Category
HackSpace
A while ago I made some videos of writing a Raspbian to a SD card for use with a Raspberry Pi, I am on a mac, which makes my life much easer as there is now an awesome tool called… Continue reading →
Bob found these ESP8266 based Wi-Fi Relays from china, the “Sonoff – WiFi Wireless Smart Switch For MQTT COAP Smart Home” and being that he is is kind of a geek he bought some, now in typical China fashion the difference… Continue reading →
A while ago I looked at the HLK-PM01, and amazingly it turned into a very well read post… (do not even touch the cheaper crap!) with a lot of people asking how to make it work properly. I also got… Continue reading →
Every so often we see on line storeys of fake chargers burning down houses, and electric shocks. Normally these chargers are refereed to as ‘Apple’ or ‘iPhone’ chargers, however that is just because the small triangle chargers (in a variety… Continue reading →
Tas, MiniBoyGeek and I had a quick walk round the Steam Punk Spectacular at the Swindon Steam Museum (will have to do Photos of that some other time). Podpad Studios were there with some of their cool steampunk stuff, and… Continue reading →
I have been playing about with Fusion 360, one of thrings you will need to include before very long is a fixing, even if you can 3D print everything in your design at some point you will want to stick… Continue reading →
I have been playing with Fusion 360 again… and as part of that I have been finding cunning tricks that I am thankful that I now know. Since I think I have a blog or something, I shall share those… Continue reading →
Everybody loves a train set and LEGO Duplo tracks make it very easy to build your own set, I have watched YouTube videos of peoples Lego Train Sets, and thought that they were cool however if you look at the… Continue reading →
Recently there have been people claiming that they can steal money from your pocket (up to £30) by skimming your credit or debit card info using a EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) or PED (Pin Entry Device). It said thieves… Continue reading →
I picked up a Hantek 6022BE USB Oscilloscope as sometimes its useful to have something more than just a multimeter for seeing what a circuit is doing. While the specification makes it more of a toy than a real instrument,… Continue reading →
The soldering of SMD devices is something that no normal person would want to do by hand for fun, I can’t even believe that normal people would do it anyway (it is a cruel and unusual punishment). Hackspace Manchester has… Continue reading →
Sometimes I feel that my geek credentials are lacking given the lack of code I write, yes I make cool things occasionally, I work as an EMC Engineer for a small Stockport Company, I am a Director of Squashed Fly… Continue reading →
A lot of Chinese Arduinos come with the ch340 as the replacement for the FTDI or other serial bridge. I have nothing against the CH340 / CH340G however it is a PITA (BREAD – Pain In The Arse) to use… Continue reading →
I found MCN Gerber Viewer, at this site, it is an OS X application for viewing and printing Gerber files, the zip of the app is Mirrored here. I have been working on PCBs more frequently, and along with Eagle… Continue reading →
Normaly I would use a cheap chineese clone, but I had an official Arduino Uno available, The process should be the same no matter which you use. Now given that an Chineese clone of the Uno is about £3 you… Continue reading →
Today like last year I went to Bristol for the mini maker Faire (unlike Manchester and Liverpool Makefest this one still pays the silly amount of money to use the make branding). Unlike last year @Bristol charged at the door… Continue reading →
I downloaded Random Nerd’s Build a Home Automation System for $100 and started testing it out, A while ago I aquired a Fish Dish (not sure where from), It’s a small PCB that fits on the GPIO header of the… Continue reading →
I picked up this 50H10L (HI3518E_50H10L_S39) based cheap POE CCTV style camera as a test for replacing the cameras we use at work to view EUTs (Equipment Under Test). the cameras we normally use are wired CCTV cameras. The (professionally done)… Continue reading →
A while ago I backed the kickstarter campaign for Particle (formerly Spark)’s Electron board, a IOT (internet of things) with a built in 3G modem (2G are available) with global data coverage, recently they shipped, Setup was as easy as… Continue reading →
This is an update from a previous post, since there have been some changes to getting them to work under OSX. I found these Arduino Uno clones (link) on Ali Express for £2.16 each with free shipping from china, I… Continue reading →
Following on from playing with the Hi-link HLK-PM01 I got this generic even cheaper board from Ben Dooks, after carefully wiring it up, I shoved it on the Kikusui TOS 8650 Withstand Voltage Tester: This shows the cheap chinese powersupply breaking just below… Continue reading →