High quality work in progress render. Working on textures and mapping at this moment.
Author: Henri Keinonen
3D modeling with Blender (Part Two)
My current far more complicated project is full featured short animation that places in a dark neglected space station inspired by Solaris (1972) and Space odyssey 2001.
I am making and improving this project as it progress and as I learn more. Read More …
3D modeling with Blender (Part One)
I found new hobby in form of 3D models. I have previously tested blender, but have not done anything productive with it. Now I finally got time and determination to learn more of using it to make something wort of sharing. I have now been playing and experimenting with Blender about couple of weeks and I already have bigger project in my mind. Read More …
New toys
I “found” some old DELL PowerEdge 2850 rack servers. 2x 3.2Ghz intel xeon (P4 generation), 8GB memory, and bunch of 146GB and 74GB SCSI HDDs.
I don’t have use for these yet, but maybe something comes up.
How to fix moody Arduino nano
Apparently I’m not the only one that have had problems with a Arduino (clone) nano’s USB connection. Usually it works ok but sometimes, particularly when an external power input is used, a FTDI chip inside the Arduino does not want to be detected by computer. This is bug made by the original Arduino developers to their schematics, and can be easily fixed afterwards if there is odd troubles with it. Read More …
C64 XA1541 Cable
The XA1541 cable is adapter often used to connect C64s 1541 floppy drive to more modern PC equipment. It connects to PC parallel port, and special software bitbangs IEC commands and data to 1541 drive. Old 386 laptop is used due lack of parallel port in modern computers.
VFD Returns!
I dug out my old VFD display project. This time I got some text showing up and prototype ready to be even bolted in some enclosure. I started with sawing piece of from original display controller as I didn’t bother to make PCB to house VFD screen, and all needed IC:s and connections were already there. Removing piece from 2mm fiberglass board is not easy task when your only tools are couple of hobby knives. But sawing boards with hacksaw would have caused more nasty fiberglass mess. Read More …
UART to RS232 voltage level shifter
Sometimes I find myself in need of interface some old tech that uses legacy RS232 interface. The thing is today’s computers and other smart logics do not have real TIA-232 compliant serial ports. The RS232 standard uses voltage levels that range from ±3V to ±15V, and space between -3V and +3V is defined as not valid. And a logic 1 is transmitted as negative voltage.
Even though use of RS232 ports are seldom use anymore, an asynchronous serial communication is not dead. Many embedded systems use it as debug interface. Also some devices still use it as communication interface, even if physical layer is implemented with USB or Bluetooth. Read More …
Saleae Logic analyzer knock-off
Postman (or woman) brought envelope containing Chinese Saleae Logic analyzer today. Lets see if fierce 20€ price is justified for this plastic brick. I also tried to reverse engineer one Sony VAIO wireless keyboard which may be more difficult that it first seemed. Read More …
Still ticking
Still ticking
Front panel awaits to be replaced with aluminum panel, if I ever get it somehow machined.
Watch project
Top (final?)
Bottom (final?)
Real size printout
Real size paper model on wrist
Display showing random data
LED Display
Bottom SMD (v2)
Top SMD
Bottom trough-hole (v1)
Top trough-hole (v1)
Schematics
Happy birthday
Happy first birthday for this blog!
Sharp Elsimate EL-8118
As you might have noticed, I have a thing about VDF displays and old calculators. This time I found old Sharp EL-8118 which is pocket calculator with basic arithmetic operation with some nice additions. It includes features like settable floating/fixed decimal, sqrt’s and powers, percent and delta percent, constant pi, 1/x or x^(-1) and memory.
It had had battery leak in somewhere its lifetime, but nothing was damaged bad enough and cleaning switch & battery contacts fixed it. It has wear and scratches, but is still sturdy and beautiful calculator. Read More …
Working serial connection!
I got the Hello World! Finally serial communication part is working, next part is to get display refreshing and sift register writing to work efficiently as it must be constantly multiplexed. Read More …