markp

OK, so I'm looking to set up a homemade home-cinema type control system (actually for some lecture rooms and the like, but the concept is pretty much exactly the same). The industry standard controllers are humongously expensive, so difficult to program you have to pay contractors to do it (heck, you can't even buy the upload util without going on a pricey course first), not massively reliable, and on the whole don't do a very complicated job with a standard level program.

I initially thought about setting up a touchscreen with a RasPi and a suitable add-on interface board to fully replicate the current experience, as that would be rather cheaper than the existing setup even so. However, given the simplicity of most of the setups, I can probably do it even more simply.

But, being something of a noob to this, I've gone a bit crosseyed looking over the vast array of available IO boards, and even started wondering if an RP was maybe over kill (!) and if a microcontroller might be better. The programs, after all, would for the most part be so simple that I was initially tempted to try doing it in Sinclair BASIC with an old speccy and switches wired to the key contacts until I realised that it probably wasn't going to be able to bit-bash information down the serial lead at 9600 bps using POKEs.

So, my requirements:

* upto 3 infrared outputs per system (absolute max of 6 with a twin room shared system)

* usually a single relay output (max of two)

* 2, maybe 3 RS232 3-wire serial outputs (9600 or 19200-N-1) (again, maybe 4-6 max). Having one or more of them able to work bidirectionally for status polling would be nice, but not essential

* input of at least 4 push switches, realistically 6 or 7, and a maximum of 16-20 using some kind of matrixed system maybe with a separate component-level IC on breadboard.

* possibly at least some of those switches being light-up type so the light indicates e.g. power on/off or selected input channel

* alternatively connection to a simple LCD touchscreen plus suitable programs or programming capability for such

* option: ability to automatically slave one system to another by hitting a button on the "master" to link them, thus avoiding complication of twin rooms sharing one controller but still being able to operate as one larger, easily controllable space when the dividers are open, possibly automatically triggering a certain command sequence that will automatically change device channels to make that work right.

* option: RTC for simplistic scheduled operations

The button controls would at the simplest level be e.g. a power toggle, screen up/down and a cycling input select, extending up to a possibly overcomplicated arrangement with direct selection of 4 to 5 channels, power on and power off, volume up/down, and regular DVD/VHS controls (play/pause, stop, forwards, back, up-down-left-right-enter, menu) and a re-sync button.

One of the trickier things might be trying to sample the IR codes that are needed, I know this can be sort of bodged using a receiver diode and an extra-high-frequency sound card, but I don't know if I have access to such a thing so it might be good if there's a way for the system itself to "learn" the codes.

The RS232 ones aren't quite as difficult :) nor the relays!

Total memory needed would be quite low, which is why I think the RP (and potentially expensive boards) may be overkill, but then again, Arduinos and their ilk don't seem particularly cheap in small quantities either. In neither case do I know what sort of interface would be needed to provide both these ins and outs, or the sort of programming that would be required. Like I said, I imagined doing it in BASIC (it doesn't need anything more sophisticated than that, programatically!), and I have at least sorted out the low level concept of what the system needs to do, but am unsure how you'd actually do it or what to buy/download/etc.

And yes, this is somewhat melding the abilities of two different types of controller that we have installed. The cheaper pushbutton ones are actually alright and aren't TOO expensive or hard to program at a very basic level, but are too limited for widespread installation, in terms of their onboard I/O. EG only seem to have 1 or 2 IRs, a single serial, no relays etc. To get that we have to go up to the much more expensive and sophisticated (and unprogrammable) ones.

Switches would just be commodity Push-to-make types with transfer labels, in a cheap box... but I've toyed with the idea of using a modified USB or PS2 numpad with the unwanted keys removed and blanked, or one of those subminiature HTPC keyboards...

Any ideas, pointers, tips?

Thanks :)

I bought a couple of cheap indoor/outdoor electronic thermometers mainly to check how my heating thermostat was doing and to compare accuracy vs my existing analogue ones, as well as get a warning of just how horrible it was outside each day ... however I noticed they had quite wide temperature ranges, plus min/max recording, and so thought I'd also check out how my fridge-freezer was doing. Put the main unit of one into the fridge, and its remote sensor (on a very thin, non-seal-disturbing wire) into the freezer, both quite central in each case.

