Jimmy the Geek

Geek in a Toyota Tundra!

Voicing over MSN to Holland!

~JM~

Aftermath...

Ethernet cables...

So, today in class I showed everyone how to make an Ethernet cable.  It went very well and it looked like everyone enjoyed it.   It's a good skill to have these days, especially if you're going to network your home.  A 'store-bought' network cable runs $40+, when you can roll your own for a couple bucks.

There are several good sites on the Internet for Cat-5 and RJ-45 tutorials.  I Googled 'cat 5' and found some great resources.  Following are a couple of them:

Structured Wiring Howto:  Great resource for home networking.
Roll your own RJ-45 Jack:  My own tutorial done many years ago.
How to make Cat 5 cables:  Nice color-code reference.

DragonFly12 and LCD

A little LCD action...

I've been taking some time to play with study the Dragonfly12 microcontroller again.  It's based on the Freescale MC9S12C32 chip... aka 68HCS12.  The programming and architecture is actually coming along pretty easily for me.  I've been using the 68HC11 for years and that's a huge advantage.   In fact, I scratch built an EVB before Motorola even released them.  I got ahold of a preliminary schematic from Dave Hyder, the Motorola rep around Seattlefor years.    

One thing I'm finding is that there's just not a heck of a lot of folks out there publishing anything about it.  There are a couple HCS12 chips available that are quite a bit more robust in the I/O department;  the 9S12C32 chip I/O is fairly limited.  But the price goes up proportionally!  I got this DragonFly12 system for about $50... very affordable.  I wouldn't recommend it to a beginner... the other more robust systems usually come with a Buffalo-type monitor called D-Bug12.  The C32 only has the Motorola Serial Loader and is NOT verbose at all!

I ended up buying a BDM (Background Debugger Module) which makes life a lot easier for downloading, tracing programs, writing to flash memory, etc.

So anyway,  I attacked an LCD with some code and got it going.  There comes a point when flashing LEDs starts getting old!  I'm going to use the on-chip A/D converter to read some kind of sensor and update the LCD live.  Temperature is probably a good place to start...

I could do this stuff all the time... wait a minute... I guess I already do this stuff all the time!

Modulatin' away...

Amplitude Modulation...

So here we are, Summer Quarter at Renton Technical College in the Industrial and Robotics course and studying... communications?  What is up with that?

Well, pretty much no matter what we do... we have to communicate in some way, shape, or form.  Wireless communications are a pretty hot topic these days and I'll do anything to eliminate the need for cables and wires draping across my space!

The phonecam picture for today is a shot of an AM signal shown on the oscilloscope.  AM is a method of modulating a low frequency signal (voice, music, etc.), with a high frequency (radio) signal.  It can then be transmitted across the airways to your radio, where it is demodulated and let's you listen to the news.  Imagine the newscasters having to shout the news to their listeners...  like the town cryers of old.

Fun stuff!

Summertime...

...and the livin' is easy

We are having some amazing weather in the Seattle area right now.  It's been hitting the mid-eightys and the extended forecast calls for  even more nice weather!

Kyra's taking advantage of the shade on the back deck and lounging like a princess.   

She and her dad have been working hard today getting the pool clean.  We're late gittin' 'er done this year, the water's still a little cloudy but it should be clear tomorrow... in fact, Bill and Kyra are jumping in as I write this.  They just couldn't wait...

From the sounds of it, the water is feeling pretty darned good.  I guess the pool is ready now!

Earlier, Bill threw a few brats on the barbeque.  I splurged and decided that brats could be on my diet for today... life is good!!

Ahhh... Magnolia, would you be so kind as to bring me another mint julep?  I do appreciate it!

Geekin' Outdoors

Outdoor Geekin'...

Man-o-man... it was a hot one in the Seattle area today.  My thermometer says it got up to 94-degrees, and that's HOT for Seattle.  It was still warm in the house when I got up this morning, so I sat out on the deck for my morning coffee.  Ha... it wasn't long before my laptop 'followed' me outside.  As it began to warm up, I actually brought a fan outside.  Works great!

Actually, I got quite alot done today.  I've been working on my 68HCS12 microcontroller for a week or so now and am making some great progress on learning all about this new micro.  Today I finally figured out how to implement interrupts!  My plan is to use an interrupt-driven interface to read the encoder on a DC servo motor.  I left the servo at work,so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to try it out.

