It's been a while since I've been posting a lot on YouTube. I wanted to create a list of Projects that I would like to work on in 2019:

• Getting the Arduino Mega Sensor Shield (currently have Version 2.0 but might get version 2.4) working on an AdaFruit GrandCentral with CircuitPython.
• The above board will host various sensors such as IR sensors, the Ultrasonic Ping Sensor, Light Level, and other similar type sensors.
• I would like to see an RA8875 LCD Panel Driver working in CiurcuitPython.
• Also I would like to see the DS3231 Clock Module working with CircuitPython.
• Another Project I attempt...

I posted another Youtube Video at About unboxing my new camera for making better quality Youtube Videos. I've been working all weekend on the keypad driver for the Hackulator and am making good progress. If you would like more details and more frequent updates, you can check out My Hackaday.io project page. Since I have my Youtube channel going, updates on this blog are going to become much less frequent, so please subscribe to youtube. I may also post updates on twitter.

Big changes. After having a lot of clarity lately, I have decided to start my Youtube Channel going. I uploaded a video about restoring my Commodore 64 using a beer making enzyme buster which is meant for cleaning beer making supplies. Watch the video to see how well it worked. With all of the projects I have been working on and completing, I figured that this blog isn't really doing them justice and I will be moving to more of a project-oriented video format. While I admit cleaning a Commodore 64 isn't quite as exciting as some of the other projects I've been working on, it actually is pretty...

This weekend, I finished writing the battery voltage monitor for the Hackulator. While doing research about how to display the battery voltage in the menu for the Raspberry Pi, I initially came across some information that developing plugins for LXPanel was the way to go. However, it seems the Raspberry Pi PIXEL environment is a highly customized version of LXDE and I was unable to find information of how to create a plugin. However, did notice that there is an existing plugin called "System Tray" which is part of the menu by default, so I looked in that direction and came across some python c...

Tonight I went to mount the camera in my adapter and it turns out it was just a bit too big. After a few more revisions, I printed another one out, put some double-sides foam tape so it would have a bit of a seal and tried it again. It went in tight and fits great. I tested it out and the angle looks so much better with a 15-degree tilt. Since it was dark out by the time I finished up and I don't work tomorrow, I decided I'll go ahead finish up taping everything together and putting the trunk back in order then. I may put the STL file for the camera mount up on thingiverse so that other people...

I was looking into the LCD Controller Board I have. I received it a couple of weeks ago and it basically works and has the connectors for the LCD screen I have, but I didn't read the eBay ad closely enough and apparently the resolutions and screen ratios are programmed into the controller board and the one I bought had a 1280x800 resolution programmed into it so a black bar appeared on the right. This time I ordered from Aliexpress because the stated shipping times looked much faster (12-20 days as opposed to 24-59 days on eBay). I plan to use the board I have for now and will just swap it out...

Tonight I replaced my 3D Printer nozzle with a 0.4mm nozzle instead of the 0.3mm it had on there and the flow is so much better, so now it's back in operation. I also hooked up my Octo-Power Box and got that working through voice commands and I set up my windows computer to remote start up and shut down and enabled voice commands for that too. That one was harder because I could only find one example that was close, but I was able to get it figured out so that voice worked too. I got the LED strip control I built put up and functioning. I had to re-solder the ESP8266 chip because the flux was ...

I finished up my Octo-Power Box and it works great. I made some more progress on the Hackulator towards getting it all set up and made a few decisions such as looking into creating some LXPanel plugins to deal with the battery level indicator and the Keypad Driver.

I received a bunch of the items I've been looking forward to and I also started organizing and prioritizing my projects and realized I had around 12 projects in the works of varying sizes. Over the weekend, I finished up the X-10 Controller Project I started last week including finishing touches on the source code, mounting it in a box, and writing up about the project. I also built a Sonoff Dual Power Outlet Box that I was able to load the Tasmota Firmware onto.

I also made some progress on the Hackulator and fixed the wiring. One of the wires had broken off the USB board. I fixed that and th...

Monday, I received my other Light Switch and it installed very easily. After all the playing around with the X-10 devices, I decided to buy a CM15A off eBay or multiple reasons:

I got an AdaFruit Huzzah Feather because it can make use of a LiPo battery for reliability and wired up a couple harnesses, so the entire thing can be assembled without a breadboard. I should be getting a project box in a couple of days that I'll stick the circuitry into. I polished up the firmware and implemented the new commands so other people can put together a cheap and easy modern FireCracker controller if they ...