Recycling an old toy

For some tests for a project I needed a moving base.
The ideal would be a robot, many kits are available now.
But before to spend money I wanted to see if some results were achievable and the quality of a camera.
So I did find an old toy made years before with my daughter and ...

MacOS - duplicate an SD card

Very few notes about how to duplicate an SD card or micro SD card using a Mac.
All these operations are done via terminal.

Raspberry streaming audio

One of the future projects I decided to do is to retrofit an old radio with an IP radio.
Very probably I will start with Raspberry and one of the many many projects is possible to find.
To start, mostly to see what kind of quality I can expect, I decided to build the Pimoroni kit for a pirate radio.

HVAC connections

The "new" thermostat found in an antique mall

In an antique mall I did find a new (well, not really new) WiFi thermostat from Honeywell (Lyric T5), so I decided to change the current one I have at home ( a quite basic and simple one).


I think there is a "right way" to do things, so even for a trivial work like changing a thermostat, I find useful to document and explain what doing and why.

IoT - node-red tips

Playing with node-red I did hit a couple of problems.
This page collects some tips/suggestions/FAQ to easy deal with this great program.

fHelper - MQTT edition

Ok, time to sum up this version of fHelper project.

After a series of tests and experiments, the Huzzah32 client is quite stable and reliable to read the capacitive soil sensor.

After adding a ambient temperature and humidity sensor (AM2302 or DHT-22) and setting a dashboard using node-red, the project is ready for the final stage, using a PCB to hold the client.

fHelper - capacitive humidity sensor

Time ago I did use a traditional humidity soil sensor (from the Grove family) for the fHelper project and it ended up very badly.


After some search I decided to try a capacitive sensor.
There are many on the market, so I just did pick up one of the cheapest
and easy to have one, from Amazon.


This is a brief review of this sensor.

fHelper on Node-Red

If using Node-Red to handle fHelper an algorithm to handle the alarm is needed.


Here a brief description of the algorithm implemented in Node-Red.
The server is controlling a LED on the client to notify the plant need to be watered.

Set up a Huzzah32 IoT client - testing

Using an IoT approach for the fHelper can helps to evaluate the measurements done more easily, using the MQTT protocol.

We need a server capable to receive the measurements from the fHelper sensor (client) and eventually work on the received data.
And of course we need a client/sensor capable to send the humidity level to the server.

See the article about the MQTT/Node-Red server about the preparation of an IoT server on a Raspberry Pi.
This article is about how to quick set up an IoT client for fHelper in order to run some feasibility tests on the sensor and its response.
Basically the idea is to evaluate if the system is reliable enough for the purpose.

Set up a Raspberry IoT server

For some projects can be useful to have a place and mean where to collect and store data retrieved form some process.
IoT 101.


There are many IoT services out there, many free, but for some applications is better to have everything close.
Let set up a small and efficient IoT local server based on MQTT protocol running over a Raspberry Pi.