Click the image to see the Google Sheet updates and see the posts below for more details.
2024/2025 VicPiMakers Meeting Schedule
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:
Sat Oct 26 2024 – Capstone Project Update
Lynn will share how the Camosun Students are progressing on her Capstone Project.
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:
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:
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:
Sat Mar 30, 2024 Pre-run for Open House (Capstone Projects)
We’ll do a pre-run for the VicPiMakers Open House on 13 April. We’ll share the Capstone Projects, as well as others are invited to share projects (15-30 minutes).
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).
Join Us Online here:
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
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.
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:
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:
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
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
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi).
Join Us Online here:
Sat. Sep. 9, 2023 Summer Fun
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
Share the projects you have been working on over the summer. This will be a hybrid show and tell using Jitsi, and in person at Quality Foods (up stairs)
Sat., Jun24, 2023- Codon
Craig will give an introduction to Codon, yet another Python compiler. He will cover the basics, the good, the bad, and what it is good for, and what Codon is missing. Read the HTML here.
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:
Sat, May 13, 2023 – Projects Day
We will be having a discussion about Projects that we are working on, but haven’t shared with the group. These can be projects that are successful or ones that just didn’t work out and have been abandoned. We’ll enjoy hearing about other’s projects, and perhaps even offer to help.
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
Sat. Apr 22, 2023 – Hydroponics and the esp32
Joel will be presenting a hydroponics controller based on the esp32 and connected to a raspberry pi using home assistant. Here are some links to home assistant and associated sites.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
Joel’s presentation .pdf is here.
HydroponicsController9:30-10a 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
Sat. Mar. 25, 2023 – Home IoT
This will be an open discussion of IoT with an introduction by Robert discussing his old IoT setup at home and the continuing process of his migration to Home Assistant.
Robert’s presentation pdf is here.
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
NetSIG – Mar. 23, 2023
NetSIG is a Special Interest Group focused on computer networking. Building networks for Today and Tomorrow!
Last month we explored MACVLAN interfaces, and how it makes it easier for Linux Containers (LXD).
This month, BRING YOUR PI, and a 32 GB SD Card, and we’ll do a Linux Containers INSTALL FEST on your Pi.
We will be meeting in-person at Quality Foods (small boardroom upstairs), bring a laptop and have Wireshark installed. This will be hands on. PLEASE BRING an ETHERNET dongle/port as we will be ssh-ing into your Pi, and configuring Linux Containers.
Quality Foods View Royal 6:30pm
27 Helmcken Rd #110 · Victoria, BC
Afterword, we will go out for a beer/coffee.
Thu. Apr. 27, 2023 – NetSIG: LXD Installing Pi-Hole in a Linux Container
NetSIG is a Special Interest Group focused on computer networking. Building networks for Today and Tomorrow!
Last month we did the InstallFest for Linux Containers (LXD). This month, we’ll install a popular application, Pi-Hole, in a container on YOUR Pi. With Linux Containers, there’s no need to dedicate a Pi to Apps like Pi-Hole.
This month, BRING YOUR PI, and the LXD 32 GB SD Card, and we’ll do a Linux Containers App installation on your Pi. Also bring a method to SSH to your Pi (e.g. laptop or screen + keyboard).
We will be meeting in-person at Quality Foods (small boardroom upstairs), bring a laptop and have Wireshark installed. This will be hands on. PLEASE BRING an ETHERNET dongle/port as we will be ssh-ing into your Pi, and configuring Linux Containers.
Afterword, we will go out for a beer/coffee.
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
Sat. Feb 11 2023 – Linux Containers on the Quadra
After using Linux Containers (LXD) for a couple of years, Craig will share how to easily get your containers connected to the internet using a MACVLAN interface. No reconfiguration of the host is required. This technique can be used on Pi’s as well as other hosts.
We will set up containers using the MACVLAN network attachment, discuss limitations, and even run LXDware, a web-based GUI for LXD on a Pi.
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
Small Boardroom @ Quality Foods, 27 Helmcken Rd #110 · View Royal
Sat. Nov. 26, 2022 – Jupyter Notebooks
Lynn will share with us the very “coolness” of Jupyter Notebooks
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
Quality Foods View Royal
27 Helmcken Rd #110 · Victoria, BC
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
Lynn’s notes are here
Sat. Nov 12, 2022 – BASIC on the Pi Pico
Move over Micropython, Deid has BASIC running on a Pi Pico, and he is going to show us how he did it.
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
Quality Foods View Royal
27 Helmcken Rd #110 · Victoria, BC
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
Deid’s presentation notes are here: http://deid.ca/pi/piPicoBasic/
Sat. Oct. 8, 2022 – Databases and the news
Deid will share his News clippings in a SQLite database.
Deid’s presentation notes are here.
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person.
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC. We thank them for their support.
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
Sep 13, 2022 – Welcome Back
Share the projects you have been working on over the summer. This will be a hybrid show and tell using Jitsi, and in person.
QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person. We thank them for their support
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation (virtual)
10a Presentation
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
Sat., June 11, 2022 – Marine GPS on a Pi
Dave will share his work in running Marine Navigation on a Pi including:
- hardware requirements
- how the zero could be used, but there are drawbacks
- I was unable to get a pi 4
- at George’s suggestion, I decided to go with the pi 400
- hardware modifications to integrate the GPS unit within the pi 400 case
- introduction to and a brief overview of the OpenCPN Chart Plotter Navigation software
- some ideas I have to make a more “system-critical” GPS solution (will implement if I have time)
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation (virtual)
10a Presentation
QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person. We thank them for their support.
Virtual…
Sat., May 28, 2022 – Apache and Flask
Gordo will share an update on his work with Flask and the Apache server. Flask is a micro web framework written in Python.
Gordo
Presentation notes: https://github.com/va7sdf/vicpimakers-flaskapachedemo/wiki/Apache-&-Flask-on-Raspberry-Pi
PREVIOUS presentation notes: https://github.com/va7sdf/vicpimakers-flaskdemos/wiki
QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person. We thank them for their support. Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC)
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation
10a Presentation
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).
Sat. April 23, 2022 – The Challenge & Pi OS 64 bit
Jim will cover his pencil challenge.
Gordo will give an overview of 64bit Pi OS, and the cool features of the flash utility.
Gordo’s notes: https://gist.github.com/va7sdf/39a6c01d38eb1131532398fe69833862
QCollege has welcomed us back to meet in-person.We thank them for their support
Suite 303 771 Vernon Ave · Victoria, BC
9:30-10a Cocktails & Conversation (virtual)
10a Presentation
https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
We will be holding a Hybrid meeting (in-person & Jitsi).