Server Upgrade | Pictures!

Alright so the build works, here are a bunch of pictures!

The final setup!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Accessing both SPI ports on the raspberry pi using python

Turns out it’s not that hard at all! Here’s a video of the whole thing working:

This basically works around concepts I first explained here. It’s still really cool though! SPI is really fast and really easy to use, perfect for a novice like me.

Here are the physical representations and schematics of the setup seen on my desk:

Images generated by fritzing.

Here’s the code that makes it all work!

Here is some further reading:

http://www.megaleecher.net/sites/default/files/images/raspberry-pi-rev2-gpio-pinout.jpg

http://hertaville.com/2013/07/24/interfacing-an-spi-adc-mcp3008-chip-to-the-raspberry-pi-using-c/

http://tightdev.net/SpiDev_Doc.pdf

Thanks for reading!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Using a pair of Arduinos to mimic a keyboard

Here’s a video:

So in my last post I showed you a way that I used a single arduino to talk to a Raspberry Pi (or any other computer) over HID. I’ve updated the project a bit and now I can input any number of things into the pi. Basically this is how it works.

Serial Console on computer -> Arduino Mega -> software serial port -> Arduino micro -> HID on other second computer (in this case the Pi)

There are two buttons that handle pressing the enter key and the delete key as those are hard to send over serial.

There are a few bits of relevant code, both for the arduino. Here’s the mega’s code:

And here’s the side for the arduino micro, that writes as an HID.

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Me Update

Hi guys!

So here’s the deal. I left for college about a week ago. I’m here now, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to continue doing this kind of stuff at the rate I’ve been doing it lately.

There will defiantly still be content on this website, I plan on continuing this thing until I physically can’t so no worries there.

I’ll keep you posted, thanks for reading.

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Multiple Project Update

Hi guys

So I’ve been eeking out all that I can of my last few days of summer, and there hasn’t been much rain or bad weather at all. As a result, I’m not posting much at all.

Doesn’t mean I’m not working though, I’ve been doing a couple things.

First thing’s first my speaker is done. I just need to get a bunch of video edited, and a big post written.

Secondly I’m still working really hard on my dead simple flickr uploader (dsfu). The cool thing about this project is that it has the potential to be very useful to quite a number of people, so I’m trying to make sure that it is very stable, and very easy to duplicate. This means for the most part I’ve been doing a series of 4000+ photo uploads trying to break my script. It’s happened a lot, and you can check my twitter feed to see my brain melt as I try and figure out the problem. This project won’t necessarily be “complete” until I have a 3D printer at my disposal to create the enclosure I want.

As for the PiPlanter, it’s still a work in progress. The update I did with my last post was a start to something really complete it is in no way finished. I still need to move the camera, and the plants.

Thanks for reading!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Pi Uploader | Reliable Batch Uploads to Flickr

Here’s a video:

So basically the program indexes every single file on the SD card and then starts a scheduled interval process to upload them every single upload to flickr every 20 seconds. From there, it creates a set and indexes all of the upload responses and then walks though that list and adds each photo to that list. Then it emails the set URL with some other data.

I had a lot of problems with the flickr API timing out, and solved this problem by using APscheduler (easily my favorite package). You can see a more in depth chronicling my struggle on my twitter account.

I really want this project to be polished so I probably won’t be done with it for a while. I want to like 3D print a really nice looking enclosure and use a lot of panel mount components.

Here’s the python script:

Thanks for reading!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

PiPlanter | Big Overhaul Update

Okay! So I leave for college in less than 30 days, but I’d like to make sure my tomatoes to continue to grow once I leave so I’ve taken some steps to make sure that my departure goes smoothly.

Here’s a video of my revised setup:

There are a few key differences between this setup and my previous one:

The main one is that the watering system has been 100% re-vamped. The water distribution happens via a hose with holes in it instead of using the tray at the bottom of the plant grid in the previous video.

It also takes, uploads and tweets a picture of itself using a raspberry pi camera module.

It also creates a new mysql table every two weeks, and in turn, renders a new kind of graph. The renderscript.php file receives an argument from the python script which is the table code.

Here’s the python script:

Here’s the .php script:

Thank you for reading!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Twitter

So I’ve decided that it doesn’t make sense for me to make little tiny posts on here, so I’ve migrated my thoughts on development to twitter at: www.twitter.com/eso_logic

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Pi Uploader | Updating Code for Mounting and Mounting Capabilities

This program can now handle mounting and unmounting the SD card on /mnt/SD (you will have to make that dir with root privileges)

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

Pi Uploader | Uploading and Photoset population with Flickr

Here’s a video!

So now, when in Flickr Upload mode, the program will:

1. Walk through all Sub-Directories and find every image file

2. Upload all of those photos to Flickr

3. Get the photo ID’s of each of those photos and then index them into a list

4. Use that list to create a Photoset (Flickr’s equivalent of a Photo Album) named after the time the photos were uploaded.

As I said in the video, I want eventually (if the weather stays this bad, tomorrow) add email functionality to the program so it will send the user an email when all of the photos have been uploaded / the set of those photos.

Here’s the source used in the video:

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.