Pacific Image PrimeFilm 1800u on Windows 10

 

The Pacific Image PrimeFilm 1800u film scammer isn't officially supported on anything newer than Windows 7, but it can be made to work on newer operating systems. The 1800u drivers can be downloaded from scanace.com/product/all-models-driver-download-user-guide. The filename is PrimeFilm 1800u-i _Windows_SF_ENG_1.3.exe.

If you try and install it on Windows 10 then the drivers will not load, although the CyberView X software does get installed.

The root cause appears to be a lack of signed drivers, which are blocked by default on Windows 10. There are various suggestions on the Internet which involve switching off the kernel's driver signing features. PrimeFilm 1800u Film Scanner - need Windows 8 driver - Microsoft Community

I found another fix. After installing the 1800u software, download and install the 3650u driver. You'll get a digital signature warning - at this point it's your risk to continue.

If you choose "Install this driver software anyway" then the install completes normally.

Now open Device Manger and find the scanner. Right mouse click and choose properties, then the driver tab and click "Update driver". Choose "Search automatically for drivers" and then a few moments later the non-working 1800u driver is replaced with a newer driver that loads OK.

The .inf file for the newer driver can also be found in C:\windows\Twain_32\CyberViewX

Now you can load the CyberView X software that comes with the 1800u (not CyberViewX for the 3650u) and use the scanner as normal.

Flashing WLED to WT32-ETH01

The WT32-ETH01 is an ESP32 board that includes a 100Mb ethernet port. They usually cost around £15 in the UK and are great for driving pixel LEDs usng WLED and xLights over a LAN. Unlike WiFi, there's no bandwidth or latency issues.

They are relatively easy to flash to run WLED, but you'll need a USB to TTL adapter. I use an FT232 adapter by Moyina from Amazon (approx £10) with a switchable 3.3v/5.5v output.

The flash process is documented on the WLED Discourse group but I've summarised it here too.

https://wled.discourse.group/t/wt32-eth01-lan-wifi-flash-tutorial/2786/8

First, download the the flash tools from Expressif. Unzip the download to a new folder and you should see something like flash_download_tool_x.y.z.exe.

https://www.espressif.com/en/support/download/other-tools

Now download WLED from https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/releases.

You'll need the latest release WLED_0.xx.y_ESP32_Ethernet.bin and the bootloader file.

At the time of writing, esp32_bootloader_v4.bin was available as part of the 0.13.1 release.

Now connect up the WT32-ETH01 board to the USB adapter. Set the USB adapter to 5v and connect:

USB->ESP32

VCC -> 5v

GND -> GND

TXD -> RX0

RXD -> TX0

Be careful not to apply power to the LINK pin or reverse 5v/GND as they are close together.

Connect a jumper wire between GND and IO0 (next 2 pins after RX0) to put the ESP32 into programming mode. When plugged into a computer, both devices should power-up.

Now start the ESP32 flashing tool. Choose ESP32 and Develop mode.

In the first two boxes, click "..." and choose the bootloader bin and then repeat for the WLED bin. For the bootloader, put 0x0 after the @. Put 0x10000 after the WLED binary. Make sure both selections are ticked and the filenames appear in green. If they aren't selected, the tool won't flash the files.

Change SPI mode to DOUT.

Select the COM port that matches your USB to TTL adapter - it's a drop down so if nothing is shown make sure the drivers for your adapter are installed.

Click START and it should show the MAC addresses of the WT32-ETH01 board and begin flashing.

After the flash has completed you can remove the power, remove the link to IO0 and re-apply the power. WLED should start an access point that you can join with your mobile phone. At this point you may need to switch to a different 5v supply as some USB adapters can't supply enough power to configure the 100Mb ethernet connection.

WireGuard VPN between MikroTik RouterOS v7 and FRITZ!Box 7530

MikroTik routers are very flexible but are sometime complex to configure. FRITZ!Box routers take a different approach and have a simpler interface with wizards to setup connections.

FRITZ!Box routers use IKEv1 aggressive mode for IPSEC VPNs which can cause some interoperability challenges when connecting to another vendor's device. WireGuard VPNs are relatively easy to setup if you have different brands of devices or if you to deal with dynamic IP addresses.

