Forays into Hardware Moddification and Hacking

Dual temperature Logger

2011-12-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

Oh you poor neglected blog, I really should be paying better attention to you. Here is a project I have started to work on that I believe belongs on this blog and not really in my homelife. I have a friend that has a unfinished crawlspace that is easily accessible (read walk in height) that I've mused about placing a barrel for aging weird beers in. The trouble is it is unregulated temperature, and I want to have an idea of the ranges I can expect from it before I lay my precious beer down there.

I purchased a TI Launchpad a while ago, for the purpose of having a cheap and available development board to play with. These are great at $4.30+shipping you don't need to worry about ruining them and they have the USB host for programming them built in. It is quite a nice dev-board for the price and I know Texas Instruments is just trying to buy market share here, but if it drives down the Arduino and Phrallax devboard prices I'm all for it. I need an experiment and want some long tail results about the temperature inside the crawlspace vs the outdoor temperature to get a feel for how stable the temperature is. My hope is that it stays above 40°F (his furnace and hot water tank are down there so it should be above freezing) and stays below 70°F in the summer. Below 60°F would be really ideal, but for free you can only hope for so much.

My general plan was to get two temperature probes and tweet the temps a few times a day, hack-a-day posted this little project that has me thinking that I may use WUnderground for a destination to store the data. I could I suppose roll my own CGI script to take a post datastream and keep it in a text file, or use a wireless accessory to get things really interesting. This will probably have to be an ongoing post because I haven't decided how I want to proceed. I can work on interfacing directly with the network using the Devboard and a Wifi module. That route has some benefits and runs around $50 for the wifi module. Another route is to use a bluetooth module and interface with an Android phone to do the heavy lifting for me. I could just log the data to the phone on an SD card, and using No-IP access a webserver to just check on it from time to time. The beauty of using the Android device is it has built in WiFi, storage a built-in battery backup and is really pretty compact. A final option is to use the Open ADK and plug in via the usb port. The drawback is it was designed for Arduino boards, so I'll be inventing the wheel here to make it work with the TI board. I'm not opposed to buying something like the IOIO, given the costs fall pretty much in line with the cost of the WiFi module, I had just hoped to pull this off with the TI boards.

Liquid cooling minor case mod

2011-05-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

I put together a PC for a Vista build about 3 years ago, and every summer since then I have had concerns about its ability to survive the heat of our basement. I had been considering a water cooling rig for my Quad-Phenom machine because it idles at about 40c during the winter months.

I didn't want to have to build and leak test a system myself so I settled on Corsair H50 All in One CPU Cooler as an alternative. I thought this would be a good compromise to the noise/heat dissipation as well as the overall build and test problems of normal water cooling systems. The theory was really there, but it all fell apart when I realized that I didn't have a 120mm rear exhaust fans. The only option that I had was the Acrylic side of the case had an 80mm hole. After a little research I found that a 4" holesaw is ≈ 102mm and decided I would give that a try. If you have ever tried to cut a hole in acrylic you probably know what was wrong with this plan, despite having 4 clamps holding the acrylic down, everytime I lowered the drill press down to the material it caused it to jump a few millimeters before I could get the drill head released. The surface area of the hole saw allowed too much grip. Plan b was to drill the hole in some particle board and use a trim router to finish the hole. The key to this is going slowly enough that you don't heat the bit up too much and start melting the acrylic. All things considered, for 45minutes of work it was a pretty successful project and I managed to not ugly up the acrylic too badly.

Softmoding Xbox original

2011-05-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

Some links for my own use

The softmod route

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-softmod-your-xbox...for-FREE/

http://www.instructables.com/id/EZNKGJ9QJIES84IOMR/

The modchip route

http://www.biline.ca/xbox_ndure.htm

http://www.biline.ca/xbox_uxe_hd.htm

AC-DC Power Supplies - Using Wall Warts

2011-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

TI Valueline dev board links

2010-06-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I ordered some of the Texas Instruments value line microprocessors today, like most geeks on the internet I saw them yesterday on Hackaday and was interested. Unfortunately so was everyone else and the servers where unable to take it. Relying on the short attention span of other geeks I waited until today and was able to successfully place my order. Below are some links for my own reference when the darn things show up.

