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Welcome to the channel! Thank you for the kind words, it is very much appreciated. Cheers! Chris

Everything you need to know is in those videos. If you watch all of them you can see what components are needed / used. You will also have to machine some of the components and perhaps most importantly, you will need to know how to incorporate the control logic into your CNC software. This is not an easy project and requires a lot of very specific features to be in place in order to work. Chris

Great 👍 Cheers! Chris

Sounds like you have had some fun with experimenting and exploring too!!! I'm not sure what will be the final solution in the ZoomTown experiment, but it sure is fun experimenting, exploring, and sharing the experience. Thanks for the feedback and sharing your experiences. Cheers! Chris

Good morning Steve! That was NOT A WILD GOOSE CHASE my friend, that was an incredible idea and suggestion and it is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!!! I will look into that RFID sensor too. I did mess around with RFID and the PICO about 2 years ago. I bought a "kit" of tags and sensor off of Ali Express and that didn't work very well. But I am highly confident it had more to do what I got what I paid for. Also I will be responding to you contact-form question in a few minutes. Be sure to check your SPAM or JUNK folder, I suspect when I respond using that, my responses end up in those places. Cheers and thanks a bunch for you insight and suggestions! Chris

Thanks for the advice, I hope to get time to play with that some more in the following weeks. Cheers! Chris

Hmmm, I wonder if that library exists within micopython?

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut I ran it on a normal pico UF2 an it still said datetime not found so I guess you are likely to be correct. Thanks

@@peterwest1158 I have been down that same road on a couple of things, it is a bummer. Being that the pico is so powerful and is programmed much like the PIs, we often forget the PICO is a lowly microcontroller. Cheers! Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Hi again, I have cracked the problem thanks to some help from the MicroPython forum. I am using localtime() and formatting the elements in tuples for each field that I want.

@@peterwest1158 AWESOME!!!! Thanks for sharing that update and I am glad you got that worked out. Cheers! Chris

Thanks, David was a great instructor. I wish I would have been able to capture many more stories with him to share. Cheers! Chris

ISN'T THAT A HOOT!!!! I got really carried away trying to knock it "off track" while preparing for that video. I laughed my butt off watching it recover so aggressively. Cheers! Chris

Hi Peter, It certainly can be a pain sometimes but I have had to deal with both systems for many years now. As a CNC Applications Engineer, I work in different companies every week and some shops are all Imperial (oddly many defense contractors!) and Metric. My "comfort zone" is in the range of a meter down to a micron - most of the time closer to dealing with millimeters and microns in precision machining. If my head is clear I am lucky enough to bounce back and forth. Having been working with both systems in manufacturing, I am now a convert and wish the imperial system of length measuring would go away, however I still like Imperial for Weights and Temperatures 🙂 In the UK has the Imperial system pretty much vanished from society now? Cheers! Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Hi Chris, we still use imperial for distances on roads, always an issue when you take your car to Europe (Sat Nav great help here). Weights and volumes are mainly metric. Where would we be without standards ? Cheers Peter

Unfortunately I do not have time to help out like that. Perhaps one of the other viewer might see your comment and offer to help. Cheers! Chris

I hear you buddy! I too am exhausted after filming and editing that feature length film :-) Unfortunately, with the experiment moving towards the final phase, each episode may need to cover a lot of information. Thanks for the encouragement, I need it! Cheers! Chris

Hi David, Things are moving along with the Zoomie. Assuming there are no more nasty problems, we should be able to start moving onto the actual ZoomTown layout. The hard part about that, is I have a massive amount of programming to to do with the Zcheduler software that runs the whole experiment. Thanks for the kind words! Cheers! Chris

Thanks for sharing all that information! Magnets are being used in conjunction with the TCRT5000 sensors to help with localization - working pretty good. Yeah, I have the liquid tin and use it but still not as good as the real thing - especially when you have a lot of soldering to do. Digital compass will not work at all in this location - I have tried many of them a few years back on another robot project. There are two very strong sources of magnetism in this space and both of them are stronger than the earth's pull. It certainly would help to make this project easier of it would work! Cheers! Chris

Good morning Peter! It certainly is starting to look like something might work! Thanks for the kind words and encouragement, it helps a lot. Cheers! Chris

