Building my favourite Slime VR Body Trackers with JLCPCB - #417

You can also place orders via my affiliate links here, which helps me out a lot!

Designs showcased here:

Uncut builds:
These aren't done yet - I finished shooting and editing this video like, a month ago and then completely stalled on releasing it. I'll get these done, but right now I just need _this_ video to get published 😅

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:08 - Ordering Components
18:00 - Ordering PCBs
22:00 - Soldering a Tracker
26:30 - Shine Bright MeowCarrier
28:30 - Gorbit TinySlime
32:24 - Adamant IT Arctic Slime
36:40 - Sorakage Cheesecake
38:38 - JLC Assembled PCBs
42:39 - Conclusion

[FlameSilver]

Fun tip to reduce cost: See if you can get a bulk load of old laptop batteries locally, even the broken ones. Most laptop batteries are made of multiple cells and will "break" when only one of the cells goes bad, meaning you can usually get a couple still good cells out of them. The down side to this is the cells may be odd sizes and so you might need to modify a case to get them to fit and also may need a different battery controller

[RealNovgorod]

Oh man, if only 1% of people would be as dedicated to something as the furries, we'd have colonies on Pluto by now.

[harriscom]

Great video Graham thanks. | really enjoyed it, both the detailed information and the editing/production style. 45 minutes well spent, thanks again.

[nouwta]

Ordered my parts today. Super excited. Thanks for the detailed vid!

[brucewalker]

Good video, good explanation of everything.

[NotThatGuyJD]

Hey it's finally here. Really great video, not interested in VR specifically but great tutorial on ordering custom PCBs from JLC, that will come in quite handy in some of my other hobbies.

[RyhtymFiend]

This guide is amazing. Thank you SO MUCH for all the hard work that went in to making it. I am doing the meow carrier build iwth ICM-45686 for my first build. I already 3d printed the cases in clear petg in anticipation. I cannot wait for the rest of my parts to ship. This is my first diy electronics project and I am already addicted.

[ludPL]

If we're talking about ordering assembly service, it's worth considering just cloning official PCB, which is IMO superior design compared for most stuff mentioned there. Just clone the revision with IMU slot that you can solder the module by hand.

[geckosk]

what kind of solder are you using? i'm very new to this

[fansaypepsi]

i like the your arctic slim trackers the most due to not having to get my 3d printer from the depths of my closet and that it uses removable batteries but, i dont know how bad the c3 super mini's bad range would be. should i wait till the community has figured a way to increase the range or should i just build it?

[billynomates]

The lipos will ship sea freight rather than air, which is why they're slow shipping, and Royal Mail won't handle them either.

[dextorr]

Can’t really watch this right now, but how much are these to make? It’s my birthday and I’m hoping to make some.

[teslameccano]

I found a battery for a good deal but it says brd (probably means board) does it matter if it says brd on it and has one in the battery?

[Lethaltail]

regulus ftw
these trackers look awesome!

[stepthefox]

handsome design on the arctic slime, graham! loved the variety on display with the other trackers as well; I hadn't checked in on slimes since the big component shortage a couple years back pushed me to go the vive route despite being a diy/microsoldering animal, so it's nice to see how far everything has come. one small thought on the chip antenna thing; I ran into the same issue in using cheap nrf52840 boards to make diy vive tracker receivers, the range was dreadful compared to the official vive tracker dongles. I ended up replacing the chip antenna there with a bit of wire to make a little 1/4 wavelength 2.4ghz whip antenna, and that immediately put it on par with the official dongle's performance. may be a low cost/effort option vs sourcing connectors and antennas depending on the layout 🦊👍

[mgm--atacms]

amazing dedication

just a few days ago, you said the channel was picking up steam, so you decided it was time to bring it down again

[deltaecho]

Cool video !

I have a lot of friends getting slime tracking now too,
Fun to see them move their full body in VR !

[FlavioCasimiro.dancer]

You could do panelization with mouse bites. Seems the pcbs could be a lot less expensive. It consists in using a software to replicate more times the design in the available pcb sheet. You create the gerber file and upload the modified file. Adding the mouse bites, sets a place for them to break apart. Then you could order 5 or 10 pcbs in one sheet for the price of one. As many as they can fit.

[kuronokaida]

is there an alternative i can use for the bmi270 board that isnt kono since kono is down right now?

[SusanAmberBruce]

Fascinating, I wasn't aware about any of this, so I learned a lot today. Thanks for the video, very well done.