https://my.minimaker.space/posts/ Recent content in Posts on My Mini Maker Space! Hugo -- 0.127.0 en-us Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:07:31 +1200 https://my.minimaker.space/2025/08/08/fronius-load-management-rules-and-home-assistant-integration/ Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:07:31 +1200 https://my.minimaker.space/2025/08/08/fronius-load-management-rules-and-home-assistant-integration/ TL;DR Use Fronius GEN24 Load Management Relay states to control Zigbee / Wifi switches in Home Assistent by MQTT. This isn’t a full step-by-step guide but, if you’re here, you probably know enough to fill in the gaps for your setup. Investigation We own a Fronius Gen24 Plus inverter in our solar installation. This inverter has four internal load management relays which allow users to switch loads on and off according to rules. https://my.minimaker.space/2024/10/27/stop-and-disable-systemd-resolved/ Sun, 27 Oct 2024 14:45:39 +1300 https://my.minimaker.space/2024/10/27/stop-and-disable-systemd-resolved/ When I build a Pi-Hole server I usually install it in Docker on an Ubuntu Server on an old Raspberry Pi or Intel NUC. The default install of Ubuntu has systemd-resolved installed which clashes when you bring the Pi-hole Docker container up. I can never remember the steps to disable systemd-resolved so this is my reminder :-) Stop and Disable systemd-resolved Check the Status of systemd-resolved: First, check if systemd-resolved is running: https://my.minimaker.space/2024/10/14/how-i-quickly-make-a-new-hugo-post/ Mon, 14 Oct 2024 18:28:02 +1300 https://my.minimaker.space/2024/10/14/how-i-quickly-make-a-new-hugo-post/ As I’ve been migrating this website from Wordpress, I’ve been manually creating folder structure in VS Code and manually filling in front matter. It’s been painful! After a good holiday, I decided there must be a better way so this is just my reminder on how I do it for my site: Create a Post with Current Date in YYYY/MM/DD Format hugo new posts/$(date +"%Y/%m/%d")/my-post-slug/index.md Complete Example: For a post titled “How I Quickly Make a New Hugo Post”, the command would be: https://my.minimaker.space/2024/06/15/how-the-boys-see-me/ Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2024/06/15/how-the-boys-see-me/ https://my.minimaker.space/2023/11/07/the-head-office-indoor-air-quality-by-monitoring-co2/ Tue, 07 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2023/11/07/the-head-office-indoor-air-quality-by-monitoring-co2/ The Aranet4 DIY CO2 Monitor The Project on Github The PCB’s (Printed Circuit Boards) – Seeed Studio PCB Manufacture SCD30 Sensor (Video) SCD40 Sensor (Video) Pick and Place Robot (Video) Soldering Through Hole Components (Video) Soldering Surface Mount Devices (Video) Dashboards and Historical Data https://my.minimaker.space/2022/03/16/taranaki-covid-data/ Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2022/03/16/taranaki-covid-data/ TDHB have stopped publishing data. This data now comes from what is available through Āwhina. This data appears to be no longer available. Gaps in Active Cases is due to difficulty locating a data source when TDHB stopped publishing. Last update 21st June 2022 https://my.minimaker.space/2021/11/17/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-8/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2021/11/17/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-8/ Motors with the Pi Pico… https://my.minimaker.space/2021/08/17/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-4/ Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2021/08/17/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-4/ Data Sheets HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor What is Voltage? Just because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it is right or will work for you! How to Use an Ultrasonic Sensor with Raspberry Pi Pico HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Range Sensor on the Raspberry Pi https://thepihut.com/blogs/raspberry-pi-tutorials/hc-sr04-ultrasonic-range-sensor-on-the-raspberry-pi https://my.minimaker.space/2021/06/30/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-1/ Wed, 30 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2021/06/30/the-head-office-coding-resources-week-1/ Books Download Get Started with MicroPython on Raspberry Pi Pico Download the Raspberry Pi Pico Python SDK Software Visual Studio Code Thonny Micropy Cli – a project management/generation tool for writing Micropython code in modern IDEs such as VSCode. Hardware AliExpress is a wonderful source of cheap electronic components for your projects. If you plan in advance and don’t mind waiting two to six weeks for components to arrive it’s perfect. