Mound of data to mine and sift.
There is a story in there somewhere, only if I could find it.
Category: hardware
Fluke 87 rip and replace
It finally happened. My trusty, hand me down, Fluke 87 gave up the ghost.
Busted one is on the left, donor is on the right.
A friend of mine who is a real electrical hardware engineer gave me his when the ohms side of the
meter stopped working. Volts was working just fine. Which was fine for me because at the time I was just getting into electronics. And he save me a lot of money for a nice meter.
All good things come to an end. A couple of months ago it started acting flakey and giving me odd readings. I replaced the battery and checked the fuses. It worked a little bit and then the screen started to fade in and out. I check the battery and it was good. Well, shucks.
I started the online looking. Yikes, new was out of the question. While I don’t have a problem paying good money for a good tool, this was little out of my league. Nice used ones on eBay were pushing my budget. Then I remembered / noticed something about the Flukes. Their inside come out of the case quite nicely. It is a neat little package. The buttons and dial stay on the front of the case.
I went on a hunt for a used one. I found one that I thought was a nice find for $70. The case had dings and scratches and some paint or markings on it. There wasn’t a case and no leads. I don’t need a case as I already have one as well as the leads. My case is in good shape, just the guts are shot.
After a quick surgery I have my Fluke 87 back in action again and for me with an upgrade. I am finally at the point where the other functions will come in quite handy.
Mac Mini Upgrade – Getting back on track
Alright, time to get back on track once again. I will still have pieces to pick up, but they will stumble in as I get time. It is time to get back to projects at hand; and they have been stacking up on me.
My kids have a Mac Mini 2011. It is still a solid machine, but the hard drive and lack of RAM are showing its’ age though. It seemed pretty good for a spell, but with kids apps, games, and the lot, it could use a boost. The kids stopping using it so much and when I asked they said it was slow. No it isn’t I said in that fatherly tone of you don’t know what you are talking about. Then I tried to do a little work on it to clean it up and see if I could make it at least “act” quicker. I do crack myself up at times, this was one of them.
After a little research and checking prices online. I hit the Confirm button for 2 purchases.
The LittleMac only had 4GB of RAM. Not a lot anymore if you fire up an app or 2 with a couple of browser windows open. I found a stick of 8GB for a decent price on eBay. After saving one of the 2GB sticks of the 4, I brought it up to 10GB.
Second was the hard disk, it was no speed deamon (cracking myself up). Other World Computing has always treated me well when it has some to upgrades, especially storage. It has been a while since I have checked on the prices and I was pleasantly surprised how much they have come down. I was able to pick up a 120GB for $30 and change. I actually bought 2 of them and I am using the other one as the main boot drive in my Debian box now.
I have not taken apart an Aluminum Mac Mini before. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but to make sure I had my wits about myself I check online exactly how to take it apart. I have long given up my days of manual be gone, hand my my screwdriver! It was a little more involved then I thought, but my boy and I were able to get it done in about an hour.
Everyone is much happier and I did it under $80. Now maybe we can get a few more years out of it.
Bluetooth Speaker
Bluetooth Speaker Project
We need a bluetooth speaker for the outside by the pool and I have also wanted one to use inside the house as well. This one is 90% complete. I still need to find what I am going to use for front and back grills. I may settle for some black material on a frame for the front and some aluminum grill for the back. In the meantime at least it is ready to go!
Raspberry Pi Arcade Project
Next on the project list is a Raspberry Pi arcade system. Once again we are starting small with as much stuff as we could from around the Studio. I already had a Pi 3, monitor, keyboard, no controllers (ordered those), and for kicks I got another of the Pi Zero Audio DACs for sound. I will have a speaker leftover from the pool-USB-Streaming-Audio project so it works out well.
We loaded it up with RetroPie and I have to say I am quite impressed. The software works quite well and while it is easy to setup there are quite a few options to check out later on. Right now the most imperative thing to my son was getting it up and playing on the screen today.
Someone has donated some Xbox controllers for the system. We are still going to make some kind of case for it. At this point I am not sure if it will be an all-in-one or keep the console separate from the monitor. Once again I will have to let this one stew and see what comes of it.
I want to start to put together a real arcade style box for the controls, joysticks and buttons for 2 players while keeping the USB controllers for other games. I doubt I will go the standup route, but I never know where projects take me after a while. My big must have for this phase of the project is a Tempest spinner controller. Tempest has to be one of my all time favorite games! And it really isn’t the same trying to play it with a keyboard or mouse, and most paddle are wheezy at best. I have started digging into them.
So let me share with you the links and information I have found on making a spinner. I am looking forward to scrounging and finding the right pile of parts for this one.
BREAKING NEWS – I just found this site today and it seems to have one great manual for making a spinner.
There is one place I found where you can purchase one, theirs is called the SpinTrak, they are pricey. Maybe when I make my standalone Tempest game.
I found this setup which is pretty cool. And making a controller was my original and still my preferred idea.
Below are some of the other links I have found dealing with DIY spinners.
Made from an old VCR head.
