As you might recall from my last blog post, I’ve been playing with workshop organization using fiducial markers to locate storage boxes. I’ve started to move past the proof of concept code phase into the slightly functional open-source project phase, and I created a repository and developed some working code. The project is just barely functional at this phase, but it has the ability to connect to cameras over RTSP, skip images to reduce the detection framerate, decode them using one of the AprilTag types, and publish the resulting detection data to MQTT.

Recently, I have been organizing all of the parts and pieces of my partially finished projects so I can go back to projects more easily. This started as a simple goal - keep all of my work in boxes, keep the boxes labeled, and keep the boxes in a place where they are easy to get to. I have mountains of leftover parts I’ve accumulated over the years, and I really need a better solution.

Bitscope makes some low-cost USB logic analyers and low bandwidth oscilloscopes. Since I am a computer engineer and primarily work in the digital domain, this is adequate for a lot of my projects, and I’ve had a Bitscope Mini for a few years now. I think there are better options available on the market now that weren’t back when I bought it, but I’m sticking with the tools I already own.

I currently have a TI CC2531 based Controller for Zigbee2MQTT, and the performance is poor. Based on how much my Zigbee network is expanding with the really low cost of Zigbee hardware (despite my preference for Z-wave for reliability when it counts), I’m upgrading my Controller to the zzh! from electrolama. The new controller is based on the CC2652 and has a decent external antenna, and should hopefully improve my awful Zigbee reception and reliance on IKEA repeaters to get any signal at all.

Today I finished working on new lighting for my closet office. Last year I renovated my bedroom, to fit my computer desk better. I don’t need a massive closet and traditional American McMansions require a large closet space with plenty of wasted space in every single bedroom, so I decided to take the closet doors off to expand my bedroom and put my desk into the closet. After some network and power wiring work, I had a pretty comfortable expansion of my desk space and cleared the center of my room for VR gaming.

Often, when I’m focused on a task or project, I absolutely can’t think about anything else. This means that other tasks often get left unattended, possibly for hours. To reduce this, I’ve implemented a system in Home Assistant to notify me when either the washer or dryer are finished running. It’s a pretty simple automation, but it’s this kind of useful life-improvements that really make home automation worthwhile. The Hardware I have a gas dryer (not ideal, but I’ll get a heat pump in the next house) and normal electric washer.

Today I just published a project I’ve been working on for awhile - my 3D printer nozzle camera - and it’s the first project I’ve made a corresponding video for! I built this nozzle camera mount to carefully watch the first layer of 3D prints, since most failures happen early on due to poor first layer adhesion or related issues. Keeping the camera out of the print volume while still getting a good view of the nozzle and print was challenging, but I ended up with a cool solution that I’m really proud of, and the view is fantastic.

Flexy Rex is a 3D print that’s been circling the internet for awhile. See below for the links to all of the variants that have been created over the years. Anyway, I printed this is one of the test prints with my upcoming Nozzle Cam project. My cousin was visiting from out of state along with her young son, so I let him print a Flexy Rex, watch the printer (and the camera feed), and take it off the bed when it was done.

Today I spent the day flashing Tasmota on a variety of Sonoff devices, for use in future projects. I took pictures of the process, so you can follow along with all of the fun bits of playing with repurposed electronic hardware. I have projects in mind for some of these, but some are still ’extra’ (nothing is really ever ’extra’, it will always be used eventually). I have two Sonoff S31 (US smart plug with power monitoring), two Sonoff S26 (US version of the low cost S20 smart plug), and two Sonoff 4CHPRO R3 (4 channel relay, the Pro version with isolated relays).

I recently got a camera to use with my 3D printer which includes integrated LED illumination. It has a physical switch to control the lights, but I want to turn them on and off, either from OctoPrint, or from Home Assistant, based on the printer status. Wanting the simplest solution possible, I’m going to turn off power to the Pi’s USB hub when I don’t need the camera lighting. This has a side effect of also disabling the camera itself due to lack of power, which I will also need to deal with, but it doesn’t disable the USB data lines, so the 3D printer (which has its own power supply) might not be affected, depending on the printer model.