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Schematic for Analog Interface
A commenter asked for the schematic of the analog interface I made using an MPC3008. I seldom include schematics with my posts for several reasons. I don’t expect anyone to duplicate exactly what I...
View ArticleInterface to the Internet of Things with SkyNet
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the many servers that store data uploaded from various devices (things) connected to the Internet, which can range from weather stations, to home appliances, or a...
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Flame Sensor Update
This is a follow up to the post on Automated Home Brewing. There were several good ideas in the comments to that post about how to create a flame sensor. Some require an analog input, which I...
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Improved Home Brewing Controller
This post is an update to my Automated Home Brewing post. See that post for more details on the project. After adding some new features haphazardly, I had an ugly conglomeration of old and new parts....
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Debouncing GPIO Input
Reading the state of a GPIO pin is very simple. There are several methods to do this. But what if you need to detect a very short pulse on a GPIO line or you need to respond very quickly to a state...
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Raspberry Pi Case From Wifi Router
You have most likely seen one of these somewhere before. This case style is very common. If you happen to get your hands on one, you can make a great case for the Raspberry Pi. (Or, you can re-load...
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Wifi Router Case Mod
In my previous post I showed how to use the case from an old LinkSys router as a case for a Raspberry Pi. Today I decided that it needed a little improvement. Bring on the blinking lights. Isn't...
View ArticleMy New System Checklist
I recently had need to create a new Raspbian system for a project and decided to record all the things I did after the system image first boots. Frequently, I forget one or two of these, so this will...
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Raspberry Pi Weather Station
My latest Pi project involves creating a weather station in a way very different from most others. I will cover various parts of this project in my next several posts.The weather station completed and...
View ArticleGPIO Interrupts using WiringPi
My weather station has two devices that send simple pulses to the Raspberry Pi. The rain gauge pulses each time its "bucket" fills and the wind speed gauge pulses for each rotation. The best way to...
View ArticleLog Data to the Weather Underground
The next topic for my weather station system is how to send your data to a "Personal Weather Station" on the Weather Underground web site. This provides a nice interface for the world to see your...
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Using the AM2315 Temperature/Humidity Sensor
This post is a continuation of my series on the weather station that I built. On e of the sensors that it uses is the AM2315 temperature/humidity sensorThe AM2315 is very poorly documented. This...
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Using the MPL115A2 to read Temperature and Barometric Pressure
This post is a continuation of the series on my weather station system.My weather station uses the MPL115A2, available from Adafruit. It is an inexpensive sensor for measuring temperature and...
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New Raspberry Pi GPIO Pinout Diagram
Since I have been using model B+ and model 2 a lot lately, I wanted an updated GPIO pinout diagram. Also, since I used WiringPi, the diagram had to include that numbering scheme. None of the diagrams I...
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Fermentation Detector
This is a follow up to my posts on automated home brewing:Automated Home BrewingandImproved Home Brewing ControllerIn the second post I mentioned that I would be adding a "bubble detector" to my...
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Another Linksys Case Mod for a Pi
I have rebuilt my MySQL server system using a Pi version 2 and a new external hard drive. I did this one in a Linksys router case. These cases are really easy to work with and not hard to come by.I...
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New Utilization Display
In my last post I showed the new case for my MySQL server. The original case had two 10-segment LED bar graph displays that showed CPU and disk utilization. Now I have added a similar display onto the...
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HDC100x Temperature/Humidity Sensor
Humidity is notoriously difficult to measure accurately. And now I have found that humidity sensors are very fickle. I had been using the AM2315 sensor, which Adafruit clearly states is not...
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Improved Alarm/Automation System
A Little HistoryI have been fascinated (some would say obsessed) with home automation for many years. I even had a paper published on the subject in 1978, so I experimented with many options before the...
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ThingSpeak API for Internet of Things
There is much hype about the "Internet of Things" and the Raspberry Pi is increasingly used as an IoT controller. To describe it simply - if you have a web site accessible from anywhere that displays...
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Improved Hot Tub Controller
Hot Tub Controller Circuit BoardThe original version of my hot tub controller starting having some problems which ended up being caused by an animal chewing through the control cables. I never liked...
View ArticleThe Raspberry Pi version 3 is now Available
The latest version of the Pi is out and as expected, it has a faster CPU. Version 2 had a 900MHz Cortex-A7 chip. Version 3 has a 1.2GHz Cortex-A53. Still quad core and a little faster, but the big...
View ArticleHot Tub Controller Details
By popular demand - some more details about my Hot Tub Controller project.See the post about my Hot Tub Controller.Controller Source CodeCan be found on github -...
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Kano Kit
I recently received a Raspberry Pi 3 kit from Kano (kano.me) and thought I should give it a review.The kit includes: ● Raspberry Pi model 3 ● 8GB microSD card preloaded with Kano OS,...
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Raspberry Pi vs Arduino
Oh My! It has been over 4 months since my last post and some readers may be thinking that I have fallen off the planet. Not quite, but I have been very involved otherwise. Real life is intruding a lot...
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