Author Archives: John Hagensieker

LED Strips For Lighting and Effects – What NOT To Get

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I have a real cool LED strip that I installed a while back.  Details of that build are here.

My Living Room Arch LED Strip Installation

I just built a work/hobby room up and decided to put some effect lighting in there as well.  I did a little research and of all the LED lights that you can buy in Lowes, Target, Walmart, HomeDepot only the Monster Smart Illuminessence lights line at Walmart seemed to be available quickly and they seemed to possess the ability to be flashed by an Open Source Firmware called Tasmota.

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The Prusa 3D Printing EXPERIENCE

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I’ve done my share of 3D printing with various printers.  I have hand built a Rep-Rap kit, and owned an M3D cube printer.

But nothing compares to the Prusa EXPERIENCE.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I built that Rep-Rap kit which was just an awful experience.  After I got it built it was probably a week before I actually extruded any material with it.  My heart leapt with joy when I saw some plastic ooze out of the nozzle.  Then it took another day or two of tweaking to make a print that wasn’t horrific.   The EXPERIENCE I gained was invaluable but the EXPERIENCE itself was horrific.

Once I got the Rep-Rap going I began upgrading everything on it.  Also gained tons of EXPERIENCE but again the EXPERIENCE itself was fraught with frustration and trial and error.

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3D Printers – Prusa i3 MK3S+

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Modified Rep-Rap 3D Printer

I have been 3D Printing for maybe 5 years now.   I’m not a drop dead, full on expert, but I have learned a few things. I honestly believe the best way to break into 3D printing is to buy and build a cheap Rep-Rap machine and upgrade.  Go through all the trials and tribulations and then get into the higher end machines.

One thing is for certain.  Your printer will break, or clog or something…….and then you’ll have no earthly idea what to do when that happens.

That is how I got my start.  I found a place called RepRapGuru (which I think is out of business now) and bought a $200 printer.  After I built it and got it printing which was no easy feat, I did a boatload of research and found out that upgrading certain components would increase my quality considerably.  So I did just that.  Instead of threaded rod for the Z axis to go up and down on, I got proper lead screws.  Instead of the cheap Chinese hotend I put an E3D-V6 hotend on it.  Then I changed the extruder to a compact Bowden, then I reprinted most of the parts, and on and on it went.  All of these changes made me go inside the firmware and change THINGS…..an invaluable skill……..I still have this printer and believe me, it works GREAT.

But it was a toy that I made into “Not A Toy”.  It was time to move on.  Research on 3D printing more or less revealed that the best company out there was Prusa Research by Josef Prusa.  Just like Bill Gates is the Huckleberry of Windows and Linus Torvalds is the Huckleberry of Linux…….Josef Prusa is the Huckleberry of 3D printing.   As a consumer, maybe even a long time  consumer and user of Prusa printers I have to state that the company has really evolved into something special in a way that most companies will never do.

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3D Printed Back Load Horn Speaker Project

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Back Load Horn 3D Printed Speakers

I have a 3D printer.  Well, actually 3, but who is counting?  The other night I saw a new project upload on Thingiverse for a Back Load Horn Speaker.  It was so cool and I knew I had to try it.  And besides, I had an actual need as I had just purchased a Uniden SDS200 Police Scanner and it had a little internal speaker that was mounted on the bottom of the case.   It screamed for a powered, external speaker.   Win, win.

The first thing I’d like to say about the project is I didn’t quite need all the bells and whistles the designer did.  He set his up as bluetooth speakers and that is darn cool, no doubt.  I just didn’t need to do that.  I just needed a powered external speaker.

 

The back panel is designed for a stereo amp board which the developer lists a source in China that costs a few bucks.   The exact same board can be had on Amazon for about $14.  Getting 2 day delivery is worth it to me.  The parts from China probably wouldn’t show for weeks.

Anyway before you build and wire these you kind of need to know how you are going to deploy them.  Let me elaborate.

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Fixing a Dead Ring Pro Doorbell

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I had a Ring Pro that was a few years old. It died. I would log in to look at something only to find it was alive a day or two before then died.  Then miraculously it would come back to life only to die again.

I bought a new Ring Pro to replace it and documented that process here.   It was a living fucking hell. It should have been easy.  But it was not easy.  Enough of that.  I spouted off enough about it in the last blog entry.  Let’s talk about fixing the one that was broken.  This will just cover the battery replacement and not the entire tear down or rebuild.

