In this video I spend some time thinking about the temperature of the new raspberry pi 4, and whether it needs a fan. Idle Temperature I installed rpi-monitor and also watched the cpu temperature using console tools. In the case that I used, I found the pi 4 at idle to be running at about …
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Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD) on a Prusa I3 Mk3 Printer
In this video, I replace my printer’s LCD with a Noritake VFD: Purpose Because VFDs look cool. What else is there to say? This is going to be a relatively short blog post because the project was so simple. You can either desolder the existing LCD and solder the Noritake VFD in its place, or …
Read MoreThe Nixie Tube Filadometer – A Nixie Tube Filament Meter for your 3D Printer
In this video, I make a Nixie Tube Filament Meter / Progress Meter: History I’ve made a lot of Nixie Tube projects over the years. This particular one started out as an Ethernet-based thermometer/hygrometer display. It used a Raspberry Pi Model B (the original one!) to interface to some ethernet-based sensors that I had. I …
Read MoreCOB LED Panels: 10 watt, 70 watt, and 200 watt.
In this video, I play around with some COB LED Panels: Purpose Looking into adding some workshop lighting, I evaluated three kinds of COB LED Panels. This is the first part in a series on COB LED lighting. Once I’ve identified the properties of the panels and figured out how much current I can safely …
Read MoreResistive Load, Constant-Current Power Supplies, and a 3D Printed Desk Lamp
In this video, I build a 3D Printed Desk lamp. The basic design came from Thingiverse, but I repurposed my LM2576 Constant-Current design to serve as a dimmer. Motivation It all started when I found an interesting lamp on thingiverse, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3328807, which used used 75mm air hose segments from another model, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3283786/, to make a …
Read More3D Printer OctoPrint Monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana
I wrote a Prometheus plugin for OctoPrint Purpose After doing the environmental monitoring project, I wanted an easy way to be able to correlate environmental changes with 3D printing. I also wanted a way to keep track of my prints, amount of filament used, etc. I wanted the ability to drill down on specific days …
Read MoreRaspberry pi based indoor air quality monitor
In this video, I build an indoor (and outdoor?) air quality monitor: Motivation For years I’ve followed the “uRadMonitor”, a device that does air quality monitoring and radiation monitoring. I’ve played with geiger counter projects before and frankly found them to be not very interesting. However, the idea of monitoring air quality is something that …
Read MoreBuilding the ultimate USB power distribution system
In this video I build a power distribution system for my workbench: Purpose I’ve started to accumulate many devices and tools that use 5V power sources, typically a USB-style cable with either a micro-usb plug or a barrel plug at the other end. In addition to my typical chargeable handheld devices like my iphone and …
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