Another excellent example made from the what-the-lab-will-surrender category.
A spinner made right inside the mouse. Pretty neat concept.
Divine Muse
I have been dragging around these chunks of cherry for more than I care to remember, but I have been keeping them for a project. I have bee stewing about a case for mi Pi Audio Streamer.
I had the garage door open a few days ago and pulled these out and started to look at them. Huh, a cherry case would be nice, look classy, and with a custom volume knob and single power light. . . ideas started to flow. How thin to cut the sheets? Joint them? Glue them?
I ended up grabbing the skinner of the two. It has some interesting grain to it.
I cut three sections from the good end of the chunk. I still have the rest as there is some solid wood hidden in there and it might come in handy yet. Sorry the color is a little off but it was getting to be later in the afternoon.
I have my sections of wood and I have the inside of it drawn out. My plan is to hollow out a section for the Pi and knob, I will get the drawing posted up here soon, but until then. . .
Vintage computing strikes again
I was talking with my parents a while back and my mom mentioned my old Atari 400 (http://www.oldcomputers.net/atari400.html for the low down on the specs). That 6502 at 1.8Mhz, geeeeeeshe Louise! And 16k of RAM to boot!
We both wondered if it was still around Or had gone by the way side. Guess what? The computer that started my computing journey!!!
Well, heavens to Betsy if a package didn’t arrive yesterday. And yes, that is the way the box was found, open and the lid wouldn’t close, but I was surprised at that it all survived. It even had the fancy keyboard, not the that awful plastic sheet of plastic with bubble switch keys. My friend Phil had the Atari 800 with floppy drives. Well, la’ dee da’! Another friend Nick had an 800 with all the bells and whistles and ran a local BBS from his. Every Saturday morning there was a group that hung out at the local computer shop trading tips, tricks, and software.
And with most people from this era, we could send hours busily typing in programs from whatever magazine you could buy, find, trade, or borrow. And the magic of trying to save it and retrieve it from tape. I think I lost as much as was saved in the end.
I remember when I got it, it was for Christmas. Of course being the young, excited lad I was, one afternoon when my parents were out, I pulled it from the closet, ever so carefully pealed back the tape, unboxed it, set it up, and had fun for a couple of hours. They were surprised at how quick I had it setup. I didn’t let them in on the secret until on so many, many moons later.
I am playing around with a new gallery plugin, so check out the pictures of the unveiling. Much like the NeXT Cube, I am going to see if I can get this one up and running as well. I was really hoping that Xaxon was going to be in the cassette player, but I wasn’t lucky on that note. I am going to have to track down some pieces and parts to get it displaying something once I get it put back together again. Westley was poking around the box and getting curious, so maybe I can get him to help me with this let-me-put-it-in-the-queue project list – LOL.
And there was a bonus!! All of the screws for the case were still in the box. They are laying inside the bottom of the case.
Pi Update
Hold the presses! There has been a change of plans. After playing around with OSMC and some more thinking and drawing, I am going to change course with my Raspberry Pi project. Instead of a fancy pants media center, I am working towards a very nice audio system for the basement living room. My last real stereo was too many years too count and was a very nice Yahmaha system. Tuner, amp, CD, and booming speakers. It has long since gone and have been stuck with my laptop or iPhone with headphones to listen.
So I have moved in that direction. While working with OSMC I found an inexpensive audio DAC (Digital Audio Converter) HAT, (pizereoaudio.com) for the RPi.
When it showed up I heated up the iron and with help of a little hot glue to hold the headers in place was able to solder it in place.
Don’t be harsh on some of the joints. While above beginner I am still in amateur phase.
I downloaded Volumio2 as the streaming distro. After doing some reading and comparing it seemed like a good package to do with. It supports audio streaming (of course) from local media and network devices. It also supports AirPlay but my first couple of attempts with it haven’t really gone so well.
The DAC setup was quite easy. In Volumio2, under the menu is the Playback options menu. In there it was as easy as selecting the HiFiBerry DAC. And before I knew it my RPi was singing to me. The Pi Zero Audio DAC is based on the NXP 1334A. A low-power, low-priced DAC. The card was cheap compared to some of the other HATs out there. There is only line out installed on the card, but there are pads on the board is one is so inclined to add RCA jacks. Their documentation is sparse to proceed with caution if take this route.
Since the pieces and parts are hanging together I whipped up a quick stand for it.
It is a piece of sheet metal from something and I superglued 4 standoffs to it. Simple and works for its purpose.
Here is my proof-of-concept for my streaming player. I tossed on an old set of Altec speakers I had in the Studio. I have to say it really doesn’t sound hateful. Nothing high-end, but working well for what it is.
Now that I am moving in this direction, I am starting to pick up some parts for the goal of this project, something which has gelled up nicely over the past few days. The end product is to be a single speaker streaming device. The pictures will work better than my words. I will share the drafts of how I want the case for it to look.
I order the Pi Zero W that will be used for the end product. It came it quickly and I was pretty jazzed to get the headers soldered on and start to set it up as the main streamer.
