Articles

. Hello :) . I present another watch from my collection. I got a bit bored with the blocky shapes and came up with something like this. :) We all have a fascination with tube displays from a bygone era, unfortunately their prices are a bit prohibitive and basically nothing can replace... [Read more]

. A friend slipped me a rich festive set of individually addressable, colourful WS2812 LEDs for the Christmas tree. All controlled via WiFi, remote control and via buttons on the casing. Initially the friend wanted to use it with the Tuya app, but found that the app locks up on mode... [Read more]

Some time ago I struggled over the unstable OTA with LN882H when using Firefox browser. If you are interested in the whole story, you can read most of it following this post: It turned out, there was an issue with the SDKs OTA code and, since OBK uses the OTA code slightly differently,... [Read more]

Here's a detailed flashing guide for new TR6260 WiFi chips that can be found in some Tuya smart devices. TR6260 can be easily flashed and run free from the cloud, fully locally, without Tuya servers. This way you can easily pair TR6260 with Home Assistant via Home Assistant Discovery,... [Read more]

. . Hello. Due to the fact that I have a Ender 3 Pro printer, which is no longer the latest one, and I got bored of constantly chasing the card back and forth I decided to do something about it. Searching the internet didn't help much, I didn't find what I wanted. Plugging in a Raspberry... [Read more]

Here is a config guide for a PIR sensor that is not yet on the LIST . This is the product pic borrowed from the marketplace: after removing the PCB from the case this is what we find: The UART lines (Tx and Rx) we use for programming the CB3S module are shared by the CB3S module and... [Read more]

. The strip controller of individually addressable LEDs presented here offers a wide range of ready-made animations and can also animate the LEDs to the rhythm of music. You can buy it for just under a dozen zlotys in China, or alternatively you can order it for around 30 zlotys in... [Read more]

GitHub Actions workflows can be used to automatically build and test firmware on each commit. They may or may not create Github Releases, if not, build files are downloadable only via Github Action details. By default, those binaries require manual download, but here I will show you... [Read more]

Hello. I used to really like the rechargeable soldering iron from this post: and recently stated that I would attempt my own build. I already had all the parts recycled, the only thing missing was a flat bar for the secondary winding but this was found. The first prototype was according... [Read more]

When I noticed for a long time that the watch was out of sync with the DCF receiver, at first I suspected problems with the strength of the DCF77 signal transmitted from German territory. After contacting a ham radio operator who has a similar watch at his operating station, it became... [Read more]

. What lights for your Christmas tree? Preferably the WS2812 - the WS2812 LED strip is distinguished from other strips by the fact that each LED can have a different colour at any given time. With classic PWM-controlled LED strips, all LEDs must necessarily be one colour, so the WS2812... [Read more]

. This inconspicuous module is based on the ESP32 C3 and offers a 1.44" colour display with 128x128 resolution, controlled via SPI protocol. Here I will show how easy it is to get started with it, how it can be batch uploaded remotely (via WiFi), how to display a simple animation... [Read more]

. OpenWeatherMap is a service that offers, among other things, access to current weather information for a given position on a map. This data can be easily retrieved with a single GET query, although we will need an API key beforehand, which fortunately can be obtained for free. Here... [Read more]

I present a teardown of a new device from Action namely the HDMI sync box for 129.99zł. Model: 6204000100 Supports HDMI: HDCP2.2, 4k@60Hz HDR10+ The device is connected between, for example, a console or satellite receiver and the TV. To it we connect the LED strip (84pcs 5050RGB... [Read more]

. Various types of plugs, modules and sockets that offer energy measurement and normally work with the manufacturer's cloud can be bought cheaply on the web. Here I will show how such a socket can be freed from the cloud and configured independently, including how events can be triggered... [Read more]

PCBWay at Electronica 2024 in Munich From 12-15 November 2024, Munich will become the world centre of electronic innovation with the trade fair Electronica 2024 . This is one of the industry's most prestigious events, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year , brought together 3,480... [Read more]

I've recently stumbled upon interesting TuyaMCU device which was not sending all dpIDs despite me setting 0x04 WiFi state in autoexec.bat. Following the communication captured from original firmware also didn't trigger the dpID publish. It wasn't even replying to the TuyaMCU state... [Read more]

. I will show here the interior of the Gas Leak detector, model: TX-E Gas leak detector with gas shut-off valve control. edit: I have highlighted the used pins on the CB3S, you can see that all the communication goes through the UART, there is no peripheral support through the CB3S.... [Read more]

. Here I will show step by step how an advanced energy meter/thermostat with LCD screen can be converted so that it can operate 100% locally, without the cloud and without the manufacturer's servers. I'll be converting the S1TW-FR discussed earlier here, to do this I'll upload OpenBeken... [Read more]

. I will show here the inside of another roller shutter controller, this time with a PCB dated 2023.04.13. This will be a newer version of the RTX WCM1MR controller shown some time ago, dated 2022.12.26. I will upload open firmware to it so as to free it from the cloud and allow further... [Read more]

In this tutorial we will show you how to simulate a short button press on non-smart device with a WiFi module addon. We'll use it to control the Ugreen 30346 USB switch remotely via Home Assistant. For this purpose, we'll use an OBK-compatible WiFi module (could be a Beken chip, or... [Read more]

Action sells these in Germany, there are several versions of them, they started with ESP826x-based plugs and switched to Beken-chips at some point. The early ones had screws to open, the cases of the later ones like this here are just clicked together. Here is a detailed teardown... [Read more]

. I hope I don't bore you, with my next headphone amplifier. But somehow it just so happened that I've had the verve for such projects lately. This headphone amplifier was created to be used with a phone or laptop. Hence my decision to power it from the built-in batteries (for easier... [Read more]

A few months ago, at the request of readers, I published an article about the Soviet computer [https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/viewtopic.php?p=21109811]Agat , which was allegedly developed as a clone of the American Apple. No less interesting were the original Soviet and Russian... [Read more]

. I built a welding machine a few years ago, it was mainly to be used to weld cells into packages. I have a lot of cast-off components, so I'm trying to put at least some of them to some use. Unfortunately this is going with increasing resistance, but that's another topic. So the... [Read more]

. Is the Yato YT-82457 750W hot air soldering station capable of desoldering components from a computer motherboard? Is its performance comparable to that of more expensive stations available for 100-250$? How is such a station constructed inside? I will try to check this here and... [Read more]

. The design of this headphone amplifier, is actually an update of my earlier design presented here ( Link ). Compared to the original version, a few things have been changed. The one that is immediately apparent is the casing. The new housing is slightly larger. Its internal dimensions... [Read more]

. Today I'm going to show the project on a tiny eight-pin PIC microcontroller in a DIP8 case offering a modest 3.5kB of Flash memory. What's more, I will use only two pins to communicate with the peripherals - the whole thing will be based on I2C. Based on these I will run a display/keyboard... [Read more]

Here is a look inside a generic 20A Tuya BSD29 UK smart plug with energy metering capabilities. I will unsolder the main PCB, the module and then flash it to run OpenBeken, cutting it off from all Tuya cloud services. I'll also add a DS18B20 temperature sensor so the temperature inside... [Read more]

Test of eurorack power supplies (and not only, because plug-in ones too!) . . Need, as they say, is the mother of invention. As I am working with a modular eurorack system, and wanted to build myself an efficient power supply for the modular system in the box of a broken ATX power... [Read more]