Jefferoonie's Tinkering Blog

Friday, December 29, 2017

Raspberry Pi 3 Experimentation

I've always wanted a Raspberry PI, but I have never bought one for myself, because I didn't have any plans. I still do not have any plans, but it will be fun to tinker with, so bear with me.

My father in law gave me one, for Christmas, along with a bunch of goodies to tinker with.

Toys used so far:

Raspberry Pi 3,Model B, 1gb RAM
Kuman 5 inch Resistive Touch Screen 800x480 HDMI TFT LCD Display
Kuman RPI Powerpack v1.2
Rii H9S Mini 2.4Ghz Wireless Keyboard

Pi booted into Raspbian, and checking out the command prompt:

As you can see, the screen is chopped off, on the right side.

I order to remedy this, I added the following to [/boot/config.txt]:

hdmi_group=2

hdmi_mode=87

hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

Pi Assembled to Kuman RPI Powerpack:

Utilizing GPIO Extension Board:

This board is where the real fun/experimentation starts. Yes, I like to start small.

Python script to test the LED:

## Import GPIO library
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

## Use BCM (more later) pin numbering
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) 
GPIO.setup(5, GPIO.OUT) 
GPIO.output(5, False)

Ended up moving this onto something that was more self contained:

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

TI-99/4A & Woods WiOn IOT Home Automation Testing

So, I decided that I would expand on this past experiment:
Woods WiOn Indoor Wi-Fi Outlet Modification (Amazon Echo Too!)

***NOTE*** This is a work in progress, and who knows where it will go as it is just BSing around.

I wrote a different program, utilizing the Arduino IDE, that would allow my TI-99/4A to make a connection to this device, utilizing Stuart's Web Browser.

WiOn_TI99 ESP8266 Arduino Code:

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <WiFiClient.h>
#include <ESP8266WebServer.h>
#include <ESP8266mDNS.h>

const char* ssid = "FrogFi";
const char* password = "**********";

ESP8266WebServer server(80);

const int relay = 15;

void handleRoot() { 
  Serial.println("test");
  server.send(200, "text/html", "<99ml><p>TEST</p></99ml>");
}
void handleNotFound(){
  digitalWrite(relay, 1);
  String message = "<99ml><p>File Not Found</p></99ml>";
  message += "URI: ";
  message += server.uri();
  message += "\nMethod: ";
  message += (server.method() == HTTP_GET)?"GET":"POST";
  message += "\nArguments: ";
  message += server.args();
  message += "\n";
  for (uint8_t i=0; i<server.args(); i++){
    message += " " + server.argName(i) + ": " + server.arg(i) + "\n";
  }
  server.send(404, "text/plain", message);
  digitalWrite(relay, 0);
}

void setup(void){
  pinMode(relay, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(relay, 0);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
  Serial.println("");

  // Wait for connection
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }
  Serial.println("");
  Serial.print("Connected to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);
  Serial.print("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());

  if (MDNS.begin("esp8266")) {
    Serial.println("MDNS responder started");
  }

  server.on("/", handleRoot);

  server.on("/on", [](){
    server.send(200, "text/html", "<99ml><p>ON</p></99ml>");
    digitalWrite(relay, 1);
  });

  server.on("/off", [](){
    server.send(200, "text/plain", "<99ml><p>OFF</p></99ml>");
    digitalWrite(relay, 0);
  });

  server.onNotFound(handleNotFound);

  server.begin();
  Serial.println("HTTP server started");
}

void loop(void){
  server.handleClient();
}

I did run into some problems, that I am still working through. This little web-server not being kind to the older & slower TI.

I figured this out by utilizing telnet. I would telnet into port 80, on the device, and I noticed that it didn't give very much time to issue HTTP commands like: [GET / HTTP/1.1]

I have been working though the timing by messing with ESP8266WebServer.h, that is part of the esp8266/Arduino libraries.

ESP8266WebServer.h

...

#define HTTP_DOWNLOAD_UNIT_SIZE 1460
#define HTTP_UPLOAD_BUFLEN 2048
#define HTTP_MAX_DATA_WAIT 1000 //ms to wait for the client to send the request
#define HTTP_MAX_POST_WAIT 1000 //ms to wait for POST data to arrive
#define HTTP_MAX_CLOSE_WAIT 200 //ms to wait for the client to close the connection

...

HTTP_MAX_DATA_WAIT is the value that seems to give the TI some time.

I noticed the ESP8266WebServer.h out in the GitHub project has some more timing settings:

GitHub esp8266/Arduino ESP8266WebServer.h

I may want to upgrade the packages that I am using.

The good news is, I was able to turn a lamp on, from my TI-99/4A. :)

It is probably a better idea to have a modern server talk to the ESP8266 devices, and have the TI go through that. That would allow more devices, and a centralized website created for all of them. It would also eliminate having to play around with the timing on these.

Friday, April 29, 2016

Woods WiOn Indoor Wi-Fi Outlet Modification (Amazon Echo Too!)

I've acquired one of these smart device controlled outlets. It's really cool. You can turn 120v devices on and off, remotely, from your mobile device.

Modified WiOn:

I decided to open it up to see what is inside. I noticed that it uses the same module as the Adafruit Industries HUZZAH ESP8266 breakout board, that I happened to have bought last year.

I had to add the wiring, and push button, that would allow me to reprogram this device via USB. I specifically utilized the Arduino IDE.

Pinout:

Digital Spaces Traveler Under Linux & Wine

This is about my experience running Traveler under Wine/Xubuntu. This is not an installation manual or instructions of any sort. This is mostly my notes, that I figured others may be able to find useful.

Commands run to get Wine ready for Traveler in XUbuntu 12.04 & mint-xfce 14:

winetricks mfc42

Commands run if Traveler under Wine gets unruly:

wineserver -k

Keep in mind that this will kill everything running under Wine.

Desktop Shortcut:

Out of the box the traveler link did not work for me. This is because traveler was installed under Program Files (x86). You may not have this problem.

I created a new launcher pointing to:
wine '/home/userprofile/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/DSTrav/apps/traveler.exe'

I also converted the icon file to a png to make it easier to use on my desktop:

Or the even more retro icon:

Audio:
The volume level for Traveler (or Wine) was substantially quieter than the rest of my system. Thankfully pavucontrol lets you adjust the volume for applications discreetly.