The pause may be sluggish but the loading performance isn't. Managed to get Ant Attack to load in 29 seconds, a new personal best iirc. 🥳

The pause mechanism is a little sluggish but I can tweak that up in software. Having a cassette remotely pausing a device is weird, but the good kind of weird. 🙂

Used a failing lipo for the power, I'll swap it out later. I'll add the sensor reels later when I test on the C64 but It's complete enough to work on the +2. I'll pop it in and see what's what. 🙂

Well this has been a journey! The switch was fine, the noise was because it was running from the charger, and reversing the polarity grounded the signal to the probe, causing the reboot. All sorted, and the signal is really crisp now. Way better than the hand built prototype. 🥳

Hooked up the audio to the scope, and it's awful! On top of that, flipping the invert switch causes a boot loop. Doing the layout for the invert switch messed with my head so I've likely done something terribly wrong even though I checked and re-checked. I'll remove the switch and trace it out. 🤔

Speaking of VU LEDs. These are run by the attiny85 on board, it samples the Bluetooth output and gives a rough visual representation of the audio. It uses UV LEDs and fluorescence to light up the reel. That way I can change the colour by swapping the reels out. 😎

I have a mostly assembled board, and I'm powering it from a USB power bank. Nothing caught fire, consumption is low and everything seems to be the right way round. The 4 switches are for: Power Pause disable Invert wave VU LEDs on/off Menus are tedious, switches are where it's at. 🙂

FluxCaster build thread! It's a self contained Bluetooth cassette adapter specifically for loading games on to older systems. It's got a Schmitt trigger onboard to tidy up incoming data, will pause automatically for the C64 and has some other bells and whistles. 🤓

Happy Friday!! I have a cheeky afternoon off. I've mowed the lawn (now there is one!) and I have a cassette to assemble, test and tweak. Thread incoming...

Thanks! A lot also went surprisingly right for a first go, I managed to nail the finer stuff like the BT module footprint and everything else is exactly where it should be and it hasn't caught fire yet. As they say, 'You're either winning or learning' and I'd say this is a 50/50 split. 😂

Started building one and found the inevitable (and practically mandatory) eff up. Didn't connect the charger ground but patched it and there are no solder pads in the underside. Oh, and the traces to the pots don't reach far enough. Other than that it seems good so far. ☺️

I'm keeping it as simple as I can for now but the next build will definitely have need of a display. 🙂

They have arrived!! Don't know if they work but it fits the shell okay. I'll have to be a creature of ultimate discipline and leave it until I clock off work... 😅

Oh, loads of stuff! 😂 I can do pipes though and swapping out the plastic fittings with brass and copper was long overdue anyway. ☺️

Not the type of soldering I was expecting to do this weekend but it has been quite fun just taking my time and adding a cursory layer of fussiness. 🙂 (Small leak from the mains, may have been nudged when the meter was changed)

Being able to do basic repairs of anything is a massive money saver. I got a bike off of Marketplace for my partner for £10. It was 2 weeks old but they ran over the rear wheel with a car. 😂 I went a bit far with the 'concussion bike' though. 🙂

Unlikely that they'll be here for the weekend but they actually exist as real things somewhere in the world!! 😍

Boards being populated. *jiggling intensifies*

I'm way more excited about this than I thought I would be. *jiggles in chair*

Saw this stunning little creature in the garden. 😍

I get accurate footprints by scanning the item, importing it into Lightburn, zooming right in, tracing it out and importing the resulting .svg into Kicad after a tidy up. I've not seen anyone else do this so thought I'd share, it's a really quick process and pretty darned accurate to boot! 🙂

Designed the board for my loader cassette and added a bell and whistle or two while I was at it. It might even work! I'll find out in a few days as I have some on the way. I've never done a 'proper' PCB before, it was hard!! 😅

Spent ages over the last few weeks digging over 80 years of compacted clay, adding loam and levelling. Seeded the heck out of it last Saturday, and 5 days later we have grasslings! I did a classic double take and eye rub, I really wasn't expecting results this soon! 🥳

Workshop temperature holding steady with no ventilation. Nice to see all the insulation doing its job. ☺️

I was raised on these streets.

I'll wait for the budget release... 😂

Had trouble with Creality Print bombing out every other slice. I have an Nvidia card, and it doesn't like it at all. If you set a profile for Creality Print and turn threaded optimisation off, it works like a charm and makes slicing massively quicker too. 😊

Finished digging over the back garden ready for seeding and had a rather lovely day raking out stones and things. Levelling it out is very therapeutic and I put in a full days graft without the walking stick which is really encouraging. 🙂

Had a merry old time at the weekend digging up the lawn. It was mostly compressed clay which was fun to use the tiller on (t'was very bouncy) I made an ad-hoc level and sieving truck and a robin kept me company all day. Also saw another bird get noisily scoffed by a hawk! 😲

I do it on KiCad currently and etch my own boards but they're in a format that PCBWay would laugh at. I have the design nearly ready to go but it's the translation to a Gerber that I'd need help with.