mailbag monday #62

Another Monday, another Mailbag Monday!

Featuring another assortment of useful, useless, and just plain cool (and cheap!) stuff

The links:

ESP8266 Esp-12E Serial Port Wireless WIFI Transceiver Board Module AP+STA

NodeMcu Lua ESP8266 ESP-12 WeMos D1 Mini WIFI CH340G Development Board Antenna

1/2/5/10 PCS Mini 3A DC-DC Converter Step Down Buck Power Supply MP2307 Chip

DC-DC Buck Step-down Regulator Converter 4.2~23v to 3V 3.3V 5V 9V 12V 24V Module

10PCS Mini 650nm 6mm 3V 5mW Laser Dot Diode Module Red Copper Head hot

8 pcs 4.5cm Soft Red Sponge Ball Close-Up Magic Street Fashion Comedy Trick

Digispark Kickstarter ATTINY85 Arduino General Micro USB Development Board

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This isn't the only way to do it.
It's probably not the best way to do it.

But it's how I do it.

[wardprocter]

LASER BEER!! It’s the only thing that can possibly make beer better.
Thank for another entertaining mailbag. This one won’t cost me much as I already have most of the stuff you got this time. I am a little jealous that you got your D1 mini in 5 weeks. I ordered a bunch of D1 boards and hats 6 weeks ago and no sign of them yet 🙁

[johnfoster]

I've been watching your Mailbag Monday episodes for a few weeks now and enjoy each one
Finally - no political correctness in descriptions - LOVE IT
I purchased a few of the items you have open here for much the same reason - model railroading (HO scale)
Thank You and keep up the great shows!

[DustinWatts]

Nice stuff to pile on! :) Btw.. AP stands for Access Point and STA stands for Station.

[GnuReligion]

About your Digispark: If you mount headers pointed DOWN (w/o the V(in)), then it fits neatly into standard breadboards, providing power vertically and GPIO pins horizontally. Be sure to check out the DigiCDC echo example in the Arduino IDE ... nifty that you can read/write/print through the USB. Two pins will be a little bit corrupted with for USB D-/D+, being voltage capped to 3.3v with zeners. One is even pulled up to signify USB 1.0. So sadly, there is really only 1 clean analog-read input, if the Reset works. Since the Micronucleus bootloader is activated on power-up, you can fuse out the reset pen to get 4 clean GPIO lines with 2 analog in. This change is permanent, unless you have a HVSP handy ... or you make one, (I did).
We must have the same lasers. Was also disappointed that they are not well focused to a clean circular point.

[frankowalker]

Can't wait to see the WIFI Juggling Lasers!!! It will be awsome!!

[douro]

STA=STAtion, the designation for a network adapter as described in the 802.11 standard. AP+STA means the device can serve both as an access point and a network adapter.

[SimpleElectronics]

I love the ATTINY85, I just get a little sad that the bare chip is no cheaper than the whole board!

[bollie]

The chip is just the ESP8266EX. The pcb it is mounted on determines the model. Looking to the antenna this is a 12E model. But the model of the pcb is (edit: almost) never shown on the chip (FCC approved cover for chip and flash) itself.

[Codedbad]

Nice 6.25% stoat. I love those laser diodes!
If you're cheap ATtiny13s are good. Same as the 85 but less ram. If you want to flash a LED it's fine.

I used to be a cub scout, a sixer even - 2nd Royal Eltham!

[icenesiswayons]

Would a CD laser lens work, to focus the point to a further distance?

[kaoshavoc]

Probaly has to do with the china tarrifs or whatever our government is doing here. I love your vids mate, I look forward to them.

[Jaycsee]

I got some of those laser diodes sent to me by mistake. The ones I got can be focused by turning the front of the case.

[Shmbler]

These Mini360 buck converters are pretty handy for around 0.30€ a piece. About the cheapest option for adjustable speed control of PC fans.

[GadgetReboot]

On this video over a month ago it did sound like the API would start rounding the subscriber count like the rest of the website but I thought I saw a more recent video where they acknowledged people were concerned about API data not being accurate and they were passing that on to the team so it’s still not clear if the API will be rounding off, and if it does maybe they’ll fix it later.

[kjur]

I guess that if there is a led on board, it's enough to call it a led module.