3500W custom timer switches
We had the problem that we bought some Jet Hand Dryers from China, and the smell was aweful. We put them outside for a week, the smell was gone, but what if you used them? The smell was back! The hand dryers are operated using an IR light switch which is activated once you put your hands inside. In order to get rid of the smell, we had to operate them in an autonomous way so the smell would vanish from the inside....
The problem is, the hand dryers are operating at > 1500W each and their job is to heat so we had to come up with a logic that does not overheat them and starts a fire 
Looking around the internet, no consumer timer switch could fit the bill of operating a load for 15 secs, then switching off for 145 secs, and repeating that indefinitely. Therefore, we decided to modify an over-the-counter 230V timer switch bought on Amazon. After a bit of trial and error, we finally managed to hook up a Teensy Atmel controller via a BC546 transistor and a CNY14F opto-coupler in front of the transistor which drives the relay inside the timer switch. This allows to program the timer switch so it switches off the autonomous heating during the night (as it features a real-time clock) while it allows us to customize the behavior of the switched-on timer switch by combining it with the 15sec-on 145sec-off pattern that the teensy is sending.
Thanks to Barny for reverse-engineering the switch and helping us with the device!
Attached you find some pictures of the hack:
Assiduino no solder atmega “bread-ribbon” cable
the way to get a nice plugin-header adapter from an old ide hard drive cable:
1. Pre-Perforate the cable with the DIP chip
2. Use a pin to put holes through the cable
3. Stick in the chip
4. Print and glue a chip manual
A910 Mainboard
Motorola A910 Mainboard - Openezx
A910 Camera Assembly
A910 Dual Screen Assembly
A780 Details – Openezx
These two photos show the connection between the + of the battery and the usb + pin.
View detailing the small solder Hack to emulate the power Key pressed during Startup, enables automatic startup
A780 Motherboard Detail The serial Pins are the two horizontal ones below the lower rectangle row.
The only 80s party i will attend, an A780s Party !
IPod G5 Endurance Edition
My 80 GB Ipod Video
was getting on my nerves recently, not only because of the stupid Apple Music Database thats enforcing me to use the excellent Floola tool which beats iTunes Annoyance Edition, but because of the battery. It is now the third time that it dies because of some stupid i won't switch off bug. And i mean die by deep-draining the li-po battery thus removing the ability of accepting a charge. at first i thought ok ill just use it with a car adapter, but it couldn't even start. I bought 2 replacement batteries but it happened again. So I thought "ITS ENOUGH" and i decided to give it a bigger li-ion battery from an old samsung subnotebook laptop battery pack, actually its 2 cells in parallel. The original battery was about 800 mAh, i now opted forabout 5000 mAh, I have yet to test how long this will run....
i have connected the battery adapter from apple including the thermal sensor to the 2 cells , cut open the ipod case with a dremel tool and just plugged it in. It charges a long time but eventually its full, and it stays that way.... i guess at least for a week of continuous operation, i have yet to check out how many weeks of driving to work and back that enables....
and i love the rugged looks !
3 minute improvised scope for debugging communications
Plug this into your audio Card: 
Debug some RS485 Code !
RS485 Bus System on the cheap
I need a working bus system for home automation for my father, most stuff i found is either expensive or too cumbersome to implement (like the devices need too complicated pcbs)
So I'm in the process of designing a System out of ATTINY2313 (really cheap like 1 €) and Max485 Bus Transceivers, yep no pcb will be needed, Im trying to make this an experiment for finding out how little can my experience with the matter be (electronically), how few components can i use, and how shitty can my software be .... and still get away with a system that works great !!!
the system will use the internal oscillators of the ATTINYs running at 1 MHZ and will communicate at a baud rate of 2400 baud. We'll see how far I get ...
Followup : It works everyday now in the house of my father with about 100 m wires and about 30 clients controlling the jalousies.
Max485 transceiver on a leash
Thats a really small component, with this old flat ribbon cable it seems to be more handy
