| chilts | morning | 18:37 |
|---|---|---|
| ibeardslee | morning | 18:37 |
| hads | morning | 18:38 |
| ibeardslee | shit .. opened up the wrong irc screen session first ;) | 18:38 |
| ajmitch | morning | 18:40 |
| ibeardslee | hmm Evolution in Quantal is a POS. | 19:12 |
| ajmitch | I suspect it's not getting a lot of love upstream these days | 19:18 |
| ibeardslee | which is sad, because Ubuntu still hasn't completed the switch to Thunderbird | 19:20 |
| ojwb | morning | 19:51 |
| mwhudson | morning | 20:01 |
| mwhudson | hads: ping | 20:01 |
| hads | mwhudson: pong | 21:50 |
| mwhudson | hads: hi, sorry about the delay | 22:21 |
| mwhudson | hads: i have a couple of electronics gadgets i want to build, was wondering if you could supply the parts | 22:22 |
| mwhudson | or even the prebuilt gadgets :) | 22:22 |
| hads | mwhudson: Sure, probably the former, possibly the latter. | 22:23 |
| mwhudson | hads: one is a way of powering on and off this 5v device i have from software | 22:23 |
| lifeless | mwhudson: do you want to build, or to have ;) | 22:23 |
| mwhudson | lifeless: well, i want to have | 22:23 |
| mwhudson | hads: it's got a 5.5 mm OD 2.1 mm ID dc jack so i'm thinking a dc plug -> bare wire -> usb controlled relay -> bare wire -> dc connector type assembly | 22:24 |
| hads | Yup sounds about right. | 22:25 |
| mwhudson | hads: the other is a way of completely unplugging a usb device from software, which i guess is a similar hack, although i don't know if you need relay on each wire or if one on the +5v wire is enough | 22:25 |
| hads | I've wanted to do the same myself actually. | 22:26 |
| hads | Let me think about it. | 22:26 |
| mwhudson | for the former task in our lab we have a bunch of 240v pdus on the upside of the 5v power supplies | 22:28 |
| mwhudson | but that's kinda ridiculous | 22:28 |
| hads | It's more than one? | 22:28 |
| mwhudson | well | 22:29 |
| mwhudson | we have a lab with 50 odd devices that need to be power controlled | 22:29 |
| mwhudson | for development on my desk i have 1 | 22:29 |
| hads | Ah right. Can I ask what they are? | 22:29 |
| mwhudson | hads: sure, they're arm developer boards | 22:30 |
| mwhudson | a panda in my case | 22:30 |
| hads | Cool. | 22:30 |
| mwhudson | (actually i have three boards, but one is a broken panda and another is a beagle xm and noone seems to care about omap3 any more in linaro) | 22:30 |
| hads | I just bought in an XM for someone yesterday. | 22:30 |
| * ajmitch wants to do something slightly simpler, a lap counter/timer for a slot car track :) | 22:31 | |
| mwhudson | i found a place you could buy usb to bare wire cables, of course ironically it costs a lot more than a regular usb cable :) | 22:32 |
| hads | ajmitch: You need lasers :) | 22:32 |
| mwhudson | i would like to avoid soldering if i can, but even i can manage wire strippers | 22:32 |
| ajmitch | hads: obviously | 22:33 |
| ajmitch | though I think I may keep it a *little* simpler than that | 22:33 |
| hads | Yeah, people ask about custom cables occastionally. 90% of the time it's cheaper and quicker to get a normal one and cut it in half. | 22:33 |
| hads | Hmm new word. | 22:33 |
| hads | mwhudson: Are you in a rush? I could probably whip something up but it might take a while. | 22:34 |
| mwhudson | hads: no not really | 22:34 |
| mwhudson | hads: define "a while"? weeks, months? | 22:34 |
| hads | I would say weeks but then it's not too many weeks until Christmas :/ | 22:35 |
| mwhudson | heh | 22:35 |
| mwhudson | early ish 2013 would be fine | 22:36 |
| hads | Okay cool, let me add it to my list :) | 22:36 |
| mwhudson | heh | 22:36 |
| hads | Every time I try and start working on something for myself I get more work for someone else :) | 22:38 |
| hads | mwhudson: ~$50 https://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/products/usb-actuators/yocto-relay | 22:41 |
| mwhudson | hads: panda requires 3a :( | 22:42 |
| mwhudson | hads: i had found these: http://www.sedonia.co.nz/TCTEC-Super4-USB-relay-module.htm | 22:42 |
| hads | Seems cheap enough. You'd need to figure out if you can talk to it easily. | 22:44 |
| mwhudson | they have some demo c code | 22:45 |
| mwhudson | it's some ftdi chip | 22:45 |
| hads | http://www.sigma-shop.com/product/7/usb-relay-controller-one-channel-box.html | 22:45 |
| mwhudson | i wonder if they just show up as /dev/ttySOMETHING when you plug them in | 22:46 |
| mwhudson | oh heh | 22:47 |
