Posts made by m5dude

what an amazing application! Great job! Thank you for sharing sources to learn from. Very elegant code!

As im diving into M5 programming I am realizing many shortcomings with the text display functions. It appears one only gets to print a string at a location but then one must paint over it to clear it. There is no such thing as keeping a reference to a printed string so one can manipulate it

Consider for example a console display. one line of text is entered, then next one moves the previous one up. To implement this, one has to painfully track the position of each line string, clear the text are, then redraw everything again.

I am coming from the world of javascript where one can target a DOM and quickly change it.

Would this be easier if I moved into micro python or does it suffer the same limitations?

Is it really this obtuse? Can someone recommend any libraries, books, blogs to get me up to speed and lessen the pain ?

Top prize should be ALL stacks + $1000.
Runner ups should get the yellow version + $100

@M5Stack
why not host a competition for M5 makers? something like people compete for the most interesting apps, games, etc. give away some cash prize, or stack units, or something like this?

I think it would be fun and interesting to see what others come up with!

@calin
very nicely done! thanks for sharing sources to learn from

What is recommended practice to save data without user having SD card? For example say you make a counter and want to save the last count. Since M5 can easily reset from a loose connection , it would be great to save the last count internally.

In my rsearch i find it is possible to save to flash memory (?) but there are a limited amounts of read /writes. is this correct? I dont want to ruin my machine by having a counter take up all the one-time memory

any tips?

@jrs

you mean with micropython? you will need to have that firmware flashed on it. i havent done that yet but i remember reading about it on the github i believe

@fazambuja

I had to do the same thing for 10.10. and it took a couple tries

@world101

nice tip on the custom color didnt know that

@world101

I agree with you. the fast(er) update is done with

M5.Lcd.setTextColor(TFT_BLACK,TFT_WHITE);

@pkourany

its hard to know LOL

but here is everything i did (now from memory)

1- try charging M5 overnight with high power USB charger (fail - battery not working)
2- power M5 by 1 wire from Battery to 3.3v (success - M5 boots up)
3- spread out pin on M5 - i believe I did grn and battery (fail - M5 not working with battery)
4- scream out loud (fail - but stress level reduced)
5- scream out loud and squeeze M5 case hard (success! - M5 works with battery)

so i think the solution was spreading the pins and squeezing it together. The connections on the M5 core are weak.

@m5dude

Day 2 after my hack fix. No prob with M5. The battery is now charging properly. I will order the bigger battery. Plus my proto stack is coming in soon. yipee!

@dimi
where do the pins connect to? GND and 25?

if i wanted to connect a headphone to M5 I just do the same thing but with the headphone jack input?

@m5stack this is exciting to here! be able to drop ship a custom preloaded m5 to customers would be amazing!

@pkourany

I was thinking this would be solved if i got the bigger battery but sounds like it will lead to the same problem.

i will hold off on buying the bigger battery if it will lead to the same broken behaviour

maybe @m5stack can give some clues as to when/how this will be fixed?

@Dimi great stuff! you are a true wizard!

question - how to add headphone jack to m5? is there an easy and elegant solution for this? perhaps with the line out stuff you pointed us to?

How would someone go about selling m5 with custom firmware or app loaded on it? Are there discounts for developers looking to do this?

Ideally it would be a drop ship situation where we can provide our custom firmware or apps and it is installed and sent to the customer.

How can this be done?

I bought an m5 from amazon. After the initial hurdles to get serial recognized on my mac, i got it running a few programs. Very neat device.

Then less than 24 hours later, the battery stopped working. I was able to run it off usb directly (from wall or computer) but not the battery. I assumed the battery or unit was defective and began process of research for solution before return.

Step 1- test if battery is burnt/dead

First I tested battery plate with multi meter. I took apart the 4 screws using normal (tiny) allen hex wrench. Then flipped over. I saw solder points from battery to 'GND' and "battery".

I put negative/ground/black multimeter to "GND" point off battery solder point, and red on the 'battery' point. I found it working well at around 4 volts

Next I tested the pins out from battery with mulit meter. No problem.

Next I connected some pins out from battery directly into the lcd face using some header pins. I connected it to GND and 3.3 v. I then tested that connection with multimeter. Very flakey connection.

So i found problem to be with LCD face .

Step 2: Solve with wires.

If battery works, i just then used 1 wire from kit. I connected battery to 3.3v. And it worked!

I was willing to live with this solution but it would require me to have that wire and i dont know if i was doing things wrong.

Step 3- Bend header pins on lcd face plate

Now what i did was two pins outwards. First is battery and the other is 3.3. Battery is on bottom and 3.3 is 6 down from top. Just look at chart on the chip itself.

I got nose pliers and slighty pushed out the pin so it would provide more friction with unit when closed.

I then closed unit....and NOT WORKING!

BoooooO!oooo!

Step 4 - Solution!

So i went back to my wire hack. This time when it powered on i pressed the case firmly down. The i removed the wire. I was expecting it to turn off...but no it stayed on!

So i removed the wires, and now its once again running off battery power!

BUT - about 3 minutes after I write that, the device is dead again.

So now i will try to charge battery overnight. Perhaps its the small battery capability? It will be ridiculous if the base unit can only run for a few minutes. Not a good way to upsell people to the bigger battery