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Riding at Stony Creek

Me riding up a mountain bike trail on my bike at Stony Creek, taken by Eugene Mazur.

On Saturday afternoon I took advantage of the unexpected lack of rain and headed out to Stony Creek to ride on the trails a bit more. While coming up over one of the hills I noticed a guy standing at the top of one of the hills taking some pictures. Later on, back near one of the high points on The Rollercoaster I saw him stopped, so I stopped to ask him about the pictures.

He’d said that he had been taking some, noted my email address, and said that he’d email me the photo. Later Saturday night I received the image above attached to a message from Eugene Mazur. It’s kinda neat to see a photo of yourself in motion, in context.

From what he said, Eugene is fairly new to mountain biking as well, so I mentioned the Wednesday Night Stony Ride which I’d recently been made aware of. Maybe he’ll head out there. It sounds like it would be fun to meet up with some people and ride around on the trails, so I’m going to try and make it this week. I’m also hoping to get out to the park and ride on Tuesday and Thursday with , so this could be a nice week of bike riding. I think tonight I’m going to wash my bike and give the drivetrain a good cleaning, because things are pretty dirty from the weekend of riding up at my grandparents house in very sandy soil and the few days out at Stony over the last week.

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Playing with the PIC12F629

Tonight I did some more digging into the problems I’ve been having getting the MIDI sync working in Ivan’s P3. I had been sent some new firmware to try, and while that (in the disassembler) appears to deal with the right pins (GP0 as output, GP5:GP4 as input), it didn’t work. Tonight I did a good bit more digging and eventually ended up writing this program as a test.

Based on my understanding of how the PIC in the P3 with v1.5 PCB works, this program does the following: GP0 is set to low, then whenever GP4 changes state GP0 is changed as well, but only if GP5 is high. The end result is that on the output pin of the PIC, which connects through to the SYNC output, I basically see a mirror of the inputted sync signal whenever the sequencer is running.

I don’t think that it would be a huge stretch to write my own version of the software that is supposed to be in this PIC, but I haven’t gone that far. As far as I’m aware all I’d need to do is have each sync pulse received cause a MIDI Clock message to be sent out of GP0, and whenever GP5 goes high or low send a respective MIDI Start or Stop. That said, this P3 should really be running its official software, not my replacement stuff.

Hopefully I’ll receive some new firmware for it soon, and hopefully that firmware will do what it needs to. If I’m bored enough tonight maybe I’ll try and follow the flow through the entire program in the disassembler and figure out where it’s going wrong.

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Time For New Sandals

My old sandals, some Nike Air Deschutz from the mid 1990s.

Since the early 90s I’ve had the exact same pair of sandals, which I’d wear whenever I was out washing the car, or doing other things which sandals are appropriate for. They are the ones seen above, an old, very worn pair of Nike Air Deschutz. They would still be plenty serviceable, except that the last time I was watching Tobi she chewed part-way through one of the straps. That, and they are beyond the not-particularly-attractive stage.

When at REI last night I came across some Ahnu Tilden II sandals on clearance $49.83. The size 10 seemed to fit me well, so I picked them up. After going for a few walks around here and trying them out I think I like them, I’m just not accustomed to my toes being enclosed while not wearing socks, so they’ll take a little getting used to. Here is a photo of the sandals themselves, if you are interested.

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Avid BB5 Caliper Damage

Damage to the rear Avid BB5 disc brake caliper after the top mounting screw of the caliper bracket came out while starting to descend The Rollercoaster at Stony Creek on 16-May-2008. This damage does not affect use of the brake at all.

Just after starting to descend The Rollercoaster at Stony Creek (a windy, narrow, fun descent from the highest point in Macomb County) I applied my rear brake and started to hear a tremendous houl from my rear brake and found myself slowing very quickly. I was able to finish stopping with my front brake, just as someone behind me asked if I was all right, and what the sound was.

A quick check showed that the upper bolt on the bracket which connects the caliper to the frame itself had come off and that in squeezing the rotor the caliper had rotated forward and lodged itself against the disk, slightly stuck between the frame and the disc. Walking about 15′ back up the trail I found the screw, I was able to partially put it back in by hand. Because of the length of the tool I couldn’t fit it between the rear rack and screw head, but thankfully the person who had stopped had a much shorter wrench and I was able to tighten things back up. A quick readjustment of the brake and I was on my way, with the brake actually working better than it had previously.

