Category: 2024 Presentations

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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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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, 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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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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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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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 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 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