Al's Blog-o-Sphere

Temperature is indoors, in fact sitting where the fan blows hot air out of my laptop, although, I am starting with testing outdoors. Also, sometimes the breadboard system is running, other times, the final prototype is reporting in. You might see some weird charts because of that. (I wish we were having 80-degree weather!) Barometric pressure is pretty universal, though.
See more charts at ThingSpeak…

I have been playing around with some Arduino projects and have been building a weather station. I have a lot to share about the construction of that project and will place it here when I get time to write it up. It has not been a straightforward journey. Check on down to the bottom to see if anything new has been added because I am expanding this post rather than making new posts about it. Continue Reading…

You might not realize it, but I’m not a big fan of Apple products. (Go ahead, that’s a joke, you may laugh here.) It’s not that they aren’t sometimes good. Some are excellent, though overpriced, but others are just so-so. To me, it’s more that the haughty, we-know-what’s-best-for-you attitude from Apple, along with the legions of fanboy sycophants that buy every new product without question that rankles me at every turn. The idea that a computer could be so superior (as they want us to believe) yet so simple your grandmother can use it, just doesn’t add up. Then the futuristic, white-on-white, no straight lines, Jony Ive designs have become boring too.

But the computer end of things has settled down. It’s now kind of a Ford or Chevy choice, either is accepted and most people don’t care. Heck, most people are happy with a Chromebook these days. Continue Reading…

Amber Logix bluetooth receiver

A little over a year ago, when I bought a used car, I was disappointed to find that the factory stereo it came with didn’t include the bluetooth option. It had the XM Radio, the OnStar with the ability to make phone calls hands-free, but not bluetooth. I searched and searched online for information to see if it could be added or upgraded, but nothing I found was authoritative. There was some indications that a module could be added or upgraded way down under the dash, but different sources gave different information about the modules location and even if it was available to buy.

I’m sure I could have taken it to a dealer or a car-stereo shop and had something done to upgrade, but it wasn’t hard to see that it was going to cost a lot of money. Continue Reading…

20 watt solar panel

USB Detector

22.5Ah battery pack

USB AA Charger

I’ve written before about solar power for camping, especially camping from my bicycle. You may have seen my post about my trailer with a solar panel and battery. That is a 12 volt, 22AH system and was intended for powering a small Ham Radio station as I camp. It also would effortlessly charge all those little accessories that we seem to need to live these days: cell phones, computers, iPads, and all those bicycle accessories that seem more and more to charge off a USB port. But, the downfall was it is big and heavy.

I also wrote last year about my USB based solar charging system. Continue Reading…