ESP8266

COVID-19 Daily Stats on a Nextion HMI using ESP8266

While Covid-19 picks a fight with humanity, keeping busy and your mind clear is important for all of us. In addition to getting out on hikes and biking with the family, what better way to pass the time than to built IoT stuff! Since I had a new 7" Nextion HMI screen sitting around just waiting for a project, and had some vacation time, I decided to buffer up my skills and get to work.…
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Arduino

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…
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Arduino

Nextion TFT LCD – Why you need one!

I'll start this by stating that I don't work for iTead, and nor am I getting any sort of   I just really like this TFT LCD.  I stumbled upon the Nextion (which is a slick easy-to-use TFT LCD with a HMI editor) when they had their first crowdfunding campaign a year or so ago.   I ignored it as there was not a lot of documentation, and frankly, I really didn't understand the concept of…
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Arduino

ESP8266 – Lessons Learned

I've gotten enough ESP8266 projects under my belt to have a few lessons learned to share with you.  The ESP comes in many flavors.  One of my favorites is the NodeMCU.  I also like the Adafruit Huzzah WDT Reset Error: This error was the bane of my existence for quite some time.   When experiencing this, you typically see your sketch run and fail.  Using the Serial Monitor and carefully placed statements, you can usually…
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3D Printing

LulzBot Mini: Arduino Temp Monitor / Fan & LED Controller

I'm on a mission to reduce the amount of noise my LulzBot Mini 3D printer makes. I've already added a motor damper to the Y axis.  However, one thing that is consistently noisy is the case fan.   It's on at > 70% nearly all the time.  In addition to this, the air vent fins in the side of the case amplifies the fan noise.  So, I decided to build my own fan controller.  …
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Arduino

DIY & Hobby Projects: Parts, Components & Tools Must Have’s

Most people who visit to this site are either DIY'ers, Makers, Hackers, or Robotics / RC enthusiast.  For the most part, we all do the same thing - we build or mod stuff for our projects or hobbies.  Over the years, experience and repetition has given we wisdom as to what works, what doesn't, and key components that I want to have on hand.  I wanted to share a list of parts/components I have found useful for…
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About This Guy

2018:  Years ago I had a lot to say about my hobby being specific to LEGO (Mindstorms / Technic).  Since then I've had a bit of a dry spell in the LEGO world as I delved into the Arduino / microcontroller world and all things IoT - which has consumed my imagination as I built weather / garage opener and many other "IoT things" for my house.  However, I still manage to slip the odd LEGO project…
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