Oct 14, 2023     Parts Lookup App - (5 hours)       Category: Tools

I have added on to my NodeRED dashboard with another flow that allows for parts lookup. A part number can be entered and the app references two files - one file is the packing list (electronic) where description of the part is looked up along with quantity packed, shipped, received and back-order information is then displayed. It also does a lookup in another file to see if the part has already been used - this was prompted by spending 45 minutes looking for a part that I had already attached to the vertical stabilizer. (dammit). Now, as parts are being used, I indicate that they have been used which may save me some time in the future.
There are many opportunities for improvements of this app. Things like better search (i.e. not having to get the part number exactly right when doing a lookup) and also being able to indicate the quantity of the part number that have been consumed.
The best part of about the app is it indicates the location in my hangar (workshop / aka. 3rd stall of my garage) we stored the part when we did the inventory and unpacking.

  Sep 27, 2023     Time Clock App - (10 hours)       Category: Tools

Wrote a small time-clock app in NodeRED running on a Raspberry Pi 3 (along with some other software). Using the Dashboard feature of NodeRED, this time clock (punch-in/punch-out) will be used to better keep track of the actual hours used on the build. This app will be displayed on an iPad Mini (with external keyboard) in my hangar for easy access. It all runs locally (no cloud services needed) except for email (Gmail) which will send me an email with the duration that I was clocked in along with a brief Title of the work that was I did.
This app in in beta and I will continue to evolve it including exploring a direct connection (API) with this EAA builders log web site.