Sound Card Switchbox Version 2

After finding a nice, new box and the type of audio jacks that I was originally wanting, I decided to remake the sound card switchbox for Melty. The project took about 140 minutes (about 7 days and about 20 minutes per day) since I needed access to the heatshrink and heat gun at work (I'd rather not have to use the soldering iron or a lighter on the heatshrink) - I obviously worked on it a bit at a time during my lunch break, but I did drill out the holes and trim away part of the inside plastic at home; the 140 minutes does not include the amount of time that I spent planning it out.

I reused the cables (and switches) from version 1 along with using 27cm lengths of extra stereo cable to increase the length a bit, which turned out to be slightly excessive. The heatshrink I used around the cable splice didn't turn out too well, but I didn't want to waste time cutting all the heatshrink off to try the smaller-sized heatshrink. When I drilled the holes for the cables, the plastic chipped a bit, so I was forced to countersink the imperfections away, which ended up making it look kinda nice (it's very hard to see the hole past the countersink).

I used some scrap pieces of ribbon cable to connect the switches to the jacks, which makes it look much cleaner than the previous version. The ground/sleeve wires (whatever you want to call it) from the cables are not covered with heatshrink (except for the ribbon), since it wasn't entirely necessary and none of them are touching one another.

While I wanted to take a picture of the switch loose like I did with version 1, I didn't want to waste any time, so it wasn't possible at work, and disassembly wasn't an option because of the thread-locking compound on the switches (and jacks).

Sometimes it's surprising how nice something can look with some new parts.

Finalized schematic (which was originally done in pencil, but had to be inked due to smudging). "Scuffed" refers to the side I scuffed a bit while filing excess plastic away on the box and lid.

Insides and close-up view.

Front and rear 3/4 view (apologies for the massive glare on the rear 3/4 view).

Rear view (apologies for the lens flare). I decided against making/placing a "P" label since I'm one of those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.

View of the splices and a close-up view of the gap between the heatshrink and cable.

Front and rear 3/4 view after "installation" (The side with the "Lin/M$W" label will be visible to me when I move Melty into the closet of the other room).

Internet Doorbell

The "article" I read is: Raspberry Pi Internet Doorbell

I stumbled across the blog entry (hence why I typed "article" instead of article) while looking for the blog of the Raspi 2 on sale (I was needing the photo for something).

While I didn't watch the video, it's quite a nice idea, since sometimes the sound of the doorbell isn't heard sometimes.

What I'd like to do is something similar where a motion detector (or possibly a security cam) detects motion and reports it visually and/or audibly since the parcel delivery services here usually just leave the package without knocking or ringing the doorbell, which quite annoying.

I may get another Raspberry Pi to do that with, but we'll see what happens.

Melty 6

I bought standoffs screws a week before last Friday (13th) to mount the PCIe x1 to PCI x16 riser in Melty and I received them yesterday. I pulled Melty out and cleaned her up some before laying her down to drill though the motherboard tray.

The steel used made it hard to get a good dent to use as a centre punch, but what I was able to do was enough to drill accurately enough. I found that one of the holes (probably the bottom left) was actually slightly off, but it didn't seem to affect anything, as I was able to get all three screws in all the way (I was able to make a hole for the bottom right, since it's where the mounting slot was for the PSU cable cover).

I found that it rose the PCIe x16 board approximately 2mm higher than the motherboard, but it didn't to seem to affect the sound card's mounting by that much - if anything I can always replace it with 6mm standoffs instead of the 8mm that I ordered.

I was thinking about taking a picture or two, but decided it wasn't really too worth it.

Wallpapers

I was looking for a wallpaper for the work computer to replace the stock Windows XP one with something nicer and work related.

While looking through the results (after filtering out images smaller than 1024x768), I found this wallpaper which would have been perfect for this blog:

PC circuit wallpaper by xmener.

