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Lockable Drawers for Rivians Oct 20 @ 9:44pm
I wanted to document the pin outs for the Rivian camp speaker/accessory drawer pinouts and function. My end goal is get some powered stuff in that space and open it up for third party designs.
Hacking A Reolink NVR Dec 8, 2018 @ 7:38pm
So I recently saw a great Amazon deal, the Reolink NVR (RLN8-410) with 4 POE cameras was $320 so I grabbed that and 1 Amcrest 4K camera (IP8M-2493EW). I got it setup and immediately found two things, while it completely supports ONVIF (an open, XML-SOAP based protocol to communicate with security cams and NVRs), there is no web interface (they claim there is, but it's an browser addon that only works on Windows and Mac). They also have a desktop client, but surprise it too doesn't work on Linux.

I then tried getting my Amcrest camera working, and it oddly doesn't work, it sees it, and then says it's offline, and then finds it again when I hit scan, but with a different port (port 80) and refuses to connect, trying to delete it or scan again just crashes the UI. So obviously it's connecting and not working. All well.

All of this has made me determined to change the NVR software, get something open, that I can get to read my 4K camera, that will allow me to download history via Linux, and something with a functional web interface. This is going to be my story on hacking the RLN8-410
PAR Lighting Calculator Feb 14, 2016 @ 2:05am
Plants require light to function, but they are sensitive to light at different wavelengths than humans, and that makes calculating the lighting required for indoor plant growth difficult, especially when all the light bulbs out there are rated in lumens, a measure of how bright they appear to humans. So I made a calculator to determine the actual PAR rating of a light setup.
RaspSub Software Overview Mar 8, 2015 @ 12:10am
The submarine is composed of two different applications, the first is the controller software, it runs the hardware, provides drivers for all the custom hardware I developed, and will eventually allow the submarine to operate independently from it's remote.

The remote, shown below is written to use GTK+3, it provides all inputs to the submarine (such as the joystick), and lets you view all the run data, including saved runs.

Submarine Software
Mar 7, 2015 @ 7:58pm
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AVR Programming Jul 29, 2013 @ 10:41pm
To control the servos on the submarine I am using an AVR (ATtiny24a). Besides controlling the servos the AVR is also acting as a secondary thermometer, reading the the battery voltage, and interfacing with the pressure sensor. It then forwards all of this over SPI to the Raspberry Pi.
Electronics Build Up Jul 15, 2013 @ 9:11pm
Making an electronics package this complicated pretty much required that I have a proper PCB produced instead of trying to use a protoboard or something. Turns out getting a board made is not expensive, it was about $75 from ITEADstudio. Using the gEDA tools I could make all the schematics and then convert those schematics to the right formats needed for the prototype PCB.
Raspberry Pi Interface Board Design Jul 14, 2013 @ 9:08pm
To control everything I am using the Raspberry Pi, running Raspbian. Everything I need that the Raspberry Pi needs to connect to I put on the interface board, and connect it to the Raspberry Pi through a ribbon cable. This connects both SPI and I2C to the interface board (as well as UART, which I will probably use for GPS). These interfaces are used for communication with the Raspberry Pi and the interface board has all the necessary electronics to power the sensors as well as the valves, pump and LEDs which need a large amount of power.
Power Supply Development Jul 12, 2013 @ 10:36pm
To power the raspberry pi, and sensitive sensors, I need a regulated power supply, but the larger devices like pump, servos, and valves all need a lot of power. The LiPo battery, while rated at 14.8V, can go above it. Wikipedia states that they get up to 4.23V/cell, so my 4 cell battery is 16.92V max. I was uncomfortable with most of the non-RC stuff seeing almost 17V when they were only rated at 12V (40% over spec), so I made a DCDC 17-10V->~12V Power supply, and a very large 5V power supply to power the servos (my searching gave me almost 2A as a spec value for them, and I want 3).
RC Submarine project overview Jul 12, 2013 @ 2:42pm
I decided to build a remote controlled submarine out of PVC pipe, RC car parts, and a raspberry pi. Initial goals were to act mostly like an RC boat on the surface, and be able to dive autonomously and return video. Total cost as of today is about $1k, though I plan on updating that and keeping an accurate count of things.