Toble_Miner

@Toble_Miner@chaos.social

AS208340 | Linux | Electronics, Software, Networks, Open Source | Kitten of https://chaos.social/@manawyrm | DO4TOB

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gsuberland, (edited ) to random
@gsuberland@chaos.social avatar

excuse me WHAT

JLC are doing five 8L boards for... ONE POUND AND SIXTY PENCE

Toble_Miner,

@gsuberland That is pretty close to the cost of just the gold used for plating both outer layers if you were to order the boards with fully exposed 50x50mm ENIG coating on both sides

gsuberland, to random
@gsuberland@chaos.social avatar

work in progress.

Toble_Miner,

@gsuberland Oh wow, I always have had some trouble running LEDs of 1.8V directly. Especially for outdoor-ish applications where not particularly bright red LEDs tend to be barely visible. Usually end up powering the LED fron another power rail and just switching on a BJT with the 1.8V rail. Do you happen to have some pointers to nice LEDs that work well at just 1.8V?

Toble_Miner, to random

For the last few years I have been really annoyed with companies that advertise so called "Gaming routers". None of them are ever capable of running any games!
So @manawyrm and I built what I consider to be the first real gaming router.
It is based on a classic, the TP-Link TL-WDR4900 WLAN router with an AMD Radeon external GPU connected via PCIe and can run GTA.

https://youtu.be/bcjuoEZg8rI

Blogpost: https://kittenlabs.de/real-gaming-router/

Toble_Miner,

To make connection of an eGPU to the router possible one of the WLAN chipsets has been disconected with a small mini PCIe breakout wired up in its place.
An off-the-shelf mini PCIe to PCIe eGPU adapter can then be plugged into the breakout to interface with a normal desktop GPU.

Toble_Miner,

We did some hardcore gaming router overclocking!
Including a BGA DDR3 chip swap for more RAM, 1600 MT/s DDR speed, 1200 MHz CPU clock (up from 800 MHz) and we added NVMe storage (for both root fs and swap).

YouTube-Video: https://youtu.be/fWq9mmon0pE

Full blog post: https://kittenlabs.de/hardcore-router-overclocking/

Toble_Miner, to random

Another quality of life improvement for Blinkekatzen:
A small formfactor 20 port 5V-output-only USB-C charger with 100 Watt USB-C input. Had to go for USB-C specifically since USB-A is a horrible connector.

Toble_Miner, to random

squeeeeze that cat

Blobcat-shaped battery powered nightlight. The nightlight is made from silicone and hollow, allowing it to be squeezed together quite significantly. When squeezed the nightlight smoothly changes color from white to red then blue depending on how hard you squeeze it. When no longer squeezes the color slowly returns to white.

Toble_Miner, to random German

Now that in-person events are happening again I've got around to finishing another project:
An OLED based name badge with support for animation playback!
The OLED has good sunlight readability and still gives the badge 8h+ battery lifetime.
Thanks to a builtin light sensor display brightness is automatically adjusted to fit ambient brightness.
Hardware design and firmware are fully Open Source on GitHub: https://github.com/TobleMiner/oled-nametag

Video of the OLED badge, showing it playing an animation with a cute cat. Everyone loves cats <3 The badge itself is a rectangular device with four buttons on the side. The front is taken up almost enitrely by the OLED display.

Toble_Miner,

The badge itself features a complete menu system with different applications that can be started.
Also there are a number of different display colors available: Amber, white, green and blue (blue not shown on any of the photos here)

Photo of an application running on the badge. The specific application shown here is centered around battery details, showing information like to current power consumption, expected battery lifetime and overall battery health.

Toble_Miner,

@spucky Hi, ich plane eventuell eine begrenzte Menge mit zum CCC Camp zu bringen. Aber wenn es sonst noch Interesse gibt, können wir da auch gerne drüber reden.

Alternativ kann JLCPCB die PCB Assembly übernehmen und auch den 3D-Druck der Gehäuse. Montage des Displays und der Akkus plus finaler Zusammenbau sind aber leider weiter Handarbeit.

Toble_Miner,

@kkarhan Yes, E-Ink was one of the final candidates for the display. However I really wanted it to look stunning in the dark, requiring something that emits light. Thus OLED seemed to provide the best compromise. Results so far indicate it works great both in very bright and super dark environments. However a super long battery lifetime variant with E-Ink would also be appealing.

Toble_Miner, to random

Rainy day, time for new hardware!
Finally got around to deploy a first prototype of a DC uninterruptiple power supply I have been designing.
I got fed up with high idle power consumption, poor battery management and mediocre monitoring options of most AC UPS.
This UPS offers a fix for that being DC only all the way through, using Li-Ion batteries and providing a Prometheus exporter.
Hardware design and firmware for this UPS are fully Open Source: https://github.com/TobleMiner/DC-UPS

A shelf with multiple home network appliances. Prominently the uninterruptible power supply from the previous picture is on that shelf and wired to the network appliances, powering them. The display of the UPS shows battery statistics.
Screenshot of a dashboard. The dashboards shows mostly time series line graphs. The dashboard shows metrics provided by the UPS over time.
Photo of the UPS rear panel. Has a debug USB-C port, 8P8C Ethernet jack, WLAN antenna and two barrel jack power inputs including an LED indicator.

Toble_Miner,

This design works really well for me since most of my network gear is powered by individual wall warts anyways. This now allowed me to do away with all but one of them for my core networking gear. Hoping for this to also improve reliability.
Additionally it has also freed up quite a bit of space on my networking shelve since the DC UPS is a lot smaller than my old AC UPS:

Toble_Miner,

@indrora Yeah, I don't love barrel jacks as power outputs either. I was specifically looking for something that allows connecting premade cables and is inherently safe regarding polarity. Granted I did not look super hard for other options, this just was the first thing that came to mind. I'd love to use a better option in the next revision 😺

Toble_Miner, to random German

Over the past two weeks @manawyrm and I have been hacking on InfiRay C200 thermal imaging cameras:
https://chaos.social/@manawyrm/110450370124789150

To our delight they have turned out to be super hackable!

One sore spot for us was that the minimum focus distance of the camera is rather large. So I designed a small magnetic lens attachment that gets it down from ~20cm to less than 5cm:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6051118

The difference in focus at 5cm distance is quite striking (first image without lens, second with)

Thermal image of small SMD components on a PCB with macro lense. The components are sharp, clearly defined and in focus. Temperature differences between individual components can be clearly identified.

Toble_Miner,

To make sure access to all focus ranges is always maintained the lens attachment had to be easy to remove and put back on again. Thus magnets are pretty much ideal for the job. Unfortunately there is nothing magnetic in the front device shell. So we had to glue in some magnets.
Works like an absolute charm now though! Gives very satisfying acousto-haptic feedback on attachment, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45eMYcHyoQI

Magnetic lense mount installed on the camera.

Toble_Miner,

Some more comparison shots to show how much of a difference improved minimum focus distance really makes for identifying hot components on a PCB:

Specimen 1 with the macro lens. The image of the PCB is pretty sharp and individual components are clearly visible.
Specimen 2 without the macro lens. The image of the PCB is blurry and identifying individual components is difficult. There are some hotpsots hinting at the existence of individual components but it is not really possible to make them out.
Specimen 2 with the macro lens. The image of the PCB is way less blurry and identifying individual components is possible. Features like component legs and solder pads are visible. The outline of heat signatures is nice and crisp.

Toble_Miner, to random German

SD Card calibration kit, anyone?

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