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[10:03:30] <Lambda_Aurigae> http://www.ebay.com/itm/GENERAL-RADIO-200-C-VARIAC-FINE-CONDITION-WITH-KNOB-DIAL-SCALE-HAM-TUBE-AUDIO-/221375660932
[11:15:53] <JFK911> Lambda_Aurigae: i have a variac already but its only good for like 3 amperes
[11:16:07] <Lambda_Aurigae> so get a bigger one!
[11:16:18] <Lambda_Aurigae> I've seen them up to 20A myself and I'm sure there are bigger ones.
[11:16:55] <Thrashbarg> "IF I TYPE IN CAPITALS I WILL GET MORE MONEY"
[11:22:42] <Lambda_Aurigae> or just get ignored,,,either way, win for me.
[11:25:59] <learath> I still like the scariac
[11:48:36] <Lambda_Aurigae> scariac has double functionality
[11:48:49] <learath> scaring the piss out of everyone?
[11:48:51] <Lambda_Aurigae> variable resistor and source of hydrogen!
[11:49:37] <Lambda_Aurigae> http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson2036.html
[12:30:53] <Roter> is there a way for me to use a command prompt (linux) to show values change in the mcu?
[12:31:11] <Roter> like an arduino
[12:31:43] <Lambda_Aurigae> no clue what you are talking about.
[12:32:08] <Tom_itx> no
[12:32:10] <Lambda_Aurigae> what values?
[12:32:53] <Lambda_Aurigae> would need you to elaborate more as I know nothing about the feature of the arduino to which you refer.
[12:43:30] <Roter> i mean, could i open a terminal and be able to see the change of a variable in my mcu, while the mcu is working?
[12:44:05] <Lambda_Aurigae> you would need jtag for that...or some software on the microcontroller to feed that data out somehow.
[12:44:19] <Lambda_Aurigae> I suspect the ardweeny software has such linked in...
[12:44:37] <Roter> yeah they have a terminal for that
[12:44:46] <Roter> so yeah i will look into jtag
[12:44:49] <Lambda_Aurigae> I meant in the microcontroller software itself.
[12:44:57] <Roter> oh
[12:45:08] <Lambda_Aurigae> some kind of debug library built into whatever "sketch" you compile.
[12:46:03] <Roter> that seems a bit hard then
[12:46:22] <Lambda_Aurigae> also one of them things that slows down arduino software.
[12:46:28] <Lambda_Aurigae> and makes it larger than it needs to be.
[12:50:09] <Lambda_Aurigae> mmmm...got most of a 2 liter diet doctor pepper in me...I'm ready to CODE!!!
[13:24:07] <Roter> Where do you guys usualy get project ideas?
[13:24:17] <Lambda_Aurigae> from wherever.
[13:24:22] <Roter> i mean i know i can google, but maybe you guys have a difrent way?
[13:24:24] <Lambda_Aurigae> mostly I make things to make my life simpler.
[13:24:34] <Roter> like?
[13:24:41] <Lambda_Aurigae> like, automated chicken door
[13:25:07] <Roter> chicken or kitchen?
[13:25:08] <Roter> :D
[13:25:21] <Lambda_Aurigae> chicken...like, birds in my back yard that lay eggs.
[13:25:28] <Roter> oh
[13:25:38] <Roter> i thought you misspelled that..
[13:25:58] <Roter> any more things?
[13:26:11] <Roter> i was thinking of using ir sensors for turning on stuff
[13:26:17] <Lambda_Aurigae> currently working on a CRUM resetter.
[13:26:48] <Lambda_Aurigae> and if I ever get into higher speed ARM processors I might make an electric fence reflectometer.
[13:27:07] <megal0maniac_afk> Roter: The terminal you speak of is just a serial terminal
[13:28:22] <megal0maniac_afk> DDRD |= (1 << RX); UDRR = 103; UDR = data;
[13:29:37] <megal0maniac_afk> data being your debug data. You can also have char[] text = "Some debug rubbish"; for(i = 0; text[i]!=0x0; i++) UDR = text[i];
[13:29:57] <megal0maniac_afk> Oh look at that. I wrote an entire program almost. AVR is easy :)
[13:30:19] <Roter> so you would use it to detect how many amps or volts is an eletric fence is charged?
[13:30:20] <megal0maniac_afk> Except RX should be TX
[13:30:51] <Lambda_Aurigae> Roter,
[13:30:52] <Lambda_Aurigae> nope
[13:30:55] <Lambda_Aurigae> reflectometer
[13:31:09] <Lambda_Aurigae> turn off fence charger, hook up reflectometer, send a few pulses, and see where line is broken.
[13:31:13] <Roter> never heard of UDR, or UDRR
[13:31:20] <Roter> but what would this program do?
[13:31:23] <Roter> open a window and display text[i]?
