gnuplot

2 Articles

Controlling A Rigol With Linux

June 6, 2015 by 19 Comments

The Rigol DS1052E is the de facto oscilloscope for any tinkerer’s bench. It’s cheap, it’s good enough, and it’s been around for a long time; with the new 1054 zed model out now, you might even be able to pick up a 1052E on the cheap.

[wd5gnr1] came up with a really interesting piece of software that allows a Linux system to control most of the functions on this popular scope. With just a USB cable, you can read and log all the measurement of the scope, save waveforms in CSV format, and send data to gnuplot and qtiplot.

Since the 1052E has been around for such a long time, there’s a bunch of software out there that takes advantage of the nifty USB port on the front of this scope. If you need a cheap spectrum analyzer, here ‘ya go, and tools for the .WFM files native to this scope even exist for Windows. [wd5gnr1] even says his tool can probably be ported to Windows, but ‘just use Linux.’

White Oyster Mushroom

Automated Mushroom Cultivation

February 8, 2015 by 22 Comments

Lots of people have developed their own systems for automating the growth of plants. Keeping the environment under tight control leads to better yield, and computers are better than humans at remembering to water the plants regularly. [Kyle] is into growing mushrooms (the legal, edible type) and automating things. This led to his system for automated mushroom cultivation.

We’ve seen an automated system for growing fungi before, but [Kyle]’s project is a bit bigger. He’s built a sealed room for growing mushrooms. The room is sealed with a plastic sheet, using magnetic strips to create a doorway. Within the room, a heater, humidifier, and circulation fan control the environment. Temperature, humidity, and dew point in the chamber are constantly monitored and adjusted as necessary.

The entire system is controlled with a Raspberry Pi and custom software, which is available on Github. GNUPlot is used to generate graphs, which are accessible through a web server. The web interface also allows the parameters of the chamber to be tweaked remotely. Based on the settings, the Raspberry Pi controls a set of relays to keep the chamber in an ideal state.