Breadboards are mid and they ruined my life, i got devorced lost my house, kids, properties, car and everything else cuz of them

I wrote a header file for this encoder, Normally thesehigh precision 21 bit encoders use SPI to communicate to the MCU, BUT I SWEAR ON MY LIFE THOSE PADS ARE TOO FKIN SMALL.
ISTG THESE ARE THE SMALLEST PADS IVE EVER SEEN HOW IS ONE SUPPOSED TO SOLDER ON THESE

I was NOT gonna solder those lil shis w my fat and rusted ass soldering iron, so i instead used 14bit resolution PWM out of the encoder, its not AS precise as the 21 bit but il solder them when im home
OH AND THIS IS MY HOSTEL ROOM BTW
I HATE IT HERE

The consistency of this encoder is perfect tho resolution is consistent (both the stepper and the encoder) I showed yall in the video how consistent it was.

Sometimes it floats aound a bit but ik its cuz of the breadboard fkin up the pwm signals whcih are alr prone to interference. Ill fix that tho so need to worry, Ill design everything in a way so that in future its very easy to switch from PWM to SPI

Anywyas thats all i did for today, for tmr i have better calibration for motors and when the motors calibrate ill calibrate the encoders too, I havent worked much w header files for C, This is my first time so ill have to learn abt that a lot too

I love writing clean code

I genuinely think one thing im good at is writing clean and structured code, Anyways apart from that, i was able to utilize sensorless homing in my TMC2209 drivers which i very ingeniously picked cuz i totally knew what they were capable of.

To be honest i was js surfing da net and found out that u can actually home using these drivers without any external switches, so i was able to save the hassle and wire for that, It was pretty hard getting it running im not gonna lie, With help of chatgpt i was able to figure out why it wasnt working, and in the end i was able to get it to home properly

I wired up the GPS use a library for it too and then sent those functions in a different header file so my main file remains clean.

I coded a lil GPS_3D return func that gives x y and alt of the GPS which we will be using to aim the yagi to the target.

You see the no gps fix message cuz my house walls are pretty thick, these GPS cant get fix inside (my planes expensive GPS cant get it indoors either)

Update on my rc plane:
Its my last day at home before ill be going to clg and it has not stopped raining for a single day so its wraps for that, I might be able to find a window to test it maybe.

Tmr ill be working on getting the motor encoder working, Im still waiting up on my bearings and the wodden staff istg its taking way too long

MY CUSTOM DIPOLE IS WORKING AND NOTHING BURNED

FOR STARTERS MY COAX IS HERE

I went back to my dipole because it was WAY easier to solder the wires on stainless steel than it was on aluminum, Kinda bummed out cuz stainless steel velocity factor is higher than Al, So im 80% sure my antenna isnt tuned rn (hasn’t unlocked its full potential)
Also i havent tuned my antenna for endpoint factor either.

I tested with mavlink in same room and another room the RSSI didnt drop, I will be conducting more experiments today driving around tryna compare both the antennas

I will research on how to build a 1:1 or 4:1 balun and make that too if possible, follow this proj and lets figure this blackmagic out together

OH ITS CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY

MY PARTS ARRIVED ITS SUCH A MASSIVE BOX I CANT CONTAIN MYSELF, Im so so so excited thankyou zach thankyou stardance and thanku hackclub for getting me all this

As soon as my parcel arrived i hopped on da puter tryna make the stepper go brr
When i was starting out surprisingly it was NOT working as intended

The stepper was making a LOT of noise and it was just jerky and stalling and had 0 torque, for the life of me i couldn’t figure out what the issue was.

