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Palram Mythos Greenhouse Hacks / Improvements
My brother-in-law and I put this together over a long afternoon. Much of that time was spent building and leveling a 4×4 frame – the actual construction went pretty smoothly. On the other hand… It stayed intact for about 24 hours. The very next day, a typical springtime storm rolled through with a bit of…
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Tim Tears It Apart: Honeywell R8184 Oil-fired boiler controller
Its official designation is “R8184 Intermittent Ignition Oil Primary”. “But Tiiiim! That sounds booooorrrring. Why this thing, and not one of those fancy cloud-enabled thermostats containing more RAM than the desktop computer you had in college and not less than five processors capable of running Angry Birds at a playable framerate?” Yes, excitement-wise this one…
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Notes To Myself: Migrating legacy Microchip C18 projects to MPLAB X + XC8 toolchain, Windows 7
First note to myself: NEVER USE MICROCHIP AGAIN. If I didn’t just need to make “a couple tiny updates” to an already selling, on-the-shelf project I’d just scrap the PIC18 for an EFM32TGxxx part, gcc (shaft of light from the sky, harps playing melodically) and be done with this entire shit-show. Insert whining about the…
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The Internet, things, and you
Ha ha, apparently proselytizing about the “Internet of Things” is trendy again. Don’t hold your breath kids; until IPv6 is a thing that’s really a thing, enjoy your “small home network of things”, where your game console, thermostat and toaster have 192.168.x.x IP addresses dangling from your cablemodem, and require a 3rd-party cloud service to…
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Haptic hackery for fun and
profitMy day-job employer makes fancy piezoelectric actuators. Not long ago I was asked out of the blue: “Hey, the Haptics Symposium is in less than 2 weeks… It’s in Houston, TX. Want to go?” “*looks out window at yet more falling snow* Hell yeah.” “Oh yeah, and we’re going to need some demos so…” Of…
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Springtime brew
So, I just discovered I’m completely out of Pumpkin Fail (euphemistically, Cinnamon Cream Ale – that I only too late realized I forgot to add the pumpkin to the boil…yeah, don’t ask.). Time for a new brew! Haven’t decided what to make yet, but at least I know just what to call it… (With apologies…
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Coming soon to a dominated world near you!
Yep…it’s finally happened!
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Notes to myself: Minibog improvements
I’ve been growing some small carnivorous plants (mainly Nepenthes and sundews) in a tank indoors, but a couple years ago, just for fun I started some Sarracenia (pitcher plant) seeds. Well, what do you know, the darned things actually grew. So this spring, when it was clear I wouldn’t be able to keep them in…
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PID control stove hack for better brewing, sous vide, etc.
“Cook all the foods, hack all the things / Make all the booze, hack all the things” In beer brewing, the temperature profile during mashing has important implications for the beer’s eventual body and “mouthfeel”. The requirements for partial mash brewing are a bit more relaxed than all-grain, but still matter (the enzymatic reactions occur…
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Notes to myself: Lulzbot TAZ n00b guide
A work in progress… Critical Specs: Bed size / Build envelope: 298mm (X) * 275mm (Y) * 250mm (Z) Nozzle diameter: 0.35mm (shipping default; others available) Filament diameter: The TAZ’s extruder expects 3mm filament. However, not all off-the-shelf filament will be exactly this diameter; the discrepancy could affect print quality in severe cases (see notes…
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Tim Tears It Apart: Sensitech TempTale4(R) data logger
One of these devices appeared in a large shipment of temperature-sensitive raw materials at my work, amid a pile of dry ice chips. While I don’t know the MSRP or actual retail price of this gadget, the shipper packs one in with every order and tacks on $60-70 for it as a line-item; nonreturnable as…
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A new feature: “Tim Tears It Apart”!
So, as you might have guessed, I’m an electronics engineer, and I like to tear things apart – especially gadgets. I don’t usually post about it, because a) someone else has probably already posted a teardown of that gadget, and b) I’m lazy as balls. But then I realized a good teardown is not all…
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Notes to myself: Test a Bluetooth Low Energy device on Raspberry Pi, the quick way
Testing if the new nRF8001-based Mosquino BLE shield I built actually works. With the unmodified library and example code, it purports itself to the a Nordic heartrate monitor. Much of the below based on Michael Saunby’s blog post on checking out a TI SensorTag. Install bluez and hcitool (plus any dependencies). As of today, current…
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AllElectronics “Mystery Infrared Device” with LIRC
NOTE: This device is no longer sold; rescuing this information before it disappears from various caches. Description of the device from AllElectronics: Our best guess is this is an infrared receiver/ transmitter for use with televisions or other remote-controlled equipment. Made for OnCommand™, it consists of a small black box, 2″ x 1.95″ x 0.6″…
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Refraction Fail
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Fun expression of the day: “flip a coil”
There is supposedly an Afrikaans expression that translates as “flipping a coil” or “flipping the cone”, etc. Kind of a more evocative equivalent to “shitting a brick”. It refers to the act of turning one’s underwear inside-out to dump out the results of having shit one’s pants, e.g. due to extreme rage or surprise. The…
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Rez Trance Vibrator mystery LEDs, and how to control them
So, a friend of a friend recently managed to buy the original Rez, complete with new-in-box Trance Vibrator. But the peripheral didn’t work – it would be detected, but otherwise not do anything. Knowing I had produced a compatible open source version of this hardware, she brought it over for a look. The motor was…
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Solar seed warmer to get a jump on spring
Spring is coming… here is a tiny little hacklet from the bench of Tim. I live in New England. I don’t mind it here, but the growing season is a bit short. So here is a scheme to give outdoor direct-seeding a little head start. Seeds for many food plants, such as melons and peppers,…
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So, it appears MakerBot have gone full evil now…
We shuddered when it was announced that MakerBot were taking the next version of their RepRap-based printer design closed-source. We crossed our fingers when the CEO responded to the flap saying they’d be “as open as possible“. We watched with popcorn the various flaps about Thingiverse, legal mumbojumbo, attribution and moral rights. But now this.…
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CNC milling custom 40DP timing belt “gears”/pulleys
Woo, it’s been a long time since I messed with pick & place stuff. Bad Tim. An irritation I have been having is making everything work using reliably sourceable, off-the-shelf parts (not lucky eBay/surplus finds). In particular I’ve found small “tin can” stepper motors are hard to source in small quantities repeatably, and once you…
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- Das Blinkenlichten – wearable lighting
- Goldmine Electronics LCD pinout (mini-teardown)
- Mosquino: an Arduino-based energy harvesting development board
- Pick and Place Project
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