Bread making

Tech used:

Digital Thermometer for oven.

Kitchen Aid mixer.

iPhone clock for keeping time

iMac to keep recipes

For the last couple of months I have been baking my own bread. I started making Cinnamon rolls with a recipe from the Food Network. First run was actually pretty good. Some observations I had though, the recipe called for 2 packs of yeast. The second time I reduced the yeast to 1 ¾ which came out a little better. The third time I used only 1 ½ packs, at which point I decided to get a jar of yeast.

On the second run I also made a loaf of white bread. On this one I made a mistake, I got distracted and missed some of the ingredients. Also the heat of the nearby stove got a little high and got a high level fermentation on the dough. When I cut the loaf and had some I realized what I was missing and what the problem was. I forgot the salt, and the fermentation on by the heat gave me an alcohol smelling bread. I will keep an eye on this next time.

This past weekend. I decided to venture into the wheat world and made my cinnamon rolls with the same recipe except I replaced 40% of the flour with whole wheat flour.

Observations:

Bread was left in the oven 1 minute or 2 too long.

Dough rolls were too close to each other and excess expansion went up instead of sideways.

To do next time:

Try the same dough for a loaf bread.

Leave the rolls a little thicker for more bread in between cinnamon lining.

Use 1 ¼ cup more butter for moister bread.

Use parchment paper instead of non stick spray.

Not tech related but “maker” related, and used technology to make it.

Tags: Bread, Flour, Dough, Cinnamon

Update on Aquaduino

Looks like I will need twice the LEDs to produce enough lighting for the tank. So I will try a 40 LEDs twenty for each side. Here are the soldered LED array with resistors, and the photo resistor.

All LED’s from left to right are white, the jumbo size one is blue, the one to the right side of the jumbo is a red. both red and blue will create the mood lighting when the white ones are off. The photo resistor on the right side is connected via wires from underneath the drilled board, it controls the brightness of the LEDs depending on ambient light and changes to mood light 2 hours after daylight. One photo resistor will be taking light from the inside of the house and the second photo resistor will be wired to the outside to get outdoor light feedback.

Schematic and PCB

Everything is coming together, here is a first draft for the actual schematic which I will turn into a PCB. I will make it using the transfer method. when I have tested it and perfected it, it will be sent for mass production from a company in China, I am not sure which one will be used but I have several names I have to contact.

The two unconnected leads at the bottom connect to ground.

First successful coding

So here is the first attempt to making the aquarium light code work. I may be able to clean it up but i will call this one V.1, I know there are many things I haven’t thought about but I will add as I go along.
I have to thank the “Getting started with Arduino” book for this code. I combined some of the examples to get the desired result.

Parts:
10 White LED’s
3 Blue LED’s
1 LDR
13 82 ohm Resistors
1 Arduino
Jumper cables.
1 breadboard (for prototyping)


// Set the brightness of LED to
// a brightness specified by the
// value of the analogue input LDR and add a mood light when off.
//
#define LED1 9 // the pin for the LED white
#define LED2 10 //THE PIN FOR THE LED BLUE
//
int val = 0; // variable used to store the value
// coming from the sensor
void setup() {
pinMode(LED1, OUTPUT); // LED is as an OUTPUT
// Note: Analogue pins are
// automatically set as inputs
}
void loop() {
val = analogRead(0); // read the value from
// the sensor
analogWrite(LED1, val/4); // turn the LED on at
// the brightness set
// by the sensor
delay(7200000); // stop the program for
// some time (2 hours)
if (val == 0) {
digitalWrite(LED2, HIGH); // Blue LED will be on if the white is off
}
if (val != 0) { //IF value is not equal to 0 blue LED on.
digitalWrite(LED2, LOW);
}
}


First draft blue print of Aquaduino Lux

I finally put the first draft on ink and paper so I can start working on it. I received the LED’s so I have something to start with. I still have to figure out the circuitry but I think it will be

1 Blue LED to PIN A

1 Red LED to Pin B and,

10 white LEDs in parallel to PIN C

I will add dimming capabilities to all three PINs to make ambiance lighting customizable.

