{"id":1587,"date":"2020-04-26T05:07:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T05:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soliloquyforthefallen.net\/?p=1587"},"modified":"2020-04-26T05:07:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T05:07:38","slug":"an-update-not-too-notable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soliloquyforthefallen.net\/?p=1587","title":{"rendered":"An Update. Not too notable."},"content":{"rendered":"

Hrm, what to update on?\u00a0 My last post was released roughly 4 months ago.\u00a0 Who could have imagined where we would be today?\u00a0 Corona is … mostly a ploy to destroy the economy in the wake of the November elections.\u00a0 There are some real medical issues that could be present but its to the same group of people who are vulnerable to the seasonal flu.\u00a0 Its time to get back to work America.<\/p>\n

Having addressed that … what else is there to talk about?\u00a0 Let me rummage about here.\u00a0 This is more of a scrap bin update so … things might be rough in places.<\/p>\n

Projects<\/h2>\n

The biggest change is that I have a new shop.\u00a0 I would love to post pictures but operational security and all.\u00a0 The new shop gives me better capabilities.\u00a0 I’ve also expanded what tools I have on site.\u00a0 A basic stick\/tig welder, lathe, and work bench are all welcome additions to my capabilities.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to starting my own business and maybe escaping from the nonsense that is corporate America.\u00a0 My sales site is already listed on here, but for kicks, check out my offerings at underthebedstudio.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also built a painting cabinet that helps keep the fumes down in the house and give excellent finishes to parts I need to paint.\u00a0 One of the first projects that I used it for was a drive over antenna base.\u00a0 My intention to use this at the remaining service events this year that don’t get cancelled as a result of the Panicdemic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another cool project I worked on was a Cigar Punch.\u00a0 With my 3d printer I was able to iterate through designs pretty quickly.\u00a0 I threw out the iterations but took a picture first:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Only took me 6 tries to get to the form factor I was happy with.\u00a0 I also finally found a pre-hardened material to make the punch itself from (drill bushings), which was the cause of Mk4 & Mk 4.1.<\/p>\n

While I was looking at a few things, I ended up buying an ESP-12s which I found prebuilt firmware that would let me use it as a serial port over wifi.\u00a0 Pretty sweet.\u00a0 So here’s my interpretation of it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the Schematic for the protoboard above.<\/a> It uses an 18650 cell under the board for powering everything. And here is the STL for the carrier.<\/a> I used standard 8-32 screws to hold the protoboard down.\u00a0 The charger circuit chip is here on Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Computer Jazz Hands<\/h2>\n

A few computer things that I’d like to talk about.<\/p>\n

First up is the Retroflag GPi<\/a>.\u00a0 This is a pretty slick little box that takes a Raspberry Pi Zero (Wireless if that’s your thing) and turns it into a self contained Retropie gaming machine.\u00a0 Being that its a Pi Zero, it struggles with anything over Super Nintendo but works pretty well for lots of other things.\u00a0 If you’re into gaming I highly recommend it.\u00a0 I just wish every single pi unit with the exception of the Pi3 wasn’t so damn finicky.\u00a0 I do have scripts that allow me to turn off the wifi and the bluetooth and also rsync over wireless.\u00a0 Code at the bottom.\u00a0 One thing I would recommend to everyone – just get a bluetooth keyboard at the same time.\u00a0 Normally I would recommend a 2.4ghz USB keyboard (I’m a fan of this one<\/a>) but with the Pi Zero and the GPi case – bluetooth is best. I ended up with this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ah, the Hak5 Jasager.\u00a0 They released the firmware 2.4 for the Mark V a month or so ago.\u00a0 I hate to say it, but I’ve never really gotten the thing to work as well as I would like.\u00a0 I’m always fighting with it, and it seems to be always corrupting sd cards – which kills my plugins.\u00a0 At this point, I would be hard pressed to buy the Mark VI.\u00a0 Hak5, thanks for all you’ve taught me.\u00a0 Best of wishes.<\/p>\n

What about a Pwnagotchi<\/a>?\u00a0 A wifi auth key hacking tomagotchi?\u00a0 Sweet.\u00a0 But my dislike of RasPi’s still applies.\u00a0 Also, its 2020 and now that I ponder the idea – I only see a couple of wifi configurations in the “wild.”\u00a0 The first is with a proper WPA2 password which can be tricky to catch and crack.\u00a0 The other is a captive portals with open associations.\u00a0 And no, fortune 500 employers and authentication portal doesn’t secure the traffic of the users.\u00a0 With open associations, no reason to associate.\u00a0 Just grab it from the air.<\/p>\n

I built myself a FreeNAS box last year as well.\u00a0 This makes it super easy to back up my laptop across the network.\u00a0 A few recommendations<\/p>\n