Friday, August 31, 2012
PCBWing.com
I have recently been told about a great place to order PCB boards and the quality is great with minor flaw to the boards. My place of business is a campus and we ordered some designed boards we made with eagleCAD. Feel free to check them out! PCBWing.com They can do multilayer boards which is exactly what we needed. I def will order from them again.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Going to give you guys the good and bad on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and my personal opinion of the operating system so far.
When first loading up on Virtualbox, I had tried the x64 version. This version did not work for me at all. I had to download the x86 version. Once it installed (roughly 10 minutes or so), I restarted the system just so I could get eye's view of what happens as soon as it boots.
Bootup/Login
The Good:
1) It is relatively quick to boot. (Roughly 10 seconds on Rotating disk, clean boot)
2) Windows ID to login, kinda neat in a way.
The Bad:
1) I immediately got lost on what was going on. It gives you a splash screen of the time and date with an image. You have to "swipe" it upwards to get the login page.
2) You immediately go to the start menu after login.
UI/Settings
The Good:
1) The new task manager is amazing looking and gives a lot of information. Also you no longer have to open msconfig to disable/enable startup items as for it is right in the task manager tab "startup".
2) Ribbons. I personally like the ribbons for the window browser. Makes it easier to do something in some cases. Not only are they helpful, but they are not in your face as soon as you click open a folder. You have to click a tab to show extras.
3) Searching. If you press start, you can start typing and it will automatically start searching for what you want. I typed in mspaint and pressed enter before it was done giving the logo. Response was immediate to open paint.
Between you and me... this is really all I like about it.
The Bad:
1) Still a clunky mouse scroll "Metro" UI for the start menu. I find this annoying for extra clicking to do something simple and a step backwards from simplicity of an operating system. The best I found is to just use your scroll wheel to move to the next page.
2) No start button... You have to put your mouse perfectly in the bottom left and click to make it appear. Keyboard windows button works also (much easier than putting mouse in bottom left)
3) No more button for "computer" or "control panel". To get to computer, you can click open a folder and click computer or you can press windows logo + e. For control panel, it is located by opening a folder windows, clicking computer, then click computer on the ribbon and click open control panel. Quite tedious and too much clicking to do something simple.
OR
You can press windows logo + c, click settings, click control panel. Once again, too much clicking.
4) Impossible to figure out how to shutdown the computer for a normal user who has used Windows for so long. From what I found, click the start menu, move your mouse to the right bottom, and there is a button that says power. Click that and you have an option to shutdown or restart.
What I haven't had a chance to test:
Compatibility.
High Performance (games, load times, etc)
Software "Raid" (You can setup multiple disks in a "Raid" fashion to get optimal performance/storage/etc)
Is there something I should add to the list? Lol
Overall:
Rating: 3 of 5 -> Skip Windows 8 if you have Windows 7
The new user interface will take some major getting use to and learning how it all works, especially for users of previous Windows machines. The annoyances of trying to find settings or options needs to be considered greatly for the start menu.
I personally think that the performance of the OS is better (thus far) than any other. Quicker to login, quicker to launch tasks, etc.
When first loading up on Virtualbox, I had tried the x64 version. This version did not work for me at all. I had to download the x86 version. Once it installed (roughly 10 minutes or so), I restarted the system just so I could get eye's view of what happens as soon as it boots.
Bootup/Login
1) It is relatively quick to boot. (Roughly 10 seconds on Rotating disk, clean boot)
2) Windows ID to login, kinda neat in a way.
The Bad:
1) I immediately got lost on what was going on. It gives you a splash screen of the time and date with an image. You have to "swipe" it upwards to get the login page.
2) You immediately go to the start menu after login.
UI/Settings
The Good:
1) The new task manager is amazing looking and gives a lot of information. Also you no longer have to open msconfig to disable/enable startup items as for it is right in the task manager tab "startup".
2) Ribbons. I personally like the ribbons for the window browser. Makes it easier to do something in some cases. Not only are they helpful, but they are not in your face as soon as you click open a folder. You have to click a tab to show extras.
3) Searching. If you press start, you can start typing and it will automatically start searching for what you want. I typed in mspaint and pressed enter before it was done giving the logo. Response was immediate to open paint.
Between you and me... this is really all I like about it.
The Bad:
1) Still a clunky mouse scroll "Metro" UI for the start menu. I find this annoying for extra clicking to do something simple and a step backwards from simplicity of an operating system. The best I found is to just use your scroll wheel to move to the next page.
2) No start button... You have to put your mouse perfectly in the bottom left and click to make it appear. Keyboard windows button works also (much easier than putting mouse in bottom left)
3) No more button for "computer" or "control panel". To get to computer, you can click open a folder and click computer or you can press windows logo + e. For control panel, it is located by opening a folder windows, clicking computer, then click computer on the ribbon and click open control panel. Quite tedious and too much clicking to do something simple.
