This silicon shortage really sucks. As you know, shortly after designing my Si446x reference design board I discovered that the Si446x parts are out of stock everywhere. In fact, most EZRadio/EZRadioPro chips are out of stock well into 2021 or 2022. I went ahead and ordered the PCB and parts anyway (I was able to …
Category: Electronics
Stepper motor controlled zoom and focus of the Raspberry Pi High Quality camera telephoto lens (work in progress)
Project status: This is a work in progress. Please support me on Patreon if you’d like to see me continue to work on it: https://www.patreon.com/chrislaplante This project is something that I started in September 2020. My original intent was to use the High Quality camera, telephoto lens, and a handful of 3D printed parts to …
Reverse engineering the Tempur-Pedic adjustable base remote control (part 1.5: Patreon + proof-of-life update)
Long time no write! Recently I’ve received an outpouring of interest in this project which has reinvigorated my desire to work on it. To help myself be able to do so, I have started a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/chrislaplante. For anyone who is interested in this project moving forward, I would appreciate your support! Please note, the …
Reverse engineering the Tempur-Pedic adjustable base remote control (part 1)
This is the first in a (probably) three part series. Checkout the code on BitBucket: https://bitbucket.org/MostThingsWeb/temper-bridge/src/master/main/ About a year ago, I decided to upgrade my old spring mattress to a TEMPUR-Contour Elite Breeze and I cannot say enough good things about it. I opted to also get an adjustable base (this one) for it, which …
ATmega/ATtiny PWM tutorial
I was planning on writing a beginner’s tutorial for using PWM on raw AVR chips, but I found that Arduino already has a nice guide here: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SecretsOfArduinoPWM The only change you need to make to their code to use it without the Arduino software is to remove calls to “pinMode”. Do so by using the appropriate …
Solving the Timeout=2 error when updating WiFly firmware
While attempting to update the firmware of my WiFly module, I was getting a Timeout=2 error from the ftp update command, even after I had set the new update server (with the help of these instructions). The solution I found was to change the FTP mode from passive to active, and then attempt the update process. …
How to store, protect and organize electronic parts (updated 2021!)
Updated for 2021! Added some new products that I have found and updated existed product links. Over the past few years, I’ve amassed quite the collection of basic electronic components (chips, resistors, etc.), little microcontrollers (Arduinos and Arduino clones), and a few other tiny gadgets (the coolest of which I consider to be this mini …
Hack a Guitar Hero drumset to use it with any computer over USB, Part 5
Hack a Guitar Hero drumset to use it with any computer over USB, Part 4
> BitBucket repository is live: https://bitbucket.org/MostThingsWeb/usbdrumming/src In part 3, we finished fleshing out the details of the hardware and embedded software. In this part, we’re going to build it! Ready? Let’s begin… …by reading this first Let me preface this post by saying that I am not responsible if you destroy your drumset, …
Hack a Guitar Hero drumset to use it with any computer over USB, Part 3
> BitBucket repository is live: https://bitbucket.org/MostThingsWeb/usbdrumming/src In part 2, we finished up the initial drafts of the hardware and embedded software for the drumset. Now, we’ll make a few modifications to our circuit and software to add some additional features. Improving the circuit Let’s add three more things to your circuit: Some kind …