I’m not really sure how the screw came out. It was tight the last time I checked it (a few weeks ago), and it had thread locking compound on it. I do wonder if the combination of the rear frame, the slightly ratting bag, and the rough trails contributed to the bolt loosening.

Today I headed back out to Stony Creek with the frame removed and with only a multi-tool and my keys. While I didn’t like riding without the ability to fix a flat, I accepted the risk of a five mile walk until I can sort out the CamelBak Question. Things went well, and it seemed like it was a generally a quicker ride with the lighter bike, except it seemed like I had a much harder time getting up some of the steeper / longer hills (generally in the two-track area) because I kept spinning the rear tire. Twice I just stopped part-way up and walked. It was a much quieter / pleasant ride, although I do think I’ll get (or fashion) a soft chainstay guard to cut down on the loud chainslap.

Now it’s time to shower, eat something, and poke a bit with Ivan’s P3. I received new firmware, but it still doesn’t seem to be working, so I’m going to write a little test software for the PICs and be sure they are working right.

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CamelBak Question

To those of you who ride bikes and read this, I have a question about CamelBak bags.

See, I have a frame for the rear of my bike, and with its bag it’s great for touring type riding, but it has a couple deficiencies:

· It rattles a LOT on even small bumps.
· While it holds the normal bike stuff I’d want to bring (multitool, spare tube, pump, keys, wallet, cell phone, tire levers, Clif bar) it doesn’t hold my camera very well.

Yesterday I swung by REI and picked up an Aero Wedge Pack (Medium) for $26. It was really easy to fit to my bike, but with it I have nowhere to put my pump. I can fit a tube or patch kit, but not any method for reinflating things.

I’ve been hesitant to get a CamelBak because of the price, and because when outside in warm weather while wearing a backpack my back tends to get really, uncomfortably sweaty, to the point where it makes me hot a lot quicker than normal.

I’m just not sure what to do, and I’d love suggestions. I could keep the small Topeak bag, and carry a patch kit and CO2 inflator in it instead of a spare tube. The on-bike water (about 1.5L) is sufficient for most rides I’ve been on so far. I could return to Topeak bag and get a CamelBak and use it instead of the rear rack / bag full time, or at least until I need the rear stuff. Or I could deal with the really loud / bothersome rattling and lack of space.

If you would recommend a CamelBak for me, which model? The M.U.L.E. seems to be the most popular, but it’s also REALLY big. I don’t know if it’d be overkill. It’s $86 and REI, and returning the bag I purchased yesterday would offset $26 of that.

Something I’ll post about later, probably with a photo: While riding The Rollercoaster at Stony Creek yesterday my rear brake suddenly seize, accompanied by a loud howling sound. What had happened? Somehow the upper bolt on the rear disc brake mount had come out, causing the brake to pivot forward and the upper edge of the caliper to stop the bike as it ground against the edge of the disc.

I actually found the bolt a little ways back down the path, and it wasn’t too difficult to get it back in and get the brake readjusted. I did run into the problem the rear rack being in the way of the bolt, and my multitool wouldn’t fit in there. Thankfully someone who had stopped had a shorter one and I was able to tighten things up with that. What’s strange, though, is that this bolt was tight not too long ago, and it was Loctited.

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P3 v1.5 MIDI Sync Issue

Looking inside of Ivan's P3 while the micro grabbers are connected to ground, sync in (to the PIC on GP4), and what should be MIDI out (from the PIC on GP0).

So, in wrapping up the testing of Ivan’s P3 I found one more problem: MIDI Sync output isn’t working. I think I’ve narrowed the issue down to the software running on the PIC which handles this. Here’s what I know as of last night:

· U1, the main CPU on the P3, has two lines coming out of it which either connect directly to the DIN sync port or to U19 used for conversion to MIDI sync.
· I am seeing nice square waves on the PIC’s GP4, and these pulses change width with tempo change.
· The line running from U1 to the PIC’s GP5 goes high when the sequencer is running, then low when it isn’t.
· I don’t see any data coming out of the PIC on GP0, which is what connects through a 220Ω resistor eventually through to the MIDI port.
· There are no shorts on any of the lines.

