Tech

With a notebook full of ideas and a desire to share them, this section of the website is devoted to getting these ideas out there. The project are in development and so will be updated over time as they mature. Where possible all project files have been included or at least links provided to locations where they are currently residing.

I should also acknowledge that these project make a lot of use of other open technologies such as the Arduino microcontroller, Blender, Inkscape, and many other sources too numerous to mention. I feel I am standing on the backs of giants and I want to say thanks for all their work that makes my work possible.

The projects described are;

ROV

A small remote operated undersea vehicle intended to be a cheap device to allow inspections of undersea installations down to a depth of 50m.

LED Array Dimmer Circuit

This project was conceived for providing dimming control for an array of LEDs used to illuminate the pages of a book scanner. It is a standalone device and makes use of commonly available components. Pulse Width Modulation is used to adjust the perceived LED brightness.

An Arduino Based Solar Water Heater Controller

You come home from holiday and find your solar water heater controller has lost its mind and thinks hot summer temperatures require frost protection. What do you do? This was a good excuse the ditch the useless Senztek controller and replace it with an Arduino based controller. This block of articles describes and details the project of designing, building, installing, and commissioning a new home-built controller.

Temperature Controller for Rising Bread and Brewing Yoghurt

When you need something to maintain something at a moderate temperature for an extended time, then this Arduino Based circuit may be what you’re looking for.

DataPond - A Data Driven Music Generator

DataPond is a python script that takes an image and processes it into a Lilypond text file from which a printed musical score can be produced as well as a MIDI file. It could be adapted to work with any data source. This web article explains how it works, how to use it, gives some examples of the outputs, and provide the codes and a Linux, and Windows Binary version.

MCP121 Based Solar Engine BEAMbot

One of my first introductions to the wonders of electronics was a book on BEAMbots. It featured a Miller Solar Engine for driving solar racers. Unfortunately the 1381 Voltage supervisor chip the solar engine was based on was very hard to find and is now impossible to get. So I decided to try to develop an alternative solar engine using a similar type of voltage detector chip. I finally found the MCP121 series of Voltage Supervisors which will run a solar engine. This article describes the circuit using this chip.

Propeller Experiments

This is a small project to investigate 3D Printed Propellers for RC Aircraft. The propellers are generated by an OpenSCAD parametric model which gives control over the diameter, pitch, number of blades, blade airfoils, and a host of other features.

This article also describes a test rig for testing different configurations of propellers and presents some results.

FrankenVinci - How to Resurrect your Dead Da Vinci 3D Printer with a RAMPS Controller

You, like many others have an XYZPrinting Da Vinci 3D printer which has died and you’d rather not send it to the tip. Here’s a project description and associated files that may help you raise your 3D printer from the ashes and allow it to run on any Opensource 3D printer software, and any filament.

Battery Discharge Tester

If you are like me, you have a bunch of rechargable batteries kicking around some of which are good and others which are stuffed. This battery discharge tester is a device for discharging the batteries in a controlled manner to identify which batteries need a bit of TLC.

LED Desklamp Hack

This is a simple project to upgrade some cheap LED desklamps for use in stopmotion. The upgrade gives them variable brightness and removes the rechargable battery packs so they can be supplied from any external power supply.

Timelapse Camera Slide - Version 2

This describes a project to build an Arduino controlled Timelapse Camera Slide. It makes use of 3D printed pieces and electronics that were originally for a 3D Printer of my own design. Now repurposed.

The original design can be found in this article. Camera Slide From 3DPrinter Bits

Quadcopter V2

This is the second edition of my Quadcopter described below that somewhat improves the aircraft’s resilience in a “hard landing”.

Quadcopter V1

Originally inspired by an article in the Tech Life magazine and drawing on elements of the Aeroquad project this quadcopter is designed to be a reasonably robust FPV (First Person View) platform.

A Small DeltaWing with 3D Printed Bits

A simple DIY DeltaWing project making use of Coreflute board and waste polystyrene.

A Scale Model of the Solar System for Wellington

This was originally going to be a geocache series around the Wellington (NZ) region but grew somewhat. The intention was to turn it into an educational attraction for the region to celebrate science and scientific achievement. Despite great support from the Hutt City Council, GNS, The Phoenix Astronomical Society, and Resene, I was unable to get the necessary agreements from some of the other stakeholders to proceed with this project (at least with myself at the helm).

Hot Water Cylinder Timer

This is a weekend and holiday aware timer for enabling and disabling hot water cylinders.

A Homebuilt Virtual Reality System

The project is a work in progress. It describes a home built VR system based on the Quanum FPV headset used for FPV piloting of remote controlled aircraft, and making use of the GY87 10 degree of Freedom sensor to provide head tracking. It is envisaged this will be coupled to a computer running a game engine like Blender, Unity or Godot which will allow the user to build and share their own virtual environments.

If you have a burning question please use the methods of contacting me noted on the About Me page. I cannot guarantee that I will answer.

Thanks for visiting – Hamish Trolove

Note:

All of the projects described in this section are issued under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Please follow the link to gain a detailed description of what this means. In a nut-shell it can be summarised as;

You are free to:

• Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
• Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material.

but you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made should you decide to share the designs. The other requirements are;

• NonCommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
• No additional restrictions - You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

The brief description above was more or less taken from the creativecommons.org website.