Revell Too
http://www.revell.com/VEXplorer.275.0.html
It appears the model company Revell is also trying to get into the robot game. I suppose
it makes sense... many kids today no longer build models... but they do play with
computers and electronics.
Robot Parts
I am flipping through a robot enthusiast magazine while I am cooking dinner. There
is a real nice two page add show a LOT of nice RC parts that could be used for Robots.
K2 - Morning Seven
The Elecraft Mailing List is great - I had two emails overnight that had the exact
answer to my problem.
Thanks to: Michael - DC0ZO & AL - WA6VNN
Switch off, then press and hold the keys 4,5,6 and switch
on. This will reset your K2 (see Manual page 102)
That resolved my issue. I only had a few minutes before work this morning to test
it... but things are looking good now. I will try to finish the initial alignment
tonight after work.
SQLite
I was on the road today driving my sons up to meet my dad for spring break. (We meet
half way which is Brainerd.) On the way up I was listening to a podcast that was talking
about SQLite.
It is an Open Source/Public Domain database. It is a flat file based system. It is
not going to scale out to thousands of concurrent users but that is not the point
of the project. I see some real potential for something like this. It is on my list
of things to investigate when time permits.
The list of companies that
are using this tool is pretty impressive.
I would like to investigate using it for Ruby on Rails, ASP/ASP.NET, and some other
projects that are tied to weather systems and embedded systems. Like I said, lots
of options and the price is right.
K2 - Night Seven
The Good:
I am into the initial alignment and testing phases of the project. That means that
I put most of the case together and connect the RF, Control and Front Panel boards
together. I ran into one little bug that I was able to resolve with a little bit of
trouble shooting.
The Bad:
I am not getting the exact status message that I am expecting from the radio.
It should come up with VFO A @ 7100.00c and that is not happening. I sent an email
to the Elecraft mailing list with some details and some questions.
It looks like a real radio now. It will be interesting to see what happens with this
status message issue. I will give the mailing list a little bit of time then my next
step is to probably call into tech support for some guidance. I don't mind working
through the troubleshooting process... I just need some hints of where to look next. --Stay
tuned.
K2 - Night Six
I managed to squeeze in another hour of bench time tonight. Between the distractions
of fixing my the boiler for my in-floor heat and my kids wanting to play XBox 360
I banged out a couple more pages.
I only ran into one issue... my kids were distracting me while I was trying to install
J2. I ended up putting J2 on the wrong side of the board. Once I realized the issue
and chased my son away for a couple of minutes I discovered that J2 was going to be
a challenge to remove from the board. I ended up having to hunt down my de-soldering
station. (I haven't used it since we moved into this house so that was a little bit
of a challenge as well.) I also ended up using my soldering station and some
compressed air (I have my compressor in the garage plumbed to the basement work bench)
to finish the remove process.
I am now on page 38 of 80. I am almost 50% through the assembly phase of the book.
The next section (maybe tomorrow if I am lucky) is to attach the side panels and front
control panel then move into the initial alignment phases.
Parallax SX28
I received my Parallax SX
Tech Pro board today.
It looks like a pretty fun system. I spent about 2 hours on the phone with friend
that bought the same board. We were able to get it hooked up and working. We also
did some back hello world kind of testing. It will take a couple of days of reading
to get a basic feel for programming this little gem.
The SX28 chip is only about $2.50 a piece so a person can actually afford to build
some projects with it.
The images were lifted (screen
captured) from the website in case they disappear over time. They are very nice
references to their very nice product.
Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur
I have been hunting for a copy of "Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur" and being
defeated in my search. Everyone keeps bidding it up on eBay so I let it go once it
become unreasonable.
At $40+ it can go to someone else's library. I will wait for the next one to turn
up. I may just move on to Experimental Methods in RF Design which is supposed to be
the newer version of this classic.
Grid Mapping
http://ve2zaz.net/WorkedGrids/WorkedGrids.htm
Looks like an interesting program. If time permits I hope to take a look at this weekend.
I discovered it on Jeff's blog.
