Notes
When I repair or modify stuff, I often document it with photos and notes. If this is something others may benefit from, I usually create a post and publish it here.
There are 19 articles in this section:
Getting into Meshtastic with Orange Pi Zero 3 and E22-900M30S LoRa module
Testing a Meshtastic node with an Orange Pi Zero 3 and an E22-900M30S (SX1262) LoRa module. I describe Armbian, SPI, GPIO configuration, and building an 868 MHz ground-plane antenna.
FFmpeg under Debian with NVIDIA NVDEC (CUVID) and NVENC support
A quick guide for FFmpeg with NVIDIA GPU support on Debian 13, including compilation and examples of hardware-accelerated video transcoding.
Modification of AC voltage/current/power meters for variacs
Inexpensive AC voltage/current/power meters can be modified to work with a variable autotransformer even at very low output voltages by separating their measurement and supply voltages. I present the modification of meters: Peacefair PZEM-020 and Sinotimer SPM003.
ABBYY FineReader 6 no-hardware-dongle hack. Investigating Rainbow/SafeNet iKey 1000 software protection dongle
Leveraging the deterministic nature of the rand() function, I successfully created a no-dongle crack for an ancient version of ABBYY FineReader 6.
Engraving wooden cutting boards with Dremel CNC
Tips for engraving bamboo cutting boards with a Dremel CNC and F-Engrave software. I gathered the properties, such as feed rate, that worked for me.
Kobo Sage e-reader tricks
Replacing a broken battery in the Kobo PowerCover.
Usual and unusual ways to connect I2C device to the PC computer
Listing various possible ways to connect I2C devices to computers, including USB adapters, video interfaces, and direct motherboard integration.
Buderus 2107 as an electric water heater controller
I adapted a Buderus oil furnace controller to operate an electric immersion heater as a temporary solution for domestic hot water (DHW) in my house.
Installation of Webasto Thermo Top Evo heater in Mercedes-Benz W124
Detailed writeup of installation of Webasto Thermo Top Evo auxiliary heater in '94 MB W124. Contains some quirks like using W-BUS emulator and fooling the heater to use already-present circulation pump instead of separate one.
Extracting security codes from old car radios
I needed to determine the security code for the Becker Europa 2000 radio commonly installed in Mercedes-Benz W124. I dumped the contents of an internal EEPROM via I2C and read the code.
Constant 3.3 V power supply on Baofeng UV-5R/UV-5X microphone connector mod
An easy hack for Baofeng UV-5R/UV-5X replaces the dual-PTT functionality with a constant 3.3 V on the 3.5 mm jack tip. This is useful for microphones that require additional power.
Eavesdropping on USB communication for reverse-engineering using Wireshark and VirtualBox and writing a user-space driver in Python
If you have an unusual USB device that comes with its own Windows application, chances are that Linux software for it does not exist. What if I told you that it is fairly easy to examine USB communication with Wireshark and write the driver in Python?
How to convert MS Word for DOS documents to modern format
I demonstrate how to use the WinWord Converter API and Application Note GC1039 to convert MS Word for DOS and other legacy formats to well-supported RTF format. I provide an example application and describe the process of conversion in detail.
Compiling C++ application for Windows target under Linux
Setting up a C++ development environment for a Windows target under Linux may be tricky. To simplify the process, I provide a CMake project suitable for using Mingw-w64 under CLion and running the application in Wine.
USB mass storage on MS-DOS
Despite the fact that DOS lacks native USB support, it is definitely possible to run a USB flash drive under MS-DOS with USBASPI drivers.
Reading data from old MiniScribe hard disk
I managed to read the data from '84 MFM hard drive MiniScribe 2012 by plugging its controller into the AT motherboard with ISA slots. The data was successfully copied to USB flash memory.
Determining the pinout of the unknown vacuum fluorescent display
Once-ubiquitous vacuum fluorescent displays are easy to reverse-engineer. Their mysterious green glow complements retro-styled devices well. In this tutorial, I show a simple technique to determine the pinout of an unknown vacuum fluorescent display.
Everything I know about Vittorazi Easy/Evo 100 paramotor
All the information available on the Vittorazi Easy 100 paramotor engine, including bearing sizes, gasket sizes, and conservation considerations.
ThinkPad X41 SATA SSD Mod – ditching the old 1.8″ PATA hard drive
I removed the SATA-to-PATA bridge and soldered the SSD directly onto the SATA lines.