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

Waterproof Boots

October 14, 2007

Waterproof boots are a good thing. I’m not sure I think how far down the water in the Great Lakes is good, but it at least made for interest walking out along sand bars. The last time I was here at the point of Old Mission Peninsula just over 11 years ago the water was up high enough that one could swim out a really long ways in shallow water… Now it’s just walking on silt and rocks.

Different water for different times, I guess. Good thing times now are much better.

moved from livejournaloutdoorstravel

Audio Input Switch PCBs Ordered

October 11, 2007

[This is a cross-post from here at diyAudio Forums:]

Well, the first five PCBs were ordered from PCBEX.COM a few minutes ago. The biggest changes since yesterday were moving the smoothing capacitor before the voltage regulator to 1000uF (13mm diameter, 5mm lead spacing footprint) which required a good bit of shuffling of parts in the power supply. (Some configurations, particularly those not needing to use the 5VDC output, can use a much smaller cap here. I’m recommending this value as a best-fit.) As part of this I also ended up moving all of the connectors to the front edge of the board, which I think is a rather good thing.

The boards are five-day turn, so I figure they’ll ship sometime around the end of next week. As PCBEX.COM batches their boards out to China I expect it’ll be another week or so before I have the boards.

Here’s how the part prices from Mouser breaks down:

All parts, except PCB, heatsink, relays, and audio terminals: US$10.46
5x 4PDT Omron relays and 5 place Phoenix terminals: US$57.10
5x DPDT Omron relays and 3 place Phoenix terminals: US$25.45
1″ Tall Heatsink: US$1.14
1.5″ Tall Heatsink: US$1.06

Of course, you can cut these prices down if you do things such as not fitting the boards to switch all five inputs, leave out some of the onboard power supply parts, etc.

The PCBs cost about US$16/each after shipping from PCBEX.COM. If I were purchasing for a group buy or something I imagine the price would be a good bit lower, although that obviously depends on the quantity.

So, I guess that’s about it for now… There is more info over at the main nuxx Audio Input Switch (as the device is now known) page.

One final question for everyone: Are any of you interested in purchasing some of these PCBs in a group buy?

I figure that I could probably handle doing a group buy for some folks. I’d provide a PCB and programmed PIC, and you’d just have to order the rest of the parts. Everything in there is very standard, so even if you can’t order from Mouser you shouldn’t have a problem sourcing the same (or compatible parts. I’m not in the position to offer kits or assembled boards.

Off the top of my head I’d estimate the total cost at being around $20, to cover the blank PCB, PIC, packing stuffs, PayPal fees, etc.

Anyway, that’s it for now…

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Ahhh!

October 11, 2007

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!

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Audio Input Switch Breadboarded

October 10, 2007

nuxx Audio Input Switch on a Breadboard

Well, 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.

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Miller’s Big Red Apple Orchard

October 7, 2007

Sign to the barn at Miller’s Big Red Apple Orchard
(Click for more photos (photo gallery retired)…)

Today 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 and and a bunch of others a few years back. Being around 89°F today it was a bit unseasonably warm, so we didn’t spend too much time there, but it was still fun.

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.

moved from livejournaloutdoorstravel

Rusty Tailpipe

October 7, 2007

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.

automotivemoved from livejournal

Tektronix TDS1002B

October 5, 2007

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.

acquired thingselectronicsmoved from livejournal

eBay Scam?

October 5, 2007

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.

financesmoved from livejournal