OR
You can press windows logo + c, click settings, click control panel. Once again, too much clicking.
4) Impossible to figure out how to shutdown the computer for a normal user who has used Windows for so long. From what I found, click the start menu, move your mouse to the right bottom, and there is a button that says power. Click that and you have an option to shutdown or restart.
What I haven't had a chance to test:
Compatibility.
High Performance (games, load times, etc)
Software "Raid" (You can setup multiple disks in a "Raid" fashion to get optimal performance/storage/etc)
Is there something I should add to the list? Lol
Overall:
Rating: 3 of 5 -> Skip Windows 8 if you have Windows 7
The new user interface will take some major getting use to and learning how it all works, especially for users of previous Windows machines. The annoyances of trying to find settings or options needs to be considered greatly for the start menu.
I personally think that the performance of the OS is better (thus far) than any other. Quicker to login, quicker to launch tasks, etc.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
New Concept Idea:
I talked to my buddy Adam from War Den Airsoft and we may attack something new for the game of Airsoft. I proposed to him that we can make a new kind of gameplay very similar to RUSH on Battlefield BC and BF3. What I am going to do for him is make a microcontroller to where you have to press two buttons to "arm" the "C4" on the Airsoft field. They will be located by either team color or by the lettering of saying "Arm/Arming". I will have an LCD screen with a loading screen. After a moment, the "C4" will be armed. If you let go of 1 or more of the buttons, you will have to completely rearm the system again. Once the C4 is armed, an alarm or bell or something will be sounding off to notify the other team of it being armed. After about 2-5 minutes (will be determined later on how long), the C4 will "detonate" causing the other team to not be able to claim that zone, forcing them to defend the next spot.
Now the other team will also be able to disarm the system by pressing another set of buttons. This combination will take longer to disarm (roughly twice as long) as arming the C4.
What I also propose is that there are two to three spots for capture. At each zone, when pressing the buttons, we should have a rotating light basically pointing out that it is being armed/disarmed by the teams. Also, it is a good idea that when the "C4" explodes, that over the loudspeaker we play an explosion sound.
I really like this idea for a new style of play at the field. I plan on building a concept and posting images/code/and much more.
I talked to my buddy Adam from War Den Airsoft and we may attack something new for the game of Airsoft. I proposed to him that we can make a new kind of gameplay very similar to RUSH on Battlefield BC and BF3. What I am going to do for him is make a microcontroller to where you have to press two buttons to "arm" the "C4" on the Airsoft field. They will be located by either team color or by the lettering of saying "Arm/Arming". I will have an LCD screen with a loading screen. After a moment, the "C4" will be armed. If you let go of 1 or more of the buttons, you will have to completely rearm the system again. Once the C4 is armed, an alarm or bell or something will be sounding off to notify the other team of it being armed. After about 2-5 minutes (will be determined later on how long), the C4 will "detonate" causing the other team to not be able to claim that zone, forcing them to defend the next spot.
Now the other team will also be able to disarm the system by pressing another set of buttons. This combination will take longer to disarm (roughly twice as long) as arming the C4.
What I also propose is that there are two to three spots for capture. At each zone, when pressing the buttons, we should have a rotating light basically pointing out that it is being armed/disarmed by the teams. Also, it is a good idea that when the "C4" explodes, that over the loudspeaker we play an explosion sound.
I really like this idea for a new style of play at the field. I plan on building a concept and posting images/code/and much more.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Windows 8 Pre-Beta (Developer Release)
I figure I will give my review of what my personal opinion of this is... The initial setup of Windows 8 looks exactly like Windows 7, which is to be expected. After it rebooted, It brings you to this horrible UI start menu (as you can see below)
Now, the crappy thing about it is, you cant do anything with it! When you click the desktop, there is nothing on it, and the start button just brings you back to this scroll UI menu. The control new control panel within the UI is different. I am not sure if I like it or not, but there is one problem... I could not get out of it!
The only way that I could get out of it was pressing ctrl alt esc to bring up the taskmgr, which by the way I do like the changes to.
Overall windows is the same... I did disable the new Windows Start button UI. You can do that by going into regedit and going to hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\explorer and finding the value RPEnable and setting the value to 0. Make sure you reboot afterwards.
After You reboot, you should have a very much look-alike of windows 7, and now the computer runs like a champ without being severly confused on where to go with anything
Now, the crappy thing about it is, you cant do anything with it! When you click the desktop, there is nothing on it, and the start button just brings you back to this scroll UI menu. The control new control panel within the UI is different. I am not sure if I like it or not, but there is one problem... I could not get out of it!
