Troubleshooting a Deaf Motorola M120 Radio, Start to Finish Kenneth Finnegan 2021-09-02 | The M120 is a variant of the Motorola GM300, and I had gotten a few of them which were deaf, so we go through the whole sequence of troubleshooting this radio to see if we can get the receiver working
Making a Wig Wag Coin Operated Kenneth Finnegan 2021-07-04 | I volunteer at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum, so since we have a functional Wigwag on display, I figured the next logical step would be to make it coin operated!wplives.org
Building Qi Wireless Charging into your own projects Kenneth Finnegan 2020-12-22 | Adding Qi Wireless Charging to any Arduino or ESP32 or Raspberry Pi projects can actually be pretty easy with one of these receivers. Drop it on a Qi charging mat, and it outputs 5V on the attached wires. They're available on eBay for a few dollars, and also on Amazon: amzn.to/3mIY4ds
Modern Z80 Computer RAM/ROM Options Kenneth Finnegan 2020-09-17 | While historically a major part of the cost of an 8 bit computer would be high density RAM and ROM, this stuff is relatively cheap, and can even still be bought from suppliers such as Digikey. If I was starting from scratch, I'd start with a 28C256 EEPROM and a 61256 or 62256 SRAM, which can be sourced on places like eBay easily enough in a DIP package as well.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/AT28C256-15PU/AT28C256-15PU-ND/1008506
Understanding the Z80 Memory Map Kenneth Finnegan 2020-08-28 | Quick little video on what it means to map a 32kB RAM to the "top half" of the 16 bit address space, what simple address decode logic looks like, etc.
Running a Z80 Computer Virus on a Breadboard Computer One Step at a Time Kenneth Finnegan 2020-07-25 | I wrote a computer virus in assembly that copies itself into RAM 16 bytes above its current location, and then executes that copy of itself!
Microsoft BASIC on a Z80 Running at 19kHz Kenneth Finnegan 2020-07-19 | At this point, I've essentially recreated the RC2014 Micro hardware on a breadboard, and then downclocked it to 19kHz, so the serial port runs at 300 baud and it's easier to visually see what's going on with the LEDs on all the signal and bus lines.
Hand loading No-Op loop into SRAM for the Z80 Kenneth Finnegan 2020-07-08 | We continue to ratchet up the silly. This time, I loaded five NO-OPs into the SRAM by hand, and then an RST 0, which causes the Z80 to jump back to PC=0000, and we start over!One thing I didn't realize until right after I finished recording is that the RST 0 command actually is a function call, so the strange address bus activity and writing happening during that opcode is the Z80 pushing the current PC onto the stack, expecting us to then eventually run a RET return to pop it off again...
Fetching a Program from DIP switches on a Z80 Kenneth Finnegan 2020-07-07 | As a silly second step on my breadboard computer, I added dip switches to the data bus, so now you can toggle in anything you want for each machine cycle and see what the processor does with it!
Single Stepping a Z80 on a Breadboard Kenneth Finnegan 2020-07-06 | Single Stepping through the No-Operation and Relative Jump commands on a Z80 with no RAM or ROM other than 8 resistors on the data bus.
Booting Linux From RAM! Kenneth Finnegan 2020-03-11 | I managed to get an entire operating system to run from the init RAM over PXE boot!
Sonoff Basic WiFi Smart Switch Teardown Kenneth Finnegan 2020-01-09 | The Sonoff Basic is a low cost IoT WiFi connected relay which you can use to switch things like lights or small fans. The Sonoff is particularly hackable, since it brings out all the pins needed to reflash the firmware and add remote buttons/indicators. Third party firmware images like Tasmota (tasmota.github.io/docs) allow you to directly control these using MQTT or as a Hue device. Sonoff Basics are available on Amazon (amzn.to/2uwKYea) as well as many other online retailers. Sonoff (https://sonoff.tech/) also has many other form factors of relays other than the Basic supported by Tasmota.
How to power ANYTHING using USB-C Power Delivery and the ZY12PDN PD Trigger Board Kenneth Finnegan 2020-01-05 | These USB-C Power Delivery trigger boards allow you to negotiate any USB-C PD voltage available on a port to deliver to the rest of your project! They're available on Amazon (amzn.to/408Ds3n) as well as various vendors on eBay, etc.USB-C PD allows you to negotiate 5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, or 20V over the standard USB-C connector. The colors used on the ZY12PDN board for these are:Red: 5VYellow: 9VGreen: 12VTeal: 15VBlue: 20VPurple: Highest voltage possibleWhite: Cycle through all the possible voltages changing every few seconds.
