Low cost BLE programmer fail
In my quest to find a low cost programmer for the CC2540 and CC2541 series of Bluetooth Low Energy Soc devices, commonly used as BLE beacons, I bought a device sold as a “Zigbee debugger emulator” from...
View ArticleBug fixing the eWay plugin for OpenCart
Last week, one my my clients changed their online payments processor to eWay, but the eWay plugin did not seem to work on the custom version of OpenCart which we had created from them. Cutting to the...
View ArticleWork around for Arduino STM32 with IDE V 1.6.3 or newer
Changes were made to the Arduino IDE in version 1.6.2 which prevent the STM32 files from compiling. This article describes a work around that solves this problem. From Arduino 1.6.2 onwards, the IDE no...
View ArticleHM10 iBeacon: Disappointing battery life
Conducting some accelerated batter life test on a HM10 BLE module as an iBeacon, revealed some disappointment battery life results. The HM10 and HM11 are popular Bluetooth Low Energy modules based on...
View ArticleImproved Maple bootloader for STM32
The LeafLabs Maple bootloader has a number of shortcommings which I have addressed by making a new version which dovetails with new features in Arduino STM32 The Maple bootloader was originally written...
View ArticleParticle (aka Spark) Photon, first impressions
I finally received the 2 Spark aka Particle, Photon boards today. I ordered 2 of these way back at the end of last year when one of my clients was interested in doing some environmental monitoring...
View ArticleArduino STM32 – USB Serial and DFU
I often get asked about why the USB Serial doesn’t seem to work on Maple mini or generic STM32F103 boards loaded with the STMduino-bootloader. If you buy a brand new Maple mini, and plug it into your...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PCB prototype milling using CNC 3020
Making your own PCB prototypes without all the messing around with chemicals sounds like a dream come true. The availability of low cost and seemingly high precision engraving / milling machines could...
View ArticleClik here to view.
GD32F103: A STM32F103 on steroids!
The world of the STM32 continues to get more interesting, with the recent availability of micro-controller boards based on the GigaDevices GD32F103. These devices have a quoted operating frequency of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Arduino on the nRF51822 Bluetooth Low Energy microcontroller
This is the first in a series of posts about programming the Nordic Semiconductors nRF51822 Bluetooth low energy micro-controller using the Arduino IDE. The post is a big one as it describes the entire...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reprogramming the Dash Robotics Kamigami – Part 1
As regular readers will know, I’m a fan of the Nordic nRF51822 Bluetooth MCU, as it can be programmed developed using Open Source tools. So when I saw the Dash Robotics Kamigami at Bay Area Maker Faire...
View ArticleTroubleshooting the nRF51822
I’ve had quite a few comments where people are having problems uploading or running sketches on the nRF51822, so as I don’t have time to answer individual questions, I thought it best to try to cover...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chinese laser dust seals
Just a quick post about keeping the dust out of laser cutters Australia is a very dry dusty country, and dust is a major problem for me with the laser cutter. If dust gets on the mirrors or lens, it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Replacement 3D printer CO2 laser bracket
When I bought by cheap “50W” Chinese laser cutter, I was alarmed to see that the brackets holding the laser in place were just bits of bent galvanized steel, packed around with a large amount of black...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Changing the language setting on a Chinese laser cutter
Just a quick post in case it helps anyone who has the same problem with their newly purchased Chinese laser cutter, where the menu language is set to Chinese (probably “Simplified Chinese”) The...
View ArticleNetwork aware laser cutter security
My Chinese laser cutter has a feature which allows it to be connected to a cabled LAN, but I’m always concerned about attaching random hardware to my home network as sometimes Internet connected...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mahoney CO2 laser power meter
I recently bought a Mahoney laser power meter from “Bell Laser” (www.bell-laser.com , also known as www.2laser.com), to establish whether my “50W” Chinese laser cutter was actually producing anywhere...
View ArticleRunning RDWorks on Linux
As a matter of interest, I thought I’d see if I could use the RDWorks laser cutter control program on Linux, even though its a WIndows only application. Linux add-in called WINE (...
View ArticlenRF51822 based fitness trackers
As regular readers of my blog will know I’m an ardent fan of the Nordic nRF51 (and nRF52) series of Bluetooth Low Energy MCU’s. So when I found out that a number of fitness tracker / smart watches,...
View ArticleBlackmagic probe problems with a new nRF51822 device revision
I know quiet a few readers of the blog are interested in the nRF51822, and use either the Blackmagic probe or OpenOCD to program your devices. So I thought it worthwhile to share my experiences today,...
View Article