The only way that I could get out of it was pressing ctrl alt esc to bring up the taskmgr, which by the way I do like the changes to.
Overall windows is the same... I did disable the new Windows Start button UI. You can do that by going into regedit and going to hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\explorer and finding the value RPEnable and setting the value to 0. Make sure you reboot afterwards.
After You reboot, you should have a very much look-alike of windows 7, and now the computer runs like a champ without being severly confused on where to go with anything
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Mentor Update #IDK-I-LOST-COUNT!
So, here I am again posting an update for this robot. I have all of the electronics ready and its about time to program!
After 3 re-etchings, I got a finalized board layout for the power board. I included a monostable 555 timer connected to an inverter to reset the micro controller when flipped off. This is useful if the controller happens to be plugged into the USB that it will be fully reset so we don't have any funkyness when we flip the robot back on.
We are using Omron pushbutton switches with the 12x12 caps for the buttons of which we will label later on for our Teach Pendant. The pendant will also have the microcontroller added onto it of which I will halfways have to redo my code to make it all work with the new layout. My co-worker is going to make a casing for it with AutoCAD Inventor and we will print it out in our 3D printing machine (pretty costly for material costs, but will look epic.) I have reduced my 34-conductor wire to 25 wires and stripped them in 3s/4s so the cable is more flexible.
The cutting of the holes for the switches was a pain in the arse. Using a dremel with a cutting wheel, I did the best I could, even managed to shave my red LED off a bit lol... I had another co-worker use a file to get the edges as best as we can. Luckily most of this will be covered when we get out casing. Overall, this project is starting to smooth out into something great and my head bashing will begin with the coding today.
Pictures:
After 3 re-etchings, I got a finalized board layout for the power board. I included a monostable 555 timer connected to an inverter to reset the micro controller when flipped off. This is useful if the controller happens to be plugged into the USB that it will be fully reset so we don't have any funkyness when we flip the robot back on.
We are using Omron pushbutton switches with the 12x12 caps for the buttons of which we will label later on for our Teach Pendant. The pendant will also have the microcontroller added onto it of which I will halfways have to redo my code to make it all work with the new layout. My co-worker is going to make a casing for it with AutoCAD Inventor and we will print it out in our 3D printing machine (pretty costly for material costs, but will look epic.) I have reduced my 34-conductor wire to 25 wires and stripped them in 3s/4s so the cable is more flexible.
The cutting of the holes for the switches was a pain in the arse. Using a dremel with a cutting wheel, I did the best I could, even managed to shave my red LED off a bit lol... I had another co-worker use a file to get the edges as best as we can. Luckily most of this will be covered when we get out casing. Overall, this project is starting to smooth out into something great and my head bashing will begin with the coding today.
Pictures:
Temperature Sensor
I decided to add one more thing to our oil computer, which is a temp sensor. The origin of the idea came from http://fritzing.org/projects/lm335-temperature-sensor/
I modified the code to report a new reading every 200 samples (with there being 2 sensors, it is a total of 400 samples). It is pretty accurate and I was able to get the sensors accurate enough within about ~0.1 of a degree with adjustment. The AtMega328-PU was given the Arduino Bootloader and programmed using the Arduino IDE by popping out the old AtMega328P-PU chip in an Arduino and connecting the rx/tx and reset lines. You can use the P-PU version and it will work fine. I had to get a usbTiny to program the bootloader.
Here are pictures, code, and CAD circuit drawings. I will post component list later, but all of them came from mouser.com
Pictures:
Files:
Arduino PDE
Autocad Drawing
I modified the code to report a new reading every 200 samples (with there being 2 sensors, it is a total of 400 samples). It is pretty accurate and I was able to get the sensors accurate enough within about ~0.1 of a degree with adjustment. The AtMega328-PU was given the Arduino Bootloader and programmed using the Arduino IDE by popping out the old AtMega328P-PU chip in an Arduino and connecting the rx/tx and reset lines. You can use the P-PU version and it will work fine. I had to get a usbTiny to program the bootloader.
Here are pictures, code, and CAD circuit drawings. I will post component list later, but all of them came from mouser.com
Pictures:
Files:
Arduino PDE
Autocad Drawing
Friday, May 20, 2011
Mentor Update
I have been working hard on getting a new system setup for Mentor robotics that I have been stripping and repairing. I have a post below that shows me working with a trainer arm. I have decided to scrap that idea and go with a teach pendant idea which seems more useable. By the time I am done, I want to have a working robot that has the teach pendant able to report back to the user useful information of the positioning and/or the modes. Here is a sneak peak of what I have going on...
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