Making a Guest Wifi Coaster with a 13.56MHz NFC tag Kenneth Finnegan 2019-07-24 | Made from Walnut with a spray on lacquer finish, sand blasted glass, and a 13.56MHz NFC tag (i.e. amzn.to/2JXTjM4) with a WiFi credential NDEF object programmed on it.
Build Your Own Bluetooth Speaker Kenneth Finnegan 2019-07-22 | How I took an unpowered speaker from the thrift shop and added a bluetooth receiver and amplifier to it. Amplifier board used: amzn.to/2Y56e3DSuitable power supply: amzn.to/2JVBTQ9
My view of the Cupertino 2019 Fireworks show Kenneth Finnegan 2019-07-18 | After two days of hard work, getting to watch the show from the fallout area makes it all worth it.
Twitter Connected Raspberry Pi Camera Kenneth Finnegan 2019-05-14 | A camera that uses a Raspberry Pi to automatically post pictures immediately to Twitter. I used email so that the local python script only needed to hand the email off to a local postfix daemon, and Postfix then deals with the fact that the camera might not always be connected to the Internet. Blog post with more details soon. Source code is available on github: github.com/PhirePhly/tweetcam-smtp
[FCIX] Overview of Fiber Optic Transceivers Kenneth Finnegan 2018-06-13 | Thanks to our sponsors Arista and FlexOptix for making this video possible via their hardware donations. For more information about the Fremont Cabal Internet Exchange, check out our website: http://fcix.netIf you want even more information, you should check out the NANOG talk on everything optical networking: youtube.com/watch?v=_KFpXuHqHQg
Replacing the heatsink on a Catalyst 6500 10Gb Line Card Kenneth Finnegan 2018-03-08 | Re-sticking one of the heat sinks on the CFC card on my 6704 10Gb Ethernet line card. Here's my favorite overview of 6500 line card options: cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6500/hardware/Module_Installation/Mod_Install_Guide/6500-emig/02ethern.html
[Livestream] Raspberry Pi Sensor Hat Kenneth Finnegan 2017-12-18 | More board layout on the Pi sensor hat project github.com/PhirePhly/AirQMon
[Livestream] Raspberry Pi Sensor Hat Kenneth Finnegan 2017-12-12 | Working on a sensor hat PCB: github.com/PhirePhly/AirQMon
[Livestream] Designing a BeagleBone Serial Port Cape Kenneth Finnegan 2017-10-14 | Trying our hands at designing a cape for a BeagleBone to add some RS-232 serial ports to it.
[LiveStream] Friday Night Projects Kenneth Finnegan 2017-10-07 | It's Friday night, so let's hang out and work on our projects live!
Replacing Dead Capacitors In Consumer Electronics Kenneth Finnegan 2017-07-18 | Replacing the capacitors in an old Netgear FS116 Ethernet switch (http://amzn.to/2u40VG4), but the same methods should apply to any other piece of consumer electronics which is getting on its last leg. The selected capacitors for this job were (Digikey part numbers) 1189-1869-ND, 493-1467-ND, and 732-8826-1-ND.Admittedly, I didn't even bother to wait for any issues, but just replaced the caps in this device to begin with since I bought it used.
My 4th of July Vantage Point Kenneth Finnegan 2017-07-07 | What a professional fireworks show looks like from inside the fallout zone.
