[Article] Article: ITT: Cheap TV Fix

I used to be able to do this stuff :( I mean, i still can, but i used to do it a lot more. At some point my interests/hobbies shifted. Or i just had less free time.


Feels bad man. I miss the days of doing VRM mods on my video cards and rebumping BGAs by hand with a needle glommed onto a soldering iron tip and stuff
 
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I used to be able to do this stuff :( I mean, i still can, but i used to do it a lot more. At some point my interests/hobbies shifted. Or i just had less free time.

Feels bad man.
Home ownership did it to me. Girlfriend, house, 2 cats, 3 dogs, 0 free time.
 
Home ownership did it to me. Girlfriend, house, 2 cats, 3 dogs, 0 free time.

It may have been the girlfriend/homeowner thing for me too. There is constant neverending outdoor and home projects, which werent around in an apartment. And evenings are spent with family rather than finding things to break for fun
 
I used to be able to do this stuff :( I mean, i still can, but i used to do it a lot more. At some point my interests/hobbies shifted. Or i just had less free time.


Feels bad man. I miss the days of doing VRM mods on my video cards and rebumping BGAs by hand with a needle glommed onto a soldering iron tip and stuff

Dunno what a VRM mod is, but you reballed shit by hand? WTF
 
I want to say panasonic? but at the same time I think he said Brevia which is Sony?
I dunno, just found out he sold it on craigslist for $200 because he bought a 60" 3D TV
 
I'll have a proper look at it later, posting from my cellphone.

Nest thermostats are a pretty decent product, just way too expensive for what they do.
 
Had a look over it...

The phone controls heat/fan/cool switching. Don't like that - if your phone locks up with the heat or AC switched on then you could end up with a freezing cold or stupidly hot room in your house.

A better approach is to have the thermostat card itself control the temperature, using a simple and watchdogged microcontroller added to the card. Have the smartphone/IOIO card able to read the temperature from the thermostat card, tell the card a new temperature setpoint and little else.

Since the phone software is open source, probably won't be too hard to change it. I've never programmed Android or worked with an IOIO card so I can't really comment.
 
Still don't like it. If they modified the IOIO firmware to do temperature regulation instead of the phone, it'd be preferable. And 45-95F is a pretty wide window...
 
gee: I'm looking for a way to wirelessly hit a button on my robot vacuum. Is there a noob way for me to do that? Could you point me in the right direction?
 
gee: I'm looking for a way to wirelessly hit a button on my robot vacuum. Is there a noob way for me to do that? Could you point me in the right direction?
On the robot side you'll need a wireless receiver, a relay or optoisolator connected across the switch terminals, and maybe a microcontroller (or another arduino board or something) acting as glue between the receiver and optoisolator. You'll also need some means of powering the receiver off the robot's battery.

Don't know much about wireless protocols other than bluetooth - something like the Nordic stuff or Zigbee might be more appropriate.

Browse through the forums on http://forum.sparkfun.com, maybe even ask there.