THANK YOU SIR!!!! It has and will continue to be a tough journey. Cheers! Chris

LOL! Love "hearing" your excitement - happy days are back again. Cheers! Chris

Oh yeah - FINALLY!!!! Thanks for the encouragement, very much appreciated. Cheers! Chris

That it is!!!! Lot's of forward progress in the coming weeks. Cheers! Chris

Good morning David, Thank you for the kind words - things are moving forward again - THANK GOODNESS!!! Cheers! Chris

Hello wktodd, Thank you for the kind words! Cheers! Chris

I love the idea of E-Ink too, but like you said, could get expensive. I am anxious to get testing on this, if for nothing else, just to see that little sensor work and what it is capable of - SO MUCH POTENTIAL!!! Cheers! Chris

Wow, some serious add-ons to Steve's suggestion. There is a lot of potential with this concept. I have a couple on order and should get them early next week. It is probably going to take some serious work to get it working with the PICO W and MicroPython, but I am curious to see what can be done. The Pizza was great as usual !!!! Been eating any more of the super hot foods???? Cheers! Chris

Well I am excited and really looking forward to your findings and presentation! Naaaa, we don't go there too often so the taste does not become "usual" and stays an excitement :)

@@tomek3633 LOL! I get that, some things just need to stay "Special" so there is something to look forward to! Cheers! Chris BTW - just posted a new video (and it is a SHORTY)

Thanks for the addition and clarification for the on-board LED. Cheers! Chris

Good morning Matthew, Thank you for the kind words and I am thrilled that some of what I am sharing will go towards helping young minds. I too appreciate your efforts in teaching and promoting STEM!!!! Cheers! Chris

Thank you! Cheers! Chris

Good morning Steve, WOW, that is a neat little sensor and I never heard of it before and frankly, I probably never would have given it a thought for our application (sometimes I can't see beyond the marketing). I love your idea of using that for absolute position feedback data. The price is not too bad and the potential for what I could do with that is remarkable. There are some concerns I have such as time to process and respond and if it can read the barcode reliably while moving. I know I will be placing an order with Adafruit soon for some other items and I am going to pick up a couple of these to experiment with - there is so much potential in what I could do with that thing!!!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH for bringing that to my attention. Cheers! Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Hi Chris, my other thought is to repurpose the circuit board of a cheap PS/2 mouse and use it for position sensing. There are a few libraries around you could use.

@@SteveWoodgate Hi Steve, another good idea, but might be a bit tough finding 16 working ones 🙂 BTW I mentioned your idea in the next video and I got a couple sensors on order. I am fascinated with that concept! Cheers Chris

LOL!!!! Thanks buddy!!! I certainly won't be filming that portion of the project. I am glad you are enjoying the videos, it certainly helps keep me motivated. As for immensely satisfying... let's wait to see if the solution I am working on will work:-) The past few days have been pretty productive with regard to this new concept. What I see as a good sign you are on the right track is when you add a small feature to the system and it behaves as expected and there are not those "What the hell is causing that now?" events. Today will be a lot of testing to find the gremlins I know are hiding in there. Cheers and thanks for being a part of the ZoomTown Experiment! Chris

Hi Jeff, good to see you here! Definitely got what I paid for, but if I bought good stuff, I would never have been able to do the experiment due to costs. I am working in the direction of "compromise" between precision and possibly changing the layout (it is only paint and time at this point) to accommodate the lower precision. Any other encoders are either bigger or much more expensive and bigger ;-) This new hybrid system I have been working is showing a lot of promise and I will be posting a video in the next few days. You will recognize the fundamental concept of from how a CNC Machine can use two encoders to improve accuracy, the normal one on the servo and linear (scale) encoder attached to the slide of an axis. This will not be nearly that accurate but my implementation certainly has improved precision. Not giving up yet, just very exhausted between challenging projects at work and all the other stuff I still believe I can do in my free time.

Good morning Tomek, Luckily I have been making some good progress which is helping cheer me up! I would love to hear your idea, let me know either here or using the contact us form. Glad the offer is still valid, THANK YOU. Cheers Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut I'd love to, but I am struggeling to explain ^^ Imagine a disc. Under the disc, a motor is mounted. the motor turns a wheel and is exclusively responsible for ac/-deceleration. The whole disc is mounted at the bottom of the zoomy into a "ring" (maybe with a ball race) and could be turned by a servomotor. to have exact angles, the disc and the ring should have some limiters/stoppers, it it just has left/right/straight and nothing in between (except in the milliseconds of turning the disc) and this shold PULL the zoomy (instead of pushing it), so it has to be on the front part of the zommy bottom plate. inspired by a fork lift :)

@@tomek3633 IT took me a minute to wrap my head around what you were describing - it pretty much matches Zoomie 1.0!!!!! If I get time this weekend I will post a video about that (assuming I can find it). The concept has very good merit!

