The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

Phil came through for me at Pimoroni. He did up a new simpler file I could run from python3 from terminal. My time of flight module looks to be working just fine.
Its basically a laser range finder. Low power eye safe pet safe laser. It sends a pulse, waits for it to bounce back off of something and times how long it takes round trip. Then calculates the distance to said object.
I want to mount it on the front of my Zumo rover as obstacle detection. Basically, is there a wall etc in front of it that I don't want it to run into. Or pet or child etc.
Being new to Arduino and programing in C, I want to know its fully functional before I have a go with it on my Arduino. "When" it doesn't work I'll know for sure its my code thats messed up, lol.

Was tinkering around with my Motion Eye cameras yesterday. I did the check for update on one of them and it found an update. Did the update and all was well after. Did the same thing on my other three and they all "failed". Then they wouldn't connect to my network, wifi or ethernet. Ended up redoing all three from scratch. Used the new image and all was well afterward. PITA when they decide not to communicate over your LAN.
The camera that updated just fine is the one thats in the past given me all my issues with lost feeds and lost communication.
Bought one of these on my last order, https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/telephoto-lens Was bigger and heavier than I thought it was going to be. Its LED flashlight size and all aluminum except for the mounting clip thingy. The part where the lens screws onto the clip is aluminum but the rest is plastic. Not really meant for a Pi camera but it works. I put the front part of one of those Pi camera holders on the camera to get a nice flat surface around the lens part and not break anything. https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-camera-mount I had one on hand that I brock the other piece. Scrounged enough of the left over open beam stuff I have to make a stand of sorts. The zip tie will likely be replaced with rubber bands or something at some point. I probably going to aim it at my bird feeder this summer.

Yeah, its about 3 inches long and around an inch diamiter at the front part where the black focusing ring is. I think the original intent was for clipping on your smart phone etc.

Snowing here now Jack. Has been for about an hour or so. Coming down at a good pace too. I've ben watching the barometer drop on my Pi powered weather station. 2mb an hour or so. Thats referred to as "dropping rapidly".
Supposed to get really windy too. I'm charging up all my portable battery packs and my laptop in case the power goes out. I won't have internet but at least I can play a game of solitaire or two, lol.

caperjack said:

Its been snowing since early this morning ,last time i looked out it was raining,but its back to snow now.

I bought a set like this on amazon i think a couple of years ago for a cel phone ,use them a few time but havent' touched them in awhile
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/3...amera-lens-set

I think they use the same clip on base as the one I have. Likely the same company makes them. The ones Pimoroni sells anyway.

No rain here, as far as I know. I managed to get my morning walk in with my dog Ginger before it started. Haven't been outside since then. There's a good few inches of snow down now. Its supposed to switch to ice pellets and maybe rain later on tonight. I'll be watching for the switch so I can go out and blow the snow while its still snow and not slush.

I should be doing Pi stuff being stuck inside and all but I'm feeling really lazy today for some reason.

Knock on Wood, my portable weather clock hasn't glitched since I replaced my powerboost and that one Proto Hat that had issues. I think I may have had two things going against me there. Once or twice it appeared to reboot on its own which had me scratching my head. Likely the powerboost momentarily dieing on me. And other times it just stoped displaying anything? LED shim and the sense hat LED matrix were blank. Status LED on the Pi was blinking though. It's been working fine in temps below zero since I rpaired it. Down around -10c or so. Definatly working better than it was before I did the repairs.

caperjack said:

always nice when something you repair works the way you hope it will .

That one has seen a lot or changes and upgrades. All the reworks done on that one Proto Hat kind of did it in. One to many unsolder resolder etc I think?
I don't know what happened with the Powerboost? It had quit on me once before, and then started working again just when I was about to replace it?
Its gone into the recycling bin now though. I can't trust it even if it starts working again.