Tiddlywiki-style blog by Tass Sinclair https://sinclairstudios.net 1800 Kodi is a media centre application that can run on a variety of devices. The Raspberry Pi 3 is a good candidate due to its on-board Wifi and HDMI. I'm using LibreElec, which is a lean Linux distribution that runs Kodi and not much more. Specifically, the Milhouse alpha builds work well with the Netflix plugin. https://sinclairstudios.net/kodi Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:19:27 +1100 Now that the kettle supports home automation integration for publishing data, we can also use it to issue commands to the kettle. The final stage of the project is to add functionality for boiling the kettle remotely, so I can stay in bed a few minutes longer until the kettle is boiled, ready for me to make my morning coffee. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/remote-operation Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Now that the handle attachment makes it easier to get temperature readings from the kettle, it's time to start publishing data to interested subscribers, such as a home automation system. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/home-automation-integration Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Contact sensors are useful for reporting when doors and windows are opened or closed, but depending on the size of your living space it is often easier just to look in the general direction of the door or window. Case closed. (Or open). However, they can still be useful for identifying if a door or window is locked or unlocked, which is much more valuable when leaving the house or heading to bed. https://sinclairstudios.net/door-lock Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 The thermistor for temperature reading works well so far, but disconnecting and reconnecting it all the time is a pain. Stage 4 of this project is to work out a better interface to reduce the friction of removing and replacing the kettle on the enclosure. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/handle-attachment Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 With the enclosure complete, it's time to add more functionality to the connected kettle. This time, using a thermistor to sense and report on the temperature of the kettle. Is it still warm, or does it need to be reboiled? Stage 3 of this project is to attach the thermistor and use some neat tricks to interpret the thermistor's resistance values as temperature readings. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/temperature-reading Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Now that the scale and display have been assembled, it's time to create an enclosure to mount them safely while balancing a kettle above the scale. Stage 2 of this project is to prototype, print and fit the electronics into a protective enclosure. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/enclosure Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 The ESP32 is fast becoming one of my favourite toys, it's an excellent form factor for embedded Wifi-enabled Arduino projects and is far cheaper and easier to use than Wifi shields for the Arduino Uno. It is the central node of the Connected Kettle, supporting a variety of input and output instruments wired directly to the controller while also setting the scene for remote interaction with a home automation platform. Stage 1 of this project is to set up a tight feedback loop, where it uses a load sensor as a scale to detect the kettle weight, and displays the weight on an LCD. https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle/scale-and-display Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Many people who get involved with home automation for the first time start with configurable lighting, and then move to automating kitchen appliances. My most frequenly used kitchen appliance is a kettle, the obvious choice is to automate my kettle. It would have been easy enough to buy some random IoT-enabled kettle off the shelf, but where's the fun in that? https://sinclairstudios.net/connected-kettle Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Special pages Site map List of all articles About Sinclair Studios https://sinclairstudios.net/ Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:12:31 +1100 I'm hosting an offline-first home automation system at home, using Home Assistant as the hub on a Raspberry Pi. I have posted my Home Assistant config to Github for safe-keeping. https://sinclairstudios.net/home-automation Sat, 01 Aug 2020 00:59:20 +1000 IKEA's SYMFONISK and TRÅDFRI smart home products use Zigbee, so it's easy to integrate them into a home automation solution with a supported Zigbee hub. https://sinclairstudios.net/symfonisk-kodi-remote Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 My bedside lamp works pretty well, but it can be frustrating to use sometimes. Depending on the time of day or night, I often need to turn on the ceiling light to avoid stumbling around the bedroom, and then swap to the bedside lamp before I go to bed. In addition, it's difficult to keep the lamp at a sensible brightness, depending on how well my eyes have adjusted to the light. Smart globes make this easier, but opening up Home Assistant on my phone just to control the brightness is a hassle. https://sinclairstudios.net/bedside-lamp-button Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Have you ever waited so keenly for your mail to be delivered that you kept an eye on the mailbox all day, just waiting for the postie to arrive? This project aims to help with exactly that: Use sensors mounted in the mailbox to detect when new mail is deposited, and use it as a trigger to send a notification. https://sinclairstudios.net/mailbox-sensor Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 I've been working from home a lot more recently, so I've been opting to get packages delivered straight