The RFM12B was declared End of Life – what it meant for my projects and the ecosystem. (Spoiler from 2015: it never really died.)
73062 transmissions with the Funky v2 low-power code and CR2032 battery
73062 transmissions from a Funky v2 on one 220mAh CR2032 – the low-power code held up until the battery finally quit.
Wallpaper prank
Testing the Funky v2’s HID keyboard mode with a USB Ducky style wallpaper prank – sorry, colleagues.
Auto reconnect WiFi on Raspberry Pi
Auto-reconnecting the Raspberry Pi’s cheap RTL8188CUS WiFi dongle after my router’s nightly WiFi shutdown – a small watchdog script.
Software I2C test
Software I2C on the Funky v2 – the hardware TWI pins aren’t on the side header, but bit-banging covers the sensor use case fine.
TCP/IP over RFM12B and Raspberry Pi as gateway
TCP/IP over RFM12B using the uIP stack – remote nodes reach the Internet through a Raspberry Pi gateway.
Funky v2 low power example
My consolidated Funky v2 low power example sketch – 0.04mA sleep current, enough to run the ATmega32U4 node off a CR2032.
Detecting USB connection on the Funky v2
Detecting whether the Funky v2 is on USB or battery in code – so the power hungry USB circuitry gets shut down the moment it’s unused.
Frequency counting test
Frequency counting on the Funky v2 with Albert’s Arduino library – feeding it 6kHz PWM and checking what it reports.
Siri-like voice chat with Raspberry Pi : keep kids busy for a while :)
A Siri-like voice chat on the Raspberry Pi – speech-to-text, a chat bot and TTS glued together, keeps the kids busy for a while.
The Raspberry Pi TFT PCB arrived
The Raspberry Pi TFT PCB is back from the fab – TFT soldered on, working on first try, small demo inside.
Funky v2 as RFM12B to Raspberry Pi gateway
The Funky v2 as an RFM12B to Raspberry Pi gateway – it enumerates as CDC over USB, keeping the Pi’s GPIO header free.
Video of the LTC3108 energy harvesting board with solar cell
Video: the LTC3108 energy harvesting board pulling power from a solar cell lit by a single 23W CFL a meter away.
More “Gotchas” on the LDO regulator issue in Funky v2
More MCP1703 gotchas: the LDO leaks current backwards through its output when running the Funky v2 from battery – MCP1700 doesn’t.
Funky v2’s LDO to blame for high sleep current. Now fixed
Confirmed: the MCP1703 LDO was behind the Funky v2’s high sleep current – swapped out, battery numbers back to normal.
High sleep current issue with Funky v2 sorted out
The Funky v2 high sleep current mystery solved: a noisy 3.3V supply was fooling the multimeter. On AA batteries it reads 0.13mA.
Drat, and double drat!
The new Funky v2 draws a constant 3mA no matter the sleep mode – hoping it’s software, not a hardware design flaw. Investigating.
Funky v2 – finally
The revised Funky v2 works – 1.5 hours of eye-hurting hand soldering per board means I need a smarter assembly plan.
RGB LED
First go at RGB LEDs on the Funky v2 – SoftPWM fakes PWM on arbitrary pins since only one hardware PWM pin is routed.
Energy harvesting breakout board
A small LTC3108 energy harvesting breakout board based on Robert’s design – DC/DC conversion from extremely low input voltages.
Raspberry Pi TFT board
Laying out a proper Raspberry Pi TFT board – a non-rectangular PCB that sits on top of the Pi, off to the fab house.
Using my 1.8 TFT as a Raspberry Pi status display
Turning my 1.8″ TFT into a Raspberry Pi status display showing house telemetry pulled from emonCMS.
New RFM2Pi board in the works
The new RFM2Pi board Glyn Hudson and I are working on – ATmega328, internal 8MHz oscillator, SMT layout for the Raspberry Pi.
Funky v2 gets its own USB VID/PID pair
The Funky v2 gets its own USB VID/PID pair – solving USB identity for an open source project without buying a Vendor ID.
433Mhz OOK with Funky v2 to remotely control power sockets
A 15 minute project: switching 433MHz OOK power sockets from the Funky v2 with a $5 ebay transmitter and FuzziLogic’s library.
Receiving IR with Funky v2
Receiving IR on the Funky v2 with Ken Shirriff’s library – and the routing change that will make IR sending possible too.
Power saving techniques on the Atmega32u4
Power saving techniques on the ATmega32U4 – getting the Funky 2 close to the ATtiny84’s sleep currents for long battery life.
Funky v2 (well almost)
The first ATmega32U4 USB Funky is soldered – QFN44 and 0402 by hand, plus the swapped MOSI/MISO lines I had coming.
1.8″ TFT LCD display on Raspberry Pi
Running a cheap 1.8″ ST7735R TFT on the Raspberry Pi with a modified kernel – the display that was too memory hungry for an Arduino.
Using the LTC3108 breakout board with a TEG
Testing the LTC3108 energy harvesting breakout – burned my Peltier TEG, so a solar cell steps in while new parts arrive.
Using the LTC3108 breakout board with a solar cell
Charging a 1F supercap from a scavenged solar cell through the LTC3108 energy harvesting board – first light, wrong cell, lesson learned.
Energy harvesting
First build of Robert’s LTC3108 energy harvesting breakout – aiming for a battery-less Funky sensor node.