I might use it in the future when I have the time and patience to redo the entire theme (mainly changing the colours, but that still takes a while), but for now, I'll stick with Hextasy.

I ended up finding the image below of a backlit PCB, which should be quite nice for work:

Credits to whoever owns this (I'm too tired to dig that info up).

Now that I've "saved" the images, I can go to sleep.

Reset Switch

The Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan trackball that I have is kinda finicky with Mei-chan - every so often, I have to unplug and re-plug the USB cable to get it to work in openSUSE.

I lived with it for quite a while, but when I started thinking about the case for the Pi2 and Banpi, I realized that I won't be able to do such a thing when it happens (I'm planning on using it with the Pi2) since the plug will be inside the case (and there's no way I'm going to remove/secure the lid every time it happens), so I needed some other way to do it. I quickly though of a normally-closed momentary switch that would be on a dongle that would cut the power when I depressed the switch, but I decided that the dongle would be a bit too much of a hassle to make. I then thought of mounting the switch on the receiver itself, but when I looked at it, it didn't seem like there'd be enough space for one.

The next day, I thought of a switch I pulled out of an old UPS, but when I tested it, depressing the button didn't do anything. I figured out that it was a fused switch, which acts like a breaker switch (in layman's terms), so that switch was out of the question. Later that evening, I remembered about the chassis intrusion switches I removed from the cluster nodes and found that it would work quite well despite how deep the button can be depressed (the depress depth to "activate" the switch is quite shallow). I used double-sided foam adhesive to mount the switch to the exterior of the receiver and left it alone for the night. The day after that, I performed the necessary modifications before testing it with Melty.

I have yet to use the button since the modification, but at least it'll be there and be a lot more convenient when it does happen - a quick tap is all it takes!

The receiver stands on the table like it's oriented here, so the switch is actually on the "side" and not the "bottom"; the wire enters close to the edge of the PCB due to its short length.

Water Cooling / Other Stuff

The article I read is: It's Been A Fun Ride, But I'm Done Water-Cooling My PC (I'm hoping this loads correctly for you, as it didn't load correctly for me on Melty).

I've always thought about doing liquid cooling for a computer, but I've never gotten around to doing it, though I've looked at parts here and here a couple times or so.

One of the things that has kept me away is the fact that I can't find a water block for a Radeon HD 6770 - the thing I would want most to be liquid-cooled. With where I'm working now, I technically could make a custom block, but at some point, I'll probably upgrading the 6770 in Melty to something better, so it'd be a lost cause to make that custom block.

Even though I do want to tinker with liquid-cooling, I don't think I'll ever actually do it for any of my own machines, mainly because of the fact that air-cooling works well enough.

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A couple weeks ago, I started working as an electronic assembler for a small company that puts together wheelchairs; besides the obvious PCB work, I also make all the cables.

It's decently interesting and I've learned a bit from it - from SMT to using an oscilloscope. It's been sort of a crash-course though, since the one who was training me was really needed in welding (it also didn't help that some of the parts are really low).

Anyway, I probably won't be posting too much for a couple months or so, since I have a severe lack of money; you'll probably mainly be seeing posts about articles, and maybe some projects/tinkering using parts that I already have.

I've been pondering around with ideas for a case that contains the Pi2, Banpi, and HDD, and so far I've figured out to put it all into a single, pre-made box that I found. Sure it's relatively weather-resistant (weather-proof?), but it was the only box I was able to find that was roomy and rectangular. As far as internal layout, I have yet to figure it out since I have a very vague idea of cable paths for one layout (I'm trying to put the HDD in a place with minimal EMI). In the matter of parts, I'm quite covered, so it's just a matter of getting the parts in that stituation.

Once I'm able to, I'll be setting up the Pi2 and Banpi before I do the first half of wired networking for the second floor. Luckily, there happened to be fishing tape at work, so I can borrow that when I run the Cat6.

I thought there was more I was going to talk about, but I can't remember it - if there was.