Hardware & Devices

glennPattonWork321-Jun-23 6:15

21-Jun-23 6:15

That was part of the problem it was hitting the bottom of the second for loop and not looping (or seeming too),
Oh man I hate the fact the Arduino servo library means you have to bit bang to change the frequency.

honey the codewitch21-Jun-23 13:24

honey the codewitch

21-Jun-23 13:24

It's not Arduino, but there are Arduino compatible, cheaper, more powerful boards made by a company called Espressif out of China.

They make good SoCs and used by many people, including me professionally.

I recommend the ESP32 based devices. You can get like an M5 Stack Core2 which is pretty neat, or like a Lilygo TTGO T-Display T1 (i have several), or my favorite - one of the Makerfabs ESP Display lines like the Parallel, the 4" or the 4.3"

You can also get them as raw devkits, but they don't use the arduino form factor (although a 3rd party makes arduino form factor ESP32 devkits I can't recommend them)

If you do go that route, reddit's /r/esp32 is a really good resource (when they get around to being finished with their reddit protest)

Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch/gfx

Ed Attfield22-Jun-23 1:53

Ed Attfield

22-Jun-23 1:53

While programming an Arduino device from my Linux desktop, I've found it quite helpful to fill my code with progress output to the serial port e.g.

Serial.println(" CONNECTED");

and then watch the progress from another window with tail -f

tail -f /dev/ttyX

where ttyX is the serial port of the Arduino device. (On USB it can change every time you plug it in.)

You need to run the tail command as root or have added yourself to the "dialout" group.

p.s. you don't need the "goto HERE"

glennPattonWork322-Jun-23 5:41

22-Jun-23 5:41

Hi,
I know I don't need goto HERE that was left over from a previous hack to prove to myself it was looping (in the past I have used HELL as a label there's something oddly satisfying about type goto HELL!)

Mini PC

VE27-Jun-23 2:14

VE2

7-Jun-23 2:14

I am considering buying an MSECORE Mini PC i9-9880H.
It comes with lot of stuff (SSD, WiFi, Windows 11, etc)
Canadian price $910.
Any (well almost any) comments appreciated.

Re: Mini PC

Gerry Schmitz7-Jun-23 3:30

Gerry Schmitz

7-Jun-23 3:30

I need ports for at least 3 monitors. Digitial sound output. HDMI. USB ports. Firewire? Bluetooth. 16GB+. Windows Pro. (that I can think of)

"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I

Re: Mini PC

jschell7-Jun-23 5:25

Any RFID (13.56) experts??

7-Jun-23 5:25

Gerry Schmitz wrote:
I need ports for at least 3 monitors.

I certainly haven't tried but isn't that possible with USB (and a USB block of course)?

Re: Mini PC

Gerry Schmitz7-Jun-23 6:05

Gerry Schmitz

7-Jun-23 6:05

Perhaps. I just know what I have and use now (2 HDMI and 1 DisplayPort) on my motherboard. My keyboard does have extra USB ports but are so underpowered as to be useless.

glennPattonWork36-Jun-23 1:52

Re: Any RFID (13.56) experts??

6-Jun-23 1:52

Hi,
The company I work for is using 13.56MHz RFID for a project. This project involves reading a tag and playing an audio track. I got a third party reader and could read the Tag UID fine but miss the 'extra' data embedded in the read/write section of the tag. Issue is I did my 13.56 Tag training at Texas Instruments and there was no mention of R/W sections of the tag, only an encrypted data section (used at the time for GasN'Go in Canada) so what I'm wondering has the spec changed or have we go a product using a protected area of the tag?
Glenn

jschell6-Jun-23 4:57

Re: Any RFID (13.56) experts??

6-Jun-23 4:57

Some docs on types

Common RFID Standards and Protocols You Must Know - Xinyetong[^]

From that and your post then the spec is 18003. That seems to be this spec which you would need to buy

ISO/IEC 18000-3:2010 - Information technology — Radio frequency identification for item management — Part 3: Parameters for air interface communications at 13,56 MHz[^]

As I read your post it is not clear to me if you think the RFID has the audio track or if it is just used to initiate the play of a track which is stored elsewhere. The following suggests that only the later it possible.

