[:en]Thumb Drive – Data Recovery[:]

[:en]After a small mishap, a user couldn’t read data off a thumb drive.  Of course EMERGENCY!

broken_td

Disassembled the thumb drive and under closer review I noticed a bend in the connector. Using a meter I toned out each of the four pins and found that none were connected to board. Noticed when the connector is bent, the internal wiring inside the jack break. Unsure if that is good or bad, but it could keep the board from shorting out when/if plugged into a computer.

usb_ports

Being careful to wire ground and 5+ volts correctly, I wired up an old usb cable from an old keyboard. (Test keyboards with [keyboard tester] and the ones that fail cut off their USB cables and go in parts bin.) Being very careful not to short any wires, solder cables as shown above. The solder pads for the USB connector could delaminate from the board, so follow the traces to a point you can solder to. Being very careful not to overheat anything!ds

td_wired

When I plugged the thumb drive back into computer, the drive was mounted. JUST long enough to copy off its contents. (Pretty sure I had a cold solder join on the chip.)

— Before you plug repaired thumb drive in, make sure you are ready to copy data off, you may only have one chance. —[:]

[:en]CloudAtCost – VPN[:]

[:en]After a friend that works with IBM suggested I try vpn, and a company called CloudAtCost, I figured I’d give it a try.

Ended up buying three packages with CloudAtCost. One cost less than $13, 1 node, 2 ip numbers, 1 cpu and 512 megs of ram.  So figured for the cost I’d try a bigger option, but made a mistake when purchasing, and ended up with 2 developer packages, both at less than $28..

configured one node to be a vpn server. Using OpenVPN was able to create a vpn server and client, that worked pretty well. So tried to manage many web site clients though this system.

Soon i couldn’t access any of our clients sites from my home where I work remotely. Took two weeks to resolve the issue.

Our ISP blacklisted my home static IP.

After removing all VPN software, getting a new router and modem, sending at least 3 tickets to ISP over a weeks time. They finally replied, oh, you were blacklisted.. I wasn’t happy, but wasn’t too mad, since the problem was resolved.. And it wasn’t on our network (my job), so. New equipment that was getting old was replaced. Just wish ISP would have informed/resolve their issue faster.

UPDATE: After a couple months of using CloudAtCost, we ended up having a password issue. We requested help, many times, never received any answers! .. So basically the system is useless. Do not recommend this service!

Creating a Win10 install Thumb Drive on Mac

Company I work for is in the process of upgrading all it Windows 7 netbooks to Windows 10. They supplied us with a limited number of thumb drives with installer. Nice setup, log in as Administration, press ‘Start’ and walk away. However with just under 500 netbooks to upgrade and 10 thumb drives, this process could take a few weeks.

As you can see by earlier post, I snagged a few $4 thumb drives at Target, 16 GB.

According to the Win10 thumb drives they are 32 gb, but only using a little over 8 gb.

Enter Paragon Software’s “NTFS for Mac”. I was able to format my thumb drives as NT, then using an older version of Carbon Copy Cloner (5.3.7) and Snow Leopard. I was able to create a sparse image of thumb drive, then use CCC to image the thumb drive.

Took almost an hour to create each thumb drive on a laptop. But in the end it saved hours of work and allowed for more imaging of netbooks per hour.

So the process is, 1) Partition thumb drive using NTFS for Mac, 2) Erase/Format thumb drive again, as ExFat then 3) use CCC to copy the sparse image onto the thumb drive. Using a USB thumb drive on my MBP, cloning took almost 2 hours, deadly slow. So try to stick to USB 2 thumb drives.

Solidoodle – Rest in Peace

Seems Solidoodle, the 3d printer company, has ceased operation (as of March of this year).

Can’t say I am very surprised, we have two different Solidoodle printers. Neither has worked well, and tech support was a joke. The last resolution was to send the printer back for trouble shooting, had it boxed up ready to go, but thought better of it. Glad I didn’t send it back now. Although it still has an issue, at least I still have the printer.

Sad an American company couldn’t make a go of it and the Press is a pretty printer.

WeMos D1 Mini

Being that they were ordered from China, I ordered a few items from WeMos. OLED Display Shield, Temperature Sensor, Relay and Button shields. All were cheap and using Arduino fairly easy to program just took awhile to get to USA (say a month to the day) [Not complaining, just stating, pay a little more get from USA seller MUCH faster].

IMG_8734

We were able to create a web server, that reads and displays Temperature (T), control a relay over the web (R) and have it display its IP number (within our subnet). HOWEVER, you can’t read temperature and control relay, in the same ‘stack’. So more parts are on order to deal with that minor complication.

IMG_8736The biggest issue was getting the OLED display to work. Seems there was an issue with one of the libraries;

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36768562/wemos-oled-sparkfun-print-text-does-not-display

Just a matter of deleting two lines of code, and it worked. Course that took two days to find.

