In today's video we learn that there always is an a-priori unknown, fixed, positive and non-zero amount of time, effort and money that will, if thrown at a problem - make it go away (at least momentarily).
Overall a success story .. my friend would’ve for sure thrown this out. It has however been very nerve-wracking to work on ..
There were 2 main problems compounding each other constantly
1. corroded battery contacts: with 8 contacts and 4 cells in series, it only takes one weak link to bring the entire show offline; the pump would start, draw 1+ amps for a few milliseconds, that would crash the processor, which would simply reset itself and completely forget it saw a hand
2. this might have been caused by me, but, the IR sensor arrangement is not well designed .. even though it has locating pegs for the IR sensor board, it would constantly see reflections from the shield, which eventually was removed
Weirdly enough I will probably order another one of these for my parents .. I just love the design and honest build .. maybe they even improved it over the year(s)
