13 Nov 2022

Franklin Wordmaster Electronic Dictionary Demystified!

Dictionaries, Vintage Equipment
WM-1000 I recently came across a Franklin Computer Wordmaster WM-1000 handheld dictionary, thesaurus, and spelling corrector device at a local thrift store. Having an interest in vintage electronics, I picked it up for $9.99 (USD) and took it home, where it sat for a few weeks before I finally decided to check it out. On first inspection, I could see the device was in really good shape with little wear and tear on the case. When I first opened the battery case, I found four AA batteries in a very corroded state. It was pretty obvious that someone set this…
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13 Mar 2022

Updating Node-RED, npm, and Node.js

Home Automation, Node-RED, Raspberry Pi
Introduction If you're reading this, then there is a good chance you use Node-RED for creating dashboards for your internet of things (IoT) devices. Node-RED is a great solution for controlling various IoT devices as well as for displaying the current status of these devices. As an example, here is a screenshot of one of my Node-RED dashboards: Node-RED Dashboard Like any other software package that you make use of, new versions of Node-RED get released every so often with various bug fixes and feature improvements. This post will show how to update your Node-RED instance as well as npm…
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05 Mar 2022

Connecting the Sonoff SNZB-02 and CC2531 Zigbee Coordinator

Home Automation, Zigbee
Can We Talk? If you're connecting a Sonoff SNZB-02 temperature and humidity sensor to a CC2531 Zigbee coordinator, you might run into the same issue that I first had - getting them to talk. When I first attempted this, my Zigbee2MQTT Bridge was not reporting anything from the SNZB-02 temperature and humidity sensor. After a bit of research and experimentation, I was finally able to get the SNZB-02, CC2531, and Zigbee2MQTT Bridge to all play nicely together. In this post, I will walk through the steps I took to make this work. So, What Are the Steps? The steps below…
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20 Feb 2022

Commodore Minuteman 3 Calculator

Calculators, Vintage Equipment
MM3 While I do not remember Commodore calculators as a kid, my first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. I loved my VIC-20 but quickly outgrew it. Eventually, my parents got me a Commodore 64 for Christmas. The 38,911 bytes available on my C64 was more than 10 times(!) what I had at my disposal on my VIC-20, which topped the digital scales at 3,583 (usable) bytes. I loved my Commodores and I spent countless hours writing software in both BASIC and assembly as well as playing countless video games. My love for retro computing is still with me today. I…
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16 Feb 2022

Installing EasyScopeX for Siglent Oscilloscopes

Diagnostics, Equipment
Like many electronics hobbyists, I wanted a basic oscilloscope to help me troubleshoot various electronics circuits. Being a hobbyist, I couldn't justify spending a ton of money on a scope, but I wanted something a little more capable than some of the sub $100 (USD) scopes available out there. I settled on the Siglent SDS 1202X-E Oscilloscope, which has been serving me very well for about a year now. One of the features of the SDS 1202X-E scope is the ability to connect it to a computer via USB. Once connected, you can use the EasyScopeX utility to interact with…
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05 Feb 2022

Updating a Node-RED Certificate

Home Automation, Node-RED, Raspberry Pi
Time Flies! It's been almost a year since I posted Exposing Node-RED to the Internet. In that post, I talk about how I exposed a Node-RED dashboard to the internet. As part of that process, I configured Node-RED to work with a TLS/SSL certificate. Having been a year since I initially obtained my certificate, it recently expired, so it's now time to renew the certificate for my Node-RED instance. As an aside, I purchased my .app domain through GoDaddy, which includes a free TLS/SSL certificate (not sure if GoDaddy will always have this deal). While it's not an overly complicated…
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02 Mar 2021

Exposing Node-RED to the Internet

Home Automation, Node-RED, Raspberry Pi
Background Like many of you reading this, I run Node-RED on a Raspberry Pi. My primary reasons for selecting a Raspberry Pi over other solutions are primarily cost and convenience. For my latest project, I am using a Raspberry Pi 4 (that I purchased as part of the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit) that sits in my home office running 24/7. Recently, I decided to make use of a Node-RED Dashboard to display the status of various sensors around my house (e.g. garage door sensors, a sensor on our deep freeze, a temperature sensor where our water pipes come…
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09 Jan 2021

Hello, world!

General
Welcome to tronics.Life! This is the obligatory "Hello, world!" post for this brand new blog/channel. Introducing Myself I'm Jeff and, while my career in technology can now be measured in decades, I have spent most of it in software development and solutions/enterprise architecture. Although I've never worked with electronics professionally, I have tinkered with electronics off and on for many years. Over the last couple years or so, I've started spending a lot more time on my electronics hobby. I can attribute this new-found engagement to a couple of things: Electronics equipment and components have dramatically dropped in price over…
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