Juuke - a RFID Music Player for Elderly and Kids : 10 Steps (with Pictures) - Instructables[^]

glennPattonWork36-Jun-23 5:18

Re: Any RFID (13.56) experts??

6-Jun-23 5:18

Thanks, I was thinking read back the UID, UID links to Audio track in the reader, plays audio track. I am not sure if this is the approach or not (I hope so). There does seem to be an issue with life of the batteries which indicates to me the RF Unit is being left on for too long. This then leads to why? I can power a reader than reads the UID from a low capacity power bank with no issues. From what I remember of the 13.56 training I did was there was a read only section that could only be read by a special reader which was developed and used on the Canadian GasN'Go system... Could we be possibly be using a 'protected' area of the card meaning some readers won't read all the data (other than the UID)... I will have read of the spec's you provide and hopefully have an answer.. Unsure | :~

jschell7-Jun-23 5:14

This is for a DSP project

7-Jun-23 5:14

glennPattonWork3 wrote:
life of the batteries which indicates to me the RF Unit is being left on for too long.

Huh?

Obviously you did not provide the full specification. There are musical devices that use RFID for control but those should have a fixed supply.

I was thinking maybe they wanted a security beep for each valid RFID and something else if invalid (or other states). But again should be fixed supply.

Perhaps a portable service reader and the beep indicates that it was read, successful or not. But then plans must be made for recharging or changing batteries (presumably rechargeables.)

But really none of that has anything to do with the RFID but rather with the design and engineering of the system/product.

yai ck2-May-23 21:52

yai ck

2-May-23 21:52

I am trying to prepare my guitar signal for as best as possible ADC response in order to detect harmonics to the 5th of the highest note of the guitar (1175 Hz for 22 frets), which is about 5875 Hz. This means that I need to be sampling at about 58.75 kHz, which is possible with the microcontroller and it's DSP functions.

I am using an STM32F407 Discovery board(https://www.chipsmall.com/Products/STM32F407G-DISC1_10343216.html).

So far, I have not come across any solutions that I am happy with.

Considerations that are important:

*Guitar output impedance: about 1M ohm.[br] *Anti-aliasing for the ADC[br] *Guitar signal of 500mV Vp-p max[br] *ADC input range 0-3.3V[br] *5V single supply[br] *Frequency range from 82Hz and 5875 Hz

Does anyone have any suggestions of a circuit that I can use? I have TL082, LM358 and LM741 opamps available, but I am open to other suggestions.

The goal of this element of the projects is to be able to use the first 5 harmonics and a sampled period of the guitar signal for further DSP.

This is what I have come up with so far - although I believe it's far from ideal.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Not really a question--Just a piece of hardware info

rjmoses22-Apr-23 2:01

rjmoses

22-Apr-23 2:01

Earlier this week, I started having problems with the local electricity supplier. My UPS'es kept triggering alarms and it turned out to be the power company lines were delivering over 130V.

Called the electric company and they determined that a line voltage regulator had failed. They bypassed the regulator and got my supply voltage down to about 125+- but then it would drop under the 105 volt low limit and cause my UPS'es to go into battery backup mode for a few seconds.

So here's the fun part:

One of the Windows 10 systems would failed to boot after a shutdown from the UPS---giving me a 0xc000021a stop code.

Tried Windows startup recovery, replacing the C drive, restoring backups, etc.---all the standard crap. System would not boot.

Tried disconnecting all four external disk drives that were attached via a USB 7 port hub. Still failed.

Finally disconnected everything, including internal drives and USB hubs (two attached) --- SYSTEM BOOTED!

Went through an isolation procedure to determine what was causing the boot failure. Got it down to one of the USB hubs, which was not plugged into the UPS, had gotten smoked somehow. It still looked like it was working but it caused Windows 10 to fail during the boot process.

Who would've thunk a USB hub could cause a boot failure on Windows 10?

Microsoft owes me for four days labor and several bottles of antacids.