Although FRITZ!Box routers use configuration files for WireGuard, it's possible to create a connection to a MikroTik device. You will need RouterOS v7 for this, as WireGuard is not available in v6. For the FRITZ!Box use FRITZ!OS 7.50 or later. Both vendors have their own dynamic DNS services which is useful if you don't have static IPs.

In this example, 192.168.7.0/24 is the FRITZ!Box network and 192.168.4.0/24 is the MiktroTik network.

1. Create a new WireGuard interface on the MikroTik. Set the MTU to 1412 (It appears the FRITZ!Box uses this, 40 byte for WireGuard with IPv6 + 8 byte PPPoE).
2. Don't set any IP address on the new WireGuard interface. Instead, add an IP route to the remote FRITZ!Box subnet and set the WireGuard interface as the gateway.
   
3. Add IPv4/IPv6 firewall rules to allow input UDP traffic on the chosen WireGuard port from the WAN along with any appropriate LAN <->VPN access via the new WireGuard interface.
4. Add a mangle rule to limit the MSS to 1352 on traffic to/from the new WireGuard interface.
   
   

   
5. On the FRITZ!Box, add a new WireGuard connection (Internet -> Permit Access -> WireGuard VPN).
   
   
6. Set as a manual connection
   

   
7. Enter the details from the MikroTik. Don't forget to add the port number to the host name, separated by a colon.

   
8. Download the settings to a safe place as you'll need these for the next step.

   
9. Open the downloaded file in a text editor.

   
10. Add a new WireGuard peer using the information from the configuration file.

    

    
    

    If everything is working you'll see the MikroTik show Rx/Tx bytes and a last handshake value. On the FRITZ!Box you'll see a green indicator against the connection.

Energenie MIHO109 - Converting to Tasmota

 

The MIHO109 smart plug is different from most Energenie devices because it communicates directly with their cloud service via WiFi. Although the Energenie service has an API, I wanted to see if I could integrate these plugs directly with Home Assistant. I took one apart to take a look...

I found they come apart easily as there's no glue or clips to pry apart, just 3 T8 safety screws. Inside there's an ESP8285 on a separate module (essentially an ESP8266 but with the flash memory included). I traced the pads to the various pins on the ESP chip and luckily the RX/TX pins are exposed the edge connector.

By temporarily soldering some jumper wires to the RX/TX/3.3v/GND pins it's not necessary to remove the module to flash new firmware. I use a FT232 USB to TTL adapter for this as it also supplies 3.3v to the ESP chip (higher voltages can kill it). I use Tasmotizer as the flashing tool as it has a Windows GUI interface.

 

Once the new firmware has been flashed and the plug reassembled, setup is just like any other Tasmota device.

Template:

{"NAME":"MIHO109","GPIO":[32,1,1,1,1,1,288,224,1,1,1,1,1,1],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}

⚠ Safety warning

These plugs operate at mains voltage and there are exposed terminals inside. If are are unsure of the necessary safety precautions then do not attempt this. Never attempt to flash the ESP chip when it's connected to the mains.

Samsung 27" LCD TV BN44-00506A power supply repair

This 27" LCD TV is around 10 years old and suddenly stopped working with a pop. Given it's age there was nothing to lose by seeing if it could be fixed. With the power supply out it was clear the fuse had blown along with the blue ceramic capacitor next to it.

Fuses usually blow for a reason so I inspected the rest of the board for shorted or damaged components.

I found the main bridge rectifier D2SB60 was shorted along with the regulator IC STRW6053S.

The faulty components were common parts and easily sourced online. Testing with a load lamp showed the short circuit had been cleared by the new parts and the 5v standby voltage was now present. When the power supply was put back in the TV everything worked OK.

 ⚠ Safety warning - These power supplies operate at mains voltage and some components may retain a high voltage even with the power disconnected.

HP Microserver N40L RAID errors

 

The HP MicroServers (N36L/N40L/N56L) were bargains when they first released costing around £100 after cashback. Although their CPUs are pretty slow by modern standards they still make good NAS servers as they take standard 3.5" SATA drives.

