Search found 2015 matches

by philba
Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:58 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Haier dishwasher problem
Replies: 11
Views: 12471

Re: Haier dishwasher problem

It sounds like you'll (he'll) get some satisfaction. In general, all appliances sold these days are complete garbage, even the high end ones. When buying a new appliance, factor in the extended warranty as part of the cost. We've had a new stove, 2 dishwashers and 2 washing machines fail in the last...
by philba
Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:39 pm
Forum: Computer Programming
Topic: Pic Assembly Q
Replies: 11
Views: 10675

Re: Pic Assembly Q

Look at various Microchip application notes. They often have source code and many of them use timer interrupts. What you will discover is that there isn't much to it but if you've never done it before, it looks pretty intimidating.
by philba
Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:33 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Stringed Instrument Tuner, Ideas?
Replies: 30
Views: 15178

Re: Stringed Instrument Tuner, Ideas?

Jimmy, that's why using the beat frequency is good. The number of beats per second is the frequency difference in CPS between the string and the reference. You can get it within fractional CPS.
by philba
Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:30 pm
Forum: Computer Programming
Topic: Pic Assembly Q
Replies: 11
Views: 10675

Re: Pic Assembly Q

The reason to use the 18F PICs is they are much easier to debug with PICKit 2 or 3 . The timer based approach is a good one. You can even set up the switch polling to use timer interrupts as well. You might want to set your timer to interrupt at 10 mS intervals as you can then use it for both timing...
by philba
Thu Aug 13, 2009 4:07 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: PCB - some reputable companies
Replies: 3
Views: 4396

Re: PCB - some reputable companies

sparkfun has lots of discussions on this sort of topic. I suggest you look there.

Some that people have reported success with:
batchpcb - slow but inexpensive
expresspcb - you have to use their sw, locks you into their service
pcbexpress
goldphoenix
pcbcart
by philba
Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:01 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Deal Extreme, or "Extremely Slow Deals" ?
Replies: 28
Views: 12864

Re: Deal Extreme, or "Extremely Slow Deals" ?

Ah, so that's why I got 3 of them... I'm not sure I like the feature of anyone being able to send a PM to All Registered Users. I'm glad the spammers haven't found this.
by philba
Mon Aug 03, 2009 11:41 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Throatenna
Replies: 11
Views: 7070

Re: Throatenna

Personally, I would like to do some testing of a much more interesting variant of this - the Breastenna.
by philba
Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:55 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Adding D/A converters, use SPI or I2C?
Replies: 5
Views: 4406

Re: Adding D/A converters, use SPI or I2C?

I agree with SETEC, go with SPI. SPI is very simple but requires more pins than I2C. You can even bit bang SPI pretty easily. I2C is more complex and harder to get right, even for experienced programmers. I2C's big advantage comes when you have more than 2 devices. They can all share the same 2 wire...
by philba
Fri May 29, 2009 2:00 pm
Forum: Computer Programming
Topic: Recommendations for free web hosting
Replies: 14
Views: 25962

Re: Recommendations for free web hosting

I tested angel fire - zips are fine. In fact they seem to have no restrictions at all on the upload (*.*).

I'll check out free0host. At least they had philba available!
by philba
Fri May 29, 2009 1:51 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: kronos web site sucks!!!!
Replies: 102
Views: 97632

Re: kronos web site sucks!!!!

I can keep going if you want to. What if you don't need 8 buttons and 12 LEDs? What if you only need 2? or 4? The point is you are paying a bunch of money for things that you won't use or will only use once. You get a much better sense of how things work when you put them together yourself. And then...
by philba
Fri May 29, 2009 9:36 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: kronos web site sucks!!!!
Replies: 102
Views: 97632

Re: kronos web site sucks!!!!

goner - I wasn't responding to you.
by philba
Thu May 28, 2009 8:55 