Author Archives: Sean Boyce

The Linux Throwie: Powering a Linux Server with a 300mW Solar Panel

Posted on by

Have you ever had one of those moments, when you’re rummaging through your spare parts heap, and have a rather bizarre project idea that you can’t quite get out of your head? You know, the ones that have no clear use, but simply demand to be born, of glass and steel and silicon?

This time, the stubborn idea in question was sort of like a solar-rechargeable LED throwie, but instead of a blinking light, it has a fully cloud-accessible embedded Linux server in the form of a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. Your choice of embedded Linux board should work …read more

Continue reading The Linux Throwie: Powering a Linux Server with a 300mW Solar Panel→

Selling Everything, Moving to Asia, and Setting Up a Company

Posted on by

Today I don’t have a hack for you. I have a story, one that I hope will prove useful to a few of you who are considering a move to Asia to chase opportunities here.

Seven years ago, I was a pretty stereotypical starving hacker. I had five jobs: A full-time dead-end job in biotech, and four part-time or contract gigs that were either electronic hardware design or programming. I worked perhaps 50 hours a week, and was barely past the poverty line – I was starting to wonder why I spent so much time in school. I saw the …read more

Continue reading Selling Everything, Moving to Asia, and Setting Up a Company→

Track Everything, Everywhere with an IoT Barcode Scanner

Posted on by

I’ve always considered barcodes to be one of those invisible innovations that profoundly changed the world. What we might recognize as modern barcodes were originally designed as a labor-saving device in the rail and retail industries, but were quickly adopted by factories for automation, hospitals to help prevent medication errors, and a wide variety of other industries to track the movements of goods.

The technology is accessible, since all you really need is a printer to make barcodes. If you’re already printing packaging for a product, it only costs you ink, or perhaps a small sticker. Barcodes are so ubiquitous …read more

Continue reading Track Everything, Everywhere with an IoT Barcode Scanner→

Move Aside Mercury: Measuring Temperature Accurately with an RTD

Posted on by

Temperature is one of the most frequently measured physical quantities, and features prominently in many of our projects, from weather stations to 3D printers. Most commonly we’ll see thermistors, thermocouples, infrared sensors, or a dedicated IC used to measure temperature. It’s even possible to use only an ordinary diode, leading to some interesting techniques.

Often we only need to know the temperature within a degree Celsius or two, and any of these tools are fine. Until fairly recently, when we needed to know the temperature precisely, reliably, and over a wide range we used mercury thermometers. The devices themselves were …read more

Continue reading Move Aside Mercury: Measuring Temperature Accurately with an RTD→

Internet of Smells: Giving a Machine the Job of Sniffing Out Spoiled Food

Posted on by

Has the food in your pantry turned? Sometimes it’s the sickening smell of rot that tells you there’s something amiss. But is there a way to catch this before it makes life unpleasant? If only there were machines that could smell spoiled food before it stinks up the whole place.

In early May, I was lucky enough to attend the fourth FabLab Asia Network Conference (Fan4). The theme of their event this year was ‘Co-Create a Better World’. One of the major features of the conference was that there were a number of projects featured, often from rural areas, that …read more

Continue reading Internet of Smells: Giving a Machine the Job of Sniffing Out Spoiled Food→

Simple Ethereum Vending Machines with NodeMCU

Posted on by

Recently, we covered how to use the Etherscan API to query data (a wallet balance) from the Ethereum blockchain with NodeMCU. It’s a very useful method for retrieving information from a blockchain on embedded systems where storage and memory are an issue.

It has some limitations though. Most notably, it’s polling the API at some interval to retrieve information whether it has changed or not. I would like to be able to receive data more efficiently than this, and quickly enough to make simple vending machines possible. While we’ve seen videos of Bitcoin-based Red Bull vending machines before, they required …read more

Continue reading Simple Ethereum Vending Machines with NodeMCU→

Accessing Blockchain on ESP8266 Using the NodeMCU Board

Posted on by

Blockchains claim to be public, distributed, effectively immutable ledgers. Unfortunately, they also tend to get a little bit huge – presently the Bitcoin blockchain is 194GB and Ethereum weighs in at 444GB. That poses quite an inconvenience for me, as I was looking at making some fun ‘Ethereum blockchain aware’ gadgets and that’s several orders of magnitude too much data to deal with on a microcontroller, not to mention the bandwidth cost if using 3G.

Having imagined a thin device that I could integrate into my mobile phone cover (or perhaps… a wallet?) dealing with the whole blockchain was clearly …read more

Continue reading Accessing Blockchain on ESP8266 Using the NodeMCU Board→

A Blockchain, Robotics and AI Event in Vietnam

Posted on by

Blockchain Education Network Vietnam recently held an event titled “Building a Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem with Blockchain”. The title alone has three of my favorite things in it, so when a client of mine asked me if I could put together a little hardware demonstration for the event, I jumped at the opportunity.

I also thought I’d take a moment to write about it, because I haven’t seen much coverage of emerging technology events in the developing world, and the fact is that there’s a consistently high level of interest. I’ve yet to go to an event …read more

Continue reading A Blockchain, Robotics and AI Event in Vietnam→

Storm Detector Modules: Dancing in the Rain

Posted on by

Earlier, we had covered setting up an AS3935 lightning detector module. This detector picks up radio emissions, then analyzes them to determine if they are a lightning strike or some other radio source. After collecting some data, it outputs the estimated distance to the incoming storm front.

But that only gets you halfway there. The device detects many non-lightning events, and the bare circuit board is lacking in pizzazz. Today I fix that by digging into the detector’s datasheet, and taking a quick trip to the dollar store buy a suitable housing. The result? A plastic plant that dances …read more

Continue reading Storm Detector Modules: Dancing in the Rain→

An Introduction to Storm Detector Modules

Posted on by

Lightning storm detectors have been around for a surprisingly long time. The early designs consisted of a pair of metal bells and a pendulum. When there was a charge applied, for example by connecting one bell to the ground and the other to a lightning rod, the bells would ring when a lightning storm was close by. In the mid 18th century, these devices were only practical for demonstration and research purposes, but very likely represent the earliest devices that convert electrostatic charge to mechanical force. A bit over a hundred years later, the first lightning detector was considered …read more

Continue reading An Introduction to Storm Detector Modules→