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Repurposing an Old Tablet: A Time Hole of SDKs, Bootloops, and Stubborn Curiosity

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What started as a small idea — turning an old Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 (SM-T230NU) into a dedicated FluidNC pendant — turned into a full dive into Android development, debugging, firmware archaeology, and system recovery. Here’s the real takeaway from today. Coming Up With a Simple Goal The original goal wasn’t complicated: Old tablet FluidNC web interface Fullscreen Landscape Launch on boot A normal person would’ve added the webpage to the home screen in Chrome and been done with it - and I might regret not stopping there - but it all came from curiosty. Learning the SDK Environment I spent time in Android Studio learning: How project structure is laid out Where manifests, layouts, Kotlin files, and themes actually live How Gradle build files fit together How SDK versions impact compatibility I went from not knowing where things were to being able to navigate the project tree quickly and edit the right files without guessing. I built a working APK — even if the target...
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Creality Ferret 3D Scanner

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  The above photo is the third attempt at using the Creality Ferret - and the results are looking promising! While setup did not come without some of its challanges and learning curves, I believe it will be a useful tool for design going forward. From the Creality website: Based on the specs alone, we are to safe assume that we are limited by the .1mm accuracy, resolution and point distance of .16mm and the NIR ( near infrared) light source limiting our scanning ability for certain materials and thin objects, opposed to laser scanners, but overall a seemingly great entry level scanner. Challanges Getting started, I began with my phone which is a Samsung Ultra 23. To note, this version ood the scanner did not include the wifi bridge - so what's included is a 4500 mah battery boom, high speed USB C connector and the scaning unit. Connecting it to my phone was a tad frustrating, as I could not get it to remain connected. Thinking this was an issue with lint in my input, I ...
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