[13:31:32] <megal0maniac_afk> Roter: No.
[13:31:58] <Roter> ohh, i never used or even have seen a eletric fence
[13:32:15] <Lambda_Aurigae> some of them around here are miles long.
[13:32:29] <Lambda_Aurigae> and the wire breaks or gets something hung up in it and then it's not effective anymore.
[13:32:38] <Lambda_Aurigae> so they have to drive around and check the whole thing out.
[13:32:38] <megal0maniac_afk> You would need a serial port on your PC (usually USB because the built-in DB9 one is the wrong signal level) and a program such as PUTTY or br@y++ to view the incoming data
[13:33:13] <Lambda_Aurigae> with a reflectometer, at least in theory, one can figure out roughly how far down the line it is broken or shorted to ground.
[13:33:28] <megal0maniac_afk> The program just prints "Some debug rubbish" on the serial port of the microcontroller
[13:33:59] <megal0maniac_afk> Lambda_Aurigae: The diagnostics on intel network interfaces tells you how long approximately the cable is. You think it might be a similar thing?
[13:34:10] <Roter> lambda, i learn something new everyday
[13:34:11] <Lambda_Aurigae> megal0maniac_afk, yup.
[13:34:35] <Lambda_Aurigae> I've used them for testing phone lines and such in the past..and they used to be very very expensive.
[13:34:43] <learath> TDR is *awesome*
[13:34:48] <learath> particularly if it can check each pai
[13:34:49] <learath> pair
[13:34:53] <Lambda_Aurigae> yeah.
[13:34:55] <learath> some cisco switches have it
[13:35:19] <Lambda_Aurigae> and, with the right gear you only need one line...which is why I'm thinking of doing it for electric fencing.
[13:35:25] <Lambda_Aurigae> this computer here has it.
[13:35:33] <Lambda_Aurigae> on the built in ethernet port.
[13:35:54] <megal0maniac_afk> Mine always says the cables are rubbish
[13:35:54] <Lambda_Aurigae> accessed through the bios diagnostics interface.
[13:36:33] <Lambda_Aurigae> with an AVR running at 20MHz my resolution has been in the 100 to 500 meters range and not very reliable.
[13:36:50] <Lambda_Aurigae> I need somehting that runs considerably faster for the pulse return timing.
[13:37:23] <Lambda_Aurigae> since you are looking at something like 3 to 5 ns per meter or something.
[13:37:24] <learath> TDR is usually a dedicated ic
[13:37:35] <learath> or at least built in to something
[13:37:57] <Lambda_Aurigae> learath, yeah....but it can be done with a signal generator and an Oscope and a bit of math.
[13:38:22] <Lambda_Aurigae> so, I figure, why not a high speed microcontroller, an amp, and some fun programming..
[13:38:28] <learath> that's a lot of overkill..
[13:38:37] <learath> you need really tight timing to get decent resolution
[13:38:42] <learath> which is why it's usually dedicated logic
[13:38:43] <Lambda_Aurigae> yup.
[13:38:54] <megal0maniac_afk> http://www.maximintegrated.com/app-notes/index.mvp/id/4395
[13:39:01] <Lambda_Aurigae> which I can get with high speed timers on a microcontroller.
[13:41:12] <Lambda_Aurigae> megal0maniac_afk, yeah, read that some time ago...the chip that's based around looks really fun too.
[13:41:30] <megal0maniac_afk> It frightened me. I closed the tab
[13:41:43] <megal0maniac_afk> Also my atmega has lost its marbles
[13:42:33] <megal0maniac_afk> I explicitly set bit 1 high and bit 5 goes high. I set DDR to 0xff and bit 7 changes to input.
[13:43:06] <megal0maniac_afk> I know this because of the simulator, which means its the code, which is my fault because I wrote all of it. But I'm ignoring that possibility for now
[14:09:04] <Lambda_Aurigae> HA....they are chatting!
[14:09:06] <Lambda_Aurigae> muahaha.
[14:09:24] <Lambda_Aurigae> my widdlerovers can chat with each other now via IR.
[14:10:41] <Lambda_Aurigae> got a whole bunch of reflective IR sensor units and using them as comms transceivers.
[14:11:40] <Lambda_Aurigae> now I need motors and stuff to make lots more...only have the parts for 4 so far and 2 built.
[14:24:16] <chansdad> what could be a better alternative to NFC for asset tracking
[14:24:30] <Lambda_Aurigae> ball and chain.
[14:24:41] <chansdad> which is contactless
[14:25:08] <Lambda_Aurigae> details details...
[14:25:12] <Lambda_Aurigae> big goons with guns?
[14:25:55] <chansdad> NFC is not available on iphones
[14:26:29] <Lambda_Aurigae> rfid tags and rfid readers built into door frames.