Wikipedia

Dev Wiki

MSP430 ValueLine product family page

I am an Amazon Associate

2010-05-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

So I took the plunge and am now an Amazon Associate. In the interest of full disclosure, when I post a link to Amazon it will be with an affiliate link embedded. This is advertising, plain and simple and I should you follow that link and make a purchase I receive compensation for those purchases.

Why am I disclosing this? Well the answer is really kind of clear, the FTC decided that failure to disclose the incentives you receive for "word of mouth" marketing is an actionable offense. My traffic is really low, but I don't want to find out how actionable it is.

Rooting Android Sprint HTC Hero

2010-04-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

Oh shiny toys! I have seriously been jonesing for the Android 2.1 rom for Sprint's HTC Hero to drop, only to be disappointed a couple of times. Up until now I had not considered rooting my phone, but some of the Lag issues and multi-tasking bog down was getting to me.

I read that Damagecontrol had dropped 2.1 for some of the older models so I went looking and found this androidpolice article about updating his phone. I followed the links that where in his article and am no rocking the DamageControlv2.07.2 rom without a hitch thus far.

The first step is to root the phone follow the instructions they are very clear.

The next step is to backup, androidpolice article worked very well for my Hero.

Finally get the Rom you want to install, DamageControlv2.07.2 link from xda-develop forum, copy that zip folder onto the sd card of your Hero, fire up Clockwork again and choose to restore from the Rom you just copied to your sd card and about 15ish minutes later, you get to setup your phone just like its new.

I would just link to the Androidpolice article and call it good, but the last step wasn't specifically written out anywhere, and I didn't know that the Rom needed to stay zipped to restore it.

Is this the begining of anthro PC?'s

2009-10-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

img via Vstone

In a move of life imitating art Robovie-PC from Vstone serves up PC's ala Questionable Content's AnthroPC's. Now granted these are not sentient, or crazy like the AnthroPC's in QC but it is baby steps towards Skynet my friends. As usual thanks Engadget for keeping your eyes peeled for this encroachment on our safety.

via Engadget

CNC interest

2009-08-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a lot of interest in diy CNC machines on Hackaday, and the Make Blog that has really gotten my interest in these machines piqued. I would like the ability to work on metal with a higher degree of precision than my hand affords me. I think that some of the MDF CNC plans would likely be enough to get me started making pieces of aluminum to upgrade to a more sturdy machine. I am only looking for about 24" square working surface, so it would be pretty easy to keep put away. I have been looking at these plans from CNC zone, and think that this style of Gantry is probably workable for my needs. Like everything it will need to be modified for my needs, but it is a decent touch stone for working this process.

For some reason I really struggled to get this post written. It is not for the lack of choices, but rather lack of completed affordable choices. There are lots of build logs with photos and ideas, but few that are great start to finish how to build articles with BOM's and parts schematics. The ones that are complete with Build of Materials are in Kit form and range in the $1000+ range. It seems that cognitive leap from idea to implementation requires that you extend the effort in brain exercise or monetary form. I have the left over part of a Ikea birch counter top that was bought for my wife's craft corner that I believe is sufficiently rigid for the task of being a router table and is attractive to be a long term tool. The rest of the machine will have to be aluminum and MDF. In all, I don't want to be much more than $800 in this project so we will see where that budget takes us.

Some interesting sources for information that are helping guide me at this point.

http://www.cncroutersource.com/
This site looks like it will grow over time, at the time of writing the site is updated several times a week and has some good thoughts on design, and talks about options rather than focusing on a single design and build. I think it could be a great source ones the links get laid out properly (I get enough page cannot be found errors to make me think it is a work in progress)

http://solsylva.com/
This site sells router plans and seems like a good resource for people that are interested in building, but not engineering their solution.

http://www.xylotex.com/
Excellent source for drive system and step motors.

http://buildyourcnc.com/
A CNC kit site that I like, they have great looking designs that are pricey.

Home made injection molding

2009-08-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

This is the coolest piece of home made machinery I have every seen. A custom injection mold with heating a cooling for the materials is more than my feeble hands could ever build.

via Hackaday

Conductive Epoxy is brilliant

2009-08-13T10:16:00.000-07:00

Toolmonger is at it again tempting me with crazy products that get my little wheels turning. I don't have a specific project in mind for this, but seems like it would be as useful as something like the Dura fix.

Another thought improving Blekin lapdesk

2009-08-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

The hits keep coming from the wellspring of ideas known as the make blog! So in this installment it looks like there are magnetic valves activated by heat. I realize that these have to be purpose built for the application, but it may be helpful for my crazy plan to improve the Belkin Lap Desk.

Improving the Belkin Lap Desk

2009-08-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

Ever since I saw the Belkin Lapdesk I thought that it needed improvement. It needed either passive or active cooling of some form, and I was hopping to not add another thing that needed to be plugged into a wall outlet. This mod adds two active fans that are plugged in to a 12v wall wart, and while I definitely it improves the overall usefulness of the stand it doesn't meet my other goal of not wanting another device sucking power.

I saw an article a few days ago about Icyballs that may be closer to what I am hopping to use. It would require electricity as I am fairly sure I need to have a microcontroller to engage the heat element to reverse the natural evaporation process. I have no experience with this type of work though so I think I am going to need to find a chemistry nerd and probably a welding nerd to pull the whole process.

Cellphone Unlock?

2009-07-06T15:40:00.001-07:00

Here is a web enabled deadbolt locking system that was featured on Tool Monger a while back and you can pick up at your Lowe's for about $200.
I am just not sure if I can bring myself to implement this in my own home, but I do love the idea. I think the break down for me is that it has a number pad backup. I just don't want the number pad (no matter how secured they believe it to be) as I believe that it is crackable in a given time frame, and that makes me nervous. Unless this system logs bad attempts and then sends me an sms alert about the failed attempt, I just cannot support the number pad being on the outside of my house.

Dura fix you say?

2009-06-16T11:57:00.001-07:00

I have been interesting for some time in getting my feet wet in the metal working and have started taking baby steps by purchasing a pair of nibblers, a set of files, and Dremel accessories for metal working. All of this is well and good, for cutting down/destroying large pieces of sheet metal and aluminum stock, but none of these tools work for creating new structures with the lightweight metals that I have access to (steel is a little unwieldy for the novice ok). I recently saw a video for Durafix on youtube (it was a related video to god knows what it was I was looking at on youtube) and think that this would be an great solution for people who are not quite ready to commit to purchasing a welding setup, but are interested in some lightweight fabrication.

Logitec comfort lapdesk needs to be remixed

2009-06-09T10:10:00.000-07:00

I am sure most people have seen these little desks, I think Belkin makes something similar too but I think that this plastic is or leather design that everyone comes up with will only protect my legs not the laptop from the heat that baby is kicking off. I think that the Logitec one could be improved by replacing that plastic fin with an aluminum one. I am not sure how to pull off the rigid base for the fabric to be attached to, but I will post updated shots of a prototype.

Computers in Plain sight

2009-06-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Sheeva plug got me thinking about the idea of computers that are innocuous enough to be left in plain sight, but still deliver significant enough computing power to potentially reshape daily life. The Sheeva is powerful but lacks one of the important things that makes computers useful, an interface for humans. The transformative nature of this type of technology comes from interaction, so lacking an included meaningful interaction method we have a computer. I rarely browse Think Geek, but a random link click brought me to their pages where I found the iGala digital photo frame. When I saw it I was posotive that it had to be running at least a little bit of embedded os, and that it had to have some potential for an always on general purpose computer with wi-fi and a touchscreen. One Google search later and I was proven correct that someone else thought the same thing and even went so far as to get shell access for you. When this go back on sale, I am pretty sure that I want one no all I need to know is if ucLinux supports webcams.

My current ideas are controllin a usb Webcam for survellance (or baby monitor), adding audio out for touch screen audio streamer, or using it as a touchscreen controller for home automation. I have to imagine that these are cheaper than anything Crestron has thought of building. Other thoughts include always on Torrent seeder (slow I know, but so low power) capped at 5 connections or something similar. I think that there is a lot of potential here for people with interface design experience.

Finally back to breaking things

2007-11-23T22:53:00.000-08:00

After a long winter of not working on any projects, the house is finally mostly setup as I want it, and the job is settling into a productive routine; basically its time to start breaking (modifying them if you will).

First up getting that worthless La Fonera running DD-WRT.

For the last year this little toy has been sitting under my dresser as a testament to my lack of fixing ability (my poor delusional family thinks I am the savior of all things running on electricity, when I am little more than a middling hack(sic)).

