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Light-Up Film Prop Buttons

Custom Button Prop

Custom Button Prop

This post is mostly photos but I wanted to document a build a did back in February. I was contacted by someone working on a film who needed a prop. A large (202mm x 202mm x 83mm) device with two buttons that would light up when pressed.

Custom Button Prop

Banana for scale. This is a laser cut (and etched) banana but it’s approximately banana-sized.

Custom Button Prop

US quarter for scale… just in case you don’t like bananas used for scale.

Custom Button Prop

Usually (when I build USB devices) the bottom cover is just a flat piece that gets screwed on. For this one I ended up using connectors for the wiring and mounting the electronics (and power) on the bottom cover.

Custom Button Prop

Since the firmware was simple enough I didn’t think it would need to be updated, but it is possible. This is handy if I ship something and things change and the customer wants some other behavior. I can just email new firmware with instructions for installing it.

Custom Button Prop

Here’s the actual bottom… and what I am most proud of. I didn’t want the customer to have to remove the whole cover to access the batteries… and we needed a power switch, which I did not want to put on the side of the unit.

Custom Button Prop

So there is a battery compartment (with its own lid) on the bottom, and a rocker switch for power.

Custom Button Prop

There are just four screws to remove to get access to the battery compartment.

Custom Button Prop

Typically for devices that are USB controllers I just use a USB cable for power, but this needed to be battery powered. Luckily the Raspberry Pi Pico can be powered from 1.8v to 5.5v on the VSYS pin. So three AA batteries coming in just over 4.5v when brand new works well.

Here are some renders of the 3D model. I’d like to start incorporating some of these ideas into other enclosures I create. Often I got for simplicity at the expense of usability… and there is always room for improvement in the things I create.

(I have a list of other interesting custom devices I’ve built over on the wiki.)

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Insta360 Camera (First Impressions)

I recently got an Insta360 X3 Camera (affiliate link) because it was my birthday and somehow there was a sale and it’s been two years since I bought a camera.

Disclaimer: I had some credit card points to use up before the card goes away next month. The camera was $230, minus $90 I got it for around $150 USD.

I got a GoPro back around 2012 and used it to film the Power Racing Series until around 2019. I did not use it in 2020 because pandemic, but I did use it as a webcam for a bit. Then it sat unused for a while and it never worked again. I dug into the problem and the issue is a common failure. So while I still have it, the GoPro is non-functional.

That said, I considered getting a new GoPro, but the combo of the old one failing and seeing that GoPro the company was most likely failing, I decided to look elsewhere, hence Insta360. We use their webcams at work (and the quality is amazing, and an action sports guy I know loves his as well.

So I figured it was time to try something new. Here’s what I got besides the camera.

SanDisk 128GB Extreme microSD Card – I have a pile of microSD cards but they are older and slower and smaller. I tried one to start with and the camera basically says “This is an old slow card and it sucks”. Well, not those exact words, but it displays a warning.

Clamp Camera Mount – I’m no stranger to making my own camera mounts, but with this camera (which does not have a protective shell like the old GoPro cameras did) I wanted something strong and secure. I’ve read that one thing lacking on the Insta360 is a lanyard mount for extra security so a solid mount seemed like a good choice.

Insta 360 X3 Lens Guards & Screen Protector – The X3 does not have easy to replace lenses (like some later models) so that means if you scratch up one of the lenses you need to send it in for repairs. The lens guards are little half-dome plastic pieces to cover the lenses. They do add some distortion when the images from the front and rear cameras stitch the image together. I still need to work on minimizing this in the settings and software.

At this point I’ve only used the camera for a few bike rides, and for two of those rides I thought I had it recording and somehow did not have it recording. After the first time I read the docs a bit more (duh!) and thought I figured it out. Somehow I screwed up twice. Still, I think I just need to learn the controls a bit more.

I started to make a playlist of videos called Bike Riding.

Oh! And as you can see from the photo above you can do some silly/fun/neat stuff with a 360 degree camera. Sidenote: Did you know I used to do 360/Panoramic photography? Back in 2010 I did it for work, and built my own head. (See a Photo Album of Panoramas!). So this is not totally new. I mean, the video part is, but hey, it’s been 16 years.

