Review: LED Ring Magnifier PCB Bench Vise with Helping Hands
3rd hand tools are a must-have when working with soldering. You need something to hold the PCB, the solder, and the soldering iron. Basically any project where you need a (wait for ) 3rd hand! A magnifying glass is also helpful for those with aging eyes. My friends at sent my this to check out and I have to say I'm impressed. Read Before receiving this, I had made my own with a combination of…
Review: Adjustable 30V/10A DC Power Supply
I recently received the LongWei 30V/10A (Model: LW-K2010D) power supply from to review. Full disclosure - it was sent to free for this review. That said, I'm transparent about my views on things and don't sugarcoat. The below review is my first impression of this unit doing some basic validation of it's functions. In the coming months I'll drop back in and update as I get more experience with this PS. The review is broken…
3D Print: Electronics Soldering 3rd Hand
After years using my reliable PanaVise, it was time to step it up with some extra help for soldering and electronics work. I had this idea over a year ago, and pick-up some 3rd hand arms. They then sat on my Now that the weather is cooling down, there's more time for hobbies. That, and my eyes are not what they used to be, so this has become somewhat of a necessity. Given MCUs…
How To: TFT LCD with TouchUI on Raspberry Pi OctoPi Rig
I recently ventured into adding a " TFT to my LulzBot ; I already have OctoPrint running, but there are times (usually during filament failure events) I need to directly control the printer (heat the filament, move axis motors etc). After 3 painful days of messing around with different tutorials, I finally figured it out and it works dammit! I haven't found a single source that has all steps in one place, so I decided to…
USB Dial
This is another one of those "did it because I can" projects. It's a USB dial that uses a Teensy Arduino unit at it's core and allows me to emulate my mouse. I use TinkerCAD avidly to design my 3D printed models. I wanted to have both this and my mouse at the same time. The mouse would be used for some activities ( object selection/rotation/editing) while the dial would fill in to perform rotate/zoom in/out…
Merry Christmas From the Astolfo’s
2021 - Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas Everyone! 2021 2020 – Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone! Here’s a blurry photo for a blurry ; Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. 2019 - Merry Christmas, and we hope everyone has a safe and restful holiday! 2018
HiTech HS-225BB LEGO Servo Mate
I'm looking at alternate steering options for BluCrawler as the LEGO PF servo motor doesn't cut it, and I'm not satisfied with other LEGO-based approaches I've tried. So, I'm headed into unconventional territory that may cause my AFOL brethren to shiver. I'm looking at integrating a HiTech HS-225BB Servo to manage steering. If it works, I'll add one to the front and rear to give me the throw I need for a tight turning radius as well…
BTBox – LEGO Power Functions Bluetooth Controller
I've been on a bit of a LEGO Technic/Mindstorms hiatus for a while - ok, it's been 7 years! I have an I've been spending much of my hobby time making my own DIY projects / IoT stuff all while mastering Arduino. That changed a few weeks back when I came across THIS. I've been thinking of getting an RC crawler for some time, but it struck me that I have 95% of the…
BluCrawler – LEGO Rock Crawler with BTBox Bluetooth Controller
First I want to give a shout-out (and credit) to PunkTacoNYC as BluCrawler is based off his Chilli Crawler - this is his creation. I'm just taking it down another path. You can also find published instructions if you want to build it yourself. For some time, I wanted to get an RC crawler, but they can be $$$. When I came across PunkTacoNYC's Chilli Crawler, that was I figured I had 90% of the…
Dicontinued -WiFi Bot Control – Using NodeMCU (ESP8266)
WiFi Bot Control was built back before the ESP8266 came out, so WiFi options were limited and the ability to directly stream data over WiFi to the same MCU that controls a robot was next to impossible. That changed with the intro of the ESP8266. I'm going to show you how to streamline WiFi Bot Control and remove the need for a separate webserver. We'll also look at options to streamline the IP camera connection.…