Certainly it doesn't sound like a hardware hack, but as one of the magnanimous(sic) Fon shoved an update down on it that left it mostly not functional, and on a firmware revision that prevented me from following the instruction here on updating to DD-WRT. There are other guides, but this one had the most pretty pictures for wannabes like myself to follow. Anyway, since the software route didn't appear to be working(at least it wasn't the last time I tried it) I decided to follow this guide to adding a serial port to the Fonera and flashing it over the com port.

So quite some time ago, I ordered one of the Dallas DS275 line powered level converters, and started trying to wire it up using the instructions on the aforementioned page. Needless to say (because I suck) I was unable to get the router to display information over the com. Nearly ready to admit defeat I went back to the uselesshacks guide and notice that the page had been updated sometime since I first tried to upgrade the fon some 2 years ago, there was a hard reset option that took my firmware back to v0.7.1 r1. From there the instructions are very easy to follow, and worked perfectly.

Small success, but it was a project that was holding up the Server in a UPS case project.

Not Dead just slow

2007-10-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

Well since I the last time I posted I have been a busy boy, unfortunately very little of it hacking up hardware. I have been making (slowly) a sweet charging and music playing dock for my Cellphone (Audiovox SMT-5600), the glue seems to always be drying, and always seems to just need one more coat.

Once completed this will let me set my cell phone in the doc for charging, and play music to a 3.5mm headphone jack. I cut down a seat of 2.5mm headphones for the prong and picked up the mini jack at Fry's. The plastic base station came from some cheapo usb camera from Radio Shack (Flat Foto) I picked up on closeout I bought it for a cheap camera to tear to pieces, but the dock so far is much more interesting.

The rest of my time has been dedicated to getting my parents new house up and running with cool gadgetry. The house is a huge 4500Sq Ft with nere a data cable to be seen, too far in the sticks for DSL, and Adelphia the Local Cable Co couldn't even find the house on a map (or with a driver even though we are 7 miles and four turns from their main campus.)

I have wired up the house for the satellite they apparently have to get, and brought a cluster of wires that looked like crap to the inside of the house where it can easily be worked on by yours truly. Run a few lines of data to the office, and set them up on a 3G card from Cingular getting 1.0mbs(reported) Less than 380k sustained (actual). I updated the driver that doesn't support server 2003 officially, copied registry settings from the xp machine, and moved dll's and sys files around until the card began to send a receive data using information gathered by watching the install with total uninstaller.

I was mostly annoyed by the driver telling me that it didn't support server03, when clearly they chose to limit the installer for an ideological reason other than a practical one. The card does not have the "Accelerated" mode, because I didn't get the application that is bundled to run on the server, (more because of time crunch than lack of ability). This is really sad for the parents though as with the accelerated profile, they pull at a reported 1.8m and 386k actual. I think that longterm the choice of server03 is the right one for them, as this box will have no benefit of a Nat firewall to protect them from misc. internet baddies.

Broke the picture frame, time for a rebuild

2007-04-20T11:21:00.000-07:00

Finally finishing up with my move to the new house, and in unpacking I discovered a sad thing, the heatsink retention clip on my the picture fame pc broke during the move.

Tragic. (or maybe just a little sad)

either way, must be time for a new project.

Make vs Buy

2006-10-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

I think that we are entering another Buy instead of Make trough. Why would I build my own piece of Kit when Dell offers Entry level server cases with 2 80gig sata drives, dvd-rom, 1gig (2x512) 533mhz, Pentium D(2 x 2.8ghz) for <$500? For the sheer joy of it? That is all I have got left Fry's, Dell, and everyone else is just driving the prices so low I cannot build, I must buy.

Tags: Make vs Buy Convictus Dell Economics

The guts and dirt of digital picture frame 2.0

2006-08-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Well the digital picture frame has been on my wall now for little more than a month, and humming along not so silently. The stock fan on the heatsink I decided to use was really annoying me so I took it off and replaced it with a bigger, slower quieter one. While it was off of the wall I thought I should document the innards for posterity.

The original hard drive idea of using a laptop drive died somewhere in my get it done frenzy, and really should be revisited, as I don't like the overall layout when the full side Hard disk is in.