Being a true believer in scattering projects over over the place, wireless would be great. But as always, there is the matter of POWER. If I have to run power, I can run an ethernet cable.

Nailed it! – Target Sale

Talk about good timing. Saw Target had a sale for 16 gb Lexar Twist Thumb Drives, for $3.99. Didn’t really have a need, till a project at work came up, image 500 netbooks. So ran to Target and purchased all they had which amounted to 8. For a total of $31.. Sometimes sales are handy.

Oh, on another note while confirming they had the drives still, I found out Best Buy also had 16 gb thumb drives on sale, for $3.99. Just no Lexar.

Score!

Outdoor Sensor Array


How many sensors can we plug into one Arduino and setup outdoors? This is how many I was able to cram into one Project Box.

The system uses a ESP8266 Wifi / Arduino Card with a screw terminal Shield. — I attempted to run it all with two 12 volt solar panels with a solar charger. Didn’t have enough juice, so ended up just plugging into outlet located outside.

Hardware

Screenshot 2016-03-06 12.32.51

 

Lightning Detector using an Arduino

Screenshot 2016-05-21 20.14.26Been wanting to get this to working for years. Finally took the time to hookup and try it out.! Worked first time (once I got the wiring correct).

Now have to wait for a spring storm to test (sigh).

Updated layout, and tested. Sensor allows for a 40 miles distance detection of Lightning or related electrical noise for an approaching storm.

UPDATE:  Spent the afternoon tracking storms across South Florida. System reported Kilometers, which I added a conversion to American Standard Miles. Worked very nicely.

 

 

Atlas 3D Scanner – Kickstarter and Kit

Looking though Kickstarter I found a guy building a 3d scanner, that was printable, and had an option that included all the hardware  (motors, laser, etc). You just had to print the parts and assemble.

And of course, you have noticed I haven’t had any luck with my Solidoodle 3d printer, so the kit has just been sitting. UNTIL they started selling laser cut kits. Bought one on the spot.

My stepson and built it over a long weekend, but couldn’t get it to align. So I did some surfing and never got a correct answer, until I found SoliForum. Found some real helpful people and I was able to piece together the problems.

Atlas3dComplete           Settings

Quirky – Wink Home Automation

Wanting to get my feet wet with HomeKit I started looking into newer home automation equipment. Finding Quirky items cheaper on eBay I decided to give them a try.

First, gotta open one. This is a Quirky Plink-Hub1, a second generation less hackable version of their Hub.

IMG_3043

I was able to pry open and stick paper clips in to keep the case open long enough to remove guts.

IMG_3048

IMG_3045 IMG_3050

This is what it looked like inside. Very clean, power supply on one board, wifi and wireless on second.

The big down side is that the Quirky Wink automation system is made to be controlled by a phone, not a computer. At least not in Yosemite.

We were able to create some applescripts which react to emails sent from the Wink Robots. From there I was able to update a web page. So all and all not all that bad. Yes far from what I wanted, but for the cost I can’t complain.

We also installed a few GE LED lights, which are very limited in usage. Limited by the software. So hopefully HomeKit allows more features at a later date. (also get these really cheap off eBay).

There is a Pivot Power Genius, power strip (with two controllable outlets [not very functional/features]) , Spotter (multi-sensor unit [VERY FUN and useful]), Porkfolio (Piggy Bank, [which we never got to work after many hours of work]) and of course the GE LED bulbs.

There is also Nimbus, a desktop digital display. Very easy to setup, but very limited on what can be displayed. If you can find it cheap it is fun, but not worth the $50 asking price (think we paid less than $20). Would like more control over what can be display, say something we send it.

The system also works very well with DropCams. We normally use Network cameras, but wanted to give it a try. We purchased a few DropCam HD units, which we are very happy with. On doing more research the PRO costs almost $100 more, and requires a yearly subscription. We will stick with the HD.

We are awaiting a Insteon Hub and automation kit to try as well.

UPDATE (07/18/2015 #1):

After using Wink and its assorted hardware for over a month, I can not recommend this system.

Wrote tech support for help hooking up Porkfolilo, problems with getting second Nimbus working and issues with second Spotter. All I got back was a canned reply, that wasn’t helpful at all. – Will a second hub help, does Wink support Second hub, does it increase coverage area? (they didn’t bother to address any of that).

The hub has ‘disconnect’ and I can no longer communicate with lights, nimbus or anything else that was working. And I am unable to add new devices. Wink must have built in limit… Or it could be interference or wifi noise, whatever, the system isn’t working.

I’ll continue to play with the system as time allows and see if I can get something working.

Update (07/18/2015 #2):

Played with Quarky, Wink a little today. Notice my hub was off-line.. Reinstall/configured, yeah. Then! WHAT? None of my devices are listed, no lights, Numbis, Spotters or Pivots, all gone. Meaning they all have to be reconfigured. So if you were thinking of using this system in a vacation home, DO NOT DO IT!