Waveshare GPS L76K With Raspberry Pi Pico 2

For the first time in a LONG time I don’t have any reviews inbound to John’s Tech Blog. And what that means is that I now have time to write about my own projects. Up today is the Waveshare GPS L76K module paired with a Pi Pico 2.

This is a super simple project however it took me a day to figure out how super simple it is. I was way overthinking this. While I have tons of experience with Raspberry Pi and Arduino, the Pico ecosystem is unlike anything I’ve used before. Additionally, it took me a bit to work through it.

Plum Chef Ice Maker – ZB-12BZ

I was recently provided an Air Fryer to review from the good folks at Plum Chef. Subsequently, they reached out to me to review their Plum Chef Ice Maker.

This is a Countertop Ice Maker that makes up to 26 lbs. of ice per day. The model number on the unit they provided is ZB-12BZ. The model number on the Amazon link above is ZB-12AZ which makes me think that they probably updated their line.

Some years ago when we bought this house I had a wine refrigerator installed.

The wine fridge came with a free ice maker. And while that was pretty cool, that ice maker was fairly huge and pretty heavy and was no fun to dump the water out of when it came time to do that. And finally, it took up a lot of valuable real estate on our kitchen island.

The Plum Chef Ice Maker is considerably smaller, lighter, and easier to fill and empty and doesn’t take up much space at all. It cranks out 9 cubes every 6 minutes or so. It also fills up pretty quickly. We recently hosted family for Easter dinner and the ice maker was such a blessing. And it is convenient for visitors to get ice without feeling like they are rooting around in your freezer.

SVBONY SVGO3 Action Camera

Up for review today is the SVBONY SVG03 Action Camera. SVBONY is a world renowned leader in optics in the field of astronomy. And they have entered the field of action cameras. This is a field that definitely needs some competition.

We all know who the big name in action cameras is, and while they make a great product, the price tag is equally great. In a bad way. At $139 the SVBONY SVG03 Action Camera is well worth taking a look at. It can also be purchased from Amazon currently for $132.

9 in 1 Adjustable Laptop Stand And Charging Hub

This will primarily be a video review of the 9 in 1 Adjustable Laptop Stand from the Mukiya store on Amazon. ($59 currently)

The design is slick and the configuration of ports is more than what any casual computer would ever use. Due to its sleek design it folds down into a very small bundle which makes it ideal for road warriors and functioning off of a small hotel desk.

If you need to be compact and have accessibility to multiple types of ports this is perfect for travel.

Plum Chef Air Fryer – A Must Have Kitchen Gadget

I get a lot of things sent to me to review. And over time those items have gotten pretty diverse. When Plum Chef contacted me to review their Plum Chef Air Fryer 11QT Compact 2-Slice Air Fryer Toaster Oven I asked my wife if I should review it. She said YES!

You see, I’m a Tech Guy but my wife is a foodie. I’m on a first name basis with all the stars of the Food Channel and my wife is an amazingly great cook. While I think I have a few brain cells she constantly throws out cooking and food term words that I have never heard before.

So what you are going to get here is a mix of John being a Tech guy reviewing some hardware, and my wife cooking up some goodness. We make a great team.

Benfei HDMI Adapters

I think that Benfei has sent me just about every thing in their catalog to review. And it is my strong belief that as a MacBookAir user that only has a couple of USB-C ports, that adapters really expand your capabilities. In this blog I have several more Benfei HDMI adapters to test.

Let’s get to it!

HDMI adapter are in strong rotation here at my house. I use HDMI cables on every TV, and Raspberry Pi’s galore. I also use them with a KVM, and we use them at my Mother In Laws house to be able to connect a computer easily to her TV to stream church for her on Sunday mornings.

LCD HD44780 Raspberry Pi 8 Bit Wiring

NOTE:  I originally wrote this in 2017 and want to upgrade this project to the latest Raspberry Pi OS.  This is why I started this page.  To document my ridiculously involved projects so I could repair/replace them someday.   This is a direct cut and paste of my page from the internet Wayback Machine.  I’ll clean it up later as I am currently working on this LCD project again. 

John’s Tech Blog will be down on May 4th sometime after 7 PM EST.  The downtime may be as long as 2 hours during a 10 hour window.

This is my web host performing maintenance on their servers and outside of my control.

Monport Laser 80mm Rotary Table

Rotary Table

We typically think of a rotary device being used to laser engrave round items.  But did you know that you can set your rotary up on a horizontal plane to engrave multiple flat items?  In this example I’ll use my Monport laser, 30 watt fiber with the 80mm rotary chuck to engrave 6 business cards at once.

While this is actually really easy I haven’t found a definitive place that covers all the basics of setup for this operation.  And that’s what I try to do here at John’s Tech Blog.  Make it simple and include important steps that just aren’t clearly documented elsewhere.
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I thought I had upgraded my SSL certificate on John’s Tech Blog but it expired on Jun 30th.  I was able to install the new certificate on the morning of 1 July.

Don’t be alarmed if you have to accept a new certificate when visiting the site.  Nothing fishy going on.  Just me installing the new certificate incorrectly before the other one expired.

John