I've more or less accepted that I'll never have access to a 3D printer, so at the moment I standardise on one of two different Hammond cases and make the design fit the PCB for that case. In either case the PCB is smaller than 100mm x 100mm so it's within JLCPCB's cheap range. In particular I like the RM2015S as the PCB fixing points are set far enough back to give pretty much full use of the front and rear areas of the board. It's also the most available of the two designs and is available in two larger heights as well.

  Mixtel90 said  

I've more or less accepted that I'll never have access to a 3D printer, so at the moment I standardise on one of two different Hammond cases and make the design fit the PCB for that case. In either case the PCB is smaller than 100mm x 100mm so it's within JLCPCB's cheap range. In particular I like the RM2015S as the PCB fixing points are set far enough back to give pretty much full use of the front and rear areas of the board. It's also the most available of the two designs and is available in two larger heights as well.

project boxes are awesome but I end up butchering the holes when I use them haha.

I got a bambu a1 mini last year, i think it was about $200 usd, can't remember exact price it was on sale. build plate is 180mm square, and can print the same height. The printer itself is quite small and so far I have had no issues with it. would definitively recommend this printer to anyone for a first printer or wanting a small one because lack of space. my apartment is very small so i didn't want a big one.

g0730n,

Using a humidity sensor inside a closed housing is not a good idea. You will get very delayed, and erroneous response.

Volhout
.

Hello g0730n,

if you want to use it for for programs doing graphical stuff I would consider using a RP2350 because of the larger amount of RAM. On a RP2040 a frame buffer with 16 colors is only possible in mode 2 . And for a RP2350 @800x600 in mode 3 only, if you have PSRAM as well.

If you would have a question on freecad, I'll try my best! Fusion is no solution for me as it only runs on windows, is commercial and urges to use its cloud.

@stan: many thanks! As soon as I can I will try one.



Edited 2025-05-19 19:06 by dddns

  g0730n said  

I will look into that.

VegiPete's Maxicalc thread

G0730n,

What is that game you are showing on the VGA monitor 1 page back. With the house, and coloured blocks.?

Volhout
.

This is handy https://veecad.com/index.html

volhout, the case I printed has some venting, and I intentionally added some slits right next to sensor to allow air to flow over it. Seems to be about the same as without a case so I think its working  Also the game on first page was the beginning stages of the game I am working on now. In that photo thats about all there was just collision with blocks and move with keyboard. I will take a photo quick of what It's looking like now.

stanley: veecad looks pretty cool, I think I'll try it out next time I do something on a protoboard. Would probably help a lot! When I lay something out on a protoboard I usually arrange the large components for a while just sitting on the board to try to find the optimal spots, but if theres enough wires it just ends up getting crazy fast!

lizby thanks for the Maxicalc link, I was able to download the zip program and will test it next time I pull the SD card from pico.

dddns, yes I intend to get an RP2350 at some point. I think I held off when it first came out as I heard there was some hardware issues, which I am guessing have been sorted since then. But have been having so much fun playing with my picos I didn't revisit the idea of getting one haha. Are they PIN-PIN compatable with Rp2040 pico? if not I will probably modify my PCB for that. I built this one with regular pico as I have a handful of them in my stuff.








This game has a lot of influences from games I have played as well as various games I made in the past. It's basically a combination remake of 3 separate games I made years ago. It is turning out great. I am in a bad place in life right now so working on this stuff is saving my mind lol.

  g0730n said  

Are they PIN-PIN compatable with Rp2040 pico?

The RP pico1(2040) and RP pico2(2350) are pin compatible, and both have the same micro USB connector.

There are various designs from others that share the form factor, but have different pinout. Sometimes these can be recognized by having a different colour, or a USB-C connector. But not always. You need to check pin assignment before purchase.

Volhout

P.S. you can save your screen as a BMP with "SAVE IMAGE "name.bmp"" or "SAVE COMPRESSED IMAGE "name.bmp"" so you do not need to take photo's. During development I typically assign the <ESC> key to that function. To take a screenshot at any time in the game.
Edited 2025-05-20 18:13 by Volhout

Have you seen these reference designs from Peter? If you are familiar ordering @jlcpbc I would suggest them as base.
PicoMiteHDMIUSB motherboard reference design
PicoMite RP2350B DIL Development board, 16Mb flash + 8 MB PSRAM

I have good experience with Pimoroni and they have an interesting products:
2350B with layout of Pico2:pico plus 2

  dddns said  

Have you seen these reference designs from Peter? If you are familiar ordering @jlcpbc I would suggest them as base.
PicoMiteHDMIUSB motherboard reference design
PicoMite RP2350B DIL Development board, 16Mb flash + 8 MB PSRAM

I have good experience with Pimoroni and they have an interesting products:
2350B with layout of Pico2:pico plus 2

dddns,

The pimoroni-pico-plus-2 is one of those boards that is NOT compatible with the RP pico. The pins look okay, but since it is a 2350B there are no analog pins on GP26/27/28.

