18 JANUARY 2021
This project is a Wi-Fi controlled RGB led controller using a ESP8266 Wi-Fi module connected to a RGB LED strip of 300 WS2811 LEDS.
The circuit was built on a small section of strip board but we plan to make a custom PCB...
14 JANUARY 2021
Time to build a new PC for the loft workshop with an all AMD build as we cannot locate any Nvidia Graphics cards anywhere and had to use a Radeon RX 580 GPU from one of our Linux machines.
The new machine will allow us...
19 DECEMBER 2020
We previously torn down several Amazon Echo devices including the 3rd gen Dot, 3rd gen Dot with Clock, the Flex, and the Echo Input. In this teardown we will look at the new Echo Dot 4th generation model which is...
18 DECEMBER 2020
We have previously torn down several Amazon Echo devices including the 3rd gen Dot, the Flex and the Echo Input. In this teardown we will look at the Echo Dot 3rd gen with a clock.
Most of this Echo Dot is the same...
18 DECEMBER 2020
In a previous blog post we made a pair of LED panel lights for our workshop to use with photography and video recording.
After recording a few videos, I found that the PWM dimmable power supplies I had purchased for the...
12 DECEMBER 2020
In the workshop we often take photos and create videos of projects we are working on. Having enough light has always been a problem due to space constraints in the small loft space and not having enough room to use our...
01 NOVEMBER 2020
I the past I have used the open source smart home software called Home Assistant www.home-assistant.io on a Raspberry Pi to monitor our homes sensors which has information from our temperature sensors, electric and gas...
25 OCTOBER 2020
Disclaimer, this project involves the modification of mains electric powered equipment and can cause electrocution, shock, death, fire if not done correctly. I take no responsibility if anyone follows these instructions...
24 OCTOBER 2020
Using our main Windows desktop PC’s we often work from our Synology DiskStation NAS on video projects and using our 1Gb network we would copy the video assets and files to each desktop to edit before copying the completed...
17 OCTOBER 2020
As I cannot currently do any new projects or work in the loft workshop at the moment which require standing for very long, I thought I would write about what has been happening during the Covid 19 lockdown here in the UK...
23 SEPTEMBER 2020
Earlier this year I purchased a pair of Record bench engineers vises from a local house who resells gardening and other equipment and donate the proceeds to charity. I paid £20 for both.
The vises are Record No 1...
05 JULY 2020
This simple helper function generates social media meta tags for web pages for Google, Schema.org, Twitter and Open Graph for Facebook etc using C#.
The code and class can be downloaded from github.com/briandorey/Social-Meta-Tag-Generator
In...
19 MAY 2020
For several years I used a Garmin sports tracking watch to track my daily walks and to keep a running total of the distance covered and a Garmin bike computer. This would automatically upload to Garmin Connect https://connect.garmin.com/.
I...
02 MAY 2020
We recently purchased a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K video capture card for capturing the display output from a Raspberry Pi. While the capture card works well and does what we need it did have one small annoying problem....
13 APRIL 2020
I have been using Zwift with my first generation Wahoo Kickr bike trainer for several months now, firstly due to bad weather over the winter months and now due to the current Covid19 lockdown in the United Kingdom.
I run...
07 APRIL 2020
Last week I purchased a Yaesu VX-6 is which is an ultra-rugged 144-430 MHz FM Hand-Held with wide receiver coverage of 504kHz to 998.99MHz.
As programming the radios via the keypad is very time consuming, I purchased a...