I had to add a slim usb pci card because the onboard usb 1.0 header, is giving me a some servious trouble. The header layout is not well documented, so I cannot tell which pin is one, and only has six pins instead of the normal seven (8 with 1 not in use for a "key") The provided cable is not terminated on both sides, just one so I would have to crimp, or solder the other end.

The wireless ps/2 mouse/keyboard I am using seems to pick up some kind of signal makes the pc think the mouse is being moved. This is not convienient when you are using a screen saver as your "picture frame". As a fix I disconnected the mouse part of the wireless keyboard mouse hookup.

Ordinarily this setup would not even need to have a keyboard/mouse at all, but I have a FON router, I have to logon before the computer can access the internet. Kind of tedious, but the movement is worth a little suffering.

Cleaning and Polishing Heat Sinks

2006-07-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

P6130260
Originally uploaded by convictus.

I have some heatsinks for a server board that were looking a little sad, so I decided to clean them up before I put them on a new set of processors.

A little time and effort, and the heatsink on the left looked nice.

Tags:Convictus Heatsink Hacking

New Media Center Setup

2006-06-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

So to try to overcome the stress on the media center I have been building dual proc media center with a raid 0 ~400 gig array to up the storage for all the TV we record. I am not sure if it is just me or the hardware I choose to use, but I cannot seem to get the media center OS to the array on a promise 133ut2 pci raid card. Apparently I cannot even configure the array the way that I have with previous promise pci raid cards. This seems unfortunate as I was hoping to configure 3 drives (2 200's and 1 160gig) into a big old array for OS and all the media that we have to put on it. So I am kind of back to the drawing board and looking through the scrap heap for another pci raid card. Very sad.

Kind of fun getting to show my little brother the process of building a computer the looking for parts and testing each component to ensure that failures are isolated and removed. I am kind of an electronics graveyard so somethings work, others or questionable.

Any how, I am diligently working to complete this "dry run" so we can put the TV tuner cards in and give this baby a spin. Works out great that the wife went to the Chestival (Some country music festival) at the Seahawks stadium and my brother was at a friends wedding all day. Even after a firmware upgrade the pci card didn't give me the option to configure the raid, so I am tediously reading the manual to see if it even supports what I am after.

Tags: Convictus Media Center DVR PC Building

Need something to do.

2006-06-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Moving on from the digital picture frame and looking for something new to tear apart and make my house a mess, I saw a post about a "Portable Media Center Extender" on hackaday. It immediately excited me as my house hold is becoming a bunch of media center whores and severly over burdening the el cheapo media center I put up. All in all the box has performed brilliantly and I am very happy with the set and forget nature of the beast. Unfortunately for us and our ever increasing number of religiously watched shows, the "season finally" season almost put the nails in the coffin of my media center and nearly got me killed.

I was a little disappointed to find it was a wireless extension of the XBMC. Undetered, I loved the idea and want to make a true wireless Xbox Media Center Extender.

A Few product idea for use:

Video Sender/Reciver
8" LCD TV
Maybe something Like this for a big battery

Tags: Convictus Media Center Portable wireless

Digital Picture Frame 2.0 part 2

2006-05-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Oh bollocks to Linux. So after too much headache trying to make the drivers for the ZD1211 chipset on my el cheapo airlink+ 802.11g usb adapter. I knew windows would work and saw the post on Make using Slickr to dynamically pull images I decided to go back to what I know rather than flounder with obscure 'make' errors.

It took me 52 minutes to install XP Home, 4 minutes to make a flickr account and 10 minutes to download, install and configure Slickr.

You hear that Linux, 4 weeks of you vs little more than a hour of windowz. Granted that is where the majority of my experience lays, but still.

Pictures to follow....

Digital Picture Frame 2.0 part 1

2006-03-22T17:09:00.000-08:00

So, the new and improved digial picture frame is nearing completion. I have been busy, with life and not had time to document the work that I have been doing with my various projects.

I have changed Jobs and been on vacation for the last little while, turned down what could have been an interesting Job with Gshop.com, and made Lemonchello out of Everclear and a lot of lemons.

After all of that, I have finally gotten around to ordering one of the very small ATX power adapters for my Aaeon motherboards, and am egarly awaiting its arrival. This size will allow me to fit everything, LCD, motherboard and powersupply in the case I build on the back of the picture frame.