Re: Not really a question--Just a piece of hardware info

jschell25-Apr-23 11:00

25-Apr-23 11:00

I always find these sort of failure stories interesting.

Laptop Dual Monitors

Kevin Marois17-Apr-23 12:24

Kevin Marois

17-Apr-23 12:24

I just bought this HP laptop[^]. I want to connect dual monitors, so I bought one of these on Amazon[^].

I hooked it up, went into Display, Multiple Displays, and clicked Detect - and it doesn't detect it.

Do I need an HP docking station? ANy thoughts on what's wrong?

If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.

Re: Laptop Dual Monitors

Richard MacCutchan17-Apr-23 22:08

17-Apr-23 22:08

Kevin Marois wrote:
Do I need ...

Why not ask HP, it's their product and they have help forums.

Re: Laptop Dual Monitors

jschell18-Apr-23 5:08

SOLVED - Write protected hard drive...How to make writeable

18-Apr-23 5:08

Just noting that on more than one occasion using even the same laptop (not HP) I have experienced this sort of thing.

Usually involves a lot of experimentation and googling to get it to work. Googling will show multiple suggestions/causes.

I also haven't tried it with USB only though.

Re: Laptop Dual Monitors

Gerry Schmitz25-Apr-23 2:52

Gerry Schmitz

25-Apr-23 2:52

You want 3 monitors? Why not use the HDMI port for "one" extra? Did you try rebooting after connecting everything?

Richard Andrew x6412-Mar-23 11:12

Richard Andrew x64

12-Mar-23 11:12

Hi, I Have a Seagate 1 TB USB mechanical hard drive.

It has either a corrupted partitions or they are Linux partitions. I don't know how to tell.

On my Windows machine, in Disk Management, I try to delete one of the partitions, after taking the drive offline, and it gives the error: "The media is write-protected."

Anyone know what kind of tool I can use to un-write-protect the drive?

SOLUTION:

Use the "diskpart" command line tool in Windows to remove the write protection. Simple.

The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.

modified 12-Mar-23 17:24pm.

Re: Scan for "Bluetooth service " is skipping devices

jschell16-Feb-23 6:57

Re: Scan for "Bluetooth service " is skipping devices

16-Feb-23 6:57

Just a suggestion...

I looked for your previous posts about bluetooth and it didn't seem like you got any answers.

So perhaps there is a different site (not forum on this site) where more answers might show up?

Keep in mind that I am just trying to be helpful and far as I am concerned you can keep posting here. Maybe someone will wander by eventually that knows the answers.

Richard MacCutchan16-Feb-23 22:19

Re: Scan for "Bluetooth service " is skipping devices

16-Feb-23 22:19

How about the sample code at Bluetooth Low Energy Scanner Example | Qt Bluetooth 6.4.2[^].

Richard MacCutchan17-Feb-23 5:48

Re: Scan for "Bluetooth service " is skipping devices

17-Feb-23 5:48

I don't know what the differences are, but the article looked like it might have some useful ideas, and since you are using Qt anyway. What I did notice was that the website has a number of forums, so that might be a better place for you to get help on a subject that few people (at least here on Codeproject) seem to be working in.

trønderen17-Feb-23 8:26

trønderen

17-Feb-23 8:26

Member 14968771 wrote:
I am trying to stay away from "low energy" technology for now.

My tip: If you have a choice, not dictated by external requirements (and that's what it sounds like), get into Bluetooth Low Energy as soon as possible. That is where things are happening nowadays. A whole lot of talk about 'Bluetooth' is in fact a short form of 'Bluetooth Low Energy'. Some of the new BLE application areas, such as the fairly new LC3 codec for BLE headphones, is really good, but will probably never be adapted to non-LE Bluetooth (according to a friend who has been actively working with the adaptation to BLE).

Expect any Bluetooth device running on batteries that you cannot reasonably charge every day to use BLE. Non-LE is primarily for stationary and semi-stationary equipment, plus your smartphone. The smartphone talks BLE to most other stuff.

Re: How to use bluetooth to pass simple ASCII serial data ?

Richard MacCutchan28-Dec-22 21:41