Basically you just open the thing up and remove the motherboard.  There are several connectors on the board which must be CAREFULLY removed. Take a picture first before you disconnect anything.  Regarding the connectors, just get under them and pop them up with a spudger made of plastic.  THEY ARE FRAGILE.  Then remove two screws , pull the speaker out and then lift the motherboard.

Connector removal locations

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Ring DoorBell Pro Review – Piece of Fucking Shit

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Yep.  My blog.  I can say whatever I want.  The Ring Doorbell platform is a piece of fucking shit.

I had a Ring Doorbell for a couple of years and it would intermittently die, would not connect to a live stream if I got a notification and would die for days only to come back to life mysteriously.

So brilliant guy I am I bought another one to replace it.  A Ring Doorbell Pro.   It is two wires and an app connection yet somehow it took me two hours to install and I’m a geek.

It’s a piece of fucking shit.  When it did finally install after I found an obscure reference in their forum that said to turn off cellular data on the phone while installing it was hit or miss on live view.

I got a hair emotional when I wrote this😃.  I’ve edited to add a fact or two but my review stands mostly as is.

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Refoaming Old Speakers

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A couple of years ago I bought an old set of Bose 501 speakers.  Audiophiles poo-poo Bose speakers but the truth is way back in the 70’s they made some decent speakers and the 501’s were one of them.

However 40 years of sitting around tends to dry rot the foam surrounds on the speakers.

Dry rotted Foam Surrounds on Bose 501

Yep, that’s what both of the speakers looked like.  And they sounded worse than they looked as well.  Actually they would sound okay at super low volume but as soon as you turned them up …….they sounded awful.

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DIY GPS Puck for Uniden Homepatrol Scanners

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Yes Uniden makes a GPS kit for their scanners.  It’s $80.  You can DIY one up for less than half the cost.  And it’s fun to make your own stuff and you’ll learn a thing or two as well.

Here’s what you need.

  • GPS Puck – I used a GlobalSat BR-355S4 $35 approx
  • USB cable – USB A to USB Mini Type B (4pin) $4.50.  You will not walk in a store and find one of these. They are just a little hard to find.  I used a Promaster #3696 cable.
  • Skillz – Mad Skillz

Promaster #3696

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SDS200 And Proscan Software. A Powerful Combination

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Uniden SDS200

Ever since I was a little boy, which may have been a few years ago, I have been fascinated with radio.  They had things called “World Band” radios when I was a kid.   I would sit for hours and spin the dial trying to hear far away places.  There was mystery, intrigue, challenge, exotic languages………these are the things boyhood is made of.  Not Drag Queen Hour 🙄. Then there was Citizens Band (CB) Radio.  I had one and was prolific on it.  What I really wanted was a ham radio and it took me a few years, but I climbed that hurdle as well.  I am now licensed as KN4FMV.

You might think I’m a weirdo however in the radio hobby probably the quintessential website for radio systems and frequencies is called radioreference.com   If you go to their web page you will see that there are almost 1.5 million subscribers.  So………I’m in good company.

So I dig radios.  And the older I get, the worse, not better, it seems to get.  I still spin the dial on shortwave radios, sometimes for hours. I have multiple Software Defined Radios (RTL-SDR’s) and I have police scanners, with the actual name of them being called “radio scanners”.

Every so often in any hobby one item will rise to the top of the heap.

In my opinion, in the world of Radio Scanners that device is the Uniden SDS200.  This is an advanced radio for advanced users.  Most places you buy from will preprogram them for you for free, so if you know nothing about radios or police scanners let me forewarn you that the learning curve could be STEEP.  Everything is well documented but to an outsider to the hobby it could still be confusing.
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Police Scanners – How to choose

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I have gotten the police scanner bug again.  There are a lot of reasons to have a radio scanner (the proper term for police scanner) with the best reason being informed during emergencies.  Other reasons could include being aware of your surroundings, listening to news as it happens directly from the source, having knowledge of criminal activity in your area, or just plain old being a radio geek who likes to listen to stuff.

Ways To Listen

There are a few ways to listen.

  • Having a dedicated hardware radio scanner
  • Streaming from the internet on systems such as Broadcastify.  While these are handy and free you are going to hear one system at a time. In my case if I listen to my city system, I will completely miss the statewide system, the sheriff’s system, and all analog broadcasts.  You can listen to just one thing at a time.
  • Streaming from smartphone apps (which mostly tie into Broadcastify). You should note that the internet streaming and apps generally are about 30 seconds to a minute or two behind real time.  Bad boys, bad boys could be busting down your door before you hear it on the iPhone app.
  • Creating a software radio using an RTL-SDR USB radio device and software designed for digital trunking radio.

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