YouTube Channel IoT View Counter Kenneth Finnegan 2017-06-26 | Blog post: http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/06/youtube-channel-iot-view-counter.htmlBecky's much nicer IoT counter: youtube.com/watch?v=PheHlYwUS_wSource code: gist.github.com/PhirePhly/5fba25a794cbf2e4aca457d3645b8226
PID Temperature Controller in a Box Kenneth Finnegan 2017-02-13 | Building a Watlow SD31 PID controller into a box. If you work on this sort of project, please appreciate that you're dealing with dangerous voltages, and don't kill yourself.Music: Night Owl by Broke for Free http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_01_Night_Owl
APRS I-gate/Digipeater Build (Part 2/3 - Hardware) Kenneth Finnegan 2017-01-07 | SPOILER: It doesn't work in the end. Turns out the PK-88 doesn't support unsquelched receive audio, and I'm not aware of how to have the CDM750 squelch its discriminator output like the older Radius models. I'll need to get a new pairing of radio and TNC which can work for the final deployment
APRS I-gate/Digipeater Build (Part 1/3 - Software) Kenneth Finnegan 2016-12-31 | Software bring-up for a Qotom/PK-88 Digipeater/I-gate build running Aprx: http://thelifeofkenneth.com/aprxThe computer is a Qotom Q190S-S01 with a 120GB mSATA SSD and a stick of DDR3 of RAM:http://amzn.to/2irepGRhttp://amzn.to/2ihgKn8http://amzn.to/2ir8X6OI skip over installing Debian since there are plenty of tutorials out there on installing your Linux distro of choice. debian.org/releases/jessie/amd64/ch04.html.en
Mastr 3 Repeater Teardown Kenneth Finnegan 2016-12-24 | Tons of great info on these repeaters available here: http://www.repeater-builder.com/ge/geindex.htmlThe mentioned PLL video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=0jzLDe950AY
My Favorite Raspberry Pi Case - FLIRC Kenneth Finnegan 2016-11-18 | After looking at a ton of different cases and playing with many my friends have, I've fallen in love with these: http://amzn.to/2f6hCWH
Building an APRS Digipeater (Hardware) Kenneth Finnegan 2016-10-25 | This is an attempt at a new style where I don't script and reshoot everything several times, so this is going to be a bit more off the cuff. Links to things mentioned in the video:* Greenlee 4908 toolkit: http://amzn.to/2dTFaRi* Qotom Q310G4 computer: (The Amazon title is wrong): http://amzn.to/2dTCq6m* Aprx digipeater software (which I'll cover later): http://thelifeofkenneth.com/aprx
Factoring in BASIC on a 6502 Kenneth Finnegan 2016-07-22 | One of my friends built a 6502 out of discrete transistors and got BASIC running on it. I wrote a quick little program to factor numbers.
MQTT Raspberry Pi Demo Kenneth Finnegan 2016-07-02 | Blog post: http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2016/07/driving-leds-on-raspberry-pi-via-mqtt.htmlCode here: gist.github.com/PhirePhly/5eda4214788429e9d09c060cca10971f
MQTT Hello World Kenneth Finnegan 2016-06-24 | Using MQTT Dashboard on Android to control three LEDs on a Raspberry Pi via the Paho Python MQTT client. gist.github.com/PhirePhly/aa425e909696a3bb35f8b177ac08bc08
Maker Fair Amateur Repeater Beacon Kenneth Finnegan 2016-05-20 | If you're attending the bay area Maker Faire and have an amateur radio license, make sure to give our portable repeater a try.
Communications for the Wildflower Triathlon (Marin Amateur Radio Society) Kenneth Finnegan 2016-05-10 | I gave this talk to the Marin Amateur Radio Society on May 6, 2016 on my involvement with the TriCal Wildflower Triathlon.Slides: http://thelifeofkenneth.com/files/20160506_WildflowerCommunications.pdf
Organizing RF Adapters Kenneth Finnegan 2016-02-27 | Here's a short video on how I now sort my connectors and adapters for my RF projects.http://www.basspro.com/Plano-1258-Tackle-Box/product/10205331
GR300 Repeater Chassis Overview Kenneth Finnegan 2016-02-24 | The GR300 is about the smallest commercial repeater I'm aware of.
UHF RICK Repeater with Auto ID and Remote Control Kenneth Finnegan 2016-02-19 | I'm not going to flat out say that this repeater is yet completely legal, but I would feel ok actually putting it on the air.I also didn't emphasize in the video enough the fact that the signalling I showed off on the Maxtrac 300 does require an additional option board which is relatively rare.
Microwave Transceiver Teardown Kenneth Finnegan 2016-01-27 | I was gifted this random microwave transceiver, so I decided to take it apart and admire all the microwave kit in the front-end.
GR300 Repeater Thermal Control Kenneth Finnegan 2016-01-17 | I was pleasantly surprised that my new GR300 repeater chassis came with a reasonably good linear fan speed controller.
Initial Testing of BC-696 Transmitter Kenneth Finnegan 2016-01-01 | BC transmitters come with a magic eye tube and a crystal oscillator as a spot check for the front dial. Turns out this transmitter's dial is still spot on on the 3.5MHz reference.
How to Build a Simplex Repeater Kenneth Finnegan 2015-12-18 | Thanks to Scott from Argent Data for contributing an ADS-SR1 to make this video possible. More info here: http://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2016/01/building-simplex-repeater.html
Repeater Design Example: Bidirectional RICK Crossbander Kenneth Finnegan 2015-11-27 | We don't end up with a legal repeater in the end, but here's a simple design example and a walk-through of using an HP service monitor to set "repeater gain"
Introduction to Crossband (Xband) Repeaters Kenneth Finnegan 2015-11-25 | A theoretical introduction to cross-band repeaters, and their different applications.
How to Tune a Duplexer! Kenneth Finnegan 2015-10-22 | Presentation given by Marcel Stieber at Pacificon 2015