to my home instead of the office. Since I need to sign for some packages myself, I need a reliable way to hear when someone is at the door. Now they can press a button outside, which triggers a notification and plays a doorbell chime inside the house. https://sinclairstudios.net/doorbell Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Octopi is a 3D print management tool that runs on a Raspberry Pi. The Pi communicates with the printer via serial over USB to coordinate print jobs and report on their progress. https://sinclairstudios.net/octopi Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Sinclair Studios is the blog and tech playground of Tass Sinclair. Right now, it's set up as a blog following the TiddlyWiki pattern. https://sinclairstudios.net/about-sinclair-studios Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Apart from 3D Printing, I spend time tinkering with small devices like Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. https://sinclairstudios.net/hardware-and-iot Fri, 10 Apr 2020 23:46:07 +1000 Trout Bout is a set of 3D printable replacement pieces for "Hey, That's my Fish!", a simple strategy game for 2 to 4 players. The original game pieces (fish tiles and penguin tokens) seemed fairly simple, so I decided to design and print my own replacement game pieces. The intent of the project is to practice and improve my workflow of designing, printing and prototyping 3D printed game assets. https://sinclairstudios.net/trout-bout Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 My major printing projects so far are Trout Bout and Gem Hero (replacement game pieces), plus some smaller projects on my Thingiverse page. https://sinclairstudios.net/3d-printing Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Gem Hero is a set of 3D printable replacement pieces for "GemBlo", a simple strategy game for 2 to 6 players. The expanded edition "GemBlo Deluxe" is larger than the original and has 3D "gem" pieces, but it is unfortunately out of print and difficult to get a hold of. https://sinclairstudios.net/gem-hero Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 I'm developing an IoT device to act as a monitor for my clothesline, so it can identify when washing on the line is dry and ready to be brought back inside. The goal of this project is to get familiar with using remote Arduinos as independant IoT devices, and experiment with keeping them powered and reporting useful data while outside. https://sinclairstudios.net/clothesline-monitor Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 I wanted to reduce the number of manual steps on my prototyping workflow, so I set up OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi and connected it to my printer via USB. This was far easier than I expected, as the devices communicate by transmitting "gcode" commands over a virtual (USB) serial port. OctoPrint supports slicing on the device, but only using a preset Cura profile that I couldn't customise on-the-fly. Fortunately the Cura desktop app was enough to tweak the slicing options and export the gcode, which I could save and import directly into OctoPrint. https://sinclairstudios.net/trout-bout/printing Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 The tiles are hexagonal cylinders with an imprint of either one, two or three fish on the top side. Coloured inserts fit inside the tiles' underside cavities, to give the effect of brightly coloured fish trapped under a thin layer of ice. The fish themselves are just shapes cut through the ice tiles, making the inserts clearly visible. The inserts are slightly smaller than the cavity underneath the tile, in order to counter-act my printer's behaviour of printing objects slightly thicker than expected (due to coarse PLA layering). https://sinclairstudios.net/trout-bout/design Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 The Sinclair Studios site map is a simple "walk" through all of the linked articles, starting at the index root and traversing the rest of the tree. This process outputs a simple Graphviz> node map, which can be rendered as a finite state machine. Regenerating the site map only takes one step: Run the script that walks the tree (NodeJS), exports the graph, and builds the interactive svg (Graphviz). https://sinclairstudios.net/site-map-generation Mon, 05 Oct 2020 02:05:16 +1100 Prototyping effectively takes patience, to keep track of changes and measure how effective the changes are. I didn't experiment much with other settings (such as layer height, which I kept at 0.1mm) but I did compare the effectiveness of printing with a raft, skirt or brim. Rafts resulted in an inconsistent surface on the face of the tiles, and brims were difficult to trim effectively so I just used a skirt to expose any issues with the filament flow before starting on the main models. https://sinclairstudios.net/trout-bout/prototyping Thu, 09 Jan 2020 19:28:10 +1100 The IKEA LEDBERG lighting strip is a set of three 24v LED strips, which can be rewired to run directly from the 24v rail of the Cocoon Create Touch's power supply. https://sinclairstudios.net/ledberg-lighting Thu, 09 Jan 2020 18:58:41 +1100 Many 3D printers support printing over USB cable connection, by receiving and transmitting G-code commands and responses over a serial connection. In many cases you can get away with an FTDI driver that is available on most platforms. However, the Cocoon Create Touch uses a cheaper version of the chip that isn't supported, and needs to be tracked down and installed separately. https://sinclairstudios.net/cocoon-create-drivers-for-macos Fri, 22 Mar 2019 23:29:01 +1100 In previous websites, I've had trouble keeping up the motivation to build polished, atomic "blog posts" about specific topics. Overplanning the next piece of work gets in the way of publishing incrementally useful content. https://sinclairstudios.net/tiddlywiki Sun, 10 Feb 2019 23:17:11 +1100