Possible Bargin on Cat-5?

October 13th, 2007

Cat-5 Package deal $64

Package Includes:

* 1000 ft. of Category 5e Ethernet Cable (uncapped)
* 100 pcs. RJ-45 connectors (packed inside cable box)
* RJ-45 Crimper (packed inside cable box)
* RJ-45/BNC tester (packed inside cable box)

Tesing the Mini Tree

October 13th, 2007

This tree is made out of a small tomato cage wrapped with 4 - 150 ct mini light strings. Different colors, Red, Blue, Green and White. The demo rolls through several effects made possible with the Vixen2.0 sequence engine and controlled by the Renard64 Controller. This is the first tree of 5-7. There is a larger version that has 4 300 ct mini string, same color pattern. These will be grouped togeather as part of color effect and motion visual.

Ordered - Bench Power Supply

July 7th, 2007

This morning after thinking about this for several months I ordered a 0-30v / 0-5a bench power supply.  I have built my own supplies for projects using wall-warts and regulators, but each time I start a new project I have to take parts from old ones.  I plan to use this for development and testing then when the project is wrapping up I will build a supply to keep with the project.

CSI3005×5

Ledtricks Controller are populated

July 6th, 2007

Tonight I finished all 3 of the Ledtricks controllers and snapped together the DB25 to RJ45 connector. I don’t yet have any way to test it since I haven’t started building the matrix. I thought about setting something up on the breadboard but I think that would take more time then it is worth! The boards look great.

NUT Config

July 1st, 2007

Examples on Ubuntu

 ups.conf

[tlups]
driver = newhidups
port = auto
desc = “Tripp Lite Stemple USB”

upsd.conf

ACL all 0.0.0.0/0
ACL localhost 127.0.0.1/32

ACCEPT localhost
REJECT all
upsmon.conf

MONITOR tlups@localhost 1 monuser password master
FINALDELAY 2
SHUTDOWNCMD “/sbin/shutdown -h +0″

upsd.users

[monuser]
password = password
allowfrom = local
upsmon master
/etc/default/nut

# start upsd
START_UPSD=yes

# start upsmon
START_UPSMON=yes

OMNI1000LCD UPS added to the Server

July 1st, 2007

I picked up a 1000vA UPS at Costco, the Tripp-lite OMNI1000LCD.  It works with the NUT project.  In testing I configured it via USB to shutdown the server.  At this point it looks like I can get 15-20 minutes from battery before shutdown point.

I found that the UPS does not show up in lsusb unless I plug in a USB hub then plug in the UPS to the hub.  Not sure why that is yet.  The APC has no problem being detected.

An APC Back-Ups 350 is now hooked to the macMini.  OSX configured the connection without any effort.

I have an older APC 250 that will be moved to the closet for communications support.  The 3rd battery in its 10 year service was placed in it yesterday.

Vixen Issues Resolved - First Look at Ledtrick UI

June 28th, 2007

For some reason I had to reinstall of the arial fonts to c:\windows\fonts\

I zipped up all of the arial fonts from another XP box and reinstalled the missing ones. Vixen worked well after that.
The Ledtricks UI is pretty slick. I still need to play with it for a while. Not sure how to control the Ledtricks sign from the sequence. I may have to learn the Vixen script to do it… Getting excited about this years display, however all the time spent tweaking last year’s setup is still fresh in my mind. Glad I am using some new hardware to get a fresh take on things! There are some great ideas coming out of the DIY Christmas site right now!

ISP Speed Test

June 28th, 2007

Speed Test at 9:30 6-28-2007

Vixen 2.0 Beta 1 Test

June 27th, 2007

I was unable to start the application on my laptop running XP SP2.  I opened a bug report for KC with a screen shots of the error.  I plan to try again on a different machine.

The error appeared to be related to a font issue…

error screen shot

SSR Board Order

June 27th, 2007

wjohn had such an awesome board for the ledtricks controller, I followed up with him on the SSR boards. He has taken the Sean Co-OP board and made it smaller and cheaper.

The SSROZ Board

I was able to get it at $1 a board with minimal shipping from AUS. I placed an order for 50.

Last year I built 8 of these boards with out PCB. I was very time consuming, but they were small and effective. This board from wjohn is also smaller then Sean’s board so I can stick with my prior method of water proofing the boards…

I am starting to get excited about the work I have coming up on the 2007 display!