More "Maker" Oriented Forums?

The "Replica Props" forum could be a possibility?
People trying to recreate gadgets from movies & scifi etc.

There is someone trying & discussing how to make just about anything one there:

It is entirely possible that for a variety of reasons this and similar forums have completely outlived their utility.

For The Popcorn said:

grows old. grows old.

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Not to the person seeking advice.

ak

For The Popcorn said:

Any suggestions?

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Browse less often. Seeing the same questions once a month instead of every day will seem much less repetitive.

ak

And, just in case I haven't pissed off anyone yet . . .

For The Popcorn said:

Any suggestions?

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Don't go into teaching.

ak

For The Popcorn said:

No offense, but these things aren't a focus here

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Aren't the items found under the 'Electronic Projects' tab of this site to your liking?

Are you meaning making electronic things or just things other than electronic?

If the latter, have you seen what Google has to say?

Mostly things electronic. I like seeing what other people are doing (and stealing the good parts for myself ), and showing off the things I have done.

Here's a recent example. Years ago, I laid out a USB–UART/I2C interface board based on the Microchip MCP2221. I recently came across that board that never did work and had another go at it. This time, I decided to use all of the features of chip:

● USB-UART interface

● USB-I2C interface

● Four multipurpose GPIO lines that can be
○ Digital GPIO
○ 10-bit ADC × 3
○ 5-bit DAC
○ UART TX & RX activity LEDs
○ I2C activity LED
○ Interrupt input
○ Adjustable duty cycle clock output

Microchip supplies an I2C terminal app for Windows, Apple, Linux and Android, and it can be controlled directly from a PC using Circuit Python commands (haven't mastered that yet).

I think this will be useful for quick&dirty tasks like testing out I2C commands easily or for simple data collection tasks. But sharing things like this here usually goes over with a resounding THUD, often with a side of unhelpful criticism.

For The Popcorn said:

Mostly things electronic. I like seeing what other people are doing (and stealing the good parts for myself ), and showing off the things I have done.

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Sounds a bit like me! I have more projects on the go than I can remember, some that have already been in progress for years, waiting for time, parts or inspiration.

Examples:

Recreating the first two computers I built in the 70s, with the same CPUs & I/O etc., but far more compact form using PALs/GALs rather that dozens of TTL IC for the glue. (6800 with MIKBUG, on a single eurocard, and a 6809 OS/9 system with disc interface on three eurocards - both originally were in 19" rack cardframes).

A large tracked robot with stereo vision & LIDAR etc., using a Jetson nano & ROS based control.

A full size animatronic raven using a PIC with seven servos, sound module and speech recognition module.

Spot micro quadruped, also with a Jetson.

Radio control for testing, calibrating and limit checking the various robot servos.

Openmower lawnmower (just waiting for the prototype control panel PCB, as I used a different chassis to the original designer).

Endless bits of home automation; for that at the moment, a Jetson based offline speech recognition system.
(The main system is based on Homeseer, but that uses Microsoft built-in speech rec with is very poor).

A toolchanging 3D printer, needing a new X axis system designing as the X rail I used is not precise enough.

Numerous PIC-based gadgets & designs for all sorts of stuff.

Test gear; A thyristor tester, a graphical display optical encoder tester with adapters for various machine tool connector types & pinouts, a noise source for audio testing, a few 16 channel switch + light boxes for PLC program testing etc. etc.

Audio gear - PCBs to build a preamp design I wanted, but no boards were available for.
Microphone PCBs to upgrade cheap fake condenser mics to studio quality.

And who knows what else I've forgotten at this instant,

I just like building and programming things! But nothing is really relevant to this forum, unless someone asks a question related to one of them.

A do put some stuff on my web site or youtube channel, but only a fraction of it & often just bits of educational or novelty stuff.


The "Projects" forum on here is titled as if it is purely for people requesting help with or ideas for a project they are working on.

Possibly the admins could add a new and separate main category for displaying or showcasing peoples projects working or work-in-progress projects? That may also bring a few more people to the forum.

Wow, you do have a lot going!

Speaking of home automation, I'd like to migrate to a local server and try to get everything into the same ecosystem. IFTTT integrates most stuff pretty well, but some features are limited. A pet peeve is Google voice that sometimes misses words, so it decides that "turn on living room light" means turn on EVERYTHING with "light" in its name.

Homeseer has an add-in for Amazon Alexa that does work very well for voice control - however that is on line, and the add-on available in the UK only supports on-off commands.

Apparently the US version of the add-on is vastly more capable?

I originally used HAL2000 (Home automated living) when that was first released - it has really! good speech recognition.
Up to V3 it was great, as they has a specific UK English version and the support from the user forums and user-created stuff was great; but they seemed to abandon that, then only add support for some US-only hardware. I stuck with it through a few more versions, but no devices were added for EU compatible Z-Wave - and then a new forum with a "No bug reports (no criticism)" rule, or something like that.

They are still going, and now may support some EU stuff - but the new forum with crazy rules was the end of it for me.

Also, Homeseer is modular and there is a vast range of add-ons for just about any device you can think of, plus web & MQTT integration etc.
The only downside is the poor voice recognition.

For The Popcorn said:

Wow, you do have a lot going!

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That's just the stuff that seems relevant to this site.. Also a home studio, repairing guitars, bits of model engineering etc..
And actual work - faultfinding & upgrading machine tools & machine control systems, plus now electrical work and refits on trams!

For project sharing, Hackaday, Hackstar IO, Elector are good places.