Good morning analoghardwaretops3976 (WOW, another very interesting handle!), That was some of my early research I did on this project early last year. Steering is both "simple" and complex. Lot's of mechanical nuances along with feedback and control systems. Making it even more complex is the very high demands on precision I am trying to achieve with it. Gotta love a challenge, otherwise what is the point of trying it right! Thanks for being a part of ZoomTown and I hope to hear more from you! Cheers! Chris

Good morning youcasc9038 (another interesting handle!), Thanks for the words of encouragement, always very much appreciated, especially when you are into it for over half a year and it reminds you that it is not an easy goal! Cheers! Chris

Good morning RCWalletVacuum (What an interesting handle!!!), Sounds like you did a fascinating project with you Tig welder!!!! Is voice controlling the ON/OFF of the "spark"? Thanks for the words of encouragement, it always helps. Cheers! Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut Hey Chris,first of all i love your channel and i go there whenever i have PICO issues, lots of good stuff! The voice control is to replace the foot/hand control in certain circumstances on TIG welders.I do a lot of sanitary welding and a lot of times its tough to work a foot control and feed wire. The welders need a "dry contact" discrete to start up and the an analog voltage to control the current levels for precise welds. I am going to add a LoRa radio to it next. I will be doing videos in the near future on it. Thanks for your PICO help Chris

@@RCWalletVacuum That sounds like a very interesting project and application for a PICO. I love industrial applications as I can related to them so well. Thanks for being part of ZoomTown and sharing your thoughts!!! Cheers! Chris

Good morning YTbxg, Thanks for the comments and feedback. You are spot on with what will be changing, EVERYTHING ;-) Based on tests yesterday, I suspect I can still keep most of the layout the same, but it looks like the Guidelines for line following will change A LOT!!!! More on that in the next video which probably will be in two weeks. Thanks for being a part of ZoomTown Cheers! Chris

Good morning, Yes, I love analog meters too, they tell a much better story than the digital readouts. In machining, there are digital dial indicators and "analog" mechanical dial indicators. The mechanicals ones with that moving needle just tell you so much more!!!! Cheers Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut and, as an added bonus in machining, the mechanical indicators don’t need any batteries.

@@mechaform ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!

Good morning Nigel, I understand, and certainly appreciate your "30 odd cents" :-) Cheers, Chris

Good morning, That is exactly the concept I am developing right now. Yesterday I finally had a good, repeatable series of tests that prove worthy of further exploration. Let's hope this new methodology works! Cheers! Chris

Your last statements just confirmed, that I'm not alone with this approach...

Good morning! Made me laugh, thanks I needed that. Cheers! Chris

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Thanks for letting me know. I also got the site updated for Episode 34 Cheers! Chris

Awesome, glad you liked the video! Cheers Chris

Hi Nigel, It certainly is getting INTERESTING!!! As mentioned in the video lead-in, since that video was filmed, a lot has changed and is currently changing. There are just so many challenges to this project - way more than I thought at the beginning. Cheers! Chris

Hello and welcome, I think you are asking if the spindle motor could rotate to align with a fixed, open end wrench - THAT IS A BIG NO. The minimum RPM of that spindle is about 6000 RPM and has no positional control. This is why a stepper motor is used with a gearbox and socket as designed. It is always fun to innovate, happy stone working. Cheers! Chris

You are correct in questioning me. I kept referring to it as TOF based on an assumption. It is triangulation or similar. Cheers! Chris

@@MakingStuffwithChrisDeHut thanks 👍🏻

I suspect it would not work - the datasheet references a maximum distance between the sensor and the magnet. Cheers Chris

Hello Frank, I am glad to hear that you got your project going!!! Cheers! Chris

Hi Tom, GREAT question, I too seem to have lost that functionality. I have not had any time to look into it so hopefully one of the other viewers can help us out. Cheers Chri