I am building my biggest LED wall yet.

I am building my biggest LED wall yet. It should be 8 feet by 4 feet when done.  It consists of two panels each 4 feet by 4 feet in size.  Each panel is amde of 32 P5 64x32 Led matrixes. This first picture is me putting together one of the panels

Currently I only have enough of the matrixes to build two 4 by 6 panels.  Here the data and power cables are added.

This picture shows the controller is added to the panel. Power supplies are external so that the panels fit flat to the wall.
 

This is a demo picture testing the first LED panel.

I have built the second panel but it has two bad LED's to resolder, should have it running soon.

I bought a new 3D printer again this year a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE

I bought a new 3D printer again this year. It is a "refurbished" Creality Ender 3 V3 SE.  Last year I bought  Ender V2 and upgraded it with a quiet motherboard.  I had purchased a CR Touch Auto Leveling kit for it but did not install it. Now I know how important the auto leveler is!  I had also gone through three build plates on the old printer and then bought a TRONYX glass build plate. The TRONYX glass build plate is about 1/2 inch too small but worked GREAT!

This is a close up of the new printer, it looks more refined or finished than the old one.

This picture compares the old printer to the new printer.

LilyGo vs CYD Cheap Yellow Display for Hacking

Back in 2020 someone told me the covid19 tests were radioactive.  I pulled out my Geiger counter and proved that was not true.  Now I am hearing the Covid19 vax gives people a Bluetooth/RFID/MAC address.  So I decided to venture into hacking to find out if that is true.

Right away I had a second use for these devices.  I am setting up a Raspberry Pi RaspAP filtered router.  I need to compare signal strength between the RaspAP and  Netgear router.  The objective is to add an antenna to the RaspAP and see how the two compare in signal strength.

I bought a LilyGo and a CYD to compare the two.  The CYD lacks many sensors and the LilyGo has a screen so small that you need a magnifying glass to read it.

So I decided to buy and add the additional sensors to the CYD device. Now there is a guy who has added several modules to a CYD using around 12 switches to select between the modules. I am hoping to simplify the design with less modules, three position switches, and 3D print a case for it.

Here is my preliminary schematic design to connect the CYD to several modules.  Some IR devies require 5 Volts, so this may be to much of a simplified schematic.

The IR would not work, it just received garbage, so I changed the schematic to get rid of the interference.

The 3D printed larger case is at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7258129

I decided to try to fit everything in the smaller case.  Connecting the wires to the SD connector is tricky.  I brought them out to a 4 pin connector.

The almost finished wiring, point to point wiring is no fun, a circuit board would be better!  No GPS or NFC yet.  I had to cut away room for the antenna connectors for the NRF24 and CC1101.

The NFC PN532 was supposed to fit above the IR modules, and be fastened on the back cover.  But the back cover will not allow that! I will have to take my saw and modify the back cover.

Raspberry Pi Wireless Internet router and Filter with RaspAP

I have built a Raspberry Pi Wireless Internet router and Filter with RaspAP.  I tried a Raspberry Pi model 3 but out of three tries it only worked once. 

But with the Raspberry Pi model 4 came right up and ran.  All you need to connect is power and a ethernet cable for it to work!

In terminal type: curl -sL https://install.raspap.com | bash

Then I answered the many questions as follows:

Create Dir - Y

Complete - Y

Cookies - Y

Control - Y

Congestion - Y

AD Block - Y

Open VPN - N

RestAPI - N

Wireguard - N

VPN Client - N

Reset - Y

Once it is up and running, set the DNS server to 1.0.0.3 and 1.1.1.3 to block the porn sites.

This does a great job of blocking porn, but it also blocks the Ad blocker!  I have not found a solution to this issue yet.  The ad blocker cannot update but it also delets the database when it cannot update!

Another issue is the built in antenna only has a 20 foot range.  I will be adding an external antenna and will see how that increases the range.

This is a signal strength comparison to a Netgear router at -34 and the Raspberry pi at -51 dB.

Doubling the size of a LED sign

 I have two 40" by 16" LED signs. Each one has five by two of the 32 by 32 P6 LED arrays. I thought they were identical signs and thought that I could combine them to make a sign twice as big.  The first issue is the height, I am limited to 2 feet of height.  So the options are 7 by 3 or 6 by 3 LED arrays.  For 7 wide I need one more LED panel so I tested it with a spare panel that apperared to match.  Well, two of the existing panels had a bad LED and the odd panels blue color was a real mismatch.  So 6 by 3 is the best arraingement.

The next problem was that one sign had 35x35 LED's and the other had 27x27 LED's.  However in a test setup they completely match in colors and intensity except in the lowest brightness settings. So that problem can be ignored.

The next problem is extending the exrtrusions to make them wider, instead of 40" wide I needed 48" wide.  I designed and printed a 3D part that fits inside of the extrusions to allow two extrusions to be joined together.

The next problem is that one sign used magnetic devices to hold the panels to the braces but the other sign used double sided foam for that purpose.  I decided to use some of the magnetic holders and to design and print my own spacers for the rest of the sign. This holder can be used to space the panels back to match the extrusion but if you are using a 3" by 1" aluminum frame it can be reversed to space the panels back from the front edge.

