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Hardware

Batocera and LCDProc

To finish off a retro PC running Batocera, I purchased a second hand Alutek case. There isn’t a lot of information about it online any more, but I did find this page from 2007. The case comes with an Imon VFD which I wanted to utilize but Batocera doesn’t come with LCDProc installed. I’ve not had much experience with Arch Linux, but thankfully the Batocera team have a very helpful page dedicated to recompiling it from source. The source I compiled was from version 38 and after a trial run I had to upgrade the host to Ubuntu 22.04, after that upgrade the guide worked mostly flawlessly. The stock ‘.config’ worked well and installed on the host PC fine. When I made modifications there was issues with drivers – the USB keyboard would be detected… Read More »Batocera and LCDProc

Mystery Auction 2022

After some poor auction bids I ended up with two boxes, one of very old computer cards and one with 4 single board computers – which is what drew me to it. In the box with the cards, most of the interesting ones looked like they had been damaged. The single board computers were four somewhat identical motherboards with TFT LCD’s , 2.5 inch IDE hard drives, GSM modules and some basic I/O ports. After checking the larger and older cards, there was nothing that could be saved, it looked like they had something large dropped on them. From what I can tell they were custom cards that plug into a back plane that acts as a bus between them. The only chip of value I found was an Intel MG80C186XL-20 which was apparently military… Read More »Mystery Auction 2022

LinuxCNC and Tuya Smart Plugs

It has been a long wait to have automatic dust extraction on my PrintNC. It comprises of two elements: An extractor – to replace the 20-30 year old Vax/Bunnings bucket combo, and a smart plug to have it automatically turning it on and off. The Extractor The extractor was purchased second hand at a great price ($50AUD). The 5 inch nozzle was reduced to 4 inches, mainly because of the price of 5 inch PVC pipe. The flexible tube is 100mm Ag pipe. I had initially planned to use all Ag pipe, but there was performance issues during testing when using long lengths of it. Automation – Tuya Smart Plug To turn the extractor on and off I purchased a Powertech Smart Plug from Jaycar on sale ($19AUD). My researched shows it was based on… Read More »LinuxCNC and Tuya Smart Plugs

PrintNC – CNC

For those not familiar with the PrintNC project: Home page, Wiki. This has been a project that’s been in design and construction for over a year. Main delays have were due to shipping, manufacturing and poor quality replacements, over all poor communication from vendors, but mostly the reluctance to spend the money – What can I say, I’m cheap 🙂 This CNC was (as it is for many) to replace my MP-CNC that has been mostly unreliable and needed another rebuild. It got to the point the mancave was getting so hot, that plastic parts under tension were warping over time. For the record, it was 52 degrees C this summer. Design and Purchase I went with the default size as it gives me about the same size of work area as the MP-CNC for… Read More »PrintNC – CNC

ESP32/CDP/LLDP/DHCP – Third Edition

This is the third major update to the CDP/LLDP packet sniffer (First, Second). The main processor is now the ESP32 microprocessor. Of the available packages, I’ve chosen the TTGO T-Display. I would like to give a shout-out to Colin for his assistance, and for testing what has been (at times) some cringe worthy code. There has been some pretty poor work-arounds to resolve issues, and then (hopefully) cleaned them up later. If you notice any remaining please let me know. You can see below that the wiring is far simpler than the previous versions. This is thanks to the T-Displays extra built in options. The major changes in the T-Display: built in TFT, charging circuit, and Bluetooth. The red mosfet is used to distribute power to peripheral devices. The reason for the mosfet is to… Read More »ESP32/CDP/LLDP/DHCP – Third Edition

C.H.I.P Resurrection

I was one of the lucky people to buy multiple C.H.I.P’s as part of the Kick Starter campaign. So far I’ve honestly not used them for much and they were gathering dust. As part of my ventures into Home Assistant, I wanted zoned audio. So it made sense to try Shairport-Sync on the Chip’s. In general is should be easy enough to get it sorted, in 3 lines your done. Unfortunately previous projects on the Chip’s made them unusable, so they needed re-imaging. Unfortunately the company is no longer supporting them, but thankfully their guides, flash images and community are still preserved. I had tried previously to reimage using windows running VirtualBox, but there was USB driver issues. A physical Ubuntu box worked fine. This script makes flashing them a breeze. Followed by this guide… Read More »C.H.I.P Resurrection

Desktop PCB Mill

After many delays and set backs I’ve finally gotten a working, reliable PCB mill. In the first post I did of this, I used V bit’s to get better resolution of the tracks. The height issues remained and I was unable to get the auto bed leveling working on the Marlin firmware. What I did to fix the multiple issues: I found the X and Y couplers were a poor choice, as they were acting like large springs. I added lock nuts to the far ends of the X and Y axis, on the outer edges to pull the couplers tight and prevent X and Y axis from springing back when they moved. I removed some PLA from the Z stepper mount to make way for the extra spindle length. That was not enough so… Read More »Desktop PCB Mill

Cheap Pickups

Some more cheapies from the weekend – although not hugely successful, provided hours of interest. Solidoodle Press Ubiquiti Nanostation HFW5200-IRA camera Solidoodle Press This was a nostalgic purchase, I originally purchased a Solidoodle 2 as my first printer and it was kinda cool to have one of their production models. I purchased it with the intent of buying spare parts and priced accordingly. It didn’t come with a power supply so I soldered a PC PSU to provide the 12v. I have since found that it’s a 24v system, and by using a 20v 4amp laptop charger, I’ve been able great hot end temps and reasonable heated bed temps. Initial tests proved successful and it connected to Repetier Host, homed the axis’s and the heated bed and hot end warmed. I have plenty of spares… Read More »Cheap Pickups

Desktop CNC – Work In Progress

To make my projects smaller and more durable, it would be better to make custom PCB’s rather than jamming a wad of wires into already small cases. To make this possible, I’ve made a desktop CNC. To keep the costs down, it will be made using mostly surplus parts. To cut back on costs further the sides and 3D printed parts where redesigned to fit 8mm smooth rods, rather than 12mm, which are considerably more expensive and harder to find. There are many revisions of the CNC design I chose and I had to piece together parts from 2 or more of them, notably the X-carriage – most of them where designed as a single piece, which would need supports. I increased thickness of most of the CNC parts to 9mm (from 6mm). During the… Read More »Desktop CNC – Work In Progress

MP3DP v2

After rebuilding the center of my MPCNC, buying another router and converting it to dual axis independent motors, I wanted to test it’s alignment by making the MP3DP v2 – another V1 Engineering project. Some of the core components came from my aging Prusa i2, which had significantly less build volume (20x20x7) There was a small issue with the parts being CNC’d using the new firmware. rounded corners seemed to be randomly hit and miss – I found out that the firmware didn’t cut arc’s very well, so they had to be removed from the g-code Core components removed: stepper motors, hot build plate, and some electronics. The build time on this was longer than expected due to long wait times for cheaper parts and properly cabling the wires. The power supply mounts are custom… Read More »MP3DP v2