Category: Electronics

Canon R8 +

paschmann

Another cyclical pattern of my like back into photography. My Dad and sister inspired me along time ago to get into the hobby and its always more meaningful when you have a subject or interest which draws you in. In this cycle, it’s the girls Volleyball and sporting events/matches which have me intrigued along with capturing some shots for their social media accounts. I quickly learned shooting VB indoors requires a really good low light lens and the 70-200 2.8 seemed like a good choice. I have not shot video with it yet but hopefully soon (which was my primary motivation for the T2i years ago).

Nice comparison between the lens speeds for similar shots/situations: read more

Stryd Foot Pod

paschmann

Another fun gadget to try out and satisfy my data curiosity. I would also like to use it for treadmill workouts to accurately gauge pace (as different treadmills show different paces). I am also hoping to gain some power insights (however this seems to be fairly nuanced by the fact Garmin, Apple and Stryd dont share a common standard for calculating this, unlike in cycling). Therefor Styd power needs to be compared to Stryd power, not my entire history of Garmin running power metrics 🙁

Arduino

paschmann

The Arduino was one of my first “modern” introduction into the world of open-source electronics. The original use case for my DIY IGUS Time Lapse slider, then got used in the Quantum Double Slit Experiment to build a true Random Number Generator, and was also a part of my SAP DemoJam session. It always seems to be a great “go to” tool for interfacing with physical sensors, wiring something simple up or testing out different electronics.

Repairing the Silhouette Cameo 4

paschmann

I don’t use Cameo cutter much at all, so I was pretty disappointed to see it not working correctly when I wanted to cut some vinyl stickers for my bike project. The carriage would just slowly move to the right and stop. Turn it off and back on, and it would do the same until it hit the right side and make a terrible knocking noise as the position sensor did know where the carriage was.

Disassembling the unit and doing some online searching it seems the left stop sensor was bad. It is a Normally Open IR switch and after doing some extensive searching was able to find a replacement online. I mocked up the circuit board and cut a prototype on the Glowforge, did some very small soldering to wire it up, and it 100% fixed the problem. read more