Thanks to that I've now found that the temperature inside varies a lot more than I thought. The fridge compartment isn't so bad, varying 2.5 - 6.5'C (36.5 - 44'F) and mainly being 3 - 5'C (37.5 - 41'F) any time I've checked it directly, which is acceptable given it should hover around 4'C / 39'F and most guidelines say it only needs to be below 8 (46)... plus I sometimes leave the door open more than I should and the ambient temperature is quite variable (usually 15~20'C (60~70'F) but could have been anywhere within 10~25'C (50~80'F) on the days in question thanks to a malfunctioning heater) so it's allowed a little bit of fluctuation.

The freezer however shows a minimum of -23'C and a max of a bare -6'C (-9 / +21'F), despite only being opened much less frequently and not for anywhere near as long - and the warmest points are when I haven't been present, as direct observation has only been in the -19 to -13 range (-2 / +9'F). The recommendation and desired setpoint is -18'C (0'F)...

Is this at all normal? It seems to be out of the recommended ranges and it does seem to ice up excessively and suffer from unusual freezer-burn sometimes, especially for ice cream. Sadly these cheapie thermometers only do min/max rather than any kind of data logging or graphing, and these figures were collected over a full week, but I could either reset them once a day or even borrow a datalogger from a teacher friend to get a better picture of how long it spends at each extreme... Though it having more than a 15'C / fully 30'F fluctuation in any case doesn't sound ever so good.

The fridge isn't ancient, and is 4-star rated for the freezer compartment, but it is a hand-me-down of uncertain age (the previous residents didn't take it when they moved out, which is probably some kind of warning) and seems to consume more than it's fair share of power when I connect it through an energy-monitor plug - approximately twice that of my mother's not particularly cutting-edge separate fridge and (larger volume) freezer put together.

Has anyone come across this before?

I'm having serious issues with a pair of radio mics and receivers in a lecture theatre (Sennheiser ew300s, btw). They operate in the 830-866 Mhz range, and *something* is interfering with them. From the light patterns on other equipment when the events occur, it's something to do with an AMX Netlinx controller we have that coordinates the other equipment (power up, channel switching, volume control etc), either on the 100mbit Ethernet line it connects to a local PC, wireless AP (for comms with a remote control panel) and site network with, the wifi signal from the AP, or serial control to one of the connected devices.

Driving me batty, I keep applying fixes that seem to cure it for a day or two, but then the problem comes back. I've swapped the receiver output leads for fresh ones... moved the ethernet cables away from the receiver antennae... then the whole network switch... changed receiver channels... and changed 'em again... the last one seems to have cured it yet again, but I don't know how long it'll last.

It seems like it might be just one or two particular frequencies, but I'm not sure. The nature of it seems to change depending on how they're tuned, and it's affected the one receiver (usually on a lower frequency) more than the other. The interference usually manifests as quick blips of static, or clicks, though it has also been continuous static and strange electronic chirps - all at very high volume maxing out the affected receiver - and the main mixer & amplifier - and causing everyone in the room to jump!

Doesn't help that if they're even vaguely close to each other, the transmitter signals also clash despite being digital, heavily squelched, and quite narrow band. Previously the tuning was something like 831 or 839mhz for one, and 856/863 or so for the other (with some 3-figure decimal fine tuning that I forget... the manufacturer's pre-set channel "banks", basically). After playing with them a while I've left them set at 845 (850 suffered about as bad as the 83x original) and 866.000 (the highest settable frequency).

What in the world could be causing interference on these frequencies, unless it's a VERY high intensity, wideband burst? I know 850 (and the surrounding bands) is a US-region GSM frequency, but it's not used in the UK, which is probably why our WL mic systems use it.

We are having building work going on, but I can't see what strange equipment may be in use that would affect the WL mics alone and not make any of the other electronics or wireless devices act up.

BTW I have gone off looking for answers independently, including just googling those frequencies, and turned up nothing. I don't think it's the netlinx processor internals as it's a fairly industrial bit of kit that just passes signals around and provides a very simple telnet interface, I doubt its CPU runs above 100mhz (but AMX are unlikely to let that detail slip anyway). Plus the signals are too intermittent (often fairly regular though), apart from the one instance of continual static.

