Mailbag Monday 204

[@fiskurtjorn]

10:00 Diffrent colors for difrent materials. Black is graphite for paper, wood, drywall etc. Yellow is more of a grease pencil for metals. And red I do not use but when I recall correctly was for glass.

[@edmarks688]

I love the 2mm "lead" in my woodworking. The red is great for marking pine lumber and shows up WAY better than standard graphite.

[@retireeelectronics2649]

The BNC to banana converter looks excellent. The lights reflexing off the beer at the end have a great effect.

[@pileofstuff]

My most cinematic shots are entirely accidental.

[@ketas]

i love the tiny hand pointer

[@billygamer3941]

I had two of the BNC-to-binding post adapters. Both failed when the spring under the knurled barrel of the BNC connector ate through the barrel reducing spring tension to zero and, thus, affording poor connection of the BNC connector to its mate.

[@StevenJam]

Always love ending off a weekend watching Mailbag Monday!

[@fredflintstone1]

Yea!! Monday again a great start to the week 🙂

[@timmyB147]

Stick a cotton swab (might need to cut one end off) in the pencil and you can extend the reach some or add strength when scrubbing stubborn flux residue.

[@pileofstuff]

Interesting alternate use. Thanks.

[@bwselectronic]

I picked up some of those pencils year or so ago on Aliexpress dirt cheap

[@johncoops6897]

THANK YOU for using a genuine, real, honest video thumbnail 👍👍

[@pileofstuff]

I prefer to use an actual frame from the video most of the time. Plus, it's a lot less effort...

[@johncoops6897]

@@pileofstuff - Minimal-effort Mondays (with Malt) should be your catch cry. 😃

[@frankowalker4662]

That BNC connector will be useful. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but you can get small solenoids like those with a latch similar to what you find on cupboards and lock boxes.

[@pileofstuff]

I'll have to look for those. Thanks

[@steve64464]

Ive been using a RP2040W pico to wirelessly control a Sculpfun iCube laser engraver 🙂 , The wifi version is quite interesting combined with a few buttons and oled.

[@markfergerson2145]

As your experiments with the Flying Desk Cam demonstrated, sometimes you have to work with that organic cellulose foam stuff when doing an electronics-oriented project.

[@geirendre]

Hope the BNC-banana adapter last a bit longer than mine cheap ones did. They develope poor contact in the grounding on the BNC, the twisty part, after a few times used.

[@galileo_rs]

Properly built BNC connectors can be used without the "twisty part" as the outer shell is supposed to be the ground but yes, good quality adaptors are hard to find on Ali and Ebay.

[@geirendre]

That's why I dont buy these cheap adapters anymore, their just to expensive (when you have to replace them after just a few months)​@@galileo_rs

[@roxannes5455]

I have a pico running CP/M, connected to another that acts as a serial terminal and outputs VGA, really neat little boards \

[@pileofstuff]

CP/M? There's a name I haven't heard in many long years.

[@roxannes5455]

@@pileofstuff I like to use it a little from time to time, Gary Kildall really had a good thing in that operating system. How things would have been different had he (and Digital Research, of course) and IBM partnered for the original PC...

[@lasersbee]

12:53.. You have clicked on a color that IS NOT in stock (dotted square around product). That is why they don't ship to your location. If you click on a product color that IS Stocked (solid square around product) they will ship to your location.

[@tinygriffy]

1:25 .. If the esteemed viewer would kindly focus his or her attention to the bottom left corner of the screen :D .. 4 bucks is the official price recommendation on the pi homepage ;) nice ale ! thanks for the mailbag !

[@AJB2K3]

Those pencils are a godsend

[@sparkyprojects]

When you looked at the pencils, the 3 pencils and 3 leads were $5.84, so i hope the $14.89 was a mistake

[@iowahank1]

I predict you will never run out of breweries in Winnipeg to spotlight on your channel Kent.

[@williamjohansson691]

Haven't watched the video fully just yet, but the dupont jumper cables may be copper plated iron wire, so try with a magnet to see if it is iron. I once got a few wires wich were iron and has quite a high resistance for just 10 cm.

[@johncoops6897]

Note that the prongs aren't square, but a flat blade bent into a U shape. The last few batches that I bought were too wide in the U to fit into breadboard, and the cut surfaces had so many burrs that they literally ground away the plating on the breadboard contacts. I prefer the round pin versions, but unfortunately they usually have the thinnest and most nasty cables that don't last long. Still trying to find decent 28-26 AWG silicon with proper pins on them, so I don't have to make my own 😢

[@pileofstuff]

Most of them are some sort of ferrous metal with a plated coating. At the power levels most people use on breadboards, it's not enough added resistance to be problematic. And, as an added bonus, I have used magnets to connect jumpers to batteries temporarily!

[@mikejones-vd3fg]

Get the DuPont cables with the alligator clips and you'll never have enough, but they make lousy connections that come apart eventually with those bent metal prongs. I've made coupe foot long extensions with them but now will have to check the resistance compared to the homemade ones I've been making with copper wire. But for breadboard stuff It won't cause any issues, maybe give some inaccurate power consumption measurements, so it a good to know anyway.

[@pileofstuff]

@@mikejones-vd3fg I've made a few of those as well. Always good to have an assortment of different types of test cables.

[@martinclemesha4794]

Carpenter pencils, did you discover the built in sharpener. The button on the end unscrews.

[@pileofstuff]

I showed that feature in the end of the video wrap-up

[@martinclemesha4794]

@@pileofstuff Typical, I probably pressed stop right at that moment :0) I did find that the coloured fillings for these were quite soft, but otherwise, nice pencils.

[@LongFangs-nt4hy]

Stupid question but, do you choose random things to buy or do they have random 'grabbags' of stuff you can select?

[@pileofstuff]

I choose whatever strikes my fancy at the time. Might be inspired by someone else's project, or by some plan I have at the time, or just "hey, that's cool".

[@todamnbad]

Do you build custom product's? I am im need of an itenthat i dont think is made and if it is i wouldnt know what its calles.

[@mattivirta]

i like looking you mail box videos, my mail come only now ewery month CNC machine parts and boards, i build my son own cnc machine him want make woodwork more stuff.

[@paulramasco6769]

Buying the Pico from most reputable vendors (adafruit, sparkfun, canakit) goes for $4 US or ~ 5.56 canadian. So far I haven't seen it any cheaper on other sites. Not a big deal but just worth noting.

[@pileofstuff]

It's the shipping cost within Canada or from the US to Canada that kills any savings from those sources, unfortunately.

[@RottnRobbie]

Canakit's CAD price is $6.75. They won't even quote shipping till after you give them an email address. I typed in a fake one, and learmed that they'll ship it to an address IN CANADA for a mere $17.95 more. The cheapest option to Canada from Adafruit is $17.11USD, and from Sparkfun it's $17.34USD, but there's almost certainly going to be a customs brokerage fee on top of Bothof those. (And of course sales tax on top of everything). Ordering for delivery in Canada, from anybody who isn't based in China, is likely to cost you $30CAD or more for that "$4" part.