In troubleshooting the PIC itself I have:
· Read out the firmware from the PIC, and received new firmware from Colin (the designer) for the PIC. These did not match, and the new firmware did not resolve the issue.
· Tried a spare PIC which I had sitting around in my parts pile.
· Wrote a test program to blink all GPIO lines on and off and successfully ran it on both PICs.
· Confirmed that the PIC is connected to power and ground and other lines, as expected.

After this, I pretty much have run out of ideas. This morning I threw the firmware Colin had sent me into a disassembler, and while I’m not very good at reading assembly, I think I’m that GP0 and GP1 are used as inputs and GP2, GP4, and GP5 are outputs, confirming that the firmware I was sent is for the v1.6 PCB. There is lots of BTFSS GPIO,0 and BTFSC GPIO,1 which are used for reading pins, and lots of BCF and BSF on GPIO,2, GPIO,4, and GPIO,5. GP2 (GPIO,2) seems to be used the most in the program, so I think it’s the MIDI port, and this would match what I see in my old photos of the v1.6 board, as GP2 connects through a 220Ω resistor to the pin header. GP4 and GP5 probably mirror the input received on GP0 and GP1, but I’m having difficulties confirming which pins are sync and which are enable.

I just pulled apart the older file which I had read out of the PIC previously and it seems to read from GP4 and GP5, with MIDI data going out of GP0. These port uses match my observations of the pinning of the v1.5 board, so I think that the older firmware looks somewhat right. That said, it clearly wasn’t working, otherwise I wouldn’t be posting this.

I think tonight I’ll try to write the originally-read firmware back into one of my new PICs, then I’ll drop it back in the P3, just to see what happens.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, this is my understanding of what the PIC12F629 on the P3, U19, does (or is supposed to do) on the the v1.5 boards: It watches for when GP5 goes high (an indication that the sequencer is running) and when it does, it sends out a MIDI clock message with each pulse it sees on GP4 (not sure if this is done at the rising or falling edge). It then stops sending these clock messages when GP5 goes low. On the v1.6 boards it seems to do something similar, but since it has three outputs I believe it also sends the DIN sync output as well.

There are also more photos of last night’s work at the bottom of this page in the last two rows.

UPDATE: One thing I didn’t test was input on the pins and the internal oscillator. I make a quick change to the blinky LED program to run from the internal oscillator and another version which I can use to test if all the inputs work. I’ll try that tonight. At this point it’s almost not enough for me to fix the problem, I want to know what wasn’t right.

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Colin Fraser Saves The Day

R20 replaced with a 10K part, per Colin Fraser's suggestion, in an attempt to alleviate the issues with the LCD.

When I woke this morning I had received a response from Colin Fraser in regards to the problem mentioned in this post. He mentioned two things: the issue isn’t likely to be caused by timing because he specifically checks for the LCD to be available before writing to it, and that he has seen an issue where the transistor which enables the R/W line of the LCD doesn’t have enough gain. To increase this gain he suggested replacing the 22K resistor at R20 with a 10K part.

I did so as can be seen above and this is the result: a P3 displaying things properly. Thanks, Colin!

Now I just have to do a little bit more testing (I’m paranoid about these things), then I can pack up the P3 and send it back to Ivan. Of course, that will come after dinner. Danielle is in the kitchen with where they are making making naan and Mattar Paneer with this recipe from Manjula’s Kitchen. I’m looking forward to a very tasty dinner.

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Odd LCD Problems in Ivan’s P3

For some reason, when booting the P3, it drops the first two letters of the 'Firmware check..' message. I'm not sure if this is the P3 mainboard booting faster than the LCD, or what.

Upon arriving home from work today I found a white box in the mail from Scotland indicating that the new LCD for Ivan’s P3 had arrived. This is the replacement that Colin (the Sequentix guy) offered to people as a replacement for PLEDs which had failed. After eating a bit of dinner I set to installing it.

Because of the spacing of the LCD and function switch board I had to file away a bit of the PCB in order to make it fit nicely. Thankfully Sequentix’s page on the replacement LCDs had mentioned this, so I was expecting to do it.

All in all, it went well. After getting the LCD working I installed the v4 firmware and MemX board, getting the machine wholly up to date.

I’m running into a bit of weirdness with the LCD, though. As can be seen on this page of photos, the display seems to be cutting off some characters during boot, corrupting others, and occasionally causing weirdness. I’ve tried making a new cable and replacing the IC directly connected to the LCD, but that hasn’t been successful. I’m really afraid that the controller on the LCD may be messed up. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to use one of Ivan’s spare LCDs which he was sent (by way of me) by Crystalfontz as replacements for his failed PLEDs.

UPDATE: I just emailed Colin, the Sequentix guy, and asked for suggestions. After talking with a few people I’m starting to feel certain that the problem may simply be that the LCD doesn’t start up fast enough for the P3. It seems that with the HD44780 protocol the LCD talks the user can set up custom characters in the CGRAM (character generator RAM). While I may be way off base, I’m thinking that the P3 sets up the special characters it needs on boot, then tries to display stuff. I think that if the LCD isn’t running stable yet then these characters, along with data written to the display controller itself, could become corrupt or lost, displaying the symptoms like what I’m seeing. Hopefully I’ll find out for sure soon. If this is the problem then a fix would simply require the P3 to wait for another 250ms (or so) at power-on.

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HP/EDS and Fog

Fog seen looking out my front window / doorwall on the morning of 13-May-2008.

When I was leaving for work this morning, and throughout almost the entire drive, it was abnormally foggy. This was really nice, as I like fog, I just wish I could have gone out in the woods on my bike and enjoyed it that way.

Also, it’s been confirmed that HP is going to buy EDS. I don’t know many details, except that EDS will probably maintain its name / brand, and that the drastic (~25% or so) increase in EDS’ share price made my 401(k) go up a bit, which is kinda nice.

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The stuff one finds in the woods…

An old Civil Defense vehicle found amongst a bunch of trailers and mobile homes at the end of a road, right near the aforementioned tree farm.

One sure can find odd things back in the woods.

I’ve recently returned from visiting my grandparents up north and doing a bunch of biking along the roads and trails, finding all sorts of interesting places which I’d like to explore more in the future.

I ended up having to put the knobby tires back on my bike for the offroad riding, but I was glad I did. I had no problems wandering around all sorts of fire trails, dirt roads, and other random, interesting areas. One of those more interesting areas was what I first thought to be an oil drilling dumping ground. It contained all sorts of interesting metal parts, old vehicles, trailers (including some marked radioactive), and other discarded stuff. After talking to my grandparents it turns out that I was on the property of a friend of theirs named Charlie who happens to collect a bunch of stuff like that. Best I can tell, he is also the owner of the old CD vehicle seen above. (If any of you can figure out the city it is from based on this photo I’d love to know.)

While I didn’t go that far (only about 30 miles over the two days), I do definitely want to head back up there and do some more riding. I would definitely like to tackle the portion of the North Country Trail which I happened to come across, but I’m not really sure if it can be legally biked. The information I come across on this seems very, very mixed. I figure if I’m careful, stick to the trail, and don’t bother anyone it won’t be a problem. That said, I turned back at this point because it was too steep for me to ride up. There is, of course, a whole bunch of ORV trails in the area, but they are too sandy to ride on a bike. Even my wide knobby tires regularly sank in past the rim.

If you’d like to see the KMZ aggregated to cover most of this weekend’s riding it can be found here, with the nodes differentiating things by ride and date: 10-11-May-2008.kmz

The rest of the photos, including the ones from when I headed out wandering on the sandbar off of Old Mission Point, can be found here: Up North (May 2008)

(Oh, and yes, I know those photos are a bit crap. They were taken with my old Nikon Coolpix 5400 which was nice for its time, but is now just so-so. Also, it’s big and not weatherproof one bit. I’m thinking I’ll probably replace it with one of these Olympus shockproof and waterproof, internally zooming cameras. The quality probably won’t be great on them either, but at least it’ll fit nicely in my bag and I won’t have to worry about rain or a fall damaging it. Although, realizing that the camera is five years old, maybe those photos aren’t that bad…)

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