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/09/17/raspberry-pi-kernel-firmware-upgrade-/-downgrade/ Mon, 17 Sep 2018 21:24:50 +1200 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/09/17/raspberry-pi-kernel-firmware-upgrade-/-downgrade/ I’ve been looking at a problem with one of my Raspberry Pi projects freezing every now and again. I have a suspicion from reading recent posts that it could be kernel related. I found a good article here which also links to the rpi-update utility on Github here The great thing here is the utility allows a downgrade. I can also never remember how to find the current kernel version so, for me, this is what I use: https://my.minimaker.space/2018/08/23/unattended-upgrades-on-my-raspberry-pis/ Thu, 23 Aug 2018 21:24:50 +1200 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/08/23/unattended-upgrades-on-my-raspberry-pis/ I can never quite remember how I like my unattended upgrades configured on my Raspberry Pi’s so I’m just popping it here. It should work for all versions! nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades Unattended-Upgrade::Origins-Pattern { "origin=Raspbian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Raspbian"; "origin=Raspberry Pi Foundation,codename=${distro_codename},label=Raspberry Pi Foundation"; }; Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true"; Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "02:00"; To check it: unattended-upgrade --dry-run Logs can be found at: /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log and /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades-dpkg.log https://my.minimaker.space/2018/06/10/capture-the-flag-resources/ Sun, 10 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/06/10/capture-the-flag-resources/ This is really just a place for me to remind myself of useful resources I’ve used when undertaking CTF challenges 🙂 Cryptography Resources: Dcode – the essential site for deciphering and decoding messages Cryptii – Modular online encoding, encryption and conversion tool quipqiup – a fast and automated cryptogram solver Network Resources: netcat (nc) -a feature-rich network debugging and investigation tool https://my.minimaker.space/2018/04/23/pi-hole-in-a-docker-container-on-a-raspberry-pi/ Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/04/23/pi-hole-in-a-docker-container-on-a-raspberry-pi/ Logos Property of Pi-hole & Docker. While I was disappearing down a rabbit hole investigating unbound as a DNS Privacy server, I came across Pi-hole – A black hole for Internet advertisements. I’ve always used uBlock Origin for ad blocking but that is a per client thing which is a bit of a hassle. Pi-hole provides ad blocking for all clients on the network, seamlessly. I just configure DNS on each client, via DHCP, to point towards the Pi-Hole server. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/04/21/raspberry-pi-docker-container-to-send-all-lan-dns-requests-to-cloudflares-1.1.1.1-dns-over-tls/ Sat, 21 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/04/21/raspberry-pi-docker-container-to-send-all-lan-dns-requests-to-cloudflares-1.1.1.1-dns-over-tls/ I wanted to implement this on a Raspberry Pi that I have running Docker. However, I wasn’t able to find an image in Docker Hub for the ARM architecture that the Raspberry Pi uses so I made my own based on the x86-64 image, here. Place the Dockerfile and unbound.conf in the same directory. Docker file: FROM arm32v6/alpine:3.7 EXPOSE 53/udp RUN apk add --update --no-cache -q --progress unbound && \ rm -rf /etc/unbound/unbound. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/26/edup-802.11n-mini-wi-fi-adapter-sleeping/ Mon, 26 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/26/edup-802.11n-mini-wi-fi-adapter-sleeping/ I bought some EDUP 802.11 N Mini Wi-Fi Adapters from China. They’re cheap and do a fine job plugged into my Raspberry Pi’s. However, by default, they always go to sleep which makes it difficult to connect to them via ssh etc. To fix this, here’s what I did: To identify the USB WLAN Adapter I did the following: $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:8176 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8188CUS 802. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/deploy-portainer-in-a-docker-container/ Mon, 05 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/deploy-portainer-in-a-docker-container/ Portainer is an Open-Source lightweight Management UI which allows you to easily manage your Docker Hosts or Swarm Clusters Port 9000 of the container is published to the host A 16 megabyte limit is set on the container, in this instance. Data is persisted in a named volume called ‘portainer_data’ docker run -d \ --name portainer \ --restart=unless-stopped \ --memory=16m \ -p 9000:9000 \ -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \ -v portainer_data:/data \ portainer/portainer The container can also be deployed using the more explicit –mount flag which became available for standalone containers in Docker 17. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/deploy-watchtower-in-a-docker-container/ Mon, 05 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/deploy-watchtower-in-a-docker-container/ Watchtower is an application that will monitor your running Docker containers and watch for changes to the images that those containers were originally started from. If watchtower detects that an image has changed, it will automatically restart the container using the new image. A 16 megabyte limit is set on the container, in this instance. I’ve added a hostname for this container because Watchtower sends emails with the hostname of the Watchtower Docker container in the subject line. https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/install-docker-and-compose-on-ubuntu-16.04-lts/ Mon, 05 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2018/03/05/install-docker-and-compose-on-ubuntu-16.04-lts/ #!/bin/bash apt-get update apt-get install \ apt-transport-https \ ca-certificates \ curl \ software-properties-common curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add - add-apt-repository \ "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \ $(lsb_release -cs) \ stable" apt-get update apt-get install -y \ docker-ce \ docker-compose If you plan on using the –memory flag when creating containers, you may need to enable memory and swap accounting in the Kernel. Log into the Ubuntu host as a user with sudo privileges. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/11/27/sonic-pi-coding-class-004/ Mon, 27 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/11/27/sonic-pi-coding-class-004/ It was agreed to give a small prize to the student who worked the hardest during the class and who also worked the hardest in producing their final piece/s of music based on a brief. I’ve created links here to the more obscure parts of the prize so that the recipient has a starting point to work out what they can be used for! Arduino code for the Ultrasonic Ruler that was worked on in class can be found in my GitHub repository, here. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/11/13/install-pip-on-os-x-via-terminal/ Mon, 13 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/11/13/install-pip-on-os-x-via-terminal/ sudo easy_install pip QuickTip: How Do I Install pip on macOS or OS X? https://my.minimaker.space/2017/10/17/get-stock-quote-from-yahoo-using-node-red/ Tue, 17 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/10/17/get-stock-quote-from-yahoo-using-node-red/ [ { "id": "d5d3c55c.ff8808", "type": "debug", "z": "3b163621.c03b8a", "name": "", "active": true, "console": "false", "complete": "false", "x": 930, "y": 180, "wires": [] }, { "id": "39834827.c17818", "type": "http request", "z": "3b163621.c03b8a", "name": "Yahoo Stock", "method": "GET", "ret": "txt", "url": "http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=^IXIC&f=nsl1opc1p2&e=.csv", "tls": "", "x": 510, "y": 180, "wires": [ [ "247647e3.b30f88", "5db14531.5fb30c" ] ] }, { "id": "5aba260a.74be08", "type": "inject", "z": "3b163621.c03b8a", "name": "Click me to request a stock quote...", "topic": "", "payload": "", "payloadType": "date", "repeat": "", "crontab": "", "once": true, "x": 210, "y": 180, "wires": [ [ "39834827. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/10/03/install-docker-and-compose-on-debian-9-stretch/ Tue, 03 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/10/03/install-docker-and-compose-on-debian-9-stretch/ #!/bin/bash apt-get update apt-get install -y \ apt-transport-https \ ca-certificates \ curl \ gnupg2 \ software-properties-common curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | apt-key add - add-apt-repository \ "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/debian \ $(lsb_release -cs) \ stable" apt-get update apt-get install -y \ docker-ce \ docker-compose If you plan on using the –memory flag when creating containers, you may need to enable memory and swap accounting in the Kernel. Log into the Ubuntu host as a user with sudo privileges. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/09/14/sonic-pi-coding-class-003/ Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/09/14/sonic-pi-coding-class-003/ Last week we wrote a function to set the volume based on musical dynamics like ‘ppp’ or ‘fff’ Functions can also be used to return information to us. An example of a function that returns a value is below. Type it in and see how it works. define :get_volume do |music_notation| # Write your code here to work out volume level # corresponding to music_notation like 'ppp' # Return the volume level like this # return volume_level # Or we could just return a number for this # example to see how it works return 0. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/10/choosing-a-random-synth-in-sonic-pi/ Thu, 10 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/10/choosing-a-random-synth-in-sonic-pi/ Towards the end of our coding class at school today, one of the children asked me how they would choose a random synth in their code. I couldn’t give them the answer off of the top of my head so I came home and have placed two different solutions below: # Choosing a Random Synth in Sonic Pi # Solution 1 10.times do use_synth [:beep, :blade, :cnoise, :dpulse].choose play :C3 sleep 1 end # Solution 2 10. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/09/aws-polly-service-with-node-red/ Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/09/aws-polly-service-with-node-red/ I have used NodeRed to subscribe to messages from an MQTT service I have running that publishes various messages from various nodes around our house. The NodeRed code listens for some of these messages and uses the AWS Polly Service to convert them to speech and read them out to us. There’s a sample of the speech, below, as well as screen shots of the NodeRed flows. Alexa... https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/09/check-or-change-the-timezone-in-debian/ Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/08/09/check-or-change-the-timezone-in-debian/ To see or change what timezone your Debian system is configured for: dpkg-reconfigure tzdata More detailed information is available in the Debian Wiki More specifically, I used this in a setup of HypriotOS, a minimal Debian-based operating systems that is optimised to run Docker on ARM devices. In this instance it was an old Raspberry Pi Model B running NodeRed in a Docker Container. I needed to get the time in the Docker Container to match the time on the host. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/07/04/sonic-pi-coding-class-002/ Tue, 04 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/07/04/sonic-pi-coding-class-002/ My little boy, James, has been taking piano lessons for two terms now. Last week, his teacher asked him to do an assignment on a minuet. James knows I’ve been running a coding group at school with Sonic Pi so he asked his teacher if he could write his minuet in Sonic Pi as part of his work. It was his first coding in a non block type language like Scratch. https://my.minimaker.space/2017/06/22/sonic-pi-coding-class-001/ Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/06/22/sonic-pi-coding-class-001/ Resources: Sonic Pi Website… Introduction to Sonic Pi for Parents… Tutorial… Cheat Sheet… All Sonic Pi posts on this website… https://my.minimaker.space/2017/02/19/get-spell-checking-working-in-libre-office-on-a-raspberry-pi/ Sun, 19 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/02/19/get-spell-checking-working-in-libre-office-on-a-raspberry-pi/ Spell checking never seems to work, by default, in Libre Office on a Raspberry Pi. To get it working: # Go to: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/english-dictionaries/ # Click on the Current Release or go to the below URL which # is current as of now! https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/english-dictionaries/2017-01.01 # Download the .oxt file # In Libre Office go to Tools / Extension Manager # Add the .oxt file # Spell checking now works! https://my.minimaker.space/2017/02/19/mount-a-network-drive-on-a-raspberry-pi/ Sun, 19 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/02/19/mount-a-network-drive-on-a-raspberry-pi/ This has been tested on Jessie with the PIXEL Desktop. I haven’t tested it in previous versions. Substitute the IP address in fstab and the share name, as appropriate! # Make a directory in /mnt sudo mkdir /mnt/DataDisk # Edit fstab: sudo nano /etc/fstab # Add a line with a similar format as below //192.168.178.240/DataDisk /mnt/DataDisk cifs guest,iocharset=utf8,_netdev,x-systemd.automount 0 0 # Reboot and check that things mount OK after a reboot sudo shutdown -r now https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/31/good-friend/ Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/31/good-friend/ Source: War and Peas 🙂 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/14/show-docker-stats-with-container-name-instead-of-container-id/ Sat, 14 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/14/show-docker-stats-with-container-name-instead-of-container-id/ docker stats $(docker ps --format={{.Names}}) More details in the Docker CLI Reference https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/10/spot-the-international-space-station-in-new-plymouth/ Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2017/01/10/spot-the-international-space-station-in-new-plymouth/ If you don’t live in New Plymouth, choose your location, below: https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/24/run-a-bash-shell-in-a-running-docker-container/ Thu, 24 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/24/run-a-bash-shell-in-a-running-docker-container/ There was a time when I could never remember this… but now I’ve typed it so often! docker exec -it container_name /bin/bash More details in the Docker CLI Reference https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/15/password-strength/ Tue, 15 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/15/password-strength/ This is a great comic which is a great lead in to Diceware 🙂 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/07/aws-iam-policy-for-granting-privileges-to-s3-bitbuckets-for-wordpress-updraftplus-backups/ Mon, 07 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/07/aws-iam-policy-for-granting-privileges-to-s3-bitbuckets-for-wordpress-updraftplus-backups/ Replace ‘mybucket’ with the name of the bitbucket that you wish to grant privileges to. { "Statement": [ { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "s3:ListBucket", "s3:GetBucketLocation", "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads" ], "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::mybucket", "Condition": {} }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": [ "s3:AbortMultipartUpload", "s3:DeleteObject", "s3:DeleteObjectVersion", "s3:GetObject", "s3:GetObjectAcl", "s3:GetObjectVersion", "s3:GetObjectVersionAcl", "s3:PutObject", "s3:PutObjectAcl", "s3:PutObjectVersionAcl" ], "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::mybucket/*", "Condition": {} }, { "Effect": "Allow", "Action": "s3:ListAllMyBuckets", "Resource": "*", "Condition": {} } ] } https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/06/docker-logs/ Sun, 06 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/06/docker-logs/ Fetch and follow the log output of a Docker container: docker logs -f CONTAINER_NAME https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/02/school-coding-class-003/ Wed, 02 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/11/02/school-coding-class-003/ After getting to know the children, over the last two sessions, and finding out their strengths, I’ve decided to take a little detour from Scratch to a slightly more guided programme on code.org. The children can continue the course at home if they’d like to – they’ll just need to remember which step they are up to in class! If they would like to save their progress then feel free to create an account for them. https://my.minimaker.space/2016/10/21/school-coding-class-001/ Fri, 21 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/10/21/school-coding-class-001/ In the class, we are starting to learn some programming. The language we are using is called Scratch. Scratch is a free visual programming language. It is aimed at young people, mainly 8 years old and up, with a purpose of helping them learn programming. Scratch is available online and it’s easy to create an account if you’d like to use it outside of school. Just follow this link. The first challenge we are working on is below! https://my.minimaker.space/2016/09/22/docker-managing-dangling-volumes/ Thu, 22 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/09/22/docker-managing-dangling-volumes/ List Dangling Volumes docker volume ls -qf dangling=true Remove Dangling Volumes docker volume rm $(docker volume ls -qf dangling=true) https://my.minimaker.space/2016/09/21/my-minimaker-space/ Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://my.minimaker.space/2016/09/21/my-minimaker-space/ This domain name really belongs to my little boy, James, @ james.minimaker.space, which he is using to save the things he dreams up and creates. We’re hoping it becomes a record for him, as he grows, of some of the things we so often forget or just throw away! Anyway, I’ve piggybacked off of his domain with this subdomain, my.minimaker.space, as somewhere to save the things I often do but often forget how to do!