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Game Show Buzzer System V2

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2025-01-19

The name “Game Show Buzzer System V2” is a misnomer but I’m gonna go with it… See, I’ve built more than one “Game Show Buzzer” type of system since the original post but they were not documented here for various reasons… Anyway, this is a system I designed quite a while ago but just recently had someone actually want, so I built it.

See, typically I sell one (or more) of the Big USB Buttons or even these Survey Says Buttons, but this system doesn’t use multiple individual self-contained buttons, but a control box you can plug multiple buttons into. This specific system has just two buttons but the original design had either three or four, though doing up to six (or even eight) buttons would be trivial.

The control box plugs into a computer via USB and can send keys, keystrokes, USB MIDI data, or serial data. Each button plugs into the control box using a TRS cable. (That’s a 3.5mm Stereo Cable for you non-nerds in the crowd.) The TRS cable has three connections (Tip, Ring, and Sleeve) which is perfect for a button and LED.

The trick is in the code… meaning the programming is whatever is needed. For this specific build we did a USB MIDI noteOn for each button, followed by a five second lockout so no button could be pressed for five seconds. I’ve done systems where the “host” (using the control box) can reset the system, say for instance if the person/team who buzzes in first gets the quiz answer wrong, so that another team can try to buzz in and answer. Lots of possibilities, again, the magic is in the code.

I’ve built enough of these that I really should formalize things and come up with a system where you can choose the components and features and then place an order… It’s still sort of a custom thing (code always is anyway) but I think I have it down enough that a base system is in order.

Anyway, this was another fun project, though it was a bit rushed (got it built and programmed in a matter of days before it needed to ship) so there are a few small improvements I’ll be making next time.

Tags arduino, button, controller, games, usb

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WMSE Art & Music – Sydney Hih

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2025-01-19

One of my pieces for the 2025 WMSE Art & Music event is my illustration of the Sydney Hih building. If you didn’t live in Milwaukee around the 1980s/1990s and dive into the counter-cultural music scene you may not be familiar. Read about it at OnMilwaukee or Urban Milwaukee.

I always struggle with the edges of the 12″x12″ boards as they are just plywood and kind of rough, so this time I sanded them, filled the holes, sanded some more (and I hate sanding!) and then applied some black paint. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. I spent way too much time on the edges.

For the frame itself I laser cut a piece of 1/4″ Baltic Birch and stained it black, which I think looks really nice. I glued it down to the board but the frame was warped so the gluing process took a long time and all the clamps I have. Once it was finally glued down I painted the edges black (again) and added one more coat of black stain to the frame. I am mostly pleased with how it turned out but because it’s my own work I can see so many areas of improvement for next time. I’m sure no one else will see what I see.

Still, this process worked well enough that I did it for another board and yet another board that my daughter Madeline did.

Here’s a version of the digital illustration that I created with Procreate. This is a part of my history, and is for many of my people, those who grew up going to shows and seeing bands play, and playing in bands.

I’m sure I’ve told the story of how I ended up running sound for the Sunday morning punk rock shows at The Unicorn (located in the basement of the Sydney Hih) but here it is again. One day we were setting up and asked Gus where the sound guy was and he said “You do the sound!” So we did… I wasn’t in a band at the time so I just started setting things up and got some help along the way, and I think from then on we just ran the sound for the local shows. Just one more step in a life of DIY.

Tags art, auction, milwaukee, wmse

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Boot Repair with Plasti Dip

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2025-01-18
1 Comment on Boot Repair with Plasti Dip

Remember back in 2007 when I got new boots? Well, they broke. 17 years ago I said “they should last at least 10 years” and they did!

But in the last few years I noticed they were cracking and sort of falling apart. For a minute considered getting a new pair because I am an adult with more than a few hundred dollars in my savings account…

But then I thought, maybe I should try to fix them? So I did. First, the damage… see the photo above and the two below.

The right boot wasn’t too bad, but the left was terrible. It came apart right below the seam where it is sewn together and in other places the boot had cracked and split open. You can see the white filling on the inside of the boot.

I’ve had this Plasti Dip since at least 2017 (I know this because I used it for a project) and honestly I think I dipped all the tools I needed to dip. I started the repair by grabbing a cheap bristle brush and “painting” on a coating of Plasti Dip. I let it dry and did a few more coats and called it a day.

I then wore the boots outside, did some walking around, and they split open again. Obviously the solutions was… more Plasti Dip!

This time I grabbed a popsicle stick and just slathered it on, filling in the cracks and gaps and I did this a bunch of times to build up a good layer of rubber to stick everything back together. (You might notice I also fixed the aglets with some heat shrink tubing.)

I’ve flexed them a bit and they feel like they’ll hold together, but if not I can always just pour the rest of the can onto them. Seriously though, I hope this does it because I’d really hate to buy a new pair, mainly because I want to cut down on buying new things if I can repair old things I already own. I probably wear these boots less than 30 days a year since we don’t really get that much snow and I don’t spend a ton of time outside if it’s extremely cold outside.

So fingers are firmly crossed that this fix works!

Update: 10 days later the boots are holding up but I lost an aglet.

Tags boots, diy, fix, repair

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Jellyfin for Music

I started using Jellyfin for my music library so I can access it anywhere I can get a connection to the Internet. I don’t support streaming services that charge subscriptions and I’ve spent over four decades building my music collection, and I add to it frequently.

I’ve been using Apple’s iTunes/Music/whatever it’s called now, and often copying some (or all) of my library locally to multiple devices but I thought I’d give Jellyfin a try. I know people who use it for video but I’m strictly here for the music.

A guy I work with uses Jellyfin running on his home NAS with a zillion videos files. I thought about where to get it running, but ended up just running it on my primary desktop computer. It’s already basically a server, and it’s always on (except when it kernel panics a few times a year) and since my music files were already there, it was simple. I just have it set to launch at boot.

One interesting thing about Jellyfin versus a lot of other open source projects is that they seem to have money!

So it’s been a few months (I started this post in July!) and I’ve been mostly pleased with Jellyfin. There are a few things that are annoying, but overall it’s pretty good. The annoying things are mainly stuff that is different from the old way I did things. Like there are no star ratings. I used the 0-5 star ratings a lot in iTunes/Music.app and I miss it. (A plugin could probably be written but no one has done it yet.) It does handle all my scrobbling so the data goes to Last.FM and Heard just fine.

Another nice thing about Jellyfin is that I could (in theory) share my server with others by making accounts that they could use to login and listen to my music library. I have not done this yet but it’s a nice feature for sure.

I’ll plan a follow-up post talking about clients for Jellyfin, because honestly servers are kinda boring by design (when they work well) because they just sit there and run and you shouldn’t even see them much.

Stay Tuned!

Tags music

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Authority & People

Post author By Pete Prodoehl
Post date 2025-01-10

I was recently thinking about laws and specifically obeying laws. I’ve never considered myself a person who just blindly follows the rules or bows to power. I’ve always tried to question authority, especially when authority seems to make no sense.

But a lot of my actions would appear to follow the laws we have, but it’s typically due to two reasons…

First, breaking laws can result in monetary fines or incarceration, and since I am not part of the ruling class fines are not just the “cost of doing business” and I don’t like being incarcerated.

Second, I tend to follow laws that fall in line with respect for other people. I don’t drive like an asshole violating traffic laws because I don’t want to cause harm to others… and I hope that others feel the same way and that their actions reflect that.

We should question authority, not just blindly follow rules that make no sense… but we should also do our best to be respectful and kind to one another. It’s the only way we’re gonna make it through this world.

Tags life