Arduino research

I have started playing with the Arduino, so far every project has been successful, I have not yet written anything myself so I am not going to post pictures or process of any of them since they are all somewhere on the internet already. I have made some minor tweaks to every single one but nothing huge to change the behavior of the project. I am currently learning the code and should soon have the building blocks to put something together, Projects I have accomplished:

1. Chasing LED lights

2. Blink LED

3. Fade LED

4. Beeping song

5. 5 LED POV. (not yet tested)

6. Servo with a potentiometer

7. Nikon Remote control

I am trying to work with the 5×7 LED matrix and perhaps ad a second 5×7 to the mix to make a scrolling text display. I am still browsing the forums to find the basic skeleton for the project I’m researching. Timed lighting with moon/mood light for my fish tank and eventually I’d like to add an RGB mood light as well with a clock to automatically turn it on and off and a daily feeder using a servo. I have other plans and should be doing some research and post some pictures when I start working on it.

Happy Arduinoing!

Tags: Arduino, POV, LED, Nikon Remote control, chasing LED lights

Night one of 1TB TiVo upgrade,

Night one of TiVo upgrade went, well it didn’t go. I came home, wife was at the store, my son was with me and I pulled out the torx #10, and opened the TiVo. I removed the bracket from the frame and found my SATA cables. I opened up the computer and plugged the cables in, changed the bracket to the new hard drive and left it all “ready” to do the transfer.

Had dinner and when I was done I rushed to get it ready. I wanted to make sure I recorded the KCTS show Nova, about the revival of the Hubble Telescope. As I got ready to connect all the parts and start the data transfer I realized my power supply inside my PC only has one SATA connection. I looked in other computers I had for an adapter, with no luck.

In the end I put it back together and put the hard drive back in the TiVo without the bracket, I set a square piece of cardboard in between the motherboard and the drive to avoid shock and damaging the components. This morning, I took out the cardboard and mounted it in the bracket again to make sure it doesn’t catch on fire. I brought the adapter to work so I can go during my lunch and find one to continue my project tonight.

I will post the pictures when I’m done.

Still TiVo upgrading

In continuation to my previous post:
I ordered the hard drive this morning from New Egg. I got the WD10EADS. I was going to order the SATA cable but 1.99 would increase the shipping another $6.99, not worth the extra cash. There is a recycle computer down the street from the office, I will check with them. I can’t be over $1.00 but an extra $2 or $3 still reasonable as opposed to $10.00 extra.
About the Western Digital Drive:
The company (WD) markets this as a “green” hard drive. They emphasize in their marketing the energy efficiency to give you about 40% reduction. This works for me, or at least according to several postings on the internet, TiVo doesn’t require a high speed drive to run HD programming. The hard drive runs quietly, and slows itself down when not heavily used.
Now there are some things I have to find out, the first one:
How do I set the jumper to 3.0Gb/s?
When copying my data, will the already recorded shows transfer over?
Does this void my warranty permanently?

I will post the whole process when I get my hard drive delivered, I presume this should be next weekend.

When copying my data, will the already recorded shows transfer over?
Does this void my warranty permanently?

I will post the whole process when I get my hard drive delivered, I presume this should be next weekend.

My TiVo

Have had my TiVo for almost a month. So far so good and I like it. I am not sure why I didn’t have one before. And my geek nature tells me that I have to hack it. I has plenty of room for what I record and watch but now I want to increase the capacity to 1TB of storage.

I found some tutorials and as hard as it looks i will definitely spend a couple of hours and about $90.00 to upgrade the hard drive. Im thinking to get the Western Digital Green hard drive.

I can see myself using the extra space for full seasons of shows. Right now I want to catch up with Heroes, for that I have to buy the season previous to this one and on the mean time have to record every episode so I can catch up. Next I would like to catch up with Fringe, I have recorded the first two episodes of season two.

Cat5 crimping diagram

I have to keep this handy in case I need it again.