This post quickly covers how I disabled (removed) the IR LEDs on several Tapo C110 cameras I own. This was to use them behind a window without the IR LEDs’ glare ruining the video. The Tapo C110 is an excellent small WiFi security camera, boasting up to 2K resolution, local continuous SD card recording, and two local RSTP streams. Most importantly, it works perfectly fine without an internet connection once configured, fitting my use-case. A significant drawback of the camera is the need to completely disable the night vision mode to turn off the IR LEDs. This means you can’t use the night vision mode while the camera is behind a window. Thankfully its easy to disable Tapo camera IR LEDs!
Continue reading Disable TP-Link Tapo Camera IR LEDsCategory: Tutorials
Easy Raspberry Pi Pico Microcontroller C / C++ Programming on Windows
This tutorial covers setting up a pretty painless Raspberry Pi Pico C / C++ SDK development workflow on Windows using the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Visual Studio Code (VS Code) with IntelliSense code completion!
With the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller being so new the current C / C++ SDK development process on Windows is a bit cumbersome. This tutorial should hopefully give you some ideas on how to go about programming the Raspberry Pi Pico the easy way with WSL and VS Code.
Note: This is not a beginner tutorial and assumes some minimal development experience.
Continue reading Easy Raspberry Pi Pico Microcontroller C / C++ Programming on WindowsRaspberry Pi Headless Access Using Built-in Serial Console
It’s not very well known that the Raspberry Pi has a built-in serial console that provides a fully working Linux terminal over serial. This allows for network-free headless access, including the absolutely necessary tab auto-complete! This feature is extremely useful for those projects that don’t use a screen or need network access. It’s also quite necessary when you are using a Pi as a wireless access point for a LAN without internet sharing.
Continue reading Raspberry Pi Headless Access Using Built-in Serial ConsoleAdding Swap Memory to the Beaglebone Black
I recently needed to build Python 3.6 from source on the BeagleBone Black for a robotics project and discovered that the build would always fail after running out of memory. Who could have figured that 512MB of RAM wasn’t enough to build Python from source?! While I could have set up cross-compilation and performed the heavy lifting on my computer with more resources, I figured this was a perfect problem to solve by adding swap memory to the BeagleBone Black.
Continue reading Adding Swap Memory to the Beaglebone BlackChange the Default Cloud9 Workspace on the BeagleBone Black
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe BeagleBone Black ships with a really great browser-based IDE called Cloud9, which is accessed by going to your BBB IP address at port 3000. While I don’t use Cloud9 for heavy development, it’s handy for debugging and quick changes to scripts. It also has a built-in terminal which means I can do everything in the browser.
By default Cloud9 launches a workspace at /usr/lib/cloud9
, which has useful examples and scripts for all sorts of applications. I want it to point, instead, to my personal projects folder so I’ll change the default Cloud9 workspace on the BeagleBone Black to /home/debian/projects
.
Continue reading Change the Default Cloud9 Workspace on the BeagleBone Black
Connecting a BeagleBone Black to the Internet over USB
Connecting a BeagleBone Black (BBB) to the internet over USB is a simple process thanks to the internet sharing capabilities of Windows. This is extremely convenient when developing because it allows your BeagleBone Black to have an internet connection as long as your computer or laptop has one, no matter the network, and SSH access over a single USB cable.
Continue reading Connecting a BeagleBone Black to the Internet over USB