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• Helix DSP.3S
• Conductor Pro
• Skar SK-M4004D
• Skar SK-M5001D
• 2015-2025 Ford F-150 Super Cab Compatible Dual 8" Ported Subwoofer Enclosure
• Skar VD-8 | 8" 600 Watt Max Power Car Subwoofer (Shallow Mount)
• Multi-functional LED ANL Fuse Holder Distribution Block
• Some RCA cables and welding wire to wire up the amps.
• Some 12ga 2 conductor zip wire for wiring subs to amp.
• 5A in-line fuses and relay with holders

Last weekend I got my new Helix DSP and a knob called the Conductor Pro. Wired it up that weekend onto my amp rack. The Skar gear was installed like 14 months ago. Installed the Conductor into a dash panel, placed to the right of my steering wheel. The Conductor lets me change the master volume at the dsp, the sub volume, tone control (does like +/- 6 bass to treble, depending on the direction), and profile selection. I can change between inputs if I wired a second or third input to it. Low level or digital.

This is just covering softwares on Linux, for windows the official tool seems to be the way to go. I don’t remember the order in which I tried the programs but I’ll list them in order of usefulness to me.

Bitfocus Companion

This is the one I opted to use. Partly because it has emulators where I was able to test my button layout before my first Deck even arrived back in October.

I have obtained the 32 key Stream Deck and I love it. I’m using Bitfocus Companion on linux for it and the offical Elgato Stream Deck program on windows. Partly because the companion app needs helper programs to do things on the host OS and the windows versions of those programs annoy me. They work but they won’t just launch to the tray and stay out of my way.

On Linux, I have buttons to take screenshots, launch programs and games, switch lights and plugs and read sensors from Home Assistant. I may play with OpenDeck at some point. I messed with it before the Deck arrived and didn’t like the interface but after playing with the official app, I’m gonna give it a second chance.

At last, I’ve completed the physcial bits of my pi cluster. Well, a few weeks ago but still

It consists of,

• 1 Raspberry Pi 4, 1GB
• 4 Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB
• 1 Raspberry Pi 4, 8GB

The current usages is as followed and subject to change;

• Pi 1 - redpi - a node-red instance with gpu breakout
• Pi 2 - unused
• Pi 3 - unused
• Pi 4 - web proxy + tailscale node for the services
• Pi 5 - nextcloud and syncthing
• Pi 6 - home assistant

All but redpi have ssds. I don’t see a reason to move redpi to a ssd right now but it would be a good idea to setup some sort of backup and restore. For now, I can simply export the flows. if it dies then I’d just find another sd card, install everything, import flows.

A little guide for running forscan on Linux.

This assumes you have a linux pc already setup with wine.

1. Download and run the forscan setup file.
2. Ensure the application can run then close it.
3. Create a symbolic link to the virtual device /dev/ttyUSB0 (ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/devices/COM33)
4. Plug in your OBD2 scanner to a usb port.
5. Launch forscan then adjust the settings for what serial device it connects to.
6. Verify connectivity to vehicle.
7. Cheers.

I made a thing last night cause I was bored. it’s pretty much useless but it works. hard part was getting the i2c bit working. Basically what I have here is, a raspberry pi nano running esphome to connect 12 buttons and 32 leds to home assistant. the leds run thru 2n2222a transistors to take the current load off the mcp23017 gpio extenders. 1k ohm resistors for each led because that’s just what I have on a bulk roll and use a lot on leds. :) The gpio extenders and transistors get power off the 5v rail so as to not overload the 3.3v rail of the nano. not even sure how much current it is.

I finally got to build a new PC. An all AMD build. PcPartPicker List

• CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4.7 GHz 12-Core Processor
• CPU Cooler - be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 CPU Cooler
• Motherboard - ASRock X670E Pro RS ATX AM5 Motherboard
• Memory - Crucial Pro 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5600 CL46 Memory
• Video Card - Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB Video Card
• Case - Fractal Design Define 7 ATX Mid Tower Case
• Power Supply - SeaSonic FOCUS GX-1000 ATX 3.0 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

I had fun building this PC. It’s been a while since I did that. Almost therapeutic.

A few months ago I started using Home Assistant for my room. Adding lights, fans, sensors, and other things via esp8266 modules. I can turn things on and off with location tracking of my phone. I have temp sensors in the kitchen and living room to track that and figure the difference from my room and the rest of the house.

It’s running on a proxmox server in a VM using this helper script. It has a couple virtual cores, 4gb of ram, 32gb disk.

I have a set of external disks I use for backup purposes for my Plex box. In their next to second final state, where I setup something to turn them on and off with a script, I have them wired to a xbox 360 power supply and a 10 port powered usb hub. The hard drives connect to the hub, the hub to the server. As you do. The fun part, the hub isolates power to the devices from the host pc so I can simply turn off power to the hub and the usb things disconnect. The idea being, if the usb controllers in the drives don’t have power from the hub or pc, it’s as if they’re physically disconnected so I can get around any stability issues they may have.

My projects involving ESP8266 Microcontrollers. To Be Updated as needed.