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

Injured Dragonfly

June 1, 2007

Beheaded Dragonfly, Still Living
(Click for larger image…)

While driving home from work today yesterday (LJ has been giving me posting fits) I noticed an injured dragonfly on the seat next to me. I took it home, occasionally carrying it on my finger, and took some pictures of it. As you can see above, it seems pretty injured. It would only move around using some of its legs, always staying in that head-tilted-forward / almost-handstand position.

After taking some pictures and letting it set next to me for a while, I took it outside and set it next to the rosemary bush to die.

The other alternative was to kill it quickly with ether, but I didn’t really want to do that.

Anyway, all of the photos can be seen here (photo gallery retired).

Around midnight I went outside to look at it, and it was just barely moving. It still seemed alive, though. :(

around the housemoved from livejournal

PowerMac G5

May 29, 2007

Well, thanks to the help of a friend I now have a Mac Pro on the way to me at a rather nice price. I’ve also ordered the extra RAM it needs to fit my needs. In the end it’ll be a quad core Xeon 2.66 GHz box with 3GB of RAM, 1x250GB and 4x320GB hard disks (two internal, two external for backups), and all my old peripherals.

That said, I’m now selling my Power Mac G5. If any of you are interested, I’ll give you first crack at it. I’m asking US$1500, and it is as follows:

Dual 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5 (PowerPC)
3.5GB RAM
2x 160GB Hard Disk
DVD Writer (SuperDrive)
All Original Software (Yes, I can ensure that Classic is on it.)
OS X 10.4 (Legal, Licensed, Boxed Retail Copy which I had purchased separately)
All original packaging, accessories, and cabling.
Apple Mighty Mouse

It’s been real well cared for, hasn’t left the air conditioned / non-smoking room it’s been housed in since I got it, and hasn’t ever had any problems. All but 512MB of the RAM was purchased from Crucial and is under their lifetime warranty.

I will ship it anywhere in the world, but please remember that the Power Mac G5s are mighty heavy. The case is beautiful, but it’s also a large hunk of solid aluminum.

This machine makes for a great photo / video editing workstation and is probably a bit overpowered for normal desktop use. Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, all of those run great on it.

Oh, and it will run OS X 10.5 which is slated to be released this year — buying this machine isn’t a dead end of any sort.

acquired thingscomputersmoved from livejournal

Airport Extreme makes for working internets.

May 25, 2007

My new-ish network setup.

While the Airport Express + Cable Modem beneath the couch setup I put together back in January was working well for a while, within the last two weeks or so it’s started to become especially problematic. Last night I put a call into Comcast because the connection seemed to be dying fairly regularly. And by regularly, I mean many times per day. Eventually yesterday came around and I couldn’t really get it to come back at all.

After I had a case submitted and an appointment scheduled for next Saturday I did a bit more digging and found the actual problem: neither of my Apple Airport Expresses would link any more. I had this problem with one of them a while back, but I’d sort of forgotten about it. Now the other one was refusing to link.

Thinking that it was an autonegotiation problem I flipped it to 100/Full and that fixed the problem for about six hours. After that the PC light on the cable modem once again went out (indicating no link), would no longer light after many reboots / resets of each device. I then brought out my laptop and found that there were no problems linking to there. I tried a few other devices and the cable modem could link with them as well. Then I knew the problem was the Airport Expresses.

Since I don’t currently own a device which has AppleCare they are both out of warranty. With the Somerset Apple Store being closed I had to either pay full price (I normally get Student Discount), wait a week for shipping, or drive out to the Apple Store in 12 Oaks Mall. Fortunately today found me leaving work early to run down to the RenCen to pick some things up, and with me downtown at 2:15pm, I figured it wouldn’t be too far out of the way to swing by Novi on the way home.

While I hit a few slow bits of traffic (I-94 between I-75 and I-96), most of it moved surprisingly well. I-696 was horribly backed up going westbound, but not where I was going.

Anyway, long story short, things are working much better now. The shared hard disk thing is interesting (mounts HFS+ and FAT32, at the very least, but partitions can’t be edited), the built-in switch has allowed me to use my JetDirect, wired network on the G5 (hopefully Mac Pro soon), and provide a link for the workbench. I’ve had no dropped connections at all, and the Airport Expresses are all set up as clients of the main base station (no WPA) to save on bandwidth, and music can stream out as desired.

around the housecomputersmoved from livejournal

Fibrament-D

May 22, 2007

13 3/8″ x 17 1/2″ Fibrament-D baking stone in my oven.
(Click for more photos…)

Well, the 13 3/8″ x 17 1/2″ Fibrament-D baking stone I ordered from bakingstone.com arrived yesterday. After my previous sandstone stone broke while baking this pizza I had to get a new one. While I thought I could do without, I soon realized that I do almost all of my bread and pizza baking on a stone, and I’ve been unable to make fresh or frozen pizzas at home!

