34 posts, mostly about making things and then finding out why they don’t work.
This is the third post about the EMF beg button. Part 1 covers the original 2024 build, and Part 2 covers this year’s rewrite of the software. This post is about the hardware side: a set of Walk/Stop lights I picked up, and getting them …
In 2024 I took a beg button, with a screen in it, to EMF as a little installtion for our village, this year with the best laid plans I entended to “make it better”, starting with the software running the whole thing. The Beg Button at EMF
EMF Camp time is rolling around again. My first EMF was in 2018, and there were so many cool projects, I knew next time I came I had to have something. In 2022, I finally made it happen with some hot-glued LED neon strips lighting up our …
The emailkb is a compact six-key macro pad that’s been living loose on my desk for a day or two. (If you haven’t seen the previous post about it, that’s probably worth a read first.) The fear of shorting it on some of the mess on my desk …
I picked up an emailkb kit from Electrolama (Omer). It’s a compact six-key macro pad built around a Raspberry Pi Pico. Omer let me raid his supplies, and found me some blue switches, and some interesting purple keycaps which have room for …
I ran out of stickers, i’ve handed out over a 1 hundred of the “me” stickers I made for DEFCON last year. So it was time to make some more… One of my original stickers on a sticker pole in Tokyo
I bought my significant other an iPad Air 11-inch (M3) for Christmas, for a chance for her to learn some digital art. But to be fair I think I have played with it almost as much as she has. We have been trying a few different styles and …
Another year, another DEFCON, another project? Previous readers of the blog will know that in 2023 and 2024 I created SAOs to give away, and I planned to the same this year. But life and work got away form me and time ran out. I still …
This is mostly useful notes to myself on adding machines to my freeipa instance, but maybe it would be useful to you too. Hostname The hosts joined to ipa need a FQDN as their hostname, the easiest way of updating this is with hostnamectl. …
Another year and another BarCamp London later and another project started. After a chat with John Rogers I ended with a set of Splitflap Chainlink Drivers in my possession from the swap shop and a firm suggestion that I should print myself …
Another DEF CON, another SAO1. This year I have made a SAO for myself instead of for the company I work for. This means I have financed it myself so even more squeeky bum during the ordering process to make sure everything is correct. This …
EMF Camp1 time was rolling around again, and this time I was determined to actually bring something to show off… I’ve got my hands on and old pedestrian crossing “beg button”2 and thought it an interesting basis for a small installation to …
When it comes to BarCamps it doesn’t rain, it pours. Within the last month we have had both BarCamp Canterbury and BarCamp London. These two events both based on the same theme and format are two of my favourites; but it’s interesting to …
I have been a bit tardy with managing home automation setup and after getting my hands on the new ElectroLama zigbee gateway I through it was good time to do springAutumn cleaning. First up was updating Proxmox from 7.4 to 8.x, this went …
This weekend1 During the late August bank holiday weekend we headed to “the heart of the Pennines” for Wuthering Bytes a technology festival in Hebden Bridge. We were there for three days of the event: Festival Day OSHCAMP OSHCAMP workshops …
Back in July 2023 I dragged my arse up to Sheffield for SteelCon. SteelCon is an amazing conference (with some of the best conference badges around, spot the capes in the photo below). But this post isn’t about the conference itself but …
This was going to be just a short follow up to my previous post on my shitty add on (SAO), however it’s ended up being longer than the first. I have respun the SAO to fix it’s bugs, and to optimize for production. The changes The following …
On the 20th of July 2023 I gave a talk at Code Harbour (a monthly technology meetup in Canterbury). The talk was an introduction the Open Street Map Project (OSM). I have included a video of the talk below, as well as a copy of the slides …
So with DEF CON 31 (2023) around the corner I thought it was a good opportunity to finally learn KiCad and build a shitty Add On (SAO). Being a bit short of time, and a bit short of ideas I thought a version of the Logo of the company I …
I am a bit late on the blog post on this one, but I attempted Advent of Code once again this year. I got 29 Stars, which doesn’t match my best year. However this is the first year I have attempted this in any language other than Python. …
This year for Christmas gifts we made some windowsill hydroponic herb planters out of old wine bottles. This was an opertunity to practice glass cutting (I picked up a bottle cutter a few years ago but hadn’t really had chance to play with …
This weekend’s project was a quick iron on vinyl bag design using our brother “Scan and Cut”. The local nursery has a homework sack scheme for their kids, and the current drawstring bags they are using are getting a bit tatty, so this was a …
This weekend was BarCamp Canterbury 8, an unconference that I have been helping with for quite a number of years. Unconferences are very informal events, and great opportunities for people to practice their speaking skills and meet some …
In 2018 we visited EMF Camp for the first time, and left duly inspired to build something. Two years is plenty of time to plan and build something right? Well roll on almost four years later1 and nothing had be done… sign at emf camp 2018
Due to the current Covid restrictions, and the very small chance of trick or treating happening this year people are going making sure there is still plenty of the local children to go out and see. Whilst I have access to a laser cutter I …
Recently I had need to build a custom battery for a project, unfortunately I didn’t take many photos of the project, but I thought it worth discussing how construction went, and the issues I had. The design I went with was a 48V 13S5P1 …
Not much technical stuff here, but I had a commision to create a 360 tour of a local nursery school to help them with advertising during Covid. It’s built in Pannellum, and all the photos were taken with a Insta360 One X camera. More …
It’s lockdown, you have forgotten the get the SO a birthday card, but you have a laser cutter… What do you do? Final Card This was cut and etched on my k40 laser cutter. There is nothing clever here just a Creative Commons licensed photo …
This super quick project was to make a new bird box for the garden. It is just a simple laser cut finger box created with MakerCase with a whole added. I sized it to fit in a old bird feeder box was never very popular with the birds. Finger …
I took my Insta360 One X out for a bike ride the other day as an experiment. These were filmed using the venture case and stitched with the Android Insta360 One X app. I used this MyGadget bike mount to support the venture case. Hyperlapse …
With Covid-19 causing issues with public access to building I am in need of a tool to produce a virtual tour of a property. This post is a quick experiment with pannellum to assess if it will be suitable for the project. The 360 imagery was …
Only a quick update today, further testing of zig-a-zig-ah, trying pairing devices. Xiaomi WXKG11LM This is a battery operation single button sensor. Pairing was super easy and quick, usual process of holding the reset button. Pairing …
Up until recently I have been running Zigbee2MQTT using the great Zoe board for Raspberry Pi from @OmerK. When I first started with home automation, everything ran on the Pi, and this was fine for experimenting, but it quickly became a …
This is a test
Nothing here. Yet.