Thanks,

MP

Does anyone know where I can get hold of / download a wiring diagram for a recent years Honda CBF-125 (100/110/150) please? I'm looking for hints on what a mystery module and set of terminals may be on my CG in case they may allow me to add a switched side-stand. Haven't found anything useful so far, but for one site that offered an owner's manual scan but the file was corrupt. Thanks!

I've been asked to make up a video to be hosted online (youtube or institution's own website) featuring another member of staff being interviewed at length on a TV News programme. Take the supplied DVD-VR, rip video stream, convert, upload, ho hum, not hard.

But, these requests are starting to become more common (from TV recordings and the odd published documentary DVD), and I'm wondering what kind of legal status these videos come under? As I'm in the UK it doesn't seem USA-style "fair use" entirely applies, but having done some quick searches I'm not seeing much firm answers either way. As most of them are single clips showing a certain item or excerpt from a longer piece for the purposes of example or promotion (in this case, what we and certain members of staff have to offer to clients, and their various areas of expertise that are high profile enough to get them on TV and specialist DVDs reasonably often), and generally less than 5 minutes long except for the latest one, I'm hoping it will be treated with some freedom and leniency, the same as photocopying a single chapter from a textbook in the library. However, while I'm going ahead with getting the thing converted, it'd be nice to get the legal truths pinned down - can anyone advise on this front?

Thanks :)

... then how come said Nitrogen atom isn't described as an "ion" in any text or reference I can find? Is there some hidden process by which the outer shells are re-balanced (remembering that we assume it's a single atom out in boundless space, and the beta electron emitted during the conversion is lost from it to be absorbed by a GM tube somewhere), is it merely thought of as unimportant by science, or am I - and the others I've asked about it, and the person who asked me it (and the originator who asked THEM) - just being thick and missing something obvious?

Cheers,

confused of Nothavingachemophysicaldegreeshire

Right, I may soon be starting a job that's 14 miles across town, with the available public transport provision being frankly laughable (I could cycle it quicker, if the place wasn't surrounded by big-*** hills). My current car cost me £2250 and has lasted 3 years, and my sensible imaginary budget puts me spending about the same on a replacement.

However it needs to be far more economical. The current one is reasonably spacious and powerful enough (1.6 8v Astra), and fairly thrifty on the motorway, but across town it's a fuel hog, and swapping it for a more economical one will provide a genuine saving.

Brand-new cars are all well and good when it comes to being able to compare specifications and find something that fits the bill in terms of comparable size/speed (five decent seats and, say, 60hp/ton), but it's a bit trickier for used ones of the age/price I'm going to be looking at.

Any recommendations from people who know their stuff in this regard?

Cheers

MP

My reasons for asking this are maybe different from typical... I've been having to use a (cheap as all hell) DVD recorder for work, transferring some materials from VHS to disc.... and it really is the most abysmal piece of dreck. Though, i'm not entirely convinced it is the recorder (though it has a few standout points that are probably an effect of being low-end, they're fairly minor) but more of a general failing of the format. Such as stopping recording entirely when hitting a minor blemish on the disc (instead of just bleeping over it), taking forever to spin up & start recording, having inconsistent recording times vs what's claimed (2hrs disc in EP mode ("x3") = 5h50??) and a whole catalogue of other annoyances that make me want to launch the thing into orbit. Vs a tape recorder that, although not super high quality, generally puts stuff on tape without murmur and gets to work within 5 seconds of inserting a cassette.

Or am I wrong? Do pricier ones work better? (hope so!)

Need to get hold of some in short order for a school demonstration to kids on meat substitutes, etc. Had a scour in supermarkets, their websites and the interweb at large and not turned up a great deal of promise (there's some frozen sausagey things, but... frozen hot dogs? I'm probably misinterpreting it there)... anyone care to drop me a hint please? Particularly if it might just require a jaunt to a local Morrisons or Somerfield, whose stocks I have yet to browse (or Asda/Tesco, because their sites need registration >_<). Perfectly happy to go to a smaller or independent outlet of course.

