Browse Category: English/Angielski

Informations possibly useful for everyone – and written in English.
Informacje przydatne możliwie wszystkim – z tego powodu napisane po Angielsku.

PhotoTrap V2

ESP32-Cam based photo trap

So, we meet again – with esp32-cam board 😉 . My first encounter was rather disappointing. I’ve tried to used it for streaming, and the image was poor quality (OV2640) and what is more troublesome, the board itself was unstable.

Recently I had a need, for some kind of Photo Trap – to see what animals are finding food (that we left for them) close to my land. It could be moose or some kind of deer. Of course I could buy one, but where is the fun in it – and it would be probably much worst. The one I saw was old type, powered with four AA batteries etc. but it had also cellular modem used to send MMS with picture 🙁 in 21 century.

Continue Reading

Kankun smart plug OpenWRT upgrade

During recent cleanups of all my IoTs devices, I wanted to disable Kankun reporting to company servers (I’ve moved everything to customs firmwares like Tasmota or Espurna with House Assistant to manage it – so I don’t want any third parties) and also it seemed to be a good idea to upgrade OpenWRT on it.

If you haven’t seen this type of smart plugs it’s a little nifty device. Comparing to recent Sonoff type smart plugs – that utilize esp8266 (that I like a lot and use with all type of other projects – but mostly ESP32 now) – this plug has Atheros AR9330 rev 1 chipset with full OpenWRT Linux on it. If you want to do more, than just on/off operations it’s just perfect device.

Continue Reading

Candle cnc 1.2b on Linux

If you would like to test latest (yet already quite old) Candle on Linux machine, you could face the same problems as I did – so few tips how to make it work.

I still think UGS platform is a better choice in many cases – but sometimes Candle may be necessity (I have found problem with UGS and Fusion 360 gcode files)..

Anyway, you may face this kind of compilation errors and configuration problems with latest 1.2b source code: Continue Reading

PIDKiln 0.9 – update

It’s time to make it look better, I don’t dare to say good :). So I’ve printed a case with all holes required, and now I’m soldering everything up.

I thought about creating dedicated PCB for it, but it probably would require double side one, and so far I’ve been only making one side PCB on my CNC mill. Other problem I’ve seen was the WiFi antenna on TTGO board. With single PCB for all components, It would be shielded either by PCB or LCD or wires. This board does not have external antenna connector (some other does). So I’ve decided I’ll put ESP32 board separately and at 90deg angle close to the plastic case. This way signal should be not blocked anyway. Continue Reading

PIDKiln v0.6 development – update

So far so good – most of the stuff is done. Currently I’m tuning PID usage, and what’s left is traversing program in time – but that’s easy.

To tune PID parameters and test it, you can use simple halogen light bulb (or car light bulb) connected with thermocouple. This is a good heat source to around 100C and it’s easy to see when it’s working 🙂

You just have to switch SSR to DC-DC one (for kiln you probably will use DC-AC). For easy testing I’ve prepared “Quick program” in LCD menu – where you can set one program step. Provide desire temperature, time and dwell – and you can run it.

How to charge your Xiaomi Mija M365 scooter from car or power bank.

Actually this is about making quick (as quick to build – not fast charging) car charger for you scooter, but there is nothing (except timeeeeee 😉 ) that forbids using it with QC/PD power banks or chargers – it will work, simply it will take ages to charge it.

It should also work for every other scooter (not just Xiaomi) – just check the required voltage and current.

Continue Reading

Mavic Air universal battery charger – USB/car

A quick update to my previous article about DIY DJI Mavic Air battery charger. Recently I’ve found quite interesting board on AliExpress, that can be used as universal all-in-one charger.

So first of all, as a reminder, to charge Mavic Air battery we have to supply somewhere around 13,2V. This voltage is usually not available both on USB and in the car lighter socket. With USB we could have, with some new Power Delivery capable one, above 12V – but they are still quite rare and expensive (I’m talking about power banks – not chargers). In car usually we have 12,2-12,4V – when charging it can go higher, but directly on battery – it should not in lighter socket. Continue Reading