Archive

Archive for the ‘Computer geek stuff’ Category

Copper CAM offset?

May 5th, 2013 No comments

I notices that when milling a board who’s NC code was generated by Copper CAM, there is an offset between the drilled holes and the etching of the tracks.
Once I drill the holes, I’ll enter an offset of X-1 and then zero Mach3. That shifts the subsequent steps (etching, cutout) by 1mm to the left.
On closer examination, 1mm may be too much. I will try 0.8mm on the next board to see how it turns out.

UPDATE:

It turns out that my mill is not perfectly perpendicular to the board. The error comes out of the fact that the end of the tool for the engraver mill and the drill is much different and when a small rotation is added to the mill head a linear difference is observed.
I adjusted the head rotation and now both the milled and drill points line up perfectly.

Categories: Computer geek stuff, Electronics Tags:

CATIA tips

April 24th, 2013 No comments

To enable highlighting of surfaces when passing over them with the pointer,

Tools>Options Menu, Display>Navigation tab
“Preselect in geometry View”
and
“Prehighlight faces for preselection navigator”

Categories: Computer geek stuff Tags:

CrashPlan backing up NAS from windows

April 23rd, 2013 No comments

I am finally going to do a cloud backup of my system for extra redundancy, and the CrashPlan system seems to be well regarded and recommended by many.

Easiest way to set this backup up is to run the client software from a windows machine. I have a Win7 VM running 24/7 anyway, so that is a perfect place to setup the CrashPlan software.

To get the CrashPlan software to read and backup a NAS drive, read the following links:

http://virtualj.net/20120126/use-crashplan-automatically-backup-network-drive-nas
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=17672.0
http://www.midnightspark.com/blog/?p=116
http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/recipe/adopting_another_computer

They all talk about the same technique.

Categories: Computer geek stuff Tags:

Network file transfer speeds

March 18th, 2013 No comments

I’ve noticed that the file transfer speeds from my workstation computer have been on the slow side. Today I started doing some file read/write in order to benchmark what is possible on my network and eventually try to maintain similar transfer rates between all computers. Read more…

Categories: Computer geek stuff Tags:

Getting the Brother HL-2070N printer working on OpenSUSE

November 9th, 2012 No comments

Installing the Brother HL-2070N printer in linux (more specifically my openSUSE installations) has been an intimidating task. Until now.

I found a simple guide here. Straight to the point, 2 min install, and bam, everything is working. Thanks Andrew!

Categories: Linux Tags:

Multiroom audio for retrofit home

October 8th, 2012 3 comments

Looking into how I’m going to get audio into the different rooms of this house where there is no structured wiring in behind the walls to take advantage of.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1341706/any-alternate-product-just-like-sonos

http://www.musicmultiroom.com/

UPDATE: pricing out some components, and I think I will go the DIY route with a squeezebox backbone. I have a squeezebox classic and radio already. In each room that I just want some music that doesn’t need to be played at loud volumes I can put a squeezebox radio (they go for about CND$100). In the living room I can use a squeezebox classic or squeezebox receiver with some quality speakers and a small class T amp to drive them. As a reference, the Sonos Play:5 is $450. For that kind of money I can put together much better components (speakers, amp) that will be much louder.

For compact class t amps, read this: http://madgoat.hubpages.com/hub/High-quality-inexpensive-mini-power-amplifiers

More on what small amp to use with a squeezebox: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?91027-Stylish-tiny-amp-for-Touch/page1

100W Class T amp on ebay (w/ power supply): http://www.ebay.ca/itm/2-X-100W-Class-D-Audio-Amplifier-Combo-Kit-w-24V-350W-Power-Supply-TK2050-/350604100288?pt=US_Home_Audio_Amplifiers_Preamps&hash=item51a1a202c0#ht_4095wt_1080

A lot of the class D or class T amps seems to be based on the Tripath integrate amp chips. TA2020 is a 30W amp(@ 4 Ω), TK2050 is a 100W amp (@ 4 Ω) .

This also looks like an interesting option. In wall keypad to control with amp built in: http://www.pyleaudio.com/sku/PVC8U/In-Wall-Background-Music-Amplifier-with-USB-And-SD-Card-Player-With-35mm-Input-Jack-For-iPodiPohne-and-Volume-Control

Categories: Computer geek stuff, Electronics Tags:

Boot to Runlevel 3 in openSUSE 12.2

October 5th, 2012 No comments

Booting into runlevel 3 to install nvidia drivers:

  1. Press the E key for theedit screen.
  2. Find: /boot/vmlinuz
  3. Press the End key to move cursor to the end of the line
  4. Add “space” and 3 to the end of the line.
  5. F10 to reboot to runlevel 3
Categories: Linux Tags:

online css editor

September 18th, 2012 No comments

I just came across jsfiddle.net. What a great resource.
An easy place to try out code ideas involving html, css and any number of javascript frameworks.

I’ve been using it to design a css table, and it makes design a breeze as the code and the rendered view are on the same screen.

HD restructuring

September 12th, 2012 No comments

The new 500gig drive back from warranty will house the ESXi VMs.

The current 1Tb drive that houses the ESXi VM’s and the current 1Tb drive from my workstation will be moved to the Nas4Free file server in a RAID 1 (mirror) array.

The workstation gives up it’s 1Tb data drive which gets replaced with the two 500mb 2.5″ drives. Since they will be used as data drives, read/write performance isn’t as important, and the 5400rpm 2.5″ drives should be just fine for storing in progress photos/videos/other stuff.

Moving data from one drive to another on the ESXi server can be accoplished with something like this:
http://www.stormagic.com/SvSAN_download.php

Categories: Computer geek stuff Tags:

Turning a Wireless Router into an Access point.

September 10th, 2012 No comments

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=153916

Categories: Computer geek stuff Tags: