I've never been one to maintain a consistent blogging schedule. Blogging has just been something I do when I can push myself to do it. A change in circumstances A couple of weeks ago I worked what I expect was my last day as an employee. I'm currently on extended leave and have no desire... Continue Reading →
Attempting to change the backlight of a 16X2 LCD from green to red
The mailbox and driveway monitor that I built has a 12X2 LCD screen. I know these are not as fancy as many newer displays, but I like their simplicity. The screen in this project runs all the time, usually displaying the time. When mail is delivered, I wanted a coloured visual alert as well as... Continue Reading →
Building a smart mailbox: Challenges and unsolved issues
My main Arduino project for the last few months is trying to design and build a monitor that wirelessly sends an alert to the house when mail has been delivered in the mailbox or a vehicle goes through the front gate. I wanted the sender unit to be solar powered and use an ESP32. Reed... Continue Reading →
$2099 mattress vs $14 air mattress with foam topper: A surprising outcome
Finding a comfortable mattress seems to be a bigger challenge than I thought it should. Our first mattress was a foam mattress made of several pieces of different types of foam bonded together. It lasted many years and I remember it as being very comfortable. It's been difficult to find anything as comfortable since. Perhaps... Continue Reading →
Calculating bitmask value for ESP32 external wake up: Google is your friend
Update 14 April 2024: I've discovered that it is not necessary to calculate bitmask values for the ext1 external wakeup with the ESP32. There are predefined definitions that you can use. If you are interested check out my post ESP32: Wakeup from multiple GPIO sources and using predefined pin definitions instead of bitmask I'm currently... Continue Reading →
Converting raw data samples into meaningful results: Calibration and formula generation
So you have a sensor connected to your microcontroller. How do you calibrate it, particularly if the values from the sensor are not linear? That's a problem I have thought about before and it came up again yesterday when I wanted a project to monitor a battery voltage level. The current project that I am... Continue Reading →
New mailbox built mainly from recycled material
Mail delivery has become more important for us in recent years than it ever has been. While many communications have become electronic, more of the goods our family buy are purchased online as the option to buy locally is limited and in some cases is reducing. We are in a rural mail delivery area. There... Continue Reading →
Gardening: There are intruders stealing our corn
We have had a vege garden going on and off for over 30 years and we grow corn most years. When I checked the corn the other day I saw something I had not seen before. All the husks and corn kernels had been neatly removed from a cob of corn. There were ants on... Continue Reading →
Lots of goodies at our local recycling shop
If I said I lived in a small city you would probably have a misconception about the size of the place. While it is called a city it only has a population of around 20 000. In most places of this size it would be considered a rural town. There are some advantages and disadvantages... Continue Reading →
Building Interactive fiction / Text adventures with Excel
In 2006 just a few years after completing a course that included some VBA programming for Excel, I hit on the idea of using Excel to create a Text Adventure / Interactive Fiction game builder. I spent spare time for a year on it. It worked but there was more than I wanted to do,... Continue Reading →
Garry's blog 