Sainlogic Weather Station SA7

1 Reply

Sainlogic Weather Station SA7

Sainlogic Weather Station SA7
Sainlogic SA7

I’m rapidly becoming a fan of Sainlogic Weather Stations.  I started out by reviewing their Home Weather Station SA1 which was cool but lacking any wind detection equipment.  Then they provided me their Portable SA3 which I also thought was cool and then realized that its killer mission was for recording indoor areas that needed monitoring.  For example, greenhouses or walk in freezers, etc.  Then along comes the Sainlogic Weather Station SA7 which does all the things that I’m looking for. It can be purchased from Amazon as well.

I’m a bit of a weather geek.  Certainly more than most folks.  For years I have been capturing NOAA data from their weather satellites.  Then when the GOES birds came along I tracked them too.

Now I’m surrounded by trees and can’t get a solid lock on any of the deployed GOES sats.

Continue reading →

Benfei Adapters – Part Two

1 Reply

Benfei Adapters – Part Two

Benfei Adapters

Benfei Adapters

Benfei previously sent me a bunch of their adapters to review. You can read that blog here.  And recently I opened a box on the porch that had even more Benfei Adapters in it to review.  I love Mac computers and I love their ecosystem and sleek designs.  But that can come at a cost.   That cost is a lack of input/output connectors.

But first you can connect with Benfei on their social media sites Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, or TikTok.  Benfei sells about 6 million units per year and is the #3 seller on Amazon in their category. Benfei has been around since 2014 and has shown impressive growth in that period of time.

Continue reading →

LCD HD44780 Raspberry Pi 8 Bit Wiring

Leave a reply

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. 

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 by

Had some issues with 4 bit wiring of my HD44780, 20×4 LCD which I use in a project in a tube amplifier. Every time the AC power is thrown it causes corruption in the LCD characters. Supposedly 8 bit operation is less susceptible to this behavior so here we go. ……….

Virtually every tutorial on the web is for 4 bit operation, and why not? Less wires, less pin assignments to add to your code……….it’s just easier.

Continue reading →

Sainlogic SA3 Review – The Best Portable Weather Station?

Leave a reply

Sainlogic SA3 Review – The Best Portable Weather Station?

Sainlogic SA3 Weather Station

Sainlogic SA3 Weather Station

The folks at Sainlogic have provided me their Sainlogic Weather Station SA3 ($29.99) to review.  My readers can get 20% off at checkout by using the following:

Code: John’sTechBlog (no spaces).  Thanks Sainlogic!

I previously reviewed their SA1 which I thought was pretty cool, but lacking a wind sensor.  Their response to that was to send me their SA7 Weather Station which I’ll be reviewing soon.

And while I obviously have a good relationship with Sainlogic never at any time have they tried to influence or to have editorial control over what I write.  Neither do I receive any money from them.  I’m a 60 something guy who isn’t motivated by money, believe it or not.  I will never accept money for a review, and I’m not a fan of providing affiliate links although sometimes I do it.
Continue reading →

NIIMBOT B21 Pro Label Printer Review

2 Replies

NIIMBOT B21 Pro Label Printer Review

NIIMBOT B21 Pro

NIIMBOT B21 Pro

I’ve been fortunate enough to be provided many NIIMBOT label printers over the last year or two.  My absolute favorite one was the B21.  It is the epitome of style and function.  The retro look is amazing.   I was really excited to see that NIIMBOT upped the game on the B21 and made it better.  The NIIMBOT B21 Pro Label Printer ($69.99) has arrived.

Same great styling and some beefed up stats compared to the OG B21.  The key stat is that the print resolution has been bumped up to 300 dpi.  That allows it to be a photo label printer as well.  The print speed remains at 60 mm/second.

Label sizes are from 20 to 50 mm and NIIMBOT provided me with 4 extra label rolls not including the one that comes with the printer.  Also the battery size remains the same at 1200 mAh.

Continue reading →

MiniRack Build Out And Review

1 Reply

MiniRack Build Out And Review

Seems like in the last year or two home networking folks have started building up MiniRack Home Lab servers.  A typical network server rack is 19″ and the minirack form factor is 10″.