In my testing I figured out that the motherboard is not compatible with modern powersupplies. It does not have a power switch header on the board so I will be soldering the green pin and ground to a power button salvaged from a different computer case. For a hard power break I will have an on/off switch on the bottom of the frame for when I need the power off immediately.

I was thinking something like this would be a good layout:

The os is still going to be Damn Small Linux and I am still going to use Dalbum for the slideshow and power the website with Xammp. I knew that Damn Small was easy to use, but until I did a click and run install of samba, I had no idea how easy it was.

I choose to stick with this combo because I still believe that it is a really flexible solution, and robust enough to run all the time. I will have a pictures directory open as a samba share and my wife can add photos, and browse to the reindex page after she adds photos.

First try Digital Picture Frame

2006-03-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Every where I read there seems to be a digital picture frame popping up, home made from a laptop, or new product release from a company. Well this is the sad story about the former.

To begin with I picked up the husk of a Toshiba tecra 8100 latop that was about to find its way to the recycle pile. Not much, but from these humble beginings I saw a world of digtial photos rotating by that could be added to via wireless networking. So easy to work with, I could let my wife play with it and never worry about it again.

I went ahead and tore apart the Tecra with gusto and here is what was left

I purchased this lovely photo frame partly because it was huge enough to hide any enourmous boxes that I might attach to the back of the frame, and it was nice to look at (aka the wife approved).

This is the unfortunate end of the photo stream. Though the frame was completed and fully configed, the disk controller failed on the board and I was forced to throw out the laptop and hit the drawing board for version 2.0.

The tecra 8100 had a 500mhz proc and 128mb of ram, and I believe a 5gb hard disk. For an os I went with a hard disk install of DSL 2.0 and installed xampp (formerly known as Lampp) The photo software was DAlbum.

Xampp gave me all the simple config of apache and php, and DAlbum was very easy to install after I ran the Xampp auto config scripts. I followed the DAlbum sites instructions on enabling the Slideshow and created an album and index. At first I started looking for ways to force DAlbum to only show slideshows by default, but after searching the the DAlbum Forums I came across someone asking to have DAlbum Slideshows Launch in a new window. The siteadmin explaination of how to open a slideshow in a new window was short, but very insightful. In short I used some of their ideas and created a solution that works well for DSL. When the system first comes up it pops up a dillo webpage with some info, so I edited the config file and pointed it at my on custom launch page that opened my slideshow full screen. All that was left to do was some small edits to the slideshow.php file and this was a very functional slideshow of my photos.

This solution was completed, and Working for little more than 48 hrs. I got cocky and wanted to show people at work what I had done, well typical Seattle for you it rained and got my baby wet. After I get it inside the building and dried off I started to recieve disk controller failure Messages. The drive was fine, but the conroller on the board was done, and since it was a Laptop and doesn't have a 2nd channel I was forced to surrender.

Version 2.0 will be much more robust.

Oh wasted time where have you gone

2005-11-20T16:56:00.000-08:00

It looks like the hours I spent prepping for my special motherboards was all for naught. Once I finally got the cable kits from the regional distributor (apparently the company didn't have any and needed to make them) I figured out there is no way the case will work. In the regional reps defense Ken the rep I was working with did have to put in quite a bit of effort for what turned out to only be a $70 order out of me. In the end he drove them from Bellevue to my doorstep in Seattle the day he got them (probably to shut me up).

So now that everything is here I set to trying to cram everything into the case. I most likely could get the board ram and proc and a severely modified powersupply into this damn case, but no optical drives and certainly no full sized ide drives. A number of other students from netdesk and I are talking about setting up a domain for testing and finishing our Certifications so I thought one of these could certainly run as a global catalogue server, so I have started looking for a rackmount 1u server case (preferably empty) to host this little side foray.

I designed and priced a custom aluminum 12"x10"x3.24"clam case at emachineshop.com. Holy cow $375 for two really plain custom cases is really steep (in my mind). So $50 for a server case (after shipping) and $20-$30 for a 1u server power supply I think I am better off just using a server case in the end. If I had thought about it I could have saved myself 40 or so hours of grinding, cutting sanding and bending atx case steel, or I could have had the front and back covers made for what that time was worth. lesson learned I guess

Old/Completed Project Redux

2005-10-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

Before I started this blog I was actively modifying and building things, I just never thought to write about them. To remedy this and post some of the messes I have created previously read on.