Volhout

Many thank for clarification!
This is not compatible with the HDMI reference design!

Here a very nice tinkering solution without guarantee:
RP2350 + PSRAM 8M

One more correction: It _might_ not be compatible
Edited 2025-05-20 19:57 by dddns

The more I read about the pico 2 the more excited about it.

ive made a couple battery powered devices with pico and picow. but the lowest power consumption in sleep mode is not great.

read that pico2 can go down to 10uA and also has an internal RTC for waking it up.

ty for tip on screenshots with picomite!

I tried out that Screenshot trick, it worked pretty good. The forum here doesn't accept BMP so I converted to PNG and 2x scale so its easier to see. 320x240 not zoomed in is pretty small haha.



I am adding sound effects in my game, and something I am trying to figure out is playing a WAV with interrupt.

For example if I want to play a song using the interrupt to replay it, if I then do PLAY STOP in order to play another song, PLAY STOP will just restart the song from the beginning because the interrupt fires when the song has ENDED...

So basically If I want to have music and loop it with interrupt, I haven't found a way to disable it to play other sound effects. I know there is another way, but I may just put the music on the Menu to avoid this.

edit: I just realized If I want music looped in game I can just forget the interrupt and have a global flag and stop the music before another sound plays then start it after... then have my main loop check if it is playing and if not restart it. idk why I was thinking I HAD to use the interrupt to loop the music.
Edited 2025-05-21 17:36 by g0730n

  g0730n said  

I just realized If I want music looped in game I can just forget the interrupt and have a global flag and stop the music before another sound plays then start it after... then have my main loop check if it is playing and if not restart it. idk why I was thinking I HAD to use the interrupt to loop the music.

hmmm....
the “easiest way” for me is to use *.MOD files for music into which you add the SFX samples. If the MOD is playing, use the “Play Modsample” command,to play the SFX  independently of the music being played. In addition, you create a 2nd mod file which does not contain any music data but the SFX (at the same sample position). When the music is switched off, you load the “empty” mod file. (like we done it in PETSCII ROBOTS or GemsNRocks   )
I worked a lot with the Noisetracker at the beginning of the 1990s. If you've never worked with the MOD format or corresponding trackers before, it naturally requires a lot of training to get used to it. For Windows, there is for example a ProTracker 2 Clone to work with and edit MOD Files.
Hope that helps
Good Luck
 Martin
Edited 2025-05-21 19:13 by Martin H.

I am not at all familiar with the MOD format, but will look into it.

As of now I figured out how to have the music play in a loop, and can be enabled/disabled by pressing "m" on keyboard. But when another sound effect plays it will stop song at whatever position it is in then when music restarts after sound effect is finished it starts from beginning. This works for now but it would be cool to have actual mixing so I am assuming thats where the MOD file comes in.

  g0730n said  

I am not at all familiar with the MOD format, but will look into it.
This works for now but it would be cool to have actual mixing so I am assuming thats where the MOD file comes in.

If it helps, here is a more detailed explanation  of how to use it and here is a small example.

Cheers
Martin
If you don't get along at all, I can also build the mod for you. But try it yourself first
Edited 2025-05-22 08:10 by Martin H.

  Martin H. said  

  g0730n said  

I am not at all familiar with the MOD format, but will look into it.
This works for now but it would be cool to have actual mixing so I am assuming thats where the MOD file comes in.

If it helps, here is a more detailed explanation  of how to use it and here is a small example.

Cheers
Martin
If you don't get along at all, I can also build the mod for you. But try it yourself first

Oh Boy so I downloaded the FT2 Clone tracker program and I think It will take a bit of playing around with before I get the hang of it but it's super cool! I don't consider myself musical at all, but I will give it a go at making something. Will probably continue to focus on making the game for now and tackle that later.

It seems a lot more elegant than just switching from different WAV files that I downloaded from OpenGameArt.org    I suppose I have been making all the sprites myself so why not try and make the sound effects too.

A bunch of computer cycles ago, I wrote some instructions for creating MOD files for the CMM2. This ought to apply to the PicoMite too.

  vegipete said  

A bunch of computer cycles ago, I wrote some instructions for creating MOD files for the CMM2. This ought to apply to the PicoMite too.

Hi VegiPete,

Thanks for the writeup. It shows you how to pack samples in a MOD file. Is there also a trick to put the main track (music that loops) in the MOD file. I know Martin.H creates MOD files with a music track in it.

Another question: can audacity record directly from the PC/Laptop output channel, or do you need to route the output channel to the laptop input channel with a cable (3.5mm jack to 3.5mm jack) ? Asking because my current laptop does not have audio IN anymore.

Thanks,

Volhout