Pi-Rex – Bark Activated Door Opening System with Raspberry Pi

May 12, 2013 by daveh | 9 Comments

Sleep deprivation has been driving me mad recently. And it’s all down to a new member of the family (kind of), our new dog. She barks at night when she’s left out. She barks early in the morning when she’s left in. So once I recognized the patterns of her barking, I realized that all I needed was something that would let her out when she needed to go for a pee, usually around 6:30 in the morning. I could do this with a timer switch and a door strike, but where’s the fun in that.

Posted in Computer Stuff, Tutorial Tagged Computers, RaspberryPi, Tools, Tutorial |

Using a DSLR as a Digital Microscope

April 30, 2013 by daveh | 4 Comments

I’ve recently had the need to solder some small components at home, but don’t have a microscope, or even a decent magnifying glass. But then I thought that I’d a rather expensive DSLR and a pretty good macro lens, along with some extension tubes (allows closer focussing). Now I know that the camera has a Live-View facility (it’s a Canon 5D Mark III), but would the display be output easily to a monitor? Well, in the box that came with the camera, I found a cable which had a composite connector and some kind of A/V connector for the camera, so I set it up as shown in the pictures, a switched on the camera. The menu was displayed on the monitor, as hoped. Once I’d enabled live view and adjusted the settings so the exposure was OK, I zoomed into the display, first x5 and then x10. Each time the live view display was replicated on the monitor.

Posted in Computer Stuff, Photoshop, Tutorial

Add a 9-pin Serial Port to your Raspberry Pi in 10 Minutes

April 16, 2013 by daveh | 1 Comment

Here’s how to add a 9-pin serial port to your Raspberry Pi, and it’ll only take you 10 mins. Well, maybe a couple of weeks to wait for the part to arrive from Hong Kong, but once it arrives, it’s only 10 minutes!

Here’s the part you’ll need. It’s an RS232 to TTL converter module containing a MAX3232 chip. The MAX3232 is important, as the older MAX232 won’t handle the 3.3v levels of the Pi, whereas the Max3232 will. It comes with a 4-way cable for connecting the module to the GPIO of your Pi. If you search on eBay for “RS232 Serial Port To TTL Converter Module MAX3232″ you should find several. The one I got cost me €3 with free shipping from Hong Kong.

Posted in Computer Stuff, Tutorial

Lapse Pi – Motorised Time-lapse Rail with Raspberry Pi

March 7, 2013 by daveh | 36 Comments

Here’s another article in the series of photography related DIY projects using the Raspberry Pi single board computer. This time it’s a Time Lapse rail.

Pages: 1 2 3

Posted in Computer Stuff, Photography, Tutorial

“The Burren” time lapse video locations

March 4, 2013 by daveh | Leave a comment

Since the release of my new video “The Burren”, I’ve had a few queries as to where the locations are that I used in it. Well, here they are. The names are those used on the Ordinance Survey Ireland maps, which I’ve loaded on my phone using the ViewRanger app.

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RAID Pi – Raspberry Pi as a RAID file server

January 31, 2013 by daveh | 6 Comments

This mini-project uses a Raspberry Pi as a RAID array controller. Now it won’t be the fastest raid controller on the planet, but if you’re only doing a bit of streaming, and a bit of backup, and would like a bit of redundancy, then this solution might be for you. OK, maybe not. The performance will be slow. Very slow. This article is not meant to be a serious solution, I just did it because I could. I did it to see if it would work. And it seemed to.

Posted in Computer Stuff, Tutorial

Macro Pi – Focus Stacking using Raspberry Pi

January 17, 2013 by daveh | 67 Comments

Here’s another in the series of articles of photographic uses for the Raspberry Pi SBC (Single Board Computer). This time, it’s re-purposing an old flatbed scanner as a macro rail for focus stacking images in macro photography.