| mwhudson | the manual has as sample code: | 22:47 |
| mwhudson | stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 9600 // the relay 1 go ON. | 22:47 |
| mwhudson | echo $'\xff\x01\x01' > ttyUSB0 | 22:47 |
| hads | Yeah that last one shows up as a USB serial port. | 22:48 |
| hads | So that would be super easy. | 22:48 |
| hads | That's how I'd build it too. | 22:48 |
| mwhudson | or /dev/serial/by-path/$foo for added sanity | 22:48 |
| mwhudson | i guess the one with 4 relays would mean you could build more stuff for less $$ | 22:49 |
| hads | There probably isn't much point me reinventing those wheels. | 22:54 |
| mwhudson | i guess not, i should probably just buy a dc cable and a relay and get the wire strippers out | 22:57 |
| ojwb | so i complain to air nz about them using poli which is windows only | 23:00 |
| ojwb | and they assume I'm a mac user | 23:00 |
| ojwb | I feel insulted! | 23:00 |
| hads | mwhudson: In the next week or so I'll have some 5.5/2.1mm DC cable pigtails :) | 23:00 |
| hads | ojwb: AirNZ are terrible. | 23:00 |
| mwhudson | but all other airlines are worse | 23:01 |
| ojwb | sadly there aren't great alternatives much of the time | 23:01 |
| mwhudson | hads: oh cool! | 23:01 |
| hads | ojwb: Extortionate CC fees that aren't reflective of what they actually cost. | 23:01 |
| ojwb | charging for actually paying is such a budget airline tactic too | 23:01 |
| ojwb | i can't really see why they're trying to position themselves in that area of the market | 23:01 |
| hads | The are a budget airline now as much as they don't like to admit it. | 23:02 |
| mwhudson | hads: do you have terminal blocks (i think that's the right word?) appropriate for connecting the ends that won't go into the relay? | 23:02 |
| mwhudson | jaycar only seem to have hilariously huge ones in stock | 23:02 |
| hads | ojwb: They must be charged around 1.5% CC fees from the bank, on cheaper flights with AirNZ you can be paying 10-20% | 23:02 |
| G | ojwb: wasn't it at one point that AirNZ would waive the fee if you couldn't pay with POLi because you didn't use Windows? | 23:03 |
| hads | I think they still may. | 23:03 |
| ojwb | they certainly don't automatically now | 23:03 |
| G | ojwb: I think you had to call up and moan at them | 23:03 |
| hads | No you have to ring and try and get someone to understand. | 23:03 |
| ojwb | hmm, the email reply said I could phone, but "not all fares may be available through reservations" | 23:04 |
| hads | mwhudson: Not sure what type of thing you mean sorry, link? | 23:04 |
| G | personally dare I say it, I've had better service from Qantas lately compared to AirNZ (online checkin certainly is a plus too) | 23:04 |
| mwhudson | hads: http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=HM3196&keywords=hm3194&form=KEYWORD | 23:05 |
| mwhudson | hads: except only one of them, and smaller than the 10a rated one | 23:05 |
| hads | I always fly Emirates when I have the option. | 23:14 |
| hads | mwhudson: Ah right, sorry I don't stock those. The local electrical wholesaler will have them, 6A is the smallest. | 23:15 |
| mwhudson | oh right | 23:16 |
| mwhudson | so like bunnings or equivalent? | 23:16 |
| ojwb | sadly there doesn't seem to be any alternative airline for wellington to dunedin | 23:41 |
| ojwb | perhaps I could fly via auckland with jetstar, though it doesn't let me book it without 26 hours in auckland | 23:41 |
| ajmitch | flying via auckland on jetstar is getting pretty desperate | 23:44 |
| ojwb | indeed | 23:45 |
| ojwb | auckland airport is even further from dunedin than dunedin airport is | 23:45 |
| ajmitch | why would you want to visit dunedin anyway? | 23:50 |
| ajmitch | it's a bit damp down here today | 23:51 |
| ojwb | conference thing in december | 23:53 |
| ajmitch | I see | 23:54 |
| chilts | it's a bit damp down there in December | 23:54 |
| * chilts speculates | 23:54 | |
| ajmitch | might be | 23:54 |
| ojwb | hopefully they're holding it indoors | 23:56 |
| ojwb | if anyone fancies meeting for lunch on 4th or 7th, let me know | 23:57 |
| ajmitch | are you available on the evening of the 4th? that's when we have our monthly codecraft meeting on campus | 23:58 |
| ajmitch | 5:30 on the tuesday afternoon if you are around for it | 23:58 |
| ojwb | might be | 23:59 |
| ojwb | there's stuff on the 5th and 6th evenings, but I don't know of anything on 4th yet | 23:59 |
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