[14:26:57] <chansdad> and assets need to be identified .. and location of such assets to be entered in the app. both iphones and android phones
[14:28:25] <Lambda_Aurigae> one needs a bit more information on that....tracking where/how?
[14:29:55] <chansdad> ex a printer located on 4th floor
[14:30:38] <chansdad> need to attach something to the printer , a small ciruit sort of , and then bring the phone closer to it , contactless and then trigger an app to display a form to enter its locaiton
[14:31:09] <chansdad> ex fourth floor , fifth floor by conference room etc Just giving you a sort of high level use case
[14:31:10] <Lambda_Aurigae> rfid tags...and a reader that plugs into the phone's audio port maybe?
[14:31:36] <chansdad> I aam aware of the rfid tags , i am thinking of no addons to the smart phones
[14:31:45] <Lambda_Aurigae> audio tags then.
[14:32:10] <Lambda_Aurigae> ultrasonic audio device...waits for a tone then responds with a unique tone sequence.
[14:32:38] <Lambda_Aurigae> can be done very low power with it being off 99% of the time, waking up once a second to listen for the activation tone.
[14:32:47] <chansdad> nfc only available on androids , and new iphones have an alternative to the nfc etc.. there are other things like touchbase
[14:32:47] <chansdad> audio tags - not really sure about the noise and interference
[14:32:58] <Lambda_Aurigae> ultrasonic dtmf.
[14:33:12] <chansdad> how would you detect it on the iphone / android side
[14:33:20] <Lambda_Aurigae> make it high enough pitch that you can't hear it but the phone is capable of hearing it.
[14:33:30] <Lambda_Aurigae> you have speaker and mic on the phone don't you?
[14:33:35] <chansdad> yep
[14:33:58] <Lambda_Aurigae> doing it low enough power you can limit the range easily enough.
[14:34:05] <chansdad> ok
[14:34:10] <Lambda_Aurigae> high frequencies don't travel as well as lower frequencies too.
[14:34:20] <chansdad> that seems like a good solution ..
[14:34:28] <chansdad> what other options could I think of
[14:34:40] <Lambda_Aurigae> I dunno.
[14:34:57] <Lambda_Aurigae> not sure what kind of low level access you can get to the wifi modules on the phones...probably not much.
[14:36:07] <learath> are we talking theory or practice?
[14:36:13] <Lambda_Aurigae> yes.
[14:36:23] <learath> theory: almost none
[14:36:28] <learath> reality: lowest bidder
[14:36:54] <Lambda_Aurigae> yeah..with money one can get whatever is needed.
[14:37:50] <learath> err. My point is they farmed the code out to the lowest bidder, so the odds of a root hole approach 1
[14:38:07] <Lambda_Aurigae> aahh.
[14:38:23] <learath> Any lack of root hole is purely accidental and will be fixed next revision.
[14:38:25] <Lambda_Aurigae> duplicating it on both android and icrap,,err,,iphone would be non-trivial though.
[14:38:46] <learath> true, that would be a per-chipset/firmware/special sauce/whatever exploit
[14:38:48] <learath> for the most part
[14:39:22] <Lambda_Aurigae> I still say, if you don't want to mod the phones then you need to use what they both have and make readily available....audio.
[14:39:47] <learath> that is, by far, the easiest route
[14:40:26] <Lambda_Aurigae> and could be built right into something the thickness of a credit card and 1/4 the size really.
[14:40:43] <Lambda_Aurigae> using a piezo speaker/mic, microcontroller, and battery.
[14:44:04] <chansdad> ok
[14:45:30] <chansdad> so the idea is , bring the phone near to a asset , get hte app launched , and then enter details about that asset - where it is located , its serial number etc etc
[14:46:06] <Lambda_Aurigae> ok.
[14:46:12] <Lambda_Aurigae> can always do barcodes too.
[14:46:33] <Lambda_Aurigae> but barcodes are so last century and low tech and all.
[14:46:43] <Lambda_Aurigae> at least go with QR codes..
[14:49:51] <chansdad> no , that would mean one has to open the qrcode scanner , scan it etc
[14:50:04] <Lambda_Aurigae> you could incorporate the scanner into your app.
[14:50:09] <chansdad> what if i include the circuitary inside the asset ...? there is no question of QRCode
[14:50:13] <Lambda_Aurigae> there are scanner libs out there.
[14:50:47] <Lambda_Aurigae> if you have circuitry in the asset you have 3 ways of communicating...RF, visual, audio.
[14:50:58] <Lambda_Aurigae> RF is likely out as hacking the radios in the
[14:51:03] <Lambda_Aurigae> phones is gonna be a bitch.
[14:51:35] <Lambda_Aurigae> visual would require the asset tracker device to be visible to the outside of the asset somehow...