Pretty cool huh? And hands to Adafruit for getting it here so quickly. Help me here though, what is wrong with my picture? Where are the headers you ask? Someone forgot to order them. I remember the mini HDMI connector, and the rotary encoder I am going to use for the volume knob, but no headers! DOH! Well, off to eBay and now I am waiting for them to show up. Which is fine, I am still working the my Volumio installation. Songs needs sorted in various directories and playlists, AirPlay needs to be debugged, and I am learning how to add streams for my local radio stations.
I have found a couple of nice speakers on Amazon from Viston and Dayton. I need to check them out a little more and pick one of them. From Adafruit I have my eye on the 20W amp for the speaker. I am still working on how I want/will power it all. I still have some time for thinking on that one.
Stay tuned, I will be back to write up on what I have found about the DAC scene for the RPi and a little more about Volumio2.
OSMC part 2
During my downtime I have been reading up on the OSMC (Open Source Media Center) package for my media center project. It seems to be a nice, well put together, distro that does/is what its’ name says. I checked out some reviews online and this was the version pointed to if you wanted a clean, easy to use, well-supported solution. Checking out their web site definitely gives you the feeling they may have something going on.
Installation was really easy, I must say the easiest of all distros (about 3) I have dealt with so far. When you head to their downloads page, you click on your OS and it downloads an installer package.
Have your SD card ready for the next part.
Note I was using a SD card that had Raspbian on it. I used SD formatter to format the card before trying to use the OSMC installer. Don’t use SD Formatter. In my case, it would not mount the card properly. I had to use Disk Utility to format the card using FAT.
Double-click on the installer. You can see the installer icon to the left of the Welcome to OSMC screen.
Pick your language and hardware platform. Once you click on the next arrow it will guide you through a couple of other steps such as if you want to configure networking. Both wired and wireless are supported. It will then ask you if you want to use a local repo or download a copy from the net. Since I didn’t download it yet, I let the app do the work for me.
The speeds finally did increase as I was tempted to head upstairs and grab a snack if it was going to take this long.
Once it was complete I ejected the card from my MacBook and popped it in the Pi. Once the Pi gets booted up and begins the real installation of OSMC to the card.
This doesn’t take long, about 5 minutes.
When it reboots it comes up with the OSMC interface and it is ready for configuring. At this point it is 1:30am and time for a little rest. Tomorrow night will come with AirPlay test. This is one feature I am really looking for. Not so much for the video but most defiantly for the audio. I am also on the hunt for the available options for listening to radio. We don’t have a home stereo any more. After years, moves, and kids, parts were either worn down, lost, or broken. Part of this project is to try and create an updated home media/audio center. I miss just turning something on and having it play int he background or for active listening.
So if you are interested, stay tuned and I will keep posting about progress, pitfalls, and ideas.
ESP8266 + OLED + graphics = frustration
I have decided to make a clock; a simple one to begin with. I started with an ESP-01, an OLED, and some base code. It was fairly easy but did the job quite well. It would go out and fetch the time from a NTP (Network Time Protocol) server and display it on an OLED screen 128×64. These screens are cheap on the market and serve well for displaying a few lines of text, sensor readings, and/or graphics. One has to enter in a username and password for the wireless and the display text for the time was static on the screen, something these little displays don’t like. After a few days or couple of weeks there is bound to the burn in on the screen. I thought a poor man’s screen saver is in order.
I don’t have a picture of the ESP-01 all wired up and working, my apologies. It was getting to be a pain programming it overtime I made changes. So for development purposes I moved over to an Aamica NodeMCU dev board. This makes debugging and programming changes much easier (IMHO). And when the project is done I am able to move it over to the ESP-01. The ESP8266 is such a wonderful family of chips to work with.
To deal with wireless I downloaded and added WiFiManager to the sketch. This allows me to bring a wireless device, in this case my clock, to any wireless network and set it up for it. For example, if I bring my clock into work it won’t know which or how to access the network. Not a problem, power up the device, connect to its own AP, open a browser and give it the proper credentials. It is a very nice library to use! I thought when/if I give away a clock it will be easy for the recipient to setup and use in their own space without having to dink with changing code and uploading it.
Now the screen saver. This is straight forward (FAMOUS last words) or at least I thought it would be. After a set amount of time, blank the screen, and draw a graphic, blank the screen and bring up the time. In theory I have it working. My problem is with the graphics. I do know that graphics work and display as seen with my known eyes in the demo, but I wanted something different than a WiFi logo. I thought the Hackaday logo would do nicely.
The story on the web is to head over and use either LCD Assistant or BMC-LCD to convert an image into the HEX code that is required. I kid you not when I tell you that I have tried over 26 iterations of file types, sizes, bits, etc. and all of them come up bubkiss.
The best I have been able to achieve is with a crossed line, which still shows some defects.
SIGH – I will not be deterred. Tonight I am off to the forums to see if I can scare up and help from there. I will be sure and update the site if I find out what the magic incantation is or what silly mistake I made.