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Getting Started with ESP8266 and MQTT

2019/06/17 in Arduino, Electronics, FastLED

Being able to control an Arduino remotely really ups our automation game. In the beginning, it was buttons and potentiometers and from there, we graduated to Infra Red remote control.

With the widespread availability of IoT (Internet of Things) functionality, we now have Internet connectivity to our Arduino compatible microcontrollers. One method is to setup our Arduino as a web server, and Jason Coon’s ESP8266 webserver is a prime example.

Another option is a messaging protocol called MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) which provides a lightweight method of controlling IoT devices, and in this case an ESP8266 based microcontroller.

This tutorial goes through the steps of setting up an Android phone and an ESP8266 based WeMOS D1 Mini with MQTT controls to turn the internal LED of the ESP8266 on and off.

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Finishing up Arduino Nano development and onto ESP8266

2019/05/14 in Arduino

At long last, after having spent far too much time developing routines for an 8 bit microcontroller that runs at 16MHz and with 2K of RAM, I’m now ready to move on to a better one. In the meantime, my routines focused on addressable LED strips and utilized:

  • FastLED display libraryshell
  • InfraRed Remote control library
  • Fast Fourier Transform library
  • TSOP38238  Infra Red Remote Control
  • ADMP401 MEMS microphone
  • WS2812 LED’s
  • APA102 LED’s

My Youtube page contains a lot of demos using this combination and is at: https://www.youtube.com/user/atuline/videos.

My github repository contains the source code for most of those demos and is at: https://github.com/atuline.

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Installing Minio as a Service on CentOS 7.3+

2017/06/25 in Computers, Linux, Web General

Introduction

This document outlines the procedures to install Minio as a Service on a new CentOS 7.3 Minimal server. It provides a little more detail to the procedures in the references at the bottom of this article.

My Test Environment

I’m using VirtualBox on a Windows 10 Workstation, with a fresh install of CentOS 7.3 Minimal. Also installed is a copy of Git Bash for Windows.

The reason I use Git Bash is because I can copy/paste text from the examples below into the Git Bash prompt.
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Cloudberry Backups to an SFTP server

2017/06/21 in Computers, Linux, Virtualization

Backing up your data to a Linux based SFTP server is an inexpensive method that separates network shares (which can be attacked by crypto viruses) from your backups. You can configure Cloudberry’s SFTP backups with either password based access or with a shared cryptographic key so that regular passwords aren’t used. This document provides steps on using both methods to access an SFTP server with Cloudberry Backup.

SFTP advantages:

  • Linux is easy to install.
  • Doesn’t require advanced hardware.
  • SFTP comes pre-configured with CentOS 7 server.
  • Can easily be run on a cloud server, such as Digital Ocean or Linode.
  • On systems with multiple mounted drives, you can specify the storage locations.

SFTP disadvantages:

  • Not as fast as some other protocols, such as Minio

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Looking to Sell my ASL Collection

2016/11/24 in Gaming

That would be my large collection of Advanced Squad Leader Modules. Feel free to email me at atuline@gmail.com for additional questions/offers.

I’m located just outside Vancouver, BC and you’re welcome to come over and have a look. Be prepared to hear ‘no thanks’ if you’re going to put in a lowball offer in order to get a ‘deal’.

Another challenge is that a lot of modules have been punched and are in the common containers, so putting them back with their original box is next to impossible.

Oh, and did you see Maps 42 and 43? Yep, those are originals.

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Dusting off the Arduino Cobwebs

2016/03/24 in Arduino, FastLED

As you get older, it takes a bit of time to get back up to speed on things. In this case, I hadn’t been programming the Arduino with the FastLED display library for a few months and I started to get back into it. When I last left, I’d standardized and documented my wiring colours, pinouts and to use either the Arduino Nano or the Pro Micro. So far so good, as it was all nicely laid out for me.

I had a spare Nano kicking around, so I attached it to my USB port, started up the Arduino 1.6.3 IDE and loaded a basic FastLED program. The Nano was recognized as a Com port in the IDE (so I didn’t have clone FTDI issues to contend with), checked the code and started to program it. Despite several attempts, the code never did upload so I put the Nano aside.

Next, I got out a previously used Pro Micro and I immediately encountered driver issues with it. Remembering that I had to use Leonardo drivers, I fiddled around for half an hour with drivers, but never did get it recognized correctly. Let’s toss that aside as well.

Finally, I opened up a brand new Pro Micro, installed it, and saw that it was immediately recognized. At that point, I threw out the Nano and the first Pro Micro (I’m not very sentimental). I then programmed it up, and . . . nothing happened. I re-checked the wiring and the code a couple of times, and again, no LED’s. I then added some debug code for the serial monitor and saw that the Pro Micro was indeed being programmed correctly. I then triple checked the wiring and saw that I’d soldered part of the insulation to the data pin and had no connection. After the insulation was removed and the connection re-soldered, I tried again, but alas, no lights. Things weren’t going well today.

I checked the wiring thoroughly and saw (barely) that the data wire was also sliced halfway down its length, so I cut the wiring below the slice and then soldered that to the Pro Micro. At long last, the LED’s came on as expected and I’m now back (tentatively) in the FastLED environment.

Moral of the story: Check everything. Several times.

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