My personal favorite is the desktop rack:

I started with a single rack strip for a rack cabinet from a previous employer that was left over from my setting up their Data Center. I carefully measured the rack strip and determined that it was divisible by 4 in such away that none of the cuts would intersect with a screw hole. I cut the aluminum with carbon fiber cut off wheels and a dreme. After the cuts I had for Approximately 17 in tall pieces that looked like this.

I stacked them together and used zip ties fished through the holes to force them to line up and ground all of them even so that every piece would have the same distance top and bottom to a hole. As a result the rack is level and the holes to line up. I used large 3U rack cabinet spacer panels to form the sides and smaller 1U spacer panels to hold the rack square.

I purchased some Plexiglas and aluminum flat bar stock to create a custom Plexiglas shelf that fit in the top of the rack to help hold it square (though my custom L brackets lack of uniformity cause the whole cabinet to warp slightly.) I have threatened to get 4 custom machined L brackets to fix it, but I was able to flex them enough to get the cabinet to appear to be level that I have never bothered. I use the Shelf to hold a printer and my networking gear in the office, but so as long as we are renting and I cannot pull cable that Switch is going to continue to look lonely.

People who post Daily are My Heros

2005-10-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously, who has that much

A. Time
B. Energy

So Engadget and Hackaday(yeah I know they get paid so would I if people read this and click on a few links), way to have more time and energy then I can muster in my 4 days a week off.

Pimp My Rack

2005-10-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

Get Your Rack Pimped!

Appologies in advance to Canford.co.uk but your site layout made me affraid to not take the images to my own host, (and bandwidth leeching is bad). If any of the products you see in this post interest you please go there, these are not my ideas. I just wanted to write about them and have the images.

That said, every thought the data Center was dull and needed a face lift?

Ever thought to yourself while disecting a downed server in your companies cage "I want a $Cold_Alcoholic_beverage"?

Well now you can, that's right Rack mountable accessories!

Carputer: update

2005-10-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

All right, I have now acquired a slimline DVD drive, and an atapi/ide converter for use in the car computer. I also have received the motherboard that I intend to use. The boards are the AAEON PCM-6890B which use good old socket 370 procs up to PIII 1.o ghz. Everything on the board is a header, so you can pick and choose what you want to have available in your case. I think that the boards are pretty sweet for embedded development.

I have now purchased almost everything I think I am going to need to complete the build on this project, the only thing left is the deal breaker, a touch screen interface for the car.

I am very torn on this part of the project as I have several choices, and some of them are down right affordable. I just can't make up my mind to waste $300 all at the same time.

I will try to get some pictures of the board in the new case, but I am fighting a cold and my work has been loosing people left and right so I have been working a lot of extra days. Not to mention, everyone seems to want my time lately.

Carputer

2005-09-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

So I have started construction on a computer that will live under the seat of my car for mp3's dvd's and gps. (maybe some evdo if the price drops again) :)

Anyhow I have started on the case construction using a KVM that was no longer useful. It was a kvm for the old DIN style mouse keyboard connections. I started by gutting it and am making some custom front and back panels from a discarded atx case.

Here is the Gutted case and the bottom after I ground off the standoff's.

Nice shoes fool! ha, to lazy to edit them out. Any way after I gutted the KVM I needed to make custom front and back panels. I chose to cut these from a piece of steel recycled from an old atx case. Here is a picture of the cut out for the front.

All that is left is to cut out the the back and fill in the holes of the outer case that will not be used.

Yeah, now for the expensive part of all of my projects procurement. I am good at building, I suck at buying parts. Ugh I hate spending that last $200-$500 to finish a project.

Parts needed,
mini-itx motherboard
7" touch screen and mounting
atapi to ide converter for my slim line drive
and a car powersupply

It takes an adult to admit that They don't know.

2005-08-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

So between getting married, and trying desperately trying to get hired on as a full time employee I realized that I don't know enough to jump into the Minty Project with out help. It is a hard thing to do.

So I got a book for an introduction to electronics and am currently reading like I was still in college.

The long wait before the build

2005-03-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

So though I have ordered the majority of the components that I will be needing for the build of Minty, I am still wating on my order from Maxim-ic. I ordered parts from TI almost a week later and have already recieved those parts, so I am begining to wonder. Maybe I should break down and actually pay for it?

