Using MQTT with the Raspberry Pi Pico W and HomeAssistant for an Optimized Solar Energy Electrical Vehicle Charger

I’m in the final stage of finishing a electrical vehicle (EV) charger controller, which optimizes battery loading using the available PV system: use as much as possible the solar energy and not the grid.

Raspberry Pi Pico W as a EV Charger Controller

While the controller talks with an Modbus (RS-485) interface to the vehicle charger itself (see Controlling an EV Charger with Modbus RTU), it uses MQTT over WiFi to get information about the available solar energy from HomeAssistant and the Powerwall.

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McuOnEclipse Components: 29-Dec-2022 Release

I’m pleased to announce a new release of the McuOnEclipse Processor Expert components, available on SourceForge.

SourceForge

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DIY Split-Flap Display

Split-flap displays are electromechanical display devices, which were common in airports or railway stations a few years ago.Unfortunately, most of them are gone and replaced by LED displays. Why not create a DIY version of it?

2×10 Split-Flap Display
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McuOnEclipse Components: 26-Dec-2021 Release

I’m pleased to announce a new release of the McuOnEclipse components, available on SourceForge. This release includes several bug fixes, support for more devices, and updated components like FreeRTOS, MinINI, Percepio Tracealyzer and SEGGER SystemView.

SourceForge

SourceForge

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MetaClockClock V4 for the Year 2021

I had a few of PCBs left over from the V3 MetaClockClock, and originally I planned to finish a build with them by the end of 2020. But as always: things took a bit longer than expected, so I finally finished it today on the first day of the year 2021.

The build uses the same hardware as in the previous V3, but instead of an ‘artistic’ canvas background I decided for a more natural and wood design:

V4 with Walnut Veneer

V4 with Walnut Veneer

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Tweaking MCUXpresso IDE Black Theme

‘Dark’ or ‘Black’ themes are on vogue: some love it, some do not care. The good thing is that we all have a choice. Things are getting improved on the host OS (Windows/Linux) side, but the challenge is still on the application side, but things are getting better. This is true for the Eclipse based IDEs too, with the NXP MCUXpresso IDE V11.2.1 just recently released: it comes with improved Dark Theme support:

Tweaked MCUXpresso IDE Dark Theme

Tweaked MCUXpresso IDE Dark Theme

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Using eInk display with LPC55S69 and OKdo E1 board

I have continued to explore my two hobbies (embedded systems, and Talking About The Weather) during these weeks of lock-down. I have finally got to the point that my Weather Station project can sit on the window shelf of my office, and show me the temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure on the attached eInk display.

weather station project: it is warm, cloudy and low pressure outside

In this blog I’m going to focus on driving that display.

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Open Source LittlevGL GUI Library on Adafruit Touch LCDs with NXP LPC55S69-EVK

The NXP LPC55S69-EVK is a versatile board. In this article I show how it can be used with Adafruit TFT LCD boards, both with resistive and capacitive touch. For the software I’m using the open source LittlevGL GUI.

LPC55S69-EVK with Adafruit Touch LCD

LPC55S69-EVK with Adafruit Touch LCD

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