New Product: USB Tester 2.0 Bundle!

After months of development, the USB Tester 2.0 Bundle has arrived!

Currently available on Tindie and soon on Friedcircuits.us

USB Tester Bundle 2.0
USB Tester Backpack 2.0

The bundle includes both a new version of the Backpack and USB Tester. At this time, the new USB Tester is only available with the bundle.

New on Backpack

• Micro USB
• Button Location on the front left
• 128x64 OLED Display (Double height of the 1.x version, easier to source)
• Voltage monitoring of the USB Data lines
• Easier access to almost all the extra GPIO’s

New on USB Tester

• Micro USB
• Separated voltage test points (Easier to attach test clips and avoid misplacing jumper)
• Better labeling
• Standard Dual Banana spacing 0.75in
• Standard test probe sized test points

New Firmware Features (Will be available for 1.x version)

• Peaks
• mWh and mAh tracking
• Big Readout Display
• JSON for serial communications

Updated Java App (Beta)

• Implemented JSON over serial
• Will save as CSV
• Add display of new data values
• Working on graphing some of the new data

We’d like to thank Ed for all of his help and contributions.

http://www.aerodynes.fr/2013/09/08/fried-circuits-tester-multiscreen-and-energy-measurement/

Angstrom Yocto 1.4 from Source

Going down the ROS road has been a long one. Full of hair pulling (if I had any) but also a huge learning experience now that it is working. Due to some of the requirements for mjpeg-server I had to compile Angstrom from source so that I can use the branch for Yocto 1.4. In turn this has lead to having to compile other components like the WiFi driver.

Compiling from source isn't too bad as it uses the same Bitbake process used for recipes. The hard part is flashing the SD Card and then flashing the eMMC. I am not sure if  I did it the "correct" way but in the end it worked. This is how I did it...

BBB: Getting Setup, Updating, NTP, WiFi

This post comes after having a few issues and deciding to redo my BeagleBone Black.Unlike the Raspberry Pi, there are few things you need to do, like loading the latest image, WiFi, and NTP.

Your Beaglebone Black may not come with the latest image but after flashing there are still updates by running the opkg update and opkg upgrade. This takes a long time to run. Once complete, the SSH session will be disconnected and you can power cycle. If you have connection errors it's a problem with DNS and you can add the feed URL to the hosts files. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/Kyq1NQOFSns Running an upgrade is optional; it will run fine without it. 

Download the latest image:
http://downloads.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beaglebone/

Download the one with BBB-eMMC-flash-XXX.img.xz

Weekend Harmony 720 Repair

A few days, weeks ago our Logitech Harmony 720 remote had some issues. It seems that the interface and buttons were working but not transmitting to any device. Over Thanksgiving weekend I got a chance to take it apart to see what was going on. During the IR Camera, test I was able to confirm the IR LEDs where not emitting at all.

After a quick Google search, it looks like this is a common issue. It could be from the heat generated while charging. To me, it sounds like an engineering flaw. But I have to admit this remote lasted a long time and it was purchased from eBay. It's probably been at least 3+ years.

Harmony 720 Parts

FriedCircuits now on InMojo.com

I recently heard about iNMOJO.com. Similar to Tindie, so I decided to give it a try. Currently just the USB Tester is listed.

http://www.inmojo.com/store/friedcircuits/item/usb-tester/



Let me know in the comments if you have heard or had any experiences (good or bad) with inmojo.com.

Twitter Bootstrap and ROS

Working on the BeagleBone Black and ROS, I started playing with the Twitter Bootstrap framework. Its a combination of CSS and Javascript libraries that make is much easier to create a website from scratch. I had heard of it and seen a few projects but never dived into it. With the new robot running ROS which has a websocket interface, I ended up trying Bootstrap. Here are few resources I used to get started plus a few screenhots of what I am working on. Once it is in a usable state I will post it on Github and a guide on how to use it. In the meantime I will try to post what I can.

Get Bootstrap: http://getbootstrap.com/
     Good getting started resources

BBB: WebCam Streaming

After figuring out the Raspberry Pi camera module and getting MJPG-Streamer working I decided to try it on the BBB(BeagleBone Black). This should be easier as you are working with USB vs the RPi camera module which isn't full developed.  Thanks to Warren I already had a Logitech C210 camera I use for the Adaruit show and tells and video chating with family.  Any UVC camera should work, you can check out this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USB_video_class_devices.

Fastest way to check is to plug it in and see if the system sees it as a camera.

# lsusb - will show all USB devices on the bus. This doesn't mean it has the driver.

# ls /dev/  - will list all the devices in the system that have drivers loaded and are ready to use. Look for video0. If it is there you should be ready to go.

Now we just need to download mjpg-streamer. I used part of this guide: http://shrkey.com/installing-mjpg-streamer-on-beaglebone-black/.

Pretty simple compared to the time I spent on the RPi since I wanted to do it without writing a file everytime.

cd ~
su
opkg install subversion libjpeg-dev imagemagick
exit
svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/mjpg-streamer/code/ mjpg-streamer-code
cd mjpg-streamer-code/mjpg-streamer-experimental
make

I tried both the experimental and the stable release and both worked fine.

Finally to run it with the full web interface:

./mjpg_streamer -i "./input_uvc.so" -o "./output_http.so -w ./www"

Then you can connect to it via your web browser:

http://beagleboneIP:8080/

You can use VLC as a streaming client but there is a much greater delay due to buffering. This might be adjustable, haven't checked yet. VLC was showing mostly green instead of the video but VLC worked with RPi.

There are a bunch of other options you can find here: <link>

I am using -f 5 to limit FPS to 5. Should help on slower connections but affects the delay.

Using a USB webcam works much better for realtime streaming vs the RPi camera module. I am sure if you used a USB webcam on the RPi it would be better as well.

Adruino and working with limited memory

Check out this great post about how Arduino memory works and how to work with limited memory. This includes tips of ways to trim the fat from your program.

http://learn.adafruit.com/memories-of-an-arduino