TURNS OUT, Claude fkin lied to me and told me wrong way to wire the stepper phase wires, so i had changed the wiring of how the stepper connector initially came with, After my free tokens expired i was like shi i gotta take shi in my own hands, I tried that and it instantly worked

The torque was perfect and microstepping was insanely clean

Now that this wiring stuff is done, all that remains is i have to figre out a way to get the motor encoder with the motor, i have multiple ideas on how i will do it so follow this project to see more of this

in the end i would like to thank hackclub once AGAIN for getting me all this i love yall

Dipole is done

I made a 1/2 wave dipole antenna using 14 AWG aluminum wires
I recorded 30 mins of work but this job took me 2 total hours to complete

For starters i ALMOST disintegrated my 3D printer because of a stupid soda can

I forgot i kept it under the arm (the X axis arm that moves up and down)
and i didnt realise i kept it there, My first layers were SO trash
because of it it was a solid half an hour of troubleshooting till i
figured out what the issue was.
Thankfully i didnt overtighten my screws so my rails are fine, But i
cant say the same about my nozzle

My nozzle scraped the bed after i removed the can cuz i set the Z offset
too low and i did stop the print but it was lowk a lil late, It still
works so thats fine But this stupid 6min print took me 2 Hours of work

Anyways, This half wave is made of aluminum 14AWG single cored wire, i
used a drill machine to straighten it and then cut 16.75cm pieces ( 2 cm
more than that and then i folded the 2 cm part to work as connectors)
It looks pretty perfect to me, I hope it works that way too

If this doesnt work as expected ill look into building my DIY balun

Added the MCU and other sensors that will be necessary in the CAD too

Might get the funding soon

I updated the readme with build instructions, rn i didnt add the dipole construction and itll be a long process of trial and error and i wanna provide the final method for construction

It makes me vv happy that they actually saw the part where i implemented it in game and appreciated so hats off to them for that

Everything is updated now i can apply for funding i think

MY TRAIN TO HOME IS IN 2 DAYS

I cant wait to go home finally away from this fuh ahh clg and work on my projects

Anyways i worked on the wiring diagram for the project in figma, wrote the readme and setup the github and i think im ready to req funding now (oh btw 3D prints are not included in the funding)

They HAVE to let me on their magazine after this no chance all 3 of my projects dont make it there

Worked on da project a bit more

Refined the 3D model a bit more, thought about the wiring diagram and made a BOM

Currently only thing left are the 1m coax cable that because im not home i dont have acess to my radio telemetry so i cant see which connector they use, i did ask my parents to send me a pic but theyre a bit busy so thats on hold

The entire project is lokey coming to life and im insanely excited to work on my frist RF project

I learned about RF patterns Smith charts and different types of antennas, and i think i wont just stick to 433 yagi, i will be making my own various antennas

The good thing is i dont have to spend a fortune on a radio setup as SIK radios that i have currently do have a RSSI meter (i hope they dont get slimed tho so i gotta calculate twice before making)

Whipped out this lil guy (Bro is NOT little)

added motors and removed the curved part and am gonna use a 1/2 dipole for this

Researching for this project is insane theres barely any content for 433mhz yagis or directional antennas.

This project might be a hard one gng im getting kinda demotivated ngl

I decided that ill use bike spokes as reflectors and see if they work.
The driven element would be a single cored copper wire made into a makeshift half wave dipole antenna

They say RF is an engineers worst nightmare

How bad could it be

This is a custom 433MHz Yagi antenna tracker for my UAV. It uses the Pixhawk’s MAVLink GPS data, a ground-station GPS, and an ESP32 to calculate where the aircraft is and automatically point the Yagi at it using two direct-drive NEMA17 motors with absolute encoders. The whole thing is being built from scratch, including the antenna and tracking system.

Today i made a rough 3d model of how the actual antenna would be irl (no impedance matching done yet) along with the rough kinematics of the whole structure

Itll be mounted on top of a table with bearings and stepper motors, I might be adding pulleys to it later but i wanna keep cost as low as i can and range as high as i can, No physical limit switches or wonky mechanical stuff needed cuz of the awesome digital encoders

A GPS for the GSC so that it knows where its at then ill be implementing compelx math to figure out where to point the antenna

Maybe even RF Sims This is a whole new blackmagic territory im stepping into purely for the love of the game.