[14:52:09] <Lambda_Aurigae> audio using high frequency DTMF seems to be a viable solution to me....but, I'm just a hobby hacker.
[14:53:07] <chansdad> nice ,
[14:53:15] <chansdad> I am just chasing some ideas ;)
[14:53:24] <Lambda_Aurigae> well, there's ideas.
[14:53:52] <chansdad> iam more of a novice in embedded space , reviving my 20 year old micro / digital design knowledge
[14:54:01] <Lambda_Aurigae> a low power attiny that wakes up once a second and listens for 1/10th of a second for an activation code should run for quite a bit of time on a 3V lithium battery.
[14:54:30] <Lambda_Aurigae> add a piezo speaker/mic unit and it can transmit tones from the same thing it uses to pick them up.
[14:54:38] <Lambda_Aurigae> and piezo devices are good for higher frequencies.
[14:55:05] <Lambda_Aurigae> if the speaker and mic on the phones are capable, which I bet they are, you could go right to the top edge of human hearing or maybe a bit beyond.
[14:56:27] <Lambda_Aurigae> phone sends activate tone for 1.1 seconds to make sure it gets through then listens as the device rebroadcasts it's unique code several times over the period of 1 to 2 seconds.
[14:58:37] <Lambda_Aurigae> with a bit of work you could incorporate the whole thing in something the size of a CF card or smaller.
[14:58:38] <chansdad> see in that scenario , app has to initiate that activate tone right ,
[14:58:49] <Lambda_Aurigae> correct.
[14:59:10] <Lambda_Aurigae> you could have the asset tag sending continuously but that severely drops the lifespan of the battery.
[14:59:36] <chansdad> assuming there is no shortage of input volts , in that it is constantly powered
[14:59:47] <Lambda_Aurigae> it's basically RFID using audio...AID
[14:59:50] <chansdad> ex a printer is always connected , in that case how would it change
[15:00:24] <Lambda_Aurigae> you are talking about connecting the asset tag device to the power in the device? then it could run continuously all the time,,,until you unplug said asset.
[15:00:36] <chansdad> yes
[15:01:11] <Lambda_Aurigae> could even have onboard battery backup that is only used when mains power drops..
[15:01:26] <chansdad> or perhaps some energy harvesting circuitry tied to it
[15:01:31] <Lambda_Aurigae> I would still go with the wait and listen and transmit myself.
[15:01:54] <chansdad> actually that is good
[15:01:57] <Lambda_Aurigae> even if you made it 10 times a second.
[15:02:12] <Lambda_Aurigae> I wouldn't go more than 4 a second though myself.
[15:02:20] <chansdad> more of a passive rather than active , dont balst the signals for no reason
[15:02:27] <Lambda_Aurigae> yup.
[15:03:00] <Lambda_Aurigae> this is just how RFID works really but the RFID tags are usually powered by the RF signal itself.
[15:03:08] <Lambda_Aurigae> difficult to do that with audio.
[15:03:37] <Lambda_Aurigae> only RFID is constantly listening rather than 1 or 4 times a second or whatever.
[15:04:10] <chansdad> Right , with that RFID you need special readers
[15:05:00] <Lambda_Aurigae> yeah.
[15:05:41] <chansdad> Is this channel pretty quite most of the time?
[15:05:46] <Lambda_Aurigae> it's basically a coil that's used to broadcast the power and pickup the response signal...along with an amplifier, RF demodulator, and processor to handle the data.
[15:05:51] <Lambda_Aurigae> it comes and goes.
[16:53:57] <learath> well there goes the internet. thanks netflix!
[17:09:56] <Casper> learath: yeah...
[17:10:11] <Casper> the begening of the end
[17:10:34] <Casper> but I'm quite sure that netflix will still pressure the FCC to fix that
[17:12:20] <Lambda_Aurigae> depends on how much it hurts their bottom line.
[17:12:23] <Lambda_Aurigae> they are making
[17:12:32] <Lambda_Aurigae> they are making money hand over fist after all.
[17:17:30] <learath> if it was less "Verizon/Comcast are greedy theives" and more "Netflix is abusing folks" I'd care less
[17:17:40] <learath> but verizon is just like "OH! Another sucker to milk!"
[17:19:13] * specing lives in a country where net neutrality is law
[17:25:02] <vsync1> internet is a cesspool and i am genuinely baffled how you can be going on about something as mundane as this
[17:27:46] <Lambda_Aurigae> oh come on....the internet is much worse than any cesspool.
[17:27:57] <Lambda_Aurigae> at least you can clean a cesspool up.
[21:15:02] <Casper> learath: actually, I read the article
[21:15:08] <Casper> the title is slightly misleading
[21:15:39] <Casper> netflix is paying them to build a datacenter on their network
[21:15:50] <Casper> not for privileged bandwidth