Following along with the directions packed in with the stone I put it in the oven to temper it. This needs to be done by raising the temperature of the stone 100°F every hour until it reaches 500°F, then holding it there for two hours. This is to dry and temper the stone and get it ready for use. Doing this reminds me of the time I made a stand for my PowerMac G5 from 6061 aluminum and brought it to a T6 temper in my oven (photo gallery retired), except it smells of damp concrete instead of metal.

One interesting thing is that the top of the stone is rough almost like natural stone, and the bottom is textured almost like cardboard, which leads me to believe that it is poured into a form before setting.

The rest of the photos can be seen in my Fibrament-D photo album (photo gallery retired), if you are so inclined.

acquired thingsfoodmoved from livejournal

RS232 to Eaton Leonard Interface Prototype

May 22, 2007

Completed Prototype PCB

Well, after about five hours of working this evening (after laying out the board in free time at work) I’ve finished the prototype PCB for the project I’ve been working on for a friend’s company.

As with the last few boards I’ve done, I etched it in the laundry room, as the laundry tub and large flat surface makes for a good place to work. (Photo of PCB being exposed.)

Then I drilled the board, breaking more PCB drill bits than I like to. Next came manual bridging of vias (which is a really awful chore), and then finally assembly. After I had it put together I powered it up, probed around for shorts, and generally confirmed that it wouldn’t explode.

Tomorrow I’ll confirm that the pinout of the board is as expected, and hopefully I’ll be able to deliver it at lunch time. If it works I’ll (hopefully) have some production boards made for them. I stayed late at work avoiding traffic and worked up a first draft of a mostly-SMT board layout, fitting in ~30mm x ~85mm. If I end up producing these boards I can see the final product being something like this, should I choose to do it SMT.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to unpack the new baking stone, the new x0xb0x kit, and maybe just relax a bit. For now it’s bed time. Goodnight.

electronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

HMLiberator Assembled

May 18, 2007

First HMLiberator Assembly with Honda Music Link

Well, there’s an assembled version of the first HMLiberator, strapped to the top of a Honda Music Link. This is very similar to what the final assembly will look like, except the ISCP connector will not be soldered on, the part will be encased in shrink tubing, and there will likely be slightly different cable / connectors used.

I still have a good ways to go on the software. If connected it’s possible to use all controls on the iPod to play music and hear it through the stereo (the initial goal), but I still have to address the following things:

· iPod does not pause / power off when vehicle is powered off.
· HML continues charging iPod while vehicle is powered off. (HML’s software is hanging and not cutting power to the iPod.)
· Attempting to change track on the head unit hangs the HML. (I think it’s not getting the response it desires.)

I think most of these are just a matter of getting the false polling mode, track change responses, and things like that working. After I get back from up north (and get the serial level converter prototype made) I’ll put together another serial sniffer and get back to work on the software.

automotiveelectronicsmoved from livejournal

HMLibeartor v1.0 PCBs Have Arrived

May 16, 2007

HMLiberator v1.0 PCB complete, except for cables.

Well, the HMLiberator v1.0 PCBs arrived today from Advanced Circuits. (Top and Bottom at 600dpi.) They came in a rather large box which can be seen in the photo in this post. The size of the box seemed to matter, though, as not only did it contain the wrapped stack of PCBs, it also contained a t-shirt, sticky notes, and a bag of microwave popcorn.

I got the first board fully assembled, with the SMT stuff taking a bit longer than normal, although I found that it wasn’t too bad. Things must have gone at least partially right because once I connected the programer to do a test-write with some random copy of the firmware it wrote successfully.

Since Danielle just got here we’re going to grab food and watch a movie. Tomorrow I’ll test the voltage regulator, add the header cables, and connect it to the car for the first time. Hopefully it’ll work. :)

automotiveelectronicsmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

My Office

May 16, 2007

(Cross posted from YakYak…)


Here’s my desk / office at home taken with an 8mm fisheye lens. You can just barely see the door and G5, which are in opposite corners of a 12′ x 12′ room.

That’s exactly how it is now, except I’ve opened the just-received-before-photo box from Advanced Circuits. (They are the prototype PCBs for a project I’m working on.)

Click on the image to make it full size…

(And please ignore all the wacky flare. It is a fisheye with a 47W diffused daylight CF near the edge.)

around the houseelectronicsmoved from livejournal

FibraMent

May 16, 2007

I just ordered a FibraMent baking stone to replace mine which was broken on Friday while extracting a pizza from the oven.

I purchased the 13 3/8″ x 17 1/2″ version, which is US$50 shipped. It should fit nicely inside the oven and provide a (hopefully better than before) platform for baking of bread and pizzas. The stone I had before was around 3/8″ thick, and this one is 3/4″.

acquired thingsfoodmoved from livejournal