Category Archives: Projects

The Rice County Skywarn Streaming Channel is now live!

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A fun side project I’ve been working on! Using the OBS Broadcaster, PowerShell, Batch Scripting, and a program that launches it all on a rotating time schedule!

Original Post:

The Rice County Skywarn Streaming Channel is now live!

Thanks for all your feedback regarding our Streaming Channel on Youtube! Hearing dozens of positive comments, and working out some kinks and adding some new functionality, it’s ready for full-time consumption!

https://youtube.com/@RiceCoSkywarn/live

This is YOUR local weather feed, perfect for the corner of your monitor, your tablet, your Google Home, or digital signage.

You’ll find:

– The latest Level 3 radar imagery (including velocity radar during time of severe weather) centered around Rice County, with storm reports plotted during severe weather events.
– Scrolling weather alerts and weather forecasts straight from the National Weather Service, tailored for Rice County.
– Current time, temperature, and rainfall storm totals and rain rate for Faribault displayed in the corner of the video.
– Upper Midwest GOES-East Satellite Loop with Precipitation Depiction.
– Local webcams showing current outdoor conditions (if you run a full-video webcam in Rice County and can offer an RTMP feed, we’d like to hear from you!)
– Skywarn Activation Status
– Pop-up alerts for extreme weather conditions such as Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, Tornado Warnings, and Blizzard Warnings.
– Of particular interest to spotters, the Day 1 convective and mesoscale outlooks, including possibilities of tornadoes, severe hail, and severe wind conditions.
– All over a bed of music, with old-school “Weather Channel”-style voice announcements (all mutable).

Besides a few national guys, NO ONE that we know of is doing this style of presentation, and we’d love to hear your input and ideas on how we can make this something you’ll enjoy on a daily basis. We appreciate your support!

New mechanical SCSI hard drive replaced in an Apple Mac SE FDHD

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I replaced an old Quantum SCSI hard disk drive in an Apple Mac SE FDHD this afternoon. A project long overdue! I needed to use the third-party Lido hard drive management and partition utility to get the Apple to recognize a non-Apple hard disk drive. Just as proprietary and “closed ecosystem” back then as they are today!

Alpine iLX-F409 Halo9 9″ Touchscreen w/ Android Auto & Apple CarPlay Install in 1988 3rd Gen Camaro

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Here’s a finished installation of Alpine’s iLX-F409 9″ Halo9 Multimedia Touchscreen Receiver w/ Bluetooth, SiriusXM, Hands-Free Kit, Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, HDMI in/out, and rear backup camera, in a 1988 Third Generation Camaro. The iLX-F409 is among a small handful of receivers that install in a single-din slot, have a permanent (non-mechanized) touchscreen, and support Android Auto.

For installation in a third generation Camaro, the following parts were acquired and installed:
– Alpine iLX-F409 Halo9 Multimedia Receiver w/ Sirius Tuner: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B…
– Crutchfield Single DIN mounting kit for 82-92 Camaro (already had this per previous Kenwood receiver installation)
– Parking Brake Bypass Module for Alpine: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265100742220
– Composite Backup Camera w/ Hidden Rear License Plate Mount: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B…

The background wallpaper on the receiver is customizable, and the 80s retro cyan and magenta Camaro background was designed in Photoshop by yours truly.

Wiring Details that I noted on my car (yours could be different, so proceed with caution):

Alpine System Colors === Camaro Wiring Harness Colors

REMO (Blue/White) === Power Control terminal on amplifier AND Blue on Parking Brake Bypass
REVERSE (Orange/White) === Light Green on Transmission (Reverse Switch on Gear Selector) and Red Wires on Backup Camera
P.ANT (Blue) === Red (Power Antenna)
PARKING BRAKE (Yellow/Blue) === YELLOW on Parking Brake Bypass
ACC (Red) === Yellow (12v IGN switch)
BATT (Yellow) === Orange (12v all the time)
GND (Black) === Black (Ground) AND Black (Ground) on Parking Brake Bypass
Green === Yellow Left Rear+
Green/Black === Dark Brown Left Rear-
White === Light Brown Left Front+
White/Black === Light Grey Left Front-
Gray/Black === Light Green Right Front-
Gray === Dark Green Right Front+
Violet/Black === Blue Rear Right-
Violet === Light Blue Rear Right+

=========

Parking Brake Bypass:

1 BLACK wire on Bypass to radios black wire (radio ground wire(-))
2 BLUE wire on Bypass to BLUE/WHITE STRIPE wire ( remote turn on (+)) on Alpine Radio
3 YELLOW wire on Bypass to YELLOW/BLUE wire [Parking Brake(-)] on Alpine Radio only
4 GREEN wire on Bypass NOT CONNECTED

=========

Automatic Transmission Switch:

Left/Driver side of transmission body, 2 prong plug, underneath shifter.
Dark Blue: +12v Ignition
Light Green: +12v when in reverse (connect to REVERSE on stereo and red wires of backup camera)

A 5 1/4″ floppy drive connected with USB?

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Yup…that’s a 5 1/4″ Floppy Disk Drive, connected via USB to my computer. This board called a Greaseweazle reads the raw flux transitions from a floppy disk and recreates them as disk drive image files for modern computers. I just found disks full of music, sound files, and BASIC source code that I haven’t heard or seen since 1991, lost deep in formatted-over disks on an obsolete media that was impossible to read. Until now…If you have any IBM-PC formatted 5 1/4″ disks that might have some memories on them, I’m your guy.

Next, I need to work on reading old Apple ][ disks.

Display Systems 19S-8 Vintage Eggcrate Display Clock

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There was a reason that CBS and other television networks used these type of displays on game shows when they had bright studio lights to contend with. The light is piercing from these!

Tonight, I got 22 wires soldered on 22 pins to mate with a Molex connector on the back of each display. Both digits are now directly connected up to the relay board. The software I developed can display an arbitrary 2-digit number, and then count up or down from that number until it reaches 00 or 99.

This has been a cool project! I’ll probably try to make a more detailed video in the future on the parts I selected and how all this works together.

Check out how this display worked on “Classic Concentration” hosted by Alex Trebek in the late 1980s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1izUPd87wmw

A relic and mainstay of all classic 80s gameshows…

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Initial Test of a Display Systems 19S-8 Vintage Eggcrate Display (Light Bulb Matrix), common to television game shows of the 1970s-1990s.

This is one of two Display Systems 19S-8 eggcrate displays that I purchased from Surplus Sales of Nebraska. I plan to integrate both into a working count up/count down timer powered by a ESP8266 microcontroller module and a couple of relay boards.

This eggcrate display uses a common 28 volt DC power source on one pin. Then, depending on which pin the ground is connected, will light each of one possible digit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and $. It’s also possible to display strange characters by connecting multiple grounds between pins.

I plan to use a single 150 watt 12 volt DC power supply to power dual boost controllers that will output the needed 28 volts. The 12 volts is still needed for the relay boards. The ESP8266 module will be connected to a 5 volt DC output from the relay board.

In both displays, I only needed to replace one lamp upon receiving them. The lamp is a common 1820 mini-bayonet style incandescent.