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Sat. Jan 11, 2025 – What I got for Christmas

Happy Holidays to everyone. At this meeting we’ll share with each other what cool tech gadgets we received from Santa.

We will meet at Serious Coffee in Esquimalt, which has provided the mezzanine space to us (stairs are inside the coffee shop). Please buy a coffee or beverage on your way in to help support this business.

Where: Serious Coffee, 1153 Esquimalt Rd #27, Victoria, BC

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat, Dec 14 · 9:30 AM PST Unsolved Problems

Unsolved Problems is an opportunity for attendees to suggest solutions to projects that are stuck.

For example, George has a 36volt ebike battery pack that reads 25 volts, but the charger won’t begin to charge it, i.e. the charger shows a green light that indicates the battery is fully charged, or not connected. Maybe others have some idea about how to jump start charging.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Nov 9 2024 – A Command Line Interface (CLI) for Arduino

Dave will share creating A CLI for controlling your Arduino project, or transfer files to your microcontroller file system.

Dave’s presentation pdf is here:

ArduinoCLIDownload

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Nov 23 2024 – Pi pico collecting data on SD card

Pi pico collecting data. For the demo, it will likely be time and temperature. Eventually, it will be time, temperature, voltage, and current from solar panels to RV battery. The data will be saved on the SD card as it’s bigger than the Pico storage. Also, perhaps for offline manipulation.

I will also set up a web server on the pico to eventually display all the above.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Oct 10 2024 – Sensible (To Me) Electric Bike Charging using a Touchscreen Arduino

This presentation will look at how to control the charging of an e-bike in order to enhance the life-time of a battery. The controlling mechanism consists of an Arduino Uno microcontroller with a Touchscreen shield, coupled with a PowerTail isolated-relay controlled A/C extension cord.

The interface will be simply touchscreen based ON/OFF buttons, plus buttons which add or set time blocks of charging duration. The interface is written using the Arduino IDE and its C++ coding environment.

Mark’s Presentation pdf is here:

arduinopowertimerDownload

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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2024 Summer Break

VicPiMakers is taking a well-deserved summer break. We will be back to our regular bi-weekly programming in September. In the meantime… join us at our Linux SIG or NetSig. See the blocks on the right for the details and links.

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Sat Jun 22 2024 – Things to like about Filesystems: ZFS

In this session, we’ll learn more about zetta file systems.

image

This presentation gives an overview of the Zettabyte File System (ZFS). The hosting platform for this demonstration is FreeBSD on Minisforum mini PCs.

Topics covered are a brief introduction to ZFS, how to create a ZFS storage system, some examples of ZFS in use, and description of the most useful features of ZFS.

the .pdf is here.

zfstalkDownload


Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Jun 8 2024: Little FS (for ESP) and Robot Wars

LittleFS is a lightweight filesystem created for microcontrollers that lets you access the flash memory like you would do in a standard file system on your computer, but it’s simpler and more limited. You can read, write, close, and delete files. Using a filesystem with the ESP32 boards is especially useful to:

from Random Nerd Tutorials: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/esp32-littlefs-arduino-ide/

And then Lynn will share her experience at the Robot Wars competition in the UK, earlier this spring.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Apr 27 2024 – Pi Picture Frame

In this session, we’ll get to see not one but two implementations of a Photo Frame running on a Raspberry Pi.

Don’s presentation files are here: Robert’s .pdf file follows.

Don’s PresentationDownload

don27Ap24_py_codeDownload
20240427-PictureFrame-for-Raspberry-Pi-Project-NotesDownload

We are back at Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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VicPiMakers Meet & Greet (Hybrid)

Saturday, April 13, 2024
9:30 AM to 11:30 AM PDT

  • 9:30-10am Coffee & Conversation (BIG Classroom 175, first floor at Camosun InterUrban Campus)
  • 10am Presentations

Join us for our Meet and Greet, where we explain what we do, and why we do it. Visitors may have the opportunity to learn about cool technologies such as artificial intelligence on a Raspberry Pi, LAMP on the Orange Pi and automated sprinkler systems.

Parking at Interurban in lot P8 is free on weekends for Saanich parks and trail users.

Interurban map: https://camosun.ca/sites/default/files/2021-11/iu_map.pdf

https://camosun.ca/about/our-campuses/transportation-and-parking/campus-parking

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Sat Mar 9 2024 – Running AI at home on a Raspberry Pi

Craigs presentation notes are here. http://www.makikiweb.com/Pi/ai_on_the_pi.html

8:45-9:00a Coffee & Conversation
9:00a Presentation

PLEASE NOTE: earlier time for this meeting. There is another group who will be using the room at 10:45a.

AI is not just for the big guys any longer. It is possible to run an Artificial Intelligence program on your Pi 4 or Pi 5. In this presentation, we’ll learn about how to run an several AI models on the Pi, the advantages and disadvantages of each.

