Author: gary

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Ebike BMS Upgrade

An ebike battery from 2012 has given great service, but the balancing of some individual cells in this 16S Lithium Iron Phosphate battery started to take much longer than others. Eventually, some cells would not balance at all. Each cell has its own “channel” on the battery management system (BMS). A red LED on the BMS should illuminate when the cell comes up to full charge.

On closer examination, some of the sense wires to individual cells were found to have become disconnected. These were resoldered which brought some improvement, but still balancing was not happening consistently. Some damage and corrosion on the BMS circuit board was then found. In the world of ebikes, things have moved on quite a bit since 2012. So it was decided to replace the stock BMS with an up-to-date Bluetooth enabled one.

A “JK” BMS was chosen, which seems to be a popular brand from various online forums. The one page “manual” that came with the BMS isn’t the best, and would probably get a “could do better” if it was a school or college project. Thankfully, with a bit of help from a number of YouTube channels, the BMS was fitted ok and started up. With the matching smartphone app installed, it’s cool to see all the individual cell voltages in real time and the balancing happening before your eyes.

If you’d like to see these kinds of fixes and mods that we get up to, drop in to our Monday night Electronics or Tuesday Open House.
 

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Free Seed and Plant Swap

Join us at TOG for a free seed and plant swap on Saturday 15th March from 2 to 5 PM. Many of us at TOG are keen vegetable gardeners and the coming of New Year makes us look ahead to Spring and Summer in the hope of a good harvest. We’ll be planting lots of seeds on the day and hopefully no one will go away empty handed. We have lots of pots and we’ll have a bag of potting compost too.

If you have anything surplus that you’d like to share, why not bring it along…. seeds? plants? cuttings? We’d love to hear your own stories of what you like to plant in your own garden or space. Tell your friends and family about the event. If you’re involved with any community gardens, then definitely tell them also. The kettle will be on all day with plenty of tea and coffee and biscuits. TOG is a non-profit space run by unpaid volunteers. Donations are always welcome.

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Another Repair Café Fix

We’re no stranger to Repair Cafés  here at TOG, having just run our biggest one ever in January. Repair Cafés are events where volunteers try to fix stuff to keep it in-service and out of landfill. We had about 90 fixes attempted on the day with much success, thanks to a fantastic pool of fixers. You can read about it in the Irish Times.

This particular fix was a simple one, but we also decided to upgrade the power socket to USB-C. A rechargeable work light from ALDI had become intermittent in charging. The charging socket (micro USB) seemed sensitive to touch. Some of the tiny surface mount pins on the charging socket circuit board had failed. These proved quite difficult to re-solder, even with our best hot air kit.

Checking the usual Chinese websites, there are many kinds of USB-C plugs and sockets available. We bought 3 types…. some chassis mounting ones, some on a small PCB similar to the original one, and some plain vanilla ones with just 2 flying leads. We decided to use the plain one. With a bit of enlarging of the hole to make it fit, and some 2-part epoxy, the new USB-C socket is now in place and connected up. These have just a red and a black wire so it’s just 5V, but that’s fine for this application.

Talking afterwards, most of the gadgets and gizmos that we’ve made at TOG have traditionally used some kind of barrel plug for 5V or 12V. Since USB-C is now the in-thing, it’s easy to use it for new projects. Drop in to our regular Monday night Electronics or Tuesday night Open House to see this and much more.

If you need something repaired come along to our upcoming repair cafes.

Fingal Makerspace, Blanchardstown Library 29th March 2025

Tog Hackerspace, 19th April 2025

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Pizza Oven Overhaul

From almost the very beginnings of TOG, our monthly Saturday evening Open Social has been a constant fixture in our calendar. At our Open Social in January 2015, a quick hack over the previous few weeks at making a brick pizza oven from a stack of red bricks and some bits of angle iron turned out to be an unexpected instant hit. Our Open Social was changed forever, and has become as much of an outdoor event as an indoor one, irrespective of the season.

We were blessed in TOG 2.0 (Chancery Lane) to have our own private yard where we could leave the oven permanently. Fast forward to TOG 3.0 (Blackpitts) where there was a large outdoor car park, but we couldn’t leave stuff out there permanently. The solution was to create a mobile pizza oven that we could wheel in and out as required. Using a gym ball as a mould, we made our current mobile pizza oven.

After 7 years of hard use, it was time for a bit of well deserved maintenance. The top was removed and the base refilled and leveled with fresh perlite. New dedicated fire bricks instead of red bricks were laid out for the base. Unlike the previous red bricks, these fire bricks are all identical in dimensions and have now made a super flat cooking surface. The inside of the dome got some re-pointing with new red pottery clay.

At our combined Open Social and 16th birthday party last week, the newly refurbished oven was put to the test. The pizzas were fabulous. Thanks to Conor for making the dough! Being a maker space, you get to prepare and cook your own pizza. We even have peels that we made ourselves. We are a maker space after all! To see the oven in action and to have a go yourself, drop into any of our Open Socials.

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50 Years of the 555 Timer IC

By de:User:Stefan506 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=351550

2022 marks 50 years since the release to market of the iconic 555 timer integrated circuit. The little 8-pin device was designed in 1971 by Swiss engineer Hans Camenzind for Signetics. Released in 1972, it became an instant success and has remained in production ever since. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, it was a rite of passage for any new budding electronics enthusiast to build a 555 circuit. The part was a staple of every enthusiast’s parts bin. Every electronics magazine carried 555 circuits and projects. There were even whole books of 555 projects. 50 years on, it is said that the 555 is possibly the most popular IC ever made, with production numbers in the billions. It can be bought for pennies. Among electronics makers, “Could have done it with a 555” is a common wisecrack in response to a fancy micro-controller project 🙂

We couldn’t let 2022 pass without celebrating the 50th birthday of this amazing little IC. Drop into TOG on Saturday 19th November from 3PM and build yourself a 555 circuit on breadboard. If you have no idea how to do this, don’t worry….. we’ll show you how. You can make something flash or buzz. You can even take away a souvenir 555 for free on us. This is a free workshop. Donations in support of TOG will be most welcome.

This event is part of Science Week which runs from the 13th to the 20th of November. Visit http://www.scienceweek.ie/ for more events.

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Electronics Night is Back!

With the Covid situation easing, we are re-starting our regular Electronics open evening in the space. This is one of our longest-running regular events. It has been a regular feature of our calendar since the early days of TOG. It takes place fortnightly on Monday evenings. Check our events calendar on this blog, Meetup and our social media for the next date.

These evenings are free to attend for members and visitors alike. No booking is necessary. Just turn up! Everyone from absolute beginner to experienced is welcome. These evenings are not classes or tutorials, rather a very friendly informal evening.


We have a wide range of people who come. Some are absolute beginners who do not even work or study in these areas but are interested to know more. Others have something that they are already working on. We almost always have some first-time visitors, and we always give them a tour of the space.


Come in with your Pi, Arduino, or whatever you have. Bring your laptop. Maybe you want to make something, solder, breadboard or use our electronic gear. Maybe you have some vague ideas and just want to get started, but you’re not sure how to. Or maybe you’re just curious……if so, it’s fine to come along and just see what others are doing. Hope to see you on the night.

During Covid, we moved into our new space in Bluebell. The space and our electronics room are still works in progress. If you would like to get even more involved and have the full use of our space, we would be delighted to have you as a full member. Membership brings many benefits.

We are located behind Mr Price and the Bright Lights store on Kylemore Road. There is lots of parking available. Hope to see you some Monday evening.