nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

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November 27, 2007

Damage To My Car
(Click for bigger…)

This is why I can’t have nice things.

See, I was at the Target / Lowes complex in Sterling Heights to buy a new toilet seat (coming in future post). Well, when backing out of the parking spot I suddenly heard a CLANKgrinnnnnnnnd sound, which stopped when I did. Looking in the rear view mirror (where I had been looking) I saw nothing. Looking in the side view mirror I saw part of the cart corral really close to the back of my car.

I pulled away from it, went and parked, got out and looked, and only saw a bit of scraping to the side of the vehicle near the back. Nothing broken, nothing dented. Looking at why I hit it, the damned cart corral was sticking out into the lane 5′ – 6′! It’s also much shorter than my car’s rear end, so it was pretty much impossible to see. (Use the Grand Am in this photo for comparison; my car’s trunk is about that same height.)

Once I got home I wiped down that part of the vehicle and took the photo. It’s really not as bad as it could have been, as it looks to be only a scuff. There is also a couple small marks on the bumper. I’ll check it all out again tomorrow in the daylight.

While rubbing compound should take care of it, I’m still a bit frustrated. I’ll probably find some way to complain to Target about it, because that corral should not have been positioned that far out in the lane. I don’t really want anything for it, I just want it fixed so no one else hits it.

automotivemoved from livejournal

Stuff Gets Done II

November 26, 2007

Today / Tonight’s Accomplishments:

· Car oil changed.
· Bathrooms cleaned sufficiently.
· Solution book to K&R’s C book ordered from Half.com.
· Old built-in soap dispenser removed from kitchen sink and replaced with metal plug.
· Beer poured, leftover Thai food microwaving.
· Bathroom rugs and floor towels in the dryer.

around the houseautomotivemoved from livejournal

The Turd

November 24, 2007

My Xbox 360 is a turd. I just submitted a request for repair, which means that Microsoft should now be sending me a $0 repair kit so that I can have the privilege of not playing games on it for a month while it is (hopefully) put in the state it should have originally been in. That is, working properly.

Quality control like this is the main reason why Microsot won’t be able to make a hand held gaming device any time soon. If consoles are failing this regularly when they aren’t moved about, there’s no way MS can compete in the DS (and PSP) market of regularly dropped in bags / knocked around devices.

Also, here is sparkly part of the DIA from last night, and here is some tasty aloo gobi I ate at Rangoli Express on the way home from work a few evenings back.

foodgamesmoved from livejournal

Rice Pudding

November 21, 2007

I just made some rice pudding, and I expect it to be excellent. Hopefully people at family thanksgiving things tomorrow will enjoy it as well.

If you’d like the recipe, it can be found here: Rice Pudding Recipe

It’s a take-off on an Alton Brown recipe, with the amounts of stuff screwed with, vanilla added, no raisins or pistachios, and more rice. It is currently (while hot) as thick as many store-bought rice puddings, so I expect a spoon to stand in it after chilling. Mmm. Spoons should be able to stand up in anything.

Oh, I’ll add a photo to the recipe once it is cool.

foodmoved from livejournal

WTF?

November 21, 2007

Ever written a bit of software, looked at it the next day, then not been able to figure out what the hell you were doing?

If I didn’t somehow forget to save after the last compile, it looks to me as if the odd captured data from last night is complete garbage, because I was feeding the SPI data straight into the MAX232. That… I don’t know how I could have gotten that wrong.

computerselectronicsmoved from livejournal

Batter Blaster

November 20, 2007

What do you do when it is 11pm and you want two pancakes and no mess? Batter Blaster! Sure, I have to work on my pancake cooking ability now, but at least I am able to go to the fridge, get out a spray can of pancake mix, and quickly make up two pancakes.

I think they might be a little sweeter than normal, and they do taste a little flour-y, but they are clearly better than no pancakes.

foodmoved from livejournal

Protocol Disappointment

November 20, 2007

I ran into some headaches with electronics tonight. First, I tried to get recognizable data out of the Honda Music Link, using most of the hardware mentioned last night. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out as I hoped. While the PIC and NEC-branded IEbus controller communicate via SPI, a Control / Data line is also used. This means that the data I sniff in either direction could either be control or data, and without knowing the state of that line it’ll be even harder to figure out the protocol.

I’m thinking that the best thing to do (if I want to continue the project) is to pick up a PIC with two SPI lines, so I can read both of them into buffers at the same time. Then I can also check the status of C/D, bundle all this together, and easily output it to the PC, already in a somewhat readable format.

Or, I can just stop working on the project again.

After getting frustrated with that, I decided to tear into the Xbox 360 Chatpad (photo gallery retired) and see if I could figure out what it is spitting out. Well, the short answer is that I couldn’t. I was able to see something, but I’m not sure what it is. (Screenshot of data being captured.)

The serial data is 0-2V when coming out of the 360, and it appears to do some regular polling, back and forth. I couldn’t figure out the baud rate and whatnot, so I couldn’t really tell if what I was seeing was valid data or not. That said, it’s a start.

Here’s two more photos:

· Test leads connected to Chatpad.
· Detail of leads soldered to internal Xbox 360 Chatpad connector.

automotiveelectronicsmoved from livejournal

HML Sniffer

November 19, 2007

I finally got around to putting together the SPI sniffer I mentioned back on 26-July. The only problem is that I left all the crystals in my cube at work, so I couldn’t give it a test run tonight. I think the software is functional, but I have no good way of being sure yet.

Oh, there is also this photo of the oscilloscope screen showing little blips of data, from when I hooked the scope up to one of the SPI lines, just to be sure that I could see something.

Most of tonight was spent putting together things on the breadboard, making the DB9 cables, making the leads for the micro clips, and writing the interrupt handler (feeds SPI data into the FIFO for writing out via the UART). Hopefully I’ll get more done tomorrow. My hope is that by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend I’m able to understand what is going on between the PIC and IEbus controller, and thusly (hopefully) the rest of the vehicle. From there I will (hopefully) be able to start getting an idea of what actually needs to go into firmware for the HML itself.

automotiveelectronicsmoved from livejournal