowly, you move the wire back quickly to the start and then wind across. There are loads of ways to skin this cat, I could do randomisation and capture this in a stream of data that is sent off the Arduino. I could inject random data into the Arduino from an external source that is precaptured. I have a TrueNas file server here with a lot of free space, so capturing data and storing it is not a problem. There's a number of options to consider but I'm not ready to do that yet. I just want to get something working and try it out. I am going to have to make a test bench guitar for these pickups (6 and 4 string) so might quickly take the 3d printed guitar design and just print the absolute essentials (bridge, pickup and neck modules) and attach it to a plank of wood. Another thing to add to the list Rob

Since my last update, I have now written most of the software and it works (for some value of 'works') with the simulator. I've now just about reached as far as I can go with the simulator, there's probably going to be some hardware issues to resolve now and the only way to do that, is to get the hardware built and the code uploaded. I'm now going to use a Mega 2560 Arduino rather than a UNO as it has more pin outs. I'd literally run out of pins on the Uno and was struggling to put all the bits I wanted. I had a Mega 2560 sitting around doing nothing so thats now the base. It also gives me far more code space to program in and save stuff in. I've got a CNC Shield as that sits on top of the Mega 2560 which saves vauable real estate, I'll only use two stepper drivers at the moment, though I can use four. I might use a 3rd for tension control of the wire but not yet. The CNC shield takes 12-36V and a bench power supply is on order (60V/10A). Stepper motors can take a lot of amps, I suspect I won't need this sort of output power, but it's nice to have a lot of head room just-in-case. The menu interface is quite good (even though I do say so myself), I can create sub-menus but so far haven't needed it. I can use a 4x4 membrane keypad to enter integers, floats and select from lists. I'd love to be able to find a blank 4x4 keypad, or one where I can change the keys to be what I want them to be. I'll have to use sticky labels at the moment, but as these keypads are about £2 each, not a problem. So next steps are: 1. Working out how to do microsteps on the stepper motors. The reason for this is that there is a ratio between the number of loops that the main pickup winder motor makes and the number of turns that the lead screw turns to ensure that the pickup wire moves across the bobbin so that the pickup wire is evenly placed. I know some people might want randomisation but thats V2 of the firmware. These microsteps appear to be controlled by the CNC shield and setting jumpers (!). if I can move from 400 steps per singe revolution to 800 or 1600 steps, then I can get the ratio between the two motors to be higher and closer to an integer. Thats good 2. Putting everything onto a thick A3 plywood base. I wanted to use a larger base as that reduces the angle that pickup wire moves through as the bobbin is turned. If the bobbin is very close, then the angle subtended gets closer to 90 degrees. Imaging your finger wagging at 10 times a second going through 90 degrees vs at 45 or 30 degrees. I might be worrying about nothing but lets see. I have printed most things including guides to position everything accurately. I have all the hardware to do it, just been away and its bloody cold in the garage here in North Yorkshire. 3. Work out how to build an Arduino dev environment on a M series Mac. I have a simulator but not a clue how to actually prgram an Arduino on a Mac. Last time I did this, I used a Windows laptop. I might still have to yet. I really want to built it around Emacs but suspect thats not going to fly. 4. Get it installed and get the firmware properly debugged. 5. I have a couple of cheap bass pickups I've brought, so will gently take them apart and see if I can replicate how they are made. My knowledge of magnets is limited but I'll start reading up over the next week or so. 6. Buy some 42AWG wire. I'll start with the thicker stuff first. 7. Work out how to fit bump stops in case everything goes out of control. There are pins on the CNC shield for this, its mounting them thats the challenge. Thats probably enough to go on for the next week or so. I still have to start work on my 3d printed bass but thats on hold whilst I get this working. Rob

I can't say I like the pickguard, it looks like that had a load of material left over and just used it up. However the rest of the package looks the sort of guitar that Disaster Area would play. All it needs is a little black button saying "Do not press" on it, oh anda large black spaceship. Rob

Thanks for the information. That sounds about right for me. Any suggestions on makes or models please. Happy to spend £50-£100. Many look identical and possibly are. Are there good ones and bad ones anymore? Or all are pretty good?

Hi I'm looking for a decent bench power supply to test my Arduino pickup winder. I'm a coder, not a hardware engineer (I'm not even sure I'm a coder these days but hey ho). I want to get a bench power supply to test everything out for the arduino and a couple of Nema 17 stepper motors. I've brought this type of dedicated psu's in the past like this (this just shows the type and isn't one I have brought). https://amzn.eu/d/76ekIkm But I keep putting off buying a bench power supply that's a bit more flexible so I can test things work and then get the right dedicated PSU at the end. I don't suspect I'd need anything too big, but I have a number of projects with three stepper motors in mind and they can draw 2A each. So 30v and 6-10 amps seems the right size but beyond that, no idea. I look on Amazon and get very confused so any recommendations welcomed. Thanks Rob

It is truly beautiful...

Now that is a thing of beauty... Just looking at the kids college funds, approx two years, they can always get jobs. Rob

Hawes and the Wensleydale dairy are great. The courtyard don't make cheese and to be honest I don't think they ever will. But what I do know. Nothing.

I like cheese but I wouldn't travel that far. One option we have for the bash could be takeaway pizza from Rind.

Luke You are clearly very close. My daughter works at Rind next to the cheese shop

You might live in Yorkshire and still be nearly three hours away. We're on the border of North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. My kids go to school in Cumbria and we drive through Lancashire to get there.

Diary vs dairy....

I've got a Mega256 sitting doing nothing. More pins so rewired my code to use that. Stuck a CNC shield on top with some decent drivers. Still working on the menu code. As expected it's 10x the effort of the actual stepper motor code.

Welcome to supply, demand and inflation

I haven't posted in a while, not because I've not done anything but I've been trying to understand the various menu libraries that Arduino systems can use. I spent a lot of time trying to work through the ad-hoc, hand built, unsupported, poorly documented, over the top, over complicated, under specced, version tied and generally not fit for purpose menu libraries before giving up and writing my own. I'm sure there are good ones out there, but trying to find a lightweight library (Arduinos don't have much code space) that actually works, is properly documented and works on my simulator is harder than doing it yourself. So I did it myself. I currently have nine options that need to fit on a 20x4 LCD screen. You can see below that the screen is showing options 1-4. As I am an ex C-developer, everything starts at row 0 which is right and proper. The green and yellow buttons will be end stops that I haven't wired yet. I have two digital inputs left but can't be bothered yet. int noRootMenuItems = 9; SimpleMenu_t rootMenu[9] = { { "0Run " , { INTEGER , { 123 }} } , { "1Number of Loops " , { INTEGER , { 123 }} } , { "2Winder1 Steps " , { INTEGER , { 123 }} } , { "3Winder2 Steps " , { INTEGER , { 123 }} } , { "4Bobbin Width " , { DOUBLE , { 1.23 }} } , { "5Wire Width " , { DOUBLE , { 3.21 }} } , { "6Set Left Edge " , { DOUBLE , { 7.89 }} } , { "7Set Right Edge " , { DOUBLE , { 9.87 }} } , { "8Stepper Direction " , { DIRECTION , { CLOCKWISE }} } , }; The above is the rootMenu setup, the numbers at the start of the char* will go, it's just for me to check. Eventually this struct will be enlarged to handle functions, but I'm struggling with how Arduino compilers declare and pass arrays of structs around. A simple C compiler would let me pass a pointer and thats it, the Arduino compiler is not playing ball and keeps refusing to compile what I think is valid code, a pointer to an array of structs. I may bring out the big hammer shortly and declare a void * to teach it a lesson. I've written compilers so this should be easy, but I must have forgotten something important or the compiler is a lot stricter. Anyway, each line has a type attached to it, INTEGER, DOUBLE and DIRECTION. When you select a line using the 'D' character, it moves to a sub-menu and allows you to edit the value thats passed. I've written the code to edit integers, I'll use that as a basis to input floats/doubles and the last one will be to change the wiring direction, CLOCKWISE or ANTI_CLOCKWISE. The aim is to parameterise everything so adding new features is just a new line in the menu declaration. We'll see how that goes I have all the looping sorted out, keypad entries seem to work, but no idea if they debounce in the real world. I also have printed most of the parts for the winder, including my first simple bobbin. I have most of the winder parts sitting on my desk, but am away skiing from Thurs to Monday so nothing is going to move forward for a few weeks yet. If anybody has any spare broken pickups they are happy to provide, it would be great to see how they are made and understand more about each of them. I don't really want to buy lots of working ones to break apart. Thanks Rob

I'm looking for London, Manchester and Sheffield. People can work remote but need to sometimes be physically in an office. However we are going waaaaaay off topic. If anybody interested DM me. Back to vintage basses. Apologies.

If Andy wants to have a fire sale and drop his prices by around 90% I'm more than happy to help him out by buying a few guitars. They are lovely guitars but outside my limited budget. I have promised myself a 62 'something' for when I retire. Just to be clear, I'm not knocking Andy here. These are stunning guitars in the same way a Ferrari 288 FTO is a stunning car, I can't afford that either. I understand limited supply and large demand. I work with those things every day as I try to recruit people for IT projects. So if there are any SC cleared DevOps (limited supply) here looking for work (large demand), please contact me. Thanks Rob

Well done. More than I managed. Be very interested in your drummer in a box. Makefiles are simple, this is how we used to build everything in Unix. They have a few small idiosyncrasies and the syntax is a teensy bit awkward, but it's easy to read and trivial to debug stuff (for some value of "easy" and "trivial"). Rob

I always liked this method of generating randomness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand and it's successor https://blog.cloudflare.com/lavarand-in-production-the-nitty-gritty-technical-details/ Rob

Just did a little digging. I expected the random numbers to be awkward on an Arduino but surprisngly they have a trick up their sleeves. https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/functions/random-numbers/random/ void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); // if analog input pin 0 is unconnected, random analog // noise will cause the call to randomSeed() to generate // different seed numbers each time the sketch runs. // randomSeed() will then shuffle the random function. randomSeed(analogRead(0)); } Most PC's don't have GPIO pins so can't do this, so use the suggestion @neepheid has proposed. As there are hardware input pins, they can be read and will generate some sort of randomness. Perhaps not as difficult as I thought. Rob

Thats the intention. It needs some sort of directed randomisation, which does sound a contradiction. I'm slightly nervous about how random things are on an Arduino. For those of you who play with IT, true randomisation is quite difficult. No idea how the randomisation works on this sort of low level kit. Suspect it's not random at all though. Thats futher down the path though. The first priority is getting it working for simple windings and getting the interface done. Rob

I was hoping that silver wire would help me lose weight, regain hair loss, improve my diminishing IQ and make me more attractive to women and not just dogs.

This is where I read about silver vs copper wire. https://mwswire.com/guitarpickup/#:~:text=“Pickups wound with silver wire,very nice and regular coil. Silver wired pickups are not top of my list but the people who supply it think it different. I look forward to trying gold and rhodium wire as well 😊