After ordering the Renesas RX62N promotional development board I came across this daughterboard in the comments on Dangerous Prototypes. It can be found here, Future Electronics, for just a penny! The limit is four so I bought two. This way I can have two projects and easily swap them out. What those projects will be? I have no idea. I am hoping some of the IC’s I need to test will have a matching footprint on this board. I could also jumper it to an Arduino and use this board as a breakout. Future Electronics RX62N Daughterboard Remember, this is the bare PCB so you also need the connectors, which I have listed here. 26 Pin Male Header SBH11-PBPC-D13-ST-BK 26 Pin Female Header SFH11-PBPC-D13-ST-BK 26 pin headers for …
DIY: Fume Extractor
Inspired by this post I decided to build a fume extractor. I hadn’t even thought about it until I saw this on Hack a Day. I have wanted to do this for a while. I had some points to use, which I redeemed on a Samsung 830 SSD, so in the same order I threw in the carbon filters which was the only thing I needed to buy to build it. Carbon Filters (5 pack)http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005C5HUI8 The rest was parts I had laying around. I started with an old 120MM computer case fan that was removed when I bought new quieter fans. Dirty 120MM Case Fan As part of the fan I already had some plastic filter holders that attach to the fan. I washed …
Order: Amazon Goodies
I recently redeemed my points from various programs for Amazon gift cards so I could buy a Samsung 830 SSD. Since I was ordering from Amazon, there is a variety to choose from. I decided to pick up a few things I needed for my workbench. Hakko CHP170 Micro Cutter, 16AWG Clean Cut http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000WT6FI Nice clean cuts and the blade isn’t soft like other cheap pairs. PanaVise 209 Vacuum Base Pv Jr. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CONJUM Works great and doesn’t damage your work surface. Much better than just the weighted ones. The suction cup is solid. Hakko Iron Holder 633-01 w/ 599B http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002R6H9IQ Works perfectly for my Hakko 936 soldering station. Carbon Filter, ESD, Activated, 5pk for Hakko/Xytronic Smoke Absorber http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005C5HUI8I added these to my cart …
Raspberr Pi: htop
In my other posts, I forgot to mention that I use htop instead of top for viewing processes. If you want to install run: $ sudo apt-get install htop and to run: $ htopIt works nicely, it’s colored, and it’s easy to use with the arrow keys.
IIS Logs Cleanup in Powershell
Back in June I was working on cleaning up the IIS log files at work but I wanted to archive them instead of deleting them, just in case. I came across this script in Powershell. http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/31db73b4-746c-4d33-a0aa-7a79006317e6 It works well but it needed the ability to archive a folder of folders instead of having to list each folder and the ability to backup previous months. So I updated it and I decided I would post it here in case it can help someone else. #Windows PowerShell Code################################################### # # NAME: compress-remove-logs.ps1 # VERSION: 1.4.2 # DATE: 20120309 # # AUTHOR: Bernie Salvaggio # EMAIL: BernieSalvaggio(at)gmail(dot)com # TWITTER: @BernieSalvaggio # WEBSITE: http://www.BernieSalvaggio.com/ # # COMMENT: Given one or more website directories, parse through the …
Raspberry Pi SD Card Backup
Just wanted to post a quick note about backing up the Raspberry Pi. After your hard work of configuring it the way you want it, don’t forget to back it up! It’s also a good idea before making any big changes. I know it’s a pain, but worth it in the end. I didn’t do it for awhile just because I was too lazy to shutdown the Pi and remove the SD card. Since my workstation is Windows 7 Ultimate x64bit, I use win32diskimager, which works really well. https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download On a side note, I should see if there is a way to do an online backup. Then I can continue to be lazy ;). My backup before switching to Debian Wheezy
Quicknote: Raspberry Pi > Python > Serial (Updated)
Here is a quick note on using USB serial with Python. I hooked up a Sparkfun explorer board with a Xbee series 1. Sparkfun Xbee Explorer https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8687 First you need to install the Serial library: apt-get install python-serial The Sparkfun adapter uses FTDI so it shows up as /dev/ttyUSB0 I found this, it works really well. Simple TCP/IP bridgehttp://pyserial.sourceforge.net/examples.html#tcp-ip-serial-bridge I started with this link:http://www.doctormonk.com/2012/04/raspberry-pi-and-arduino.html I couldn’t get it to show data from the Xbee at first so I used Minicom to test:http://codeandlife.com/2012/07/29/arduino-and-raspberry-pi-serial-communication/#more-859 Somehow it started working once I saw data using Minicom. Here is the final code to test read from serial with Python [xbee_read.py] #!/usr/bin/pythonimport serialser = serial.Serial(‘/dev/ttyUSB0’, 9600)ser.open()try: while 1 : result = ser.readline() print result except KeyboardInterrupt: ser.close() …
Neil Armstrong dies at 82
“It’s a story that we hoped we’d never have to report. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on Earth’s Moon, has died at the age of 82 after complications from heart surgery three weeks earlier. His greatest accomplishment very nearly speaks for itself — along with help from fellow NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, he changed the landscape of space exploration through a set of footprints. It’s still important to stress his accomplishments both before and after the historic Apollo 11 flight, though. He was instrumental to the Gemini and X-series test programs in the years before Apollo, and followed his moonshot with roles in teaching aerospace engineering as well as investigating the Apollo 13 and Space Shuttle Challenger incidents. What …
Mobilewill on Adafruit Show and Tell
Adafruit’s Show and Tell is a must if you’re looking to get ideas on various projects. Ladyada hosts a Google+ Hangout each Saturday evening in which she invites makers to share their latest projects. This last week, I was able to get on and join in. Check it out below! I showcased my Raspberry Pi Motion Logger which you can read about here http://www.mobilewill.us/2012/08/raspberry-pi-and-motion-graphing.html. Have you watched any or shared projects of your own? I’d be interested to hear about it!
Raspberry Pi and Motion Graphing
This week was the week of Raspberry Pi goodness and lots of coding. Now that I had the PIR sensor working, I wanted to do something with that data over time. I decided to log the data to MySQL running on my web server instead of the Pi. The Pi is awesome but I didn’t want the overhead of running MySQL on it along with writing constantly to the SD Card. Here is how I did it, after the break. First thing was to setup the database on my Web server which is running Server 2008 R2 on my VMWare ESXi server. I ended up using the Web Platform installer to install MySQL 5.1 and PHP. I probably won’t need …