I also figured out the timings for writing delay loops.  In fact, I can use the internal timer to issue an interrupt when it times out.  My code tested out perfectly for 0.25ms up to 500ms... COOL!

But wait!  There's MORE!  I worked on some JavaScript for Steel Turman, who runs another blog that I frequent regularly.  He's got a Flash movie in his header that has a lot of sound.  Unfortunately, every time you return to the home page... you hear the sounds again and it gets pretty annoying. 

He was wondering if there was a way to just play the Flash movie once per visit.  It sounded good and challenging,so I gave it a try.  After lots o' JavaScript coding, here's what I came up with.  Now the challenge is to interface it into TypePad!

It was a pretty good day!

SMT Hot Air Reflow Soldering Gun

Got hot air?

I just fabricated this hot-air soldering gun for about $25.  That's a far cry from the $400-$500 rework stations that we all drool over.  But it works great!   I have to admit it wasn't my idea... I got the inspiration from this website.

The iron is a $10.49 Radio Shack 45W Desoldering Iron.  I removed the bulb and replaced it with a hose attached to a fish tank air pump.  You don't need a lot of air flow so I stuffed the chamber that the tip screws into with a fine steel wool to slow down the air flow a bit and to allow more surface area to heat the air as it flows by. 

Preliminary testing (using a thermocouple) gave me a temperature of nearly 400 degrees F, which is ample to melt SMT solder paste which has a melting point of around 360 degrees F.   I'm still waiting for a tube of solder paste, but I can easily melt conventional solder with the device.

Hot air is one method of soldering tiny surface-mount components to a circuit board.  The components are so small that it's difficult to use a conventional soldering iron on them.   The photo to the left is a circuit board from a USB flash drive to give an idea how small the SMT components are.  Notice the partial view of the USB plug on the right side of the picture.  Them're some itty-bitty components!

PhoneCam Photo - June 10, 2006

Master's Degree!

Congratulations to my niece Elizabeth  for earning her Master's Degree in Education.  Beth is the first and only one in our family to accomplish such a feat.  Her Mom and Dad are very proud of her.  I am too!

Beth has been teaching reading skills to ninth and tenth graders at a local high school for a while now.  She told me that it's a huge reward for both her and her students when they are finally able to read at high school levels.  Some of the kids come in reading at a third grade level. Wow...

Good job Beth!  Congratulations!

PhoneCam Photos - June 9, 2006

Geek Heaven... Revisited!

Yesterday's PhoneCam Photo of the Day may have confused some of the families of my students, causing them to think that all we do is have fun and play all day.  I really feel the need to clarify that a bit. 

Guess what? We DO have fun and play all day! 

It's always been my goal as an instructor to make learning (and teaching) FUN.  If you really enjoy what you do for a living, it makes for a pleasurable experience.  That's much better than being bored or even worse, miserable with your job.

The PhoneCam photos today are of three pretty cool pieces of lab equipment we have to "play" with. 

The first one is a hydraulics training station.  Hydraulics are used in everything from power steering in our cars to bulldozers and heavy equipment and even the big fishing trawlers.   Hydraulic systems are often controlled electronically using PLCs or microcontrollers... which we also study in the course.

The second poto is of an industrial robotic arm that uses a PLC to control pneumatic solenoids and motors.  You can see it picking up a round block that it will place into the lazy-susan.  Then it'llget another load and continue until the lazy-susan is full. 

All the action has to be programmed and tweaked and modified until you get it to operate the way you intended.  It's a fun robot to play with.

The last photo is another programmable robotic arm that is very versatile.  It simulates what one might see on a factory floor putting cars together or loading Wheaties boxes into containers. 

It can be trained or programmed to do pretty much anything you want.  Another cool 'toy' that really exercises the ol' grey matter!

So YES... we do have fun, but along the way we're learning some pretty complex stuff!

PhoneCam Photo - June 8, 2006

Geek Heaven...

For a true geek, there's nothing... NOTHING as cool as a big box full of nondescript electronics parts and other assorted goodies bound for the dumpster. 

I was cleaning out my lab today and found this big ol' box buried under a bunch of other stuff.  We had been playing experimenting with the robots in the lab, which was a ton o' fun... but the box won out. 

It was a good box!