Retro Game on IKEA OBEGRÄNSAD LED Display – part 2

One month after I started hacking the above IKEA wall display I finally managed to finish writing the 2 (very) basic games and put everything together, ready to be displayed on a wall:

Game on IKEA OBEGRÄNSAD LED display

As I was browsing for furniture in our local IKEA the other day, I noticed these “wall lamps” and their potential for hacking immediately jumped at me !

So I had no choice but to purchase one and try to find some time after almost exactly 2 years since my last project…

This is the first in a (hopefully long) series of posts that try to follow the journey.

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Christmas Lights

I recently finally found the time to do something with these 2 strips of WS2801 LEDs that I had laying around for years… and what better / more obvious idea given the time of the year, than build some over-engineered Christmas lights ?:)

Bluetooth Media Button

This is a pretty straight forward project, though it still took a while to get everything fitting together nicely 🙂

The idea was to re-use this nice big volume knob from an old, analog amplifier, put it into a custom little box and make it able to control the volume of my computer.

ePaper Calendar

I had a couple of these small ePaper boards, bought on sale a while ago, begging to be used in a project… I wasn’t sure what to do with them, until I saw James’ video about his message board.

Then it occurred to me: a small, ePaper display for my Google Calendar would be perfect ! True, we all check our phones regularly, almost compulsively, nowadays, but still, there’s nothing like having your tasks/appointments on a piece of paper ! Even if it’s of the “e” variety… 🙂

Especially if it’s for the shared family calendar, so that my wife and kids can also have it right there in front on them in the kitchen!

Electric Longboard – v2

Quick update on my Electric Longboard.

It works surprisingly well, and even the fact that the 150W motor feels rather under-powered when I try to use it (it does work but I feel like it could go faster and it does take a bit before it reaches top speed) could be considered a “feature” as it’s plenty of power for when the kids play with it in the park 🙂

One issue that we kept having was the 3D printed plastic motor mount would break when hitting small holes or irregularities in the asphalt.

Electric Long-board

When this year’s lock-down started a few months ago, I finally bought myself a long-board so that I could keep up with the kids on their bikes or scooters when exercising.
It didn’t take long before I remembered that I always wanted to build an electric "toy" that could carry myself.
I contemplated a bike, a Go Kart and others, but it’s always been pretty obvious that the easiest to attempt would be a skateboard…

Tronxy X1 3D printer upgrades

This is a brief post, mostly for my own usage / keeping track, detailing the few upgrades  I did to one of the cheapest 3D printers out there, the Tronxy X1, which I bought a couple of years ago for my 8 years old son.

It turns out it’s much more capable than what I thought and I’m using it more and more often, as it has a slightly bigger print area compared to my other printer, the Mini Fabrikator II (I also have an old / initial version Ultimaker, on which I’ve given up, after years of frustration, mainly with the extruding system…).

Autonomous Army Truck – 1. Mechanics

This is the 6 wheels drive toy army truck that I bought several years ago (for fairly cheap) for one of my kids.

When reading the specs (6wd, 3 differentials, independent suspensions on each wheel, etc. … ) it sounded too good to be true for the price… and indeed, I remember being disappointed when I received it : the rubber of the wheels kept coming off, the battery was really bad, but most importantly both the steering and the main motor were simply on/off not *proportional* !

At the same time, I was impressed by the modularity of the design, how everything was screwed rather then glued in place and how easy everything was to take apart, ready to be modified / upgraded…

And I *knew* I could do better… sooo much better !

Here’s what it can do *now*, after the 2 main mechanical upgrades:

ESP8266 Temperature Logger

This is a quick post about a pretty standard Temperature (and Humidity) data logger. Yes, I’m finally jumping on the IOT bandwagon, whatever that is… 🙂

The background for this is my recent discovery that the adrenaline (epinephrine) injections that a person at risk of anaphylaxis has to carry around should normally be stored within a very tight temperature range (20-25°C with short exposures to 15-30ºC tolerated).

This came as a big surprise, especially in the context of going on a skiing holiday, so I decided to do something to at least have an idea of the temperature range that these injections experience, before going any further and thinking about how to store them better.