Posts by len0rd
Spying on a CANOpen bus
- 13 December 2024
CANOpen is a protocol stack that sits on top of a normal CANBus. Recently I found myself needing to monitor the traffic between 2 devices on a CANOpen network. Monitoring a CANbus by itself is easy to do with a little Python. Where I ran into difficulty was interpreting the raw CANbus frames into CANOpen messages. Here’s how I solved that.
Defining CANBus messages with a DBC file
- 03 December 2024
DBC files are a standard way to define the messages that will be transmitted over a raw CANBus. While working with this format I found it easy to find tools that could interpret, use, and generate DBC files. However I had a hard time finding resources to describe the format and schema of these files. This post describes some of the schema details I found the most helpful, many of which I had to learn by digging through the source code of tools that work with DBC files. Personally, I find examples the easiest way to learn/understand schema basics, so I’ll use that here while also describing the schema itself.
Setup Syncthing on arkos
- 09 July 2023
Syncthing is a handy tool for syncronizing files between multiple machines. I currently use 2 devices for playing retro games: a Steam Deck and a Anbernic RG353m running arkos My goal here is to syncronize save states and games between the devices. Here’s my goal for a final setup:
Embedded Development Primer
- 05 January 2023
This post is meant to be an overview of some principles and practices I have found helpful for professional baremetal embedded development. This is meant for people who want to have total control over their embedded development environment and codebase.
LS-1: Modular Synth
- 04 September 2018
The LS-1 is a modular oscillator and sequencer, and includes 2 LFO’s (low-frequency oscillators), one external oscillator, and the oscillator attached to the sequencer. The sequencer itself is made up of a counter which acts as a LFO/clock divider, and dual muxes to select the feedback resistance and led to display. The counter outputs and mux select inputs have ports on the front-panel allowing the user to mix and match LFO divisions with mux selects, thus creating custom sequences.
Pallet Desk
- 02 September 2018
As I finished up my sophomore year at university, I realized that I needed my own desk. At that point I had lived in three different apartments. All 3 of them had desks provided, and all of those desks were mediocre at best, downright broken at worst. What’s worse is at the time I worked from home, which meant I needed a reliable desk. With the summer about to hit, and plans to work full-time from home, I knew I needed something fast. Here’s the end result:
My Website
- 31 July 2018
Starting out with this website, I had essentially no knowledge of modern web technologies. I knew that I wanted something modern but also easy to maintain that I could use well into the future.
Darkstar Quadcopter
- 31 July 2018
The Darkstar is a RC quadcopter with the ability to fly autonomously through pre-designated waypoints, using advanced estimation techniques and object avoidance.