Photons, Electrons, and Dirt

The completed music server 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 reliably. I also wanted a quick way to identify new songs or artists I heard without having to find my phone and open an app.

To solve these problems, I moved my music playing ecosystem to Linux and installed a wired Dante digital audio network for audio distribution. Finally I built a retro 14-segment, scrolling, always-on LED display that I could quickly glance at to discover what song was playing without having to find my phone and open an app.

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The completed 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 but updated to use an ADM2582E 3.3 V isolated RS-485 transceiver from Analog Devices. The completed shield fits inside the P1AM-PROTO prototyping enclosure.

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Inside my first add-on module for the P1AM-100 open source PLC. Two optically-isolated inputs, two relay outputs, a display, a half-duplex RS-485 transceiver, and a serial EEROM with a MAC address for the Ethernet module. The enclosure and headers are included in the P1AM-PROTO prototyping module. Not shown is the lid of the enclosure.

In January 2020, Automation Direct launched their ProductivityOpen family of open-source programmable logic controllers (PLC’s). The first controller in the series, the P1AM-100, is based on the Microchip ATSAMD21 microcontroller and programmed using the Arduino development environment. To encourage development, they launched a prototyping module alongside the controller. The prototyping module consists of a piece of perfboard, the required connectors, and a housing.

I was already familiar with Automation Direct and their PLC and pneumatic products after building my crate beast and zombie containment unit Halloween props a few years ago. I was intrigued by this new controller from a familiar company, the CPU selection, and the possibility of building my own modules that could tie in to the controller for future projects. I set out to build a couple of add-on modules but first needed to take a closer look at the controller and its available add-ons.

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After four years of hard work, hundreds of hours of volunteer time, and taking on and winning against one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, Colin got his Fort Collins Connexion gigabit fiber service installed today! Congratulations, Colin!

Note: if you missed my first two posts on the Connexion construction process, here are links to part one and part two. Things have been pretty quiet in my neighborhood this past month and a half. The only activity since fiber was pulled in late December has been a few technicians digging around in vaults. In northeast Fort Collins neighborhoods, however, service is going live. Let’s take a closer look at having service installed.

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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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