Having breakfast this morning, we found that we have some old bread left that was about to be thrown to the trash.. or maybe not. Since it is winter now, birds are having hard time finding food, why not build…
My Raspberry Pi knows where I am..
Here is a small project with some potential in home automation. I had an idea to create a script, that would track my (and not only) location and use that information to make decisions for home automation. Some ideas: Climate…
Emoncms data on my phone
I wanted to have quick access to certain measurements on my home monitoring system, most important the two hot water tanks (solar and heat pump) temperatures and room temperatures. I could, of course, have my laptop to check these, but…
Ultra low power sources for wireless nodes
I have been researching these days on the possibilities to use ultra low power sources for the Funky sensor. I started my research with the idea to power a Funky from a CT wrapped around a power line. This is…
Atmega32U4 based micro node with RFM12B
Having gained experience with the Funky sensor, I am starting thinking on how to further improve it. One of the things I recognized, is the somewhat difficult programming, the user is required to install Attiny84 core and to own an ISP programmer in…
Low power receiver options
There is quite some buzz in the RFM12B community recently on low power remote receiver nodes, these are remote, battery-operated nodes that would listen for incoming commands and react to them. The challenge is that keeping the RFM12B powered on all the…
Funky as remote temperature sensing node with DS18B20
With the winter heating season knocking on the door, I decided to measure the room temperature in every room in the house. The Funky is perfect for the purpose, as a DS18B20 temperature sensor can be soldered directly on its…
USB on the Funky
I recently came across a neat little (literally) project called MicroFTX. It is incredibly small USB to serial adapter board based on FT230XQ (datasheet) from FTDI’s new X-Chip series. I thought it would be neat to throw in some native USB support…
What is this all about?
I guess that many Internet surfers that land on this site, actually wonder what is it that I am working on all about. I realized that indeed, it may be a good thing to describe it as well, putting it…
E-meter PCB ready
I have received the e-meter PCB and started making it. I forgot to buy couple elements and the 2×8 header won’t fit due to wrong footprint, but other than that it looks good:
Using Jeelab’s EtherCard library on the Micro Web Server (uIoT)
I finished the painful assembly of Simon K.’s Micro Web Server, but was too tired afterwards to see if it works. With all these tiny SMD components, there is always the chance that something goes wrong. So today, I finally…
Putting together Simon’s Micro Web Server
I have mentioned already, that I purchased Simon K.’s micro Web Server and have his permission to develop it further, see my micro IoT gateway post. I received it couple days ago but only had time to put it together…
Funky Wiki
I have started work on creating a wiki for the Funky sensor – find it here
Using Funky’s boost regulator get steady 3.33V from higher voltage
I would typically think of a boost regulator in the case when I’d like to step-up voltage, and such were my intentions when I introduced the LTC3525 boost regulator chip on the Funky sensor. The idea was to be able to…
Clocking the Funky sensor from RFM12B’s crystal
I have already expressed my thoughts on this, and of course could not resist materializing them. The main reason is that I would like to experiment with IR and RF stuff that requires precise timings. The internal oscillator’s frequency depends notably on…
RFM12B to Raspberry Pi board
I have decided to discontinue the TinySensor project and focus on Funky Sensor as they overlap a lot as functionality. These of you following my posts, know that I have a working prototype for a dedicated board for RFM12 to Pi connectivity,…
Remote keyboard and mouse for Raspberry Pi
This is a little heads-up for those of you (includes me) that don’t want to dedicate a mouse and keyboard to their Pi and would rather use their laptop’s mouse and keyboard. This is a bit different from running remote…
Display for my Raspberry Pi
[Edit] I have now undertaken another approach, worth checking it out here I recently purchased a 4.3″ TFT LCD screen, originally intended for attaching car backup cameras with the intention to use it as a status screen for my Raspberry…
Solar statistics
Earlier this year I purchased a 220l non-pressurized evacuated tube solar heater and installed it myself on my rooftop. It is a relatively cheap (~440 Euro) solution for domestic hot water. I chose the non-pressurized type because of its simplicity…
RFM12B shield for the micro IoT gateway
As I already mentioned, I planned to have a RFM12B shield for the micro IoT gateway. Here is how it is looking, rendered in 3D, still work in progress, but the idea is clear. I wanted to keep the shield…
3D modelling of PCB designs
@Gadjet from http://www.gadjet.co.uk/ showed off some nice 3D renderings of his projects the other day in JeeLab’s forums and had me all excited about it. He used EagleUp, some nice peace of software that turns your Eagle PCB layouts into Google Sketchup…
Micro IoT gateway
I have long wanted to make my own Internet of Things gateway and I wanted it small. I have researched for quite a while on the options, and finally decided to base it on the excellent work done by Simon Küppers…
Super ‘Funky’
Tobias’s original ‘Funky’ had voltage regulator, that I removed in my version in favor of a voltage step-up circuit. How about having both on the Funky and you will decide which one to use depending on the concrete application? Well,…
Interfacing ‘Funky’ to Raspberry Pi
I am finding myself using Funkys for all of my recent projects, so I am thinking of discontinuing the TinySensor. I think the better approach would be to have various ‘shields’ for the Funky rather having hardware on board that…
Measuring humidity and temperature with DHT22 and Funky
I have been playing with DHT11 for some time, only to find out that this sensor is a bad joke. I finally decided to upgrade to the DHT22, which is a magnitude better than the previously mentioned one. I wanted to be…
Clocking ATTiny84 from RFM12B (thinking outloud)
I have been thinking on the possibilities to use external clock source for my ATTiny84 projects for some obvious reasons. Using the internal oscillator works great in most cases, but may not be so accurate in some applications (IR,RF) as it…
Updating my SMS doorbell
I have made some updates to my SMS doorbell project. Previously, I had troubles setting up the email notifications in emoncms, the problem is that I don’t have shell access to the server where I host it so I could not…
Power supply block with ADCs for power monitoring
Dave Berkeley’s recent home power monitoring blog post got me thinking: How much does a DIY power monitoring system cost How accurate it is I had a friend ask me how much my current power monitoring system costs. I really didn’t had…
‘Funky’ sensor in store
I have received permission from Tobias Floery to offer my version of the Funky Sensor in the store. I will be offering three options PCB only – for those that can do the soldering and only need the PCB “Regular” Funky…
Hooking my wireless doorbell to the Internet
Here is a fun project: hook my wireless doorbell to the Internet and get SMS when someone rings it. Useful when I am not at home or am in the backyard and can’t hear it, but I carry my mobile…
RaspberryPi+TinySensor as EmonBase
I now have working setup with a TinySensor + Rasberry Pi acting as an emonbase. I previously used PHP for this task, but the PHP serial class seems to have some issues on the transmission part plus it was a…
Dropbox shell script for RaspberryPi
Let me share a useful find: Dropbox Uploader is a BASH script which can be used to upload and download files from Dropbox, an online file sharing, synchronization and backup service. Since I am constantly switching SD card images, this is…