Ordering of major components completed!

2005-03-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

I just sampled the PCM1748 from TI.com as well as the TUSB3210PM, a USB controller. This means that I have now sampled all of the big pieces of the project, yeah! So now I need to go to Fry's to get the smt converters so I can test on bread boards and get this minty show on the road.

Just for fun, I was looking for a general purpose RISC machine with full os (not ce or Linux with no x-windows) and stumbled upon Littlechips.com's reduced instruction set mainboard with full peripherals. The linked product even comes with an LCD and can be booted from flash, Compact flash, or SD. All in all a sweet product, that comes with ce .net binary and Linux Kernel for development. The 6.4 inch screen appears to completely cover the mainboard and all it needs is a case and some form of a power supply and this could be a very mobile or compact computing platform with the 2.4 kernel.

I am looking for other small platforms like the PC104 and other low power consumption fully functional platforms so if you see any please post some links in the comments.

Ah PCB123 hell

2005-03-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

So I am starting to appreciate the work that Ladyada has put into the Mintymp3 player, and have decided to not send her any more "suggestions" on how sweet her project could be if she used it as an educational program. I downloaded and installed PCB123 and started laying out the electronics for my minty (killing time waiting for my sampled chips to come) and became very confused. I now know pcb creation programs are like CADs only much less fun to work with, I wasted well over an hour trying to make a chip that was not in their inventory. After it was over, you would think I had learned something; but you'd be wrong. The chip I was making was the PCM17481 the DAC that Ladyada thought would be a good replacement to the CS4340. Now I think I know why she did not feel like replacing it on her board; it probably was not listed in the standard parts, and she didn't want to have to invent the wheel. Not re-invent mind you, when you are working in these worthless programs (the one she was using is infinitely worse in my opinion than the one I am using) you actually have to invent. In one place I searched for Molex and found a large number of Molex connectors 2 to 40 pin, and then when I went to create a 50 pin straight through for the CF/IDE adapter and same search yielded no hits. Whatever.

So the net result of this week was nothing actually getting done (as far as the actual lay out of the board is concerned) I was so frustrated by the program I avoided it all 12 hours I would have otherwise worked on it and listened/read Robert Jordan books. Always next weekend I suppose.

Completely not related, it looks like the Servo magazine published the results of the servo hackasapien contest (not that they bothered to update the contest page, or even point to some of the sites up for the contest) so if you cared purchase the back issues Jan and Feb.

Yeah! Welcome to my hardware hacking.

2005-03-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, so call it an attempt to avoid boredom, or just laziness in not setting up my own website for hosting this blog. I am starting this to document for anyone else that cares, my attempt to build fun and interesting things in this world of ours.

To start I have been reading a number of sites and blogs with regard to building and hacking interesting hardware. Hack A Day has offered a large number of fascinating projects and really has motivated me to try to actually build some of these great projects. One small problem though. I have lots of time, but very little actual electronics knowledge. So the dilemma begins, knowledge before experience or gain knowledge through experience? In other words to go back to school or school myself? Well I have decided both. I live close to Seattle Pacific University, and only work 3 days a week (3 X 12) so I have the weekdays to myself. To rapidly gain some electronics experience I purchased one of the Parallax Inc Basic Stamp^®and project book kits, and a bread board for prototyping.

Thus far I am well into the Homework Board kit, and have found the course unfortunately aimed a little low. Though the intended audience is High School, I think they missed and hit Middle School. The book is well written, and the designs are made to push the students to questions that almost always are on the next page from when I started thinking about them; I have found that I want to move faster than the book is progressing.

I have found Minty mp3 which appears to meet my need for a challenge (more likely exceeds it), and have started to procure parts. I am following Ladyada's examples of how to sample from the large manufactures, and discovering the challenges of ordering from the different low volume electronics components providers across the WWW. To dated I have sampled the PIC18LF452 and am looking for low cost decoder, and DAC. I have already purchased a 2.2 gig Magic Store CF card and am still on the fence about the DC/DC converter and FM transmitter. The DC/DC converter really doesn't sell me because I was planning on using a cell phone battery, and the FM transmitter I am reluctant on only because I was hopping for a simple design with only an next, back and volume.

I will try to populate this blog with the progress of my creative process and hopefully others will find it helpful.