2019-06-14
It’s been a little while since the last update. And for a very good reason. I was busy failing Calculus II. How I got a 89% on 70 (not a typo!) homework assignments and a ‘D’ in the class overall is beyond me. The long and the short of the story is anything that involved grading by a computer averaged 89%, while anything that involved grading by an “instructor” went straight into the toiled. I Read more…
2019-01-04
Long story made short: more failure. One very basic failure was mixing up SSOP footprints with TSSOP footprints. I have a laundry list of excuses for screwing it up, but at the end of the day a lesson has been learned that should have been learned many times over in the past – don’t try to hand-wave things away. Experience is the name we give to our failures, I suppose. A more subtle failure was Read more…
2018-12-16
Looking back at the post history, and it appears that I am quite the Chatty Cathy this month. Lots of progress being made. First order of business: I screwed up the naming in a bunch of places. Instead of referring to the expansion board as VSPB (Vic’s Serial and Power Board) I referred to it as VPSB (Vic’s Power Serial Board). Well it’s easier to rename it than to change all of the references, so Read more…
2018-12-15
So on a BeagleBone Black running Linux, how can one tell if a device is enabled. Lets say we’re trying to get UART2 and UART4 to work. Those are both serial ports. How can one tell if the serial ports are enabled (or just a singular – serial port)? Well because we pretend to be familiar with Linux we do a ‘dmesg’ and look for a serial something of some sorts, yes? That sounds reasonable. Read more…
2018-12-13
The VSPB (Vic’s Serial and Power Board) has been delivered from Elecrow, populated, and reflowed in my reflow toaster. Other than mixing up TSSOP and SSOP footprints (that’s a whole different post) everything I have tested so far is functional. Gratuitous picture: I am super digging the white solder mask.
The new VSPB (Vic’s Serial and Power Board – catchy, eh?) is working very well so far. That will be a different post. This is about configuring the BBB (BeagleBone Black) the Vic way. During the development of this project, a new version of Debian was released for the BBB. Since I want to be hip and with the times I decided to upgrade to the latest version. Debian Stretch IoT is my poison of Read more…
2018-12-10
Like many of you, I use computers for all sorts of things. These may include productivity, creative outlet, entertainment, “fantasies”, etc. And like many of you I am perpetually fucking annoyed by them. I think it’s fair to say that I know my way around computers better than the vast majority of people in this country. And yet – AND YET! – I am constantly fighting with the damn things to get them to do Read more…
2018-12-09
Because I can not leave well enough alone, I decided to add insulation to my reflow toaster. Bellow are the results of the “learn mode” of the reflow controller. Basically what the controller does is ramp the heaters up and down and measure the temperature change vs time vs relay on-time. For more details go here: http://www.whizoo.com/intelligent . The hope was that as more insulation was added the oven score would improve. This is Read more…
2018-12-06
Well well well. Looksie at what we have here. You can tell I am a professional photographer by the chic ‘old notebook’ background. All parts are in. The reflow toaster is operational. I think we’re going to have a functional board this weekend.
2018-12-04
So anyone that has had boards manufactured by Elecrow (https://www.elecrow.com/) knows what that picture means – the stuff is in the mail. For those that do not partake in hobbies that involve custom fabrication by Chinese firms, every time Elecrow completes an order, they email you a picture of it before sending it out. I am exited. This is the first four layer board I have done and this is the first time I have Read more…