Could do with them being hot dogs / frankfurters as these can be easily heated in the departmental micro and delivered hot to the classroom, so they're obviously cooked and better for taste testing, rather than pre-cooking and having them ambiguously and blandly cold, or using messier/slower/less convenient methods. There's no end of traditional style grill/fry vege sausages available! :)

thanx

(Kinda related to my previous question, but different motherboard)

Putting together some PCs to give away from old parts sitting about. A midrange one was to be made with a TopGun (PCChips M560) socket 7 motherboard as it supports the faster of my spare S7 CPUs and 83mhz transfer to DIMMs... but not >8gb hard discs and I had a 10gb to use with it, so I tried to upgrade the BIOS.

All went well, got relevant upgrade file from the makers website, suitable AMIBIOS flasher tool, & set-to with a clean DOS boot. But something went wrong & it hung halfway (later found that the chip seemed slightly unseated). Though later use of BIOS Recovery mode managed to get it to POST, it's got a persistent "CMOS Checksum Bad" error, stopping it from booting, that I can't shake with any suggested method.

But I DO have a near-useless 486 board with a practically identical looking AMIBIOS chip on it. Could I swap them & use recovery mode key combination at power-on to force overwrite & make it work?

Got an old MSI K7 Pro mobo with 600mhz Athlon. Never been the most stable system, but trying to hash some donation PCs together from spare parts ATM and it's falling over like a duck on an icy pond. To be fair, I'm loading it heavily (running Memtest86+) - but that's the point, it needs to be trouble free before I let it go, and am wondering if it's the cause of other previous hard to solve problems.

Obviously this treatment puts a lot of traffic through the northbridge, and during touchy-feely crash diagnosis I've found its ludicrously hot. It does have a heatsink on it, but it's in a stupid position, right under the support bar and main fan for the processor, so it's hard to get a fan on (i'm testing wedging a 486 fan in, but it blocks a RAM slot). Considering putting a metallic link between this HS and the main CPU one somehow!

Alternatively is there a way of slowing the thing down to reduce heat output? Other than reducing the FSB (it'll only go down to 90 from 100...

Thanks

Just what it says on the tin, there :)

Using one of these great, if clunky machines at work - tapping out book spine sticky labels in a library. Far quicker easier and more precise (and oddly satisfying) when compared to trying to laser print them with a computer. But... occasionally there's the odd Dewey code that's a honking great monster and won't fit on the label, or we have some books with impossibly thin spines... we need 12 CPI mode!

At another site, there's a much more spindly Brother machine doing a similar job that has the 10/12/15 spacing mode controls clearly marked: This IBM has the same capability but the controls are uber cryptic. And we can forget about having a manual for it - as far as I can tell, the typewriter was manufactured before the library was built and there's no way of justifying buying a 17.99 replacement manual just to get one keycode. I've tried everything likely and a few unlikely ones, no joy.

Old tech users of the world, come to our aid! :-)

I don't think I've used one so far that didn't cause the pointer to wander about like it was drunk, occasionally darting to one or other corner of the screen, and stuttering/failing to respond when there was even the slightest hard disc access or other PCI/USB traffic.

This is a bit of a problem as my tablet laptop doesn't have a PS2 port and i'm trying to set up a workstation using it plus an external monitor, keyboard and mouse (in fact using a prototype to type this). It's awful. Though the thing's optical and i've got it on a good, high contrast pad, it's almost like using a 10-year-old ball-based one that hasn't ever been cleaned.

(Not sure what the internal pad/stick and touchscreen use - they're probably hooked to the ps2 or serial bus? they work perfectly... if they ARE usb, why don't they malfunction the same way?)

Is there any way to fix this nonsense to have it work smoothly and accurately, as it should? Right now i even have trouble hitting the "submit" button on here!

OK, now i've been doing my own car maintenance for a few years now, thought I had the basics down pat. Difference is, coming up for the first major milestone (ignoring 5000 mile oil change due to "extreme" i.e. intra-urban conditions) since I treated "new" car (and myself) to a dealer service, i've discovered the service book lists a great number of things to look for compared to what i thought was the norm, and it's making my head swim trying to follow down all the columns for all the different models/engines at different mileages...

Roughly what would the experienced spanners out there reccomend I do for a 10000 mile self service? Past oil, filter, airbox, plugs/leads, battery/fluid levels checks, belts, making sure tyres/wheelnuts are OK & a decent scout around the less commonly seen bits of the body?

