Author Archives: Glen

USB Knob Box Doubles as a Blackmagic Designs Camera Remote

I have a Blackmagic Designs Micro Studio Camera I wanted to use as a webcam for video conferences. Even with a 16mm sensor, it has better quality than any small sensor webcam. The only issue is all the exposure and … Continue reading

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The Interesting Multiplexing Scheme of the Grass Valley Series 300 Crosspoint Switch Panel

After reverse engineering parts of a Grass Valley Kalypso video switcher control panel and after making a YouTube video describing how I modified a Grass Valley Series 300 transition logic panel to be a USB peripheral, it was time to … Continue reading

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USB Panel Meters Enclosure and Windows 10 App

In the first part of this project, I acquired four round HUA SO-45 10 mA analog panel meters and built a board to control them over USB as a vendor-defined USB HID device. The next steps in this project are … Continue reading

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Converting More Vintage Grass Valley Hardware to USB

In this project, I convert two panels from a vintage Grass Valley video switcher into general-purpose USB input and output devices without modifying the original panels. This project required both reverse engineering the hardware and deciphering the software protocols used … Continue reading

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Converting a Vintage Grass Valley Button Panel to USB Using the Silicon Labs EFM8UB1

In this project, I convert a set of illuminated push buttons from a vintage Grass Valley video mixer into a custom vendor-defined USB HID peripheral. Like the USB analog panel meters project, this project uses a Silicon Labs EFM8UB1 microcontroller … Continue reading

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Building a Set of USB-Controlled Analog Panel Meters Using the Silicon Labs EFM8UB1

I’ve always liked the way these little HUA SO-45 analog panel meters looked, but, given the long lead times from China, I’ve never ordered a set. This fall, I changed my mind and finally decided to order a set. While … Continue reading

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The Single USB RGB LED

This project is a single RGB LED that is controlled over USB using a command line interface from a serial terminal window. A PIC16F1459 microcontroller implements the USB communications device class (CDC), processes the commands received from the user, and controls a single APA106-F8 8mm round RGB LED. Continue reading

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Mopidy Music Server Remote Control

After wiring the house for a Dante digital audio network and building the Spotify and Pandora Wireless Remote Track / Artist / Album Display project, I decided the next thing needed to fix up my music listening experience was a … Continue reading

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Spotify and Pandora Wireless Remote Track / Artist / Album Display

I use Pandora and Spotify a lot–typically from 7 in the morning until 11 at night. I got frustrated with the Spotify and Pandora apps on my Pixel 2 and their inability to find and control my Chromecast Audio players … Continue reading

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An Isolated RS-422 / RS-485 Shield for the Automation Direct P1AM-100 Open-Source PLC

The RS-422 / RS-485 shield is an open source shield designed to add RS-422 and RS-485 communication capabilities to the ProductivityOpen family of open-source programmable logic controllers (PLC’s) from Automation Direct. It’s loosely based on the Arduino MKR RS-485 shield … Continue reading

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