In 2016 I got to explore a few things, here is a quick summary.
| Project/Activity | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Building and Testing Audio Cables | The year was kicked off with an investigation into audio cables and jack plug connectors and how to solder them and how to test cables for immunity to noise pick-up. |  |
| Non-FTDI USB-to-UART Serial | Very unhappy with FTDI / Bridgetek, I looked around at the competition and made a table of alternative offerings. (An open hardware non-FTDI USB-UART was created towards the end of last year). |  |
| Raspberry Pi 3 Cooling / Heat Sink Ideas | Cooling options for the (at the time) new Pi 3 were investigated. This was really a collaborative effort from many people, includingbwelsby and cstanton and others. The actual investigation from me was quite short, but the comments section is where everyone supplied their findings and ideas. |  |
| Cisco Live 2016 in Berlin | This is a collection of photos and some videos of a few of the interesting things at the show. |  |
| Southern Manufacturing and Electronics Show | A small taste of what was at the show; it is definitely worth a visit. |  |
| Building a Temperature Measurement System | I started a project for a temperature measurement system using a thermistor. Although not complete, the front end is finished and tested, providing an analog output for the temperature measurement system. It is usable with a multimeter until the data acquisition portion of the design is complete. |  |
Keysight U1282AU1282A Multimeter RoadTest | For a Road Test I investigated the U1282AU1282A multimeter It proved very useful for a multitude of tasks including to finely examine the Pi 3's power consumption dynamically and to observe laser power |  |
| Raspberry Pi 7 inch Display and Enclosure | Some simple mods to improve the enclosure to suit the 7-inch display |  |
| HAL-CAM 9001 'modern security camera' project and Power over Ethernet (PoE) capability | The HAL-CAM 9001 project was started with a colleague. The hardware is complete, and we were able to refine it with PoE capability. The software still needs polishing and publishing will commence soon. |  |
IoT RoadTests: | Four RoadTests covered end-to-end IoT solutions using several different cloud IoT platforms and a range of hardware. |  |
| Engineer's Multi-Tool project | The Engineer's Multi-Tool was a short, fun project that integrated some simple test tools into a single pocket-sized unit. |  |
| Knipex Ferrule Crimping Pliers review | This was an opportunity to test the tool and see how ferrules could be used. |  |
| SMT Pick-and-Place Buddy | A project that is still ongoing (but is complete enough to function) is the SMT Pick-and-Place Buddy, used to position surface mount parts on a PCB speedily. It will be enhanced with software features in an attempt to improve productivity when building circuit boards. |  |
| Thermal Imaging System with Raspberry Pi 3 and Panasonic Grid-EYE | The last thing for this year (so far) is an investigation into the Panasonic Grid-EYE that was part of a Road Test and used it to build a thermal imaging system with the Pi 3 and Sense HAT, with a web browser-based interface for higher resolution. |  |
That's it! I hope we all do lots of things we find interesting next year too.
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