We’ll open the floor to ask the AI questions (via a web interface on the local network), so bring a laptop, all over IPv6!

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Feb 10, 2024 – Proof in A Box

How to make a bread dough proofer from an Amazon cardboard box, or more accurately, an example of Proportional Integral Derivative control of a process. Yes the box has actually proofed bread dough that was used to make cinnamon buns.

We are back at Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Jan 27 2024 – heat sinks and pi irrigation controller.

An application of Blue Board in calculating heat sink cooling capability, measured in Watts

By measuring the interior chip temperature over a few seconds of a chip cooled by a heat sink, you can calculate the watts dissipated by the heat sink. The DS18B20 measures temperatures up to 125℃ at the interior of the chip.
This is a useful measurement If you are making your own heat sinks out of copper tubes or folded aluminum sheathing,  You can also compare the effectiveness of different heat sink compounds this way.

The presentation is at this bookmark in a longer presentation on how to set up a Raspberry Pi Pico as a Blue Board learning tool. Blue Boards are available for free from George at 250-893-7423

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Sat Jan 13 2024 – Home git server & workflow

Happy 2024!

Mark will share how to create a home git server (take that github!) and the workflow with it.

Basic Git Home “Remote” Server Using

SSH With Gitolite

Mark G.
January 13, 2024

An installation and configuration of a source code control system (SCCS).
The SCCS uses the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, the Git version control
system (VCS), and a software package named Gitolite. A user of the system provides a public key that is tied to configured identities for the purposes of access control to git repositories. The repositories configured on this server are intended to be used as remotes, in terms of how git defines a remote.
This demonstration was hosted on a FreeBSD 13.x operating system running on a raspberry pi 4.

git-homeDownload
gitignore_globalDownload

We are back at Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Dec 9 2023 – Pi Essentials + DNSMasq at home

A 2 part presentation, Pi Essentials, always good to know. And using DNSMasq to DNS-up your house (never think in numbers again)

Pi Essentials will be a beginner level introduction to some of the things you can (or maybe should) do when the Pi starts up. Nothing requires more than a few lines of code, and these are the sort of add-ons that can go with your main project. Included are buttons to put the Pi in standby mode, and start it running again, and pilot lights to show whether or not the Pi is running. A sound notification at start-up using simple text to speech, and how to put an icon on the desktop that can be clicked on to start your program are also included.
The way these utilities are organized and documented will illustrate one method of keeping track of your SD card contents.

The presentation is here

Readme.odtDownload

We are back at Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat.Nov 25, 2023 – Running Alpine Linux (with XFCE) on the Pi

Naturally, you can run PiOS on your Raspberry Pi, but are there other options, which have a full GUI (XFCE). Turns out, you can run Alpine Linux with full GUI on the Pi. A lighter-weight distro, which also doesn’t require systems.

Craig’s presentation notes are here: http://www.makikiweb.com/Pi/alpine_linux_installing_gui.html

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Nov 11 2023 – Intro to NextCloud on a Pi

Why just run your own video conferencing server, when you can simultaneously run that AND mail, calendaring, contacts, calls, IM, file sharing, remote backup, and a web-based office suite, all in one intimidating package. Get your own thrift-store Google G Suite going with the open source Nextcloud platform on a tiny Raspberry Pi! Great for the privacy-conscious, the independent, and masochists. We’ll do it the hard way and make configuring Jitsi look like recess at kindergarten (and then do it the easy way). Warning: the hard way will race through dependencies including Apache, PHP, MySQL/MariaDB and openSSL, so expect some mild suffering.

Richard’s Blog here:

Actual process including configuring a web server and database and installing from a source tarball:
https://tech.kosmokaryote.org/2023/11/technology-nextcloud-on-raspberry-pi_22.html –

here are the pdfs

Kosmokaryote_-TechDownload

and here


Much briefer post using nextcloudpi via docker from my notes, as originally demoed:
https://tech.kosmokaryote.org/2023/11/technology-nextcloud-on-raspberry-pi.html

Kosmokaryote_-Tech2Download

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Oct. 28, 2023 – Forgotten Pill Warning (Hybrid)

George gets a scolding from Alexa for not opening his pill box on time.  Technologies include 

  • A dollar store pill box,
  • ESP8266 micro-controller
  • PHP server page to receive message from ESP8266
  • Cron job to notice late opening and to send a scolding email and SMS
  • IF This Then That (IFTTT) to signal Alexa
  • Amazon Alexa Echo Show to further admonish George to open the damn pill box.

George’s presentation .pdf is here

For the meet and greet, George explains how this device can be shipped without the recipients SSID and wifi password, using only 20 bytes of code on the micro controller.

9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).

Small Boardroom @ Quality Foods, 27 Helmcken Rd #110 · View Royal

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers