1) I should be in bed.
2) The vent on an electrolytic capacitor is called that for a very good reason. That said, I’m surprised how long the 470uF 25V Nichion audio cap worked for while backwards. It even somewhat worked while backwards, which is probably why I let it go for so long. Whoops!
nuxx Audio Input Switch on a BreadboardWell, that’s that. The nuxx Audio Input Switch is coming along nicely and things are working as expected. Except for not realizing that MCLR has to be externally pulled high (or disabled), causing me about half an hour of head scratching, the software has worked as hoped for.
I had to learn a bit more about how the driver works and thusly redraw parts of the PCB, but I think it’s all sorted out now. If you’d like to see the board layout, just take a look here. Of course, you’re also welcome to read through the nuxx Audio Input Switch page, which currently has a fair bit of misplaced / inaccurate information in it.
A large bottle of methylcellulose, with Kinder Egg for scale.Here’s the large container of methylcellulose which was previously mentioned.
Now to figure out what to do… Bacon (or smoke?) flavored breath strips? Slime guns? Artificial snot?
The possibilities are endless…
Sign to the barn at Miller’s Big Red Apple OrchardToday while trying to figure out something to do, Danielle and I headed over to Miller’s Big Red Apple Orchard. While we didn’t pick any apples, we did wander around a bit and acquire some donuts. I hadn’t been there since last going with
It was really obvious that the animals were really hot too with the sheep hiding in a barn, pigs laying in mud, and llamas just laying around. One of the llamas had recently been shorn, but I think that is because it was so matted with burrs that efforts were made to just trim it shorter. Currently its head still had at least 50 individual large burrs on it.
Oh, and of course, no rural Michigan activity is complete without a truck bearing many flag-waiving stickers.
For the rest of the photos, please just click here (photo gallery retired) and take a look.
This was purchased brand new from the Dollar Tree located at M-59 and Mound. Yes, it will be useful for something… But still…
(It turns out that the service port on the back of my new TV (photo gallery retired) has an A port and needs a cable like this for diagnostics / firmware upgrades.)
UPDATE: Also, please Digg this.
This is what happens when someone puts a cheap chromed tailpipe cover on a car: it gets rusty and ugly and difficult to remove.
Danielle’s car had one of these tailpipe covers on it, and knowing for a few weeks that she would really prefer it to be gone, I removed it. The two screws holding it in place were quite tough to remove, but I was still able to get them out with a screwdriver and a bit of elbow grease. I’m really surprised they hadn’t seized.
At least that’s sorted out. Now to sort out dinner… Thai food, maybe.
So, I’m really tempted to pick up a new scope. I’ve got a piece of crap Goldstar (I believe) analog scope I picked up off of eBay for $70 shipped a few years back. While it’s okay for making pretty pictures I’ve been having problems actually using it to test things. For example, when checking out the Alien DAC (photo gallery retired) I couldn’t really see the test patterns I was playing through it over the noise from the scope and probes.
I’ve been looking at one of the new Tektronix TDS1002B scopes. It is a 2-channel, 60MHz, 1GS/sec scopes with monochrome LCD display (image). It’s also got USB ports with support for dumping images to mass storage devices or printing straight to PictBridge compatible printers. (Also, the first good use I’ve heard of for PictBridge… Normally I think of it as a digital camera feature which no one really uses.)
The price for the TDS1002B from Tequipment.net is $1009.80, and I’d probably need to pick up a probe or two as well. I’m still poking around Tek’s site to see if the scope does everything I want, in particular communication with PCs to make sharing of the data easier, but it looks like it will.
Now I’ll just need to budget for it.
So, I think I’ve been an unwilling participant in some sort of fraudulent eBay activity, and I’ve strangely actually benefited. I think.
First I’ll just give you a timeline of things:
– Back on September 4th I listed my Sequentix P3 for auction on eBay under auction number 290157675079. This auction went well, eventually being sold for US1805.00
– Payment was received from the buyer via PayPal from a verified account and the address matched the one sent to me from eBay, so everything looked good. I withdrew the money from PayPal and everything seemed fine.
– The P3 was sent via UPS tracking number 1ZT915V20390002211.
– Package was received, seller let me know, mutual feedback was exchanged, everything seemed good.
– Suddenly, on 29-Sep-2007 I received a note from eBay stating that:
Dear c0nsumer (c0nsumer@nuxx.net),The results of the following listing(s) have been cancelled due to bidding activity that took place without the account owner’s authorization:
290157675079 Sequentix P3 Analogue Sequencer w/ MemX (Analog)
We have cancelled the listing(s) to maintain the integrity of the eBay site, your account, and the bidder’s account that was accessed. We are working to restore the bidding account to its rightful owner, and we are working with the account owner to prevent any additional unauthorized activity. Since the account owner did not initiate these bids, all fees resulting from the listings in question will be credited to your account within 7 days. If you do not see the credits posted to your account after 7 days, please feel free to contact us through ?Contact Us? in our Help section.
At this point the fees for the Sequentix P3 auction were refunded to my eBay account, so I now have a balance of -$46.03. The auction itself is gone, and the buyer’s account seemed to be deleted. However, the positive feedback was still reflected on my account
– Suddenly on 02-Oct-2007 I see a new auction up on eBay, 270172361341, which is for a Sequentix P3, using a copy and paste of my auction description along with some of my photos. The seller was from California and the account was brand new. (Listing day creation, zero feedback.)
– A few days later I check again and the seemingly fraudulent new P3 auction has been pulled, and the account for the user who originally bought my P3 is activated again.
So, I’m not really sure what was going on. I’ve heard nothing about disputed payments or non-received items, so everything seems good from my end. At first I thought that maybe the person who bought the P3 from me was actually some sort of eBay scamming middleperson, and then it was being resold for a hopeful profit. She didn’t really fit the profile of someone who’d normally buy a high-end sequencer. (Fourty-something real estate salesperson from rural New York with no eBay history of buying other musical instruments.)
But, maybe she was just buying it for someone else.
I’m just not sure what’s going on here… I guess there’s also the chance that she legitimately bought the P3, her account was stolen, some previous auctions were canceled, including the one from me.
On the upside I’ve now got a $40-some credit with eBay. It’s too bad that I can’t actually recover that credit back to PayPal.
Southeast Lower Tahquamenon FallsAs mentioned previously, Danielle and I headed up to Tahquamenon Falls State Park in northern Michigan this past weekend. I guess I don’t have too much to say about it, except that it was a nice weekend.
In short, as I remember the UP is much like many of the scary southern states, except without the accent. There are loads of pretty parts, good food is hard to find (Pickelman’s Pantry was not very good), and long distances between things. There were lots of nifty things around the park to look at, including the falls themselves, hiking trails, multicolored mushrooms, puffballs, and people who don’t know how to row.
I found the gift shop particularly interesting, especially the wall of fantasy figures in the gift shop. I guess the 80s have finally reached the UP.
Hmm, I’m going to stop now and state that I’ll likely make a lengthier post tonight or tomorrow. For now I’m feeling a bit hungry, so I want to get home and eat. Finishing captioning the photos was the last thing on my to-do list, and now that it’s done I’m happy.
If you’d like to look through the photos, just click here (photo gallery retired).
Here, have a PCB layout that I think it almost complete. I need to validate some parts and be sure the drivers work as I expect, but beyond that it should be all set.
Now I’ll be able to switch inputs on a headphone amp without plugging / unplugging things. Yay!