So far there is a lot to like about this camera, but this is First Impressions and I don’t want to overload things, so in the next installment I’m going to cover a few more things… some good, some bad.

Note: This post may contain Affiliate Links. Read More.

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Biking is for Everyone

Biking

Biking

I’ve been arguing with people online. Maybe I should do less of that and ride my bike more. But I’ve also been trying to call out ableist behavior, which I think is important.

People have also given me grief because I ride an ebike. Here’s my question to those people…

First, imagine you like to ride a bike. Now imagine you get older, you get injured, or your body just doesn’t do what you want it to do without pain.

Do you give up riding a bike, or do you figure out a way to keep riding a bike?

Because of my nerve pain and spinal surgery I just started riding again after 6 months of not riding. I rode 11 miles today, which is a good ride. A few times my knee hurt. Either a twinge or a short shooting pain. I still want to ride my bike. Do you know what helps? An ebike.

I still love to pedal a bike. Mine has no throttle, it’s only pedal-assist, so if I want to move I gotta do some work.

But the thing is, I don’t have to ride so hard it starts to hurt. I can ease up by increasing the assist. Hills? Wind? Knee acting up? I can get some help. Listen, don’t we all need some help sometimes?

And look, I get it. 2026 is the summer of ebike panic. People are riding irresponsibly. Kids, some adults, people who have never rode an acoustic bike before or last did so years ago. People who are ignorant, or inexperienced, and yeah… all of that is a problem.

But I also read posts from people in their 60s and 70s who say things like “I’ve had both my knees replaced but I love riding my ebike!” and “Haven’t ridden in 30 years and now I ride an ebike 15 miles each day.” And shit like that, more people on bikes, is what we need. If you actually care about biking more than gatekeeping, I hope you agree.

Here are some posts from about a year ago. The first time I rode a modern ebike, some thoughts, and then getting my own.

Here’s what I wrote 10 months ago:

Yeah, my knee occasionally acts up. I’ve canceled rides because of it. Earlier this year I was doing physical therapy for it. It’s actually difficult for me to go up a flight of stairs, so you know… maybe an ebike with pedal assist is something that will ensure I can keep riding.

But guess what? In the 50 days I rode an ebike to work last summer/fall my knee never got too bad. Huh. Okay.

So I don’t care if people give me shit, because it won’t stop me riding an ebike. My own body is the thing that will stop me, but for now I’m not letting it. I just need a little assistance sometimes.

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YouTube? MeTube!

MeTube

For years I used yt-dlp which is a “feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader” and most importantly, can download YouTube videos. But yeah, it is a command line utility, easy to use for simple things but sometimes a GUI is nice too.

Enter MeTube, which is a self-hosted YouTube downloader. I’ve got it installed on one of the servers in my house and whatever computer I am using I can just load up the local instance of MeTube, drop in a video’s URL and download away!

It can even do full playlists, convert to other formats (like, audio for instance) and I just find it super handy. Especially since it’ll put all the downloads directly on my server so I can access them from any computer in the house. I can also move them into my Jellyfin server from there, so the videos are available on my TVs.

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This is the Pain (Post-Op Week 3)

Bike Ride Map

Bike Ride Map

It’s been a week since the last update and the good news is… I feel better! I’m still free of all nerve pain, so at this point I’m going to just assume we’re done with that. Done. No more nerve pain!

I’ve still got some back pain, but since it’s only been three weeks and I’m still recovering and I am trying to work my way up to “normal” activities but I still get exhausted some days.

I think the exhaustion is from a few things. First, still recovering; second, I haven’t exercised, and honestly I’ve been sedentary most of the year, so… I am out of shape. Finally, I say I am out of shape, but I’m more of a round shape (LOL) because my weight is up about 1 1/2 stones. Sigh. (Though this might have something to do with the back pain.)

I went from biking 5 to 15 miles most days last fall to barely moving the past six months. Blah. The good news is, I took a very short bike ride on Monday. It felt just fine, and yeah, I took it very easy. I rode 2.5 miles at around 8 miles per hour, which is a slow pace. I felt fine all day and evening, so I think I’m okay to start biking again, still taking it easy for a bit.