Photons, Electrons, and Dirt

The lighted tree in the video above gets both the power and data for its RGB LED pixels using a single Ethernet cable. Power for the pixels is supplied from an Ethernet switch using the 802.3at PoE+ standard. Data for the pixels comes from software running on a PC that generates Art-Net packets at 40 Hz. Each Art-Net packet contains the RGB levels for all the pixels on the tree. Let’s take a closer look at the technical details and how this tree came into existence.

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The finished project.

In the first post in this series, we designed a socket and driver board for a Dalibor Farny R|Z568M Nixie tube. In the the second post in this series, we designed a power supply and controller board for the Nixie tube. In the third and final post in this series, we’re going to design an enclosure to hold both boards and the Nixie tube.

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The Nixie tube connected to the socket / driver board and the socket / driver board connected to the upside down power / controller board.

The first in this series of posts described building a socket and driver board for a Dalibor Farny R|Z568M Nixie tube and driving the tube using a power supply and Particle Photon from another Nixie project. This post covers building a power supply and controller board that mounts underneath the socket and driver board to power the Nixie tube and control the displayed digits.

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I recently ordered one of Dalibor Farny’s R|Z568M Nixie tubes. I wanted to get the tube powered up and displaying digits so I designed a small circuit board to act as a socket and switch the anode and digit cathodes on and off. This board will connect later to another board containing a 170 volt power supply and a microcontroller via some headers. Read on to find out more about the design of the socket and switch board.

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Hanging a bunch of iColor Flex LMX string lights on the house for Halloween. These are quite visible even though it’s still daylight out!

Back in the early 2000’s–at least a decade before there were Neopixels or WS2812b LEDs–Color Kinetics introduced flexible color changing LED string lights. Each string contained fifty RGB color changing nodes. Each node contained an RGB LED and a custom ASIC. The nodes were strung along at either 4″ or 12″ spacing along a three conductor cable. The cable connected back to a power data supply that powered the nodes and translated the light level data from either DMX-512 or Ethernet UDP packets into the proprietary protocol used by the nodes. Today we’re going to reverse engineer that proprietary protocol.

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The completed USB volume knob. The 3D printed enclosure houses a custom board design, a PIC16F1459 microcontroller, and an optical encoder. The knob itself is an aluminum off-the-shelf component from TE Connectivity.

The PIC16F1459 is proving to be quite the versatile part when it comes to building USB devices. Previously, I’ve used it to upgrade my giant keyboard, various flavors of one-key keyboards, a USB-controlled industrial stack light, and an annoying CAPS LOCK warning buzzer.  In this project, I’m going to use the PIC16F1459 to build a USB volume knob that works similarly to the volume keys on some USB keyboards. Read on to find out more about the design of the USB volume knob.

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Some new additions to the annoying caps lock warning buzzer (circled in green).

In my first post on the Annoying CAPS LOCK Warning Buzzer, I concluded with a list of future improvements to make to the project. Those updates are now implemented and the Annoying CAPS LOCK Warning Buzzer is more robust than ever. Read on to find out more about the improvements.

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The business end of a horizontal drilling machine’s drill head.

In part one of this series of posts, we covered the broadband launch, the start of construction in my neighborhood, the vaults and flowerpots, utility locates and dig ins, and conduit. In part two, we’re going to look at putting the conduit in the ground using horizontal directional drilling and then we’ll continue to document everything as construction moves forward. Read on to hear more about the process as the build in my neighborhood continues.

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The only way to make CAPS LOCK even more annoying was to make it audible! Now never type a password in all upper case, join 500 lines together in vi, or turn a harmless forum post into an ANGRY SCREED without warning again! This project uses a PIC16F1459 to monitor the USB output report containing the CAPS LOCK status from the connected PC. When CAPS LOCK is enabled, the PIC turns on an annoying warning buzzer. Read on to build your own.

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Splice vault. Bicycle not included. Notice the fancy Fort Collins Connexion and City of Fort Collins logos?

This post if the first in a series of post that describe the installation of the Fort Collins Connexion municipal broadband service. I’ll append new information to the bottom of the post whenever something happens on my street. When the post gets too long, I’ll start a new post. Work has been going on in the northwest corner of my neighborhood since the end of July. It’s only in the last week that activity has started happening on my street. Read on to hear more about the process.

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