What did you build today (Pictures) ?
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Hi guys,
today I have finished the 3d printable case of the d-diot hub.

The hub basically is a Raspberry Pi 3 with the d-diot board (see this topic) that offers the following functionalities:
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IR Gateway (blaster and receiver) to control every device that has a dummy infrared remote.
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433 Mhz Gateway with the RFLink firmware running on the on-board ATMega2560 microcontroller
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Dual MySensors Gateway: NRF24 (2.4 Ghz) and RFM69 (868 Mhz).
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Latch circuit to power-on and safely power-off your Pi with a simple button press.
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SSD1306 I2C Oled display controllable in Home Assistant
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Radio activity LEDs for IR and Mysensors gateways
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Nice and powerful web interface thanks to Home Assistant
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Easy setup and configuration with the d-diot image
If someone is interested, here the detailed build instructions.
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Anyone know or have experience with how well the underlying capacitive soil moisture sensors hold up over the long term? Clearly they're better than the cheap conductive electrode kind, which for most people don't last very long at all, but I recollect reading that water ultimately invades the PCB enough on even the capacitive designs that it goes kaput. Maybe they've been improved since then or maybe there are now known tricks for how to fortify them against that happening?
@NeverDie My experience shows that the Chinese sensors that are sold on Aliexpress have a low quality printed circuit Board. When used outdoors, they may deteriorate within 1-2 seasons. Inside the house, in a flower pot, the service life is much longer. As for such sensors developed independently, the quality of printed circuit boards that are ordered through the services of jlcpcb, pcbway... very high.
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Anyone know or have experience with how well the underlying capacitive soil moisture sensors hold up over the long term? Clearly they're better than the cheap conductive electrode kind, which for most people don't last very long at all, but I recollect reading that water ultimately invades the PCB enough on even the capacitive designs that it goes kaput. Maybe they've been improved since then or maybe there are now known tricks for how to fortify them against that happening?
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Thanks! Earlier in 2020 I started a shoot-out of different weatherproofing coatings, and I can already see that Spray Max 680061 is by far performing the best out of all the hard coatings that I tried: https://www.spraymax.com/en/products/product/clear-coats-and-spot-blender/2k-clear-coat/ So, for that reason, I suspect it would also perform very well at moisture proofing capacitive PCB soil probes.
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I built a picoamp current source and tested a picoammeter that I built from Gyro's design that was posted on the EEVblog forum. It turns out it can measure even single digit picoamps to an accuracy of less than a picoamp (i.e. less than one trillionth of an amp!)

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I built a picoamp current source and tested a picoammeter that I built from Gyro's design that was posted on the EEVblog forum. It turns out it can measure even single digit picoamps to an accuracy of less than a picoamp (i.e. less than one trillionth of an amp!)

Today I finally found some time to put a few modules together.
A cheap solar cell (€1.35 a piece) with recharcheable battery which feeds via a step-up converter (€0.70 /pc) a pro-mini (5VDC). The DS18B20 is read every 5 minutes.
Now I’m Interested how long this sensor will do its job.
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Hi, everybody. Yesterday I made a case for my new device with an e-ink display 2.7. the Case turned out to be quite thin. The dimensions of the device in the case are 86.5 mm X 59.5 mm X 11.5 mm. The new device is a continuation of the project - https://www.openhardware.io/view/629/EFEKTA-TempandHum-sensorver-nRF52-E-Ink-display

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Man, things are starting to look very professional around here.
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Made a prototype board for writing a software for one of my projects. Goal was to have everything needed on a board no bigger then a 1.54" eink display, and to make it doable at home by my own.
I was gladly surprised that everything worked (after a sleepless night of fighting through-layer connections, and soldering/desoldering FPC connectors) :) The only I've messed up is order of connector pins, so the display is connected the wrong way...


It also has pads for SHT30 sensor so it may be somehow useful after development is done.
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Made a prototype board for writing a software for one of my projects. Goal was to have everything needed on a board no bigger then a 1.54" eink display, and to make it doable at home by my own.
I was gladly surprised that everything worked (after a sleepless night of fighting through-layer connections, and soldering/desoldering FPC connectors) :) The only I've messed up is order of connector pins, so the display is connected the wrong way...


It also has pads for SHT30 sensor so it may be somehow useful after development is done.
@monte said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
FPC
Excellent handwork. I also dealt with such FPC conectors :), here are the correct FPC conectors - https://aliexpress.ru/item/32794813863.html
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@monte said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
FPC
Excellent handwork. I also dealt with such FPC conectors :), here are the correct FPC conectors - https://aliexpress.ru/item/32794813863.html
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@berkseo Thanks!
Link doesn't open. I have the right ones, I've just messed up PCB layout. Somehow pins on the board goes in the wrong direction, so the most left pin is #24 instead of #1 :) -
@berkseo Thanks!
Link doesn't open. I have the right ones, I've just messed up PCB layout. Somehow pins on the board goes in the wrong direction, so the most left pin is #24 instead of #1 :) -
@monte By the way, this version of screens is discontinued, it is better to develop software for new versions
@berkseo thanks for mentioning that. But as I understand the change in software would be just including another header file, if I'm using GxEPD library. There is a mention on github that there is GDEH0154D67 model as a replacement for GDEP015OC. Or do you mean that they are discontinuing 1.54" displays completely?
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@berkseo thanks for mentioning that. But as I understand the change in software would be just including another header file, if I'm using GxEPD library. There is a mention on github that there is GDEH0154D67 model as a replacement for GDEP015OC. Or do you mean that they are discontinuing 1.54" displays completely?
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@monte said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
Or do you mean that they are discontinuing 1.54" displays completely?
Yes, I mean that these displays are no longer produced. And it is better to focus on new ones.
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@monte said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
Or do you mean that they are discontinuing 1.54" displays completely?
Yes, I mean that these displays are no longer produced. And it is better to focus on new ones.
@berkseo said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
@monte said in What did you build today (Pictures) ?:
Or do you mean that they are discontinuing 1.54" displays completely?
Yes, I mean that these displays are no longer produced. And it is better to focus on new ones.
Just to clear up a potential misunderstanding: The 1.54" EPDs aren't going to vanish anytime soon. Only the GDEP015OC1 has been discontinued and the GDEH0154D67 may follow, too at some point.
But Dalian Good Display has just launched the GDEW0154M09 this month, which seems to be the successor of the GDEH0154D67 at first sight. There is also the GDEW0154M10, which supposedly has a better contrast due to a new manufacturing process. Waveshare seems to be still selling their version of the GDEH0154D67, but not any of the new ones.
I don't think you need to hoard them like other poeple hoard their live-long stock of toilet paper these days. ;)
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My super simple NRF51 touch buttons. I mostly use these to toggle overhead lights that I've converted to Tasmota.



@ncollins Elegant. Does it talk to a gateway, which then talks to your Tasmota, or does it somehow talk directly to the Tasmota? So many things now have Bluetooth as part of them that the possibility of direct communication sometimes exists.
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@ncollins Elegant. Does it talk to a gateway, which then talks to your Tasmota, or does it somehow talk directly to the Tasmota? So many things now have Bluetooth as part of them that the possibility of direct communication sometimes exists.
@NeverDie Buttons -> Mysensors Gateway -> OpenHab Rules -> Tasmota Switches / Outlets / Extension cords.
I am tempted to explore the BLE route. It seems to support a majority of my sensor use cases, I like the idea of standardizing on the GATT protocol, and there are already a ton of tools and connectors in place.