I've got one running Windows 10 Pro from an SSD in the CD-ROM bay, leaving all the bays free for data drives running in AHCI (non RAID) mode. I recently upgraded from 2TB to 4TB data drives to give myself a bit more backup space. 

The lazy way to upgrade is to pull a drive, replace it and then let the array rebuild. Repeat this process for each drive and at the end you can expand the volumes. During this process though the data is at risk because should a remaining drive fail, everything is lost. The drive bays on these servers aren't hotswap so they do need to be powered off first.

The correct expansion method is to add a new disk to the storage pool, prepare the old drive for removal and then finally remove it. A USB caddy is a good way to temporarily add an extra drive. My advice is to add some USB3 ports via a PCIe card else you'll be waiting for days at USB2 speeds.

At first I tried the lazy method as this server only contains backup data but had problems rebuilding. I had 4 new drives and each one failed with multiple I/O errors, dropping offline and machine lockups. Checking the drives on another PC found no errors on the drives and they worked fine.

After a lot of experimentation I found it to be a problem with the default Microsoft AHCI driver and the AMD chipset in this server. Despite AMD saying to use the default driver with Windows 10, it actually works reliably with their amd_sata.sys version 1.2.1.402 driver.

Home Assistant control of Mitsubishi MCFZ-A24 WV A/C - Part 3

With the hardware built and Tasmota compiled the final piece is to link it up to Home Assistant. 

I am using the built-in MQTT broker and Tasmota is configured with the Home Assistant address. I've added a dedicated user name and password for Tasmota devices via the MQTT configuration.

Adding the climate control to Home Assistant is relatively easy, although it's not automatically discovered as it is with other ESP8266 firmware projects. To add the climate component manually edit the configuration.yaml file and add:

climate:

  - platform: mqtt

    current_temperature_topic: "tele/tasmota_xxx/SENSOR"

    current_temperature_template: "{{ value_json['BME280']['Temperature'] }}"

    temperature_unit: "C"

    name: Conservatory

    modes:

      - "off"

      - "cool"

      - "heat"

      - "dry"

    swing_modes:

      - "on"

      - "off"

    fan_modes:

      - "high"

      - "medium"

      - "low"

    min_temp: 16

    max_temp: 31

    initial: 18

    power_command_topic: "cmnd/conservatoryac"

    mode_command_topic: "cmnd/conservatoryac"

    temperature_command_topic: "cmnd/conservatoryac"

    fan_mode_command_topic: "cmnd/conservatoryac"

    swing_mode_command_topic: "cmnd/conservatoryac"

    precision: 1.0

The first section is relatively straightforward and configures the climate control with the available functions and where to get the temperature data. The second section was more difficult to work out because I had to try and associate the actions from the control with the IRhvac function of Tasmota. I try not to use custom controls where possible to avoid upgrade problems in the future. I initially struggled to find something that would work with the built-in Home Assistant functions but did get some inspiration from the Home Assistant forum.

What seems to work quite well is having the climate control publish to a temporary topic in MQTT and then using that to trigger an automation using automations.yaml. I need to finish off passing through the swing modes to IRhvav but I don't often use that setting.

- id: ac-control

  alias: AC Control

  trigger:

    platform: mqtt

    topic: cmnd/conservatoryac

  action: 

    - service: mqtt.publish

      data_template:

        topic: cmnd/tasmota_888715/IRhvac

        payload: >

          {% set pwr = 'on' if states.climate.conservatory.state != 'off' else 'off' %}

          {% set mitmode = 'cool' if states.climate.conservatory.state == 'off' else states.climate.conservatory.state %}

          {"Vendor":"MITSUBISHI112","Power":"{{pwr}}","Mode":"{{mitmode}}","FanSpeed":"{{state_attr('climate.conservatory', 'fan_mode')}}","Temp":{{state_attr('climate.conservatory', 'temperature')}},"SwingH":"Off","SwingV":"middle"}

  mode: single

Putting it all together, the card looks nice on the dashboard and is easy to use. Extra options are available from the ⁝ icon.

Pushing one of the icons on the climate controls results in a "beep" from the A/C and a log entry in the Tasmota cosole.