(esp. how exactly would you check the front disc/rear drum brakes, previously i've just waited til they squealed/juddered... oops :)

Cheers... you'll help keep a guy safe!

MP

i can't remember - run it til it's nearly flat when possible, then charge it up fully, or just keep it topped up as much as practical all the time?

i used to know but have forgotten... and as i'm using my notebook an awful lot i'd like to know :) as battery life and the cost of replacement are both important to me

(and also for my mobile phone)

Before I go on... PLEASE read what I put before answering.. please?

OK, I need to change my router. My old one is really bad, it was just a super cheap stopgap that's outstayed it's welcome by about 18 months. The push to replace it is because I intend to give it to a friend who's just got broadband til they can buy their own.

Requirements:

Must be 54mbps or better

Must be reliable!

Range is not a big issue, but should be powerful enough to keep up at least 11mbps through a mid-size detached house whose walls seem to be a faraday cage made out of lead (the old one often drops to 5mbps after only 4 - 5 metres & a couple of walls!)

Needs a half decent firewall built in

MUST BE ABLE TO DO *UDP* PORT FORWARDING. This was a big failing of the old one. I wont buy a new one without it.

Prefer not to have ADSL filter built in as i'm on ethernet-workalike cable. Therefore it needs ethernet input port (and 2+ output sockets)

Manufacturer and model code would be nice :)

thanks

MP

i had an important question i needed to ask, and just typical, i've forgotten it. therefore, a timewaster til the muse comes back :-)

What's your favourite answer to a question you've posted on Y!A? (include the Q and the A... in short summary form if needs be... don't want this becoming the same kind of war & peace i'm usually responsible for solo)

I always seem to get about three or four really hair brained answers from people who don't seem to have read the question at all, and nothing else, so I need you good people to restore my faith in the system! :-D

Besides it being a ford escort, that is... that's pretty obvious.

Had a look around for the answer to this on here and elsewhere on the net, nothing all that suitable popped up.

Usually it will lock just fine, and you can deadlock it / set the alarm etc. But intermittently, it will refuse to unlock. The symptoms seem to change every time, and it's very annoying. We're supposed to be running in it's new gearbox (yes, that blew up as well!) for him whilst he's living away in London, but don't dare go further than the local high street in case we either get locked inside, or can't get back into it after walking away.

Sometimes it seems just as if the lock barrel is sticking before it gets to the activation point, other times the system just goes wild, continually unlocking and relocking itself noisily... if you time it right you can get in through the passenger door, whereupon it goes absolutely crazy.

Last time, I had to clamber in through the rear hatch, tripping the alarm..

OK, I'm working through a fairly well known UK home / drop-in centre based ECDL course. Not super impressed by the materials or the apparent care put into producing them, but it does the trick.

Anyway, in one exercise, you take screenshots of a pre-generated file structure, and save them to a Wordpad RTF document. (Why you can't just take the easy, obvious, efficient route of saving PNGs with Paint is beyond me, but it's not the dumbest thing it's asked me to do)

They seem to expect me to use a PC from ~1995, as their example shots are tiny (~640x480) and easily fit the page. Mine, at 1024x768, have no chance. Regardless, I blundered on and saved it.

The file is HUGE. I mean, I expected it to bloat some, considering the resolution, in 24bit true-colour - but it's about 14mb for 3 pics, which I figure as 48bit/pixel... or like it's saving each pic TWICE in the file, uncompressed.

What the?

(opening in word 2003 & saving with "compress all images" doesnt work either..!)

HTML was supposed to be a standard format... why are so many page designers obsessed with optimising for Internet Explorer (or *ocassionally* Firefox or Safari), and more annoyingly, giving you a javascript popup to inform you of this and even going so far as to block you from even *trying* to view a page if you're not using their browser of choice?

Shouldn't pages be made to a standard design, a browser built so that each one will display this standard format near-perfectly and almost identically, and then any extra optimisations that the browser makers want to feature be implemented offline - inside the browser but not interacting with the page?

Recently started coming across this problem, after switching to the otherwise brilliant Opera... having to dig in my start menu to find explorer/firefox again to read certain pages... not because it wouldnt show them right, but because the code is purposely broken to work better with others, or outright prevented from loading.

Argghh!!