My build is inspired by Jeff Geerling.  Jeff is a Tech Guy who specializes in all things Raspberry Pi.  Anyone who owns a Pi probably knows about him.  Essentially, my build will consist of 3 Raspberry Pi computers and a JetKVM.

  • Raspberry Pi 4 with POE+. – An MMDVM board is used as a gateway for DMR Ham Radio.
  • Raspberry Pi 5 with GeekPi POE+ and 256GB NVME Hat. Additionally, a HiFiBerry DAC8x Digital to Analog converter for streaming audio. Lyrion Music server and Squeezelite and deployed.
  • Raspberry Pi 5 with the same Geekpi POE+ and this NVME houses a 4TB NVME drive with Samba.  Also, it has a mini RTL-SDR for running OP25 which is a P25 Phase 1 and Phase 2 decoder.  I use it to track two trunking communications systems. (Police Scanner)
  • JetKVM – used to control the Pi with the 4TB drive.  Lastly, KVM stands for Keyboard, Video, and Mouse and is similar to IPMI accessibility.

Continue reading →

Dovoh Laser Level H3-360G Review

1 Reply

Dovoh Laser Level H3-360G Review

Dovoh laser level H3-360G

Dovoh H3-360G

Like any ordinary guy I love me some tools.  And the higher tech they are, the better.  Laser Level manufacturer Dovoh provided John’s Tech Blog their high accuracy H3-360G Laser Level with their DR1 Receiver.  Although the sample was provided for free the opinions you see written here are mine.

From a professional standpoint I could have used one of these in my working years.  I aligned and certified Aircraft Visual Landing Aids at Navy and Marine Corps Air Stations.  Surveying was a big part of aligning glide slopes.  One set of aids consists of 4 boxes.  The center of each lens should be within 1 inch of each box on average.

I could have set this up and verified that check in seconds.  As it stood it took some time to survey all the boxes, record elevations, do some math, etc.
Continue reading →

Auto-Vox Back Up Camera Review

1 Reply

Auto-Vox Back Up Camera Review

Auto-Vox Back Up Camera

Auto-Vox Back Up Camera

The nice folks at Auto-Vox have provided me their Wireless Solar Back Up Camera ($116.98) to review.

This is a perfect product for me to shake down since I don’t have a backup camera on my small camper.   I have tried other backup cams, however, this camera has a solid mounting mechanism which attaches behind your license plate.

Other manufacturers sometimes use magnetic mounts. I’m always afraid one big bump will either misalign the camera or have it fall off completely.  No worries here with a positively mounted bracket.   That being said the camera barely fits on my camper license plate mount because it is attached to a turn signal/brake light.
Continue reading →

Benfei Adapters And Docking Station

2 Replies

Benfei Adapters And Docking Station

I’m a MacBookAir fanatic.  Anyone with a MacBookAir can tell you that due to its slim design there are a few standard ports missing.  There is no ethernet port, no SD card slot, and only a couple of USB-C ports.  Adapters are a must.  The nice folks at Benfei sent me a few adapters and a docking station to test and review.   The adapters are as follows:

Benfei Adapters

Benfei Adapters

Continue reading →

LaserPecker 5 Review

Leave a reply

LaserPecker 5

LaserPecker 5

With a name like LaserPecker, you know it has to be great. And with a 5th generation LaserPecker 5, ($2899) it really has to be great.   The LP5 is a combination 20 watt 450 nanometer (nm) blue diode laser and a 20 watt 1064 nm IR fiber laser.  This allows for engraving on a large variety of materials to include wood, paper, leather, metals and plastics and a whole lot of other items.

It currently only has one other straight up competitor with the inclusion of the 20 watt fiber laser.  I was super excited to test this as my other combo lasers are 10 watt diode and 2 watt 1064nm IR lasers.  I do have a dedicated 30 watt fiber laser and I’m very curious to see how it compares to that.

Additionally, I have tested the LP4 and it kind of fell into the “Fantastic Hardware, Not So Fantastic Software” category as far as I was concerned.  So I’ll be focusing a bit more on LaserPecker Design Space software.  And I’ll be looking at Lightburn integration for the LaserPecker 5.
Continue reading →