This started off as a simple discussion on UPS for the likes of the Raspberry Pi and other micro boards but developed into so much more. Some great conversation, some ideas – and a project at the end which could fit a lot of requirements at very low cost. Read on...
Continue reading The Dogs Breakfast
PI-BB-RPS – well didn’t I look at this offering from Alchemy Power Inc a while ago and discarded it because I thought it was just a breadboard for the Raspberry Pi !!!
Wrong, it is more than that. Anyway, the designer sent me one of these all the way from the USA on 10th, arrived this morning… and on closer examination… actually – I might just have a use for this.
My wife’s Chumby is on it’s last legs – and was about to go in the bin until along came a fortunate coincidence to save the day.
Some time ago, 4D Systems sent me one of their LCD touch-screens. As many of you know I’m interested in the range of boards that ITEAD do with intelligence built in – all you have to do is talk to them serially and send commands – they also send serial back when defined areas are touched.
With that in mind, 4D sent me one of their boards to test. Well, thanks to one thing or another and it got put to one side, until this weekend…
Continue reading 4D Systems Gen4 IOD
For some years now I’ve been using my own serial terminal for ESP8266 development – not any more!
As fervent readers will know, over a period of time I’ve developed software for the phenomenally useful ESP8266 and you can find out more about that, here, suffice it to say it is likely the most comprehensive code for general use of the ESP8266 out there, focussing on MQTT communication so to be particularly useful for central controllers with MQTT access such as “the script” makes available via Node-Red on a range of microcontrollers, for example for my own home control setup.
Update 17/10/2017 - New release today
Continue reading YAT and ESP8266
Some of you may recall that in the dim and distant past, Aidan and I wrote a SKILL for Amazon’s Alexa – which let us do anything by simply passing the speech back to Node-Red… and we could sent text as speech to Alexa. Well, that relied on SSL port access and writing skills and… we’re still waiting for something easier and so without effort, that arbitrary response is still a little way off, but..
If you want REAL EASY - read on. (updated 13/10/2017)
Continue reading More Alexa Marvels
It never ceases to amaze me when looking through Ebay, the level to which companies or individuals are prepared try to mislead the public or at best are simply unable to form sentences correctly. Some even tell outright lies.
Let’s take one of my favourite subjects, the ESP8266 boards. Way back in the past, ESP8266 life started off with the ESP-01 module, comprising an ESP8266, 512KB FLASH and most of the connections NOT brought out. Being surface mount, only the most agile could solder pins to get the extra outputs – but – we were all new to this – and what a bargain, for just a couple of pounds you could have a crippled ESP8266 and actually turn things on and off via WIFI.
Continue reading ESP8266 Lies and Deceit
The SHT30 is a chip able to measure temperature and humidity and it is very tiny. It is available on a “shield” board for as little as £1.76 including shipping – and will work with any system able to handle I2c – such as my own ESP8266 kitchen-sink code.
Now, ask yourself, why would we want yet another temperature/humidity chip?
Don’t we already have the DHT11 and similar? Read on.
Continue reading Enter the SHT30
Having started putting together “the script” a long time ago, long before the Raspberry Pi 3 came out – and having developed it to handle a wide range of boards and scenarios including of course the Pi3, I found it interesting to return today to installing “the script” on the Raspberry Pi 3 – and of course I wanted to ensure that nothing had changed recently which might stop others doing the same.
Continue reading The Script and RPI 3 Update
This is kind of interesting – the promise of an ESP8266 MQTT broker (not client – BROKER) able to talk to up to 25 connections. Really? Let’s find out.
Go here to get an account (free) and download the .BIN file for your ESP8266. Use something like the NODEMCU flasher to put the single .BIN file into the ESP8266. All of this takes no time at all.
Continue reading MQTT Broker on an ESP8266
Just a minor addition to my ESP8266 code – the INA219. Set to 32 volts, 2 amps by default, this i2c addition works with the cheap 0x40 addressed boards – I found them as low as under £2 – these little wonders can measure high side voltage and current !
So in a typical solar situation you might attach the ground to the board – and use it’s 2-way terminal to break the high-side output to your load. You can tell the incoming voltage – and via a 0.1r resistor on the board, which leads to VERY low voltage loss – you can read the current. You could of COURSE parallel another 0.1r resistor onto the board to double the current etc. I will be trying all of that soon.
Continue reading INA219 IC2 Added to ESP8266 code
So – ESP8266 – it turns out that some of the newer WEMOS boards require DIO mode for programming the FLASH chips – they just either will not program or will appear to but then not run if you use QIO programming mode (a flag used when flashing).
At long last I have some answers – read on!
Continue reading ESP8266 DIO mysteries SOLVED
Just a short update – in my ESP8266 code I have a driver for the SSD1306 – and one of our readers had difficulty with this some time ago. Today I read the manual. Ooh, err.
It turns out I’d put the wrong command in place – it worked if you referred to it as an OLED but not as an ssd1306.
Continue reading A Tad more SSD1306