This picture shows the center strip where magnets fasten the panels to the Metal.  However the magnets do not work and plastic wire ties were needed to hold the panels in place.

This picture shows the power supply mounting arrangement. There are three power supplies of 40 amps each.

This picture shows the spacers that fasten the panels to the extrusions.  Also you can see where two extrusions were fastened together in this picture.

Make your own LED sign

I have made my own LED sign from scratch and have also made one by adding parts of two signs together to make a bigger one.

 I wanted to use 3" by 1" Aluminum for my LED sign but that cost too much. I had some 2.75" by 3/4" Plastic U channel and I used that instead. The corners were 3D printed using PTEG for dtrength. This could be easily enlarged to work with 3" aluminum as well.

The LD panels were spaced back using 1/2 inch spacers so they are flush with the front of the sign.  I used lots of silicone caulk around the edges of the LED panels.

This first picture shows the back side of the completed LED sign. It used two 5 volt 60 amp power supplies.

This is a close up of the 3D printed corners.  The back cover slides into these corners but it first needs a diagonal cut to match the shape of the corners.

I am building a new deck.

 I am building a new deck with 2x6" and Trex flooring.  The handrails are Veranda available at Home Depot. This picture is the framing using 10 and 12 foot 2x6's. In the foreground is what remains of the old deck.

Then I covered the flooring with 12' Trex boards.  They are actually 12 foot 1/2 inch to 12 foot 1 inch in length.  I only had to cut one as they are slightly longer than the 12' 2x6's.

Next was adding some handrails

I made some temporary steps.

Then finally adding some stairs and some handrails for them.

There is still some trimming to do such as skirting but for the most part it is working.

Build Your Own LED Wall

I have been building my own LED walls.  So far I have two of them, one uses P4 indoor Panels the other uses P5 indoor panels.  

All of the panels were purchased at huge discounts.  Here are some pictures of my eBay purchases for a total of 35 P4 panels.  You have been told that you cannot intermix LED panels.  I have used three different types of panels and a totally red, green or blue image shows that they are obviously not matched.  However, real images dont show up the mismatch nearly as much!

Most P6 panels can be connected together by metal brackets that have holes on 1 inch centers and are found at most hardware stores. P4 and P5 panels use 3D printed junctions and 3/4 by 3/4 aluminum rails for the outside edges.  I also have a mounting adapter for 5A-75B receiver cards that can control up to 8 strings of LED panels on thingiverse.

This is a schematic of a typical setup.  The 5A-75B can only control strings of 6 panels with the default lessings.

Here are two pictures of some assembled LED walls.  The second does not have the top and bottom aluminum rails installed and the vertical rails were moved to the middle of the panels so they would match the hanging loops spacing.

To keep the LED walls so that they are almost flat to the wall I use external power supplies.  Each power supply can run 15-20 LED panels.  I use 12 Gague speaker wires and 50 amp connectors to connect the power supplies to the panels.  I have soldered the power cables together or used binding posts to connect the power cables together.  The white plastic binding posts with holes that you insert the wires into seem to work the best.

Here is a picture of a P6 panel system with binding posts connecting the power lines together.  You can see that is is more dangerous than soldering the wires, and though matter how tight the screws are, somehow the wires will come loose.

The next pictures show the two types of binding posts, Regular and white with holes for the wires.

There are three different type of LED panels but did you notice that in the pictures above?  Here is red, green, blue and white test pictures. The blue makes the location of the three type obvious.  the red and green are harder to tell them apart.

Now the white picture has a different shade on the left side.  Why?  It was power supply overload!  The left side is using a different power supply.

Mini-Split Line Cover Problems

I have now installed three mini-split heat pumps.  I would only recommend the MrCool ones as the flared line sets seem to always leak. One of the issues is in covering the line sets.  Some people use the plastic eves, and I have done that as well on an existing HVAC installation. This one installation took two of the line cover kits at $39 each, and then I was still short one straight coupler.  So I designed my own couplers and 3D printed them.

Here is a picture of the first two couplers that I designed.  Later I came up with a design with hidden screws. I did not have white filament so I had to spray paint them to white.  My designs are on thingiverse.

 

I finally got a Zero Turn Mower a Z Force S 46

I bought my first Zero Turn Mower, its a Cub Cadet Z Force S 46 for $350.  Boy was I in for an education!  The mower only had power to one rear tire.  I decided to change the trabnsmission fluid but quickly discovered there is no drain hole!  So after watching many Youtube videos I decided to add my own drain holes.  I chose a 1/4-20 by 1/2 inch bolt, with a metal washer and a rubber washer to make it watertight.  I drilled a small hole then the hole size for the tap then tapped the holes.  Changing the fluid did not fix the problem!

After watching many more videos I decided to see it the lever was being pulled to tell the transmission to move.  It worked on one side but not the other.  I chased the issue to a broken plastic part costing about $16.

Now to fix the oil leak out of the overhead valve cover....

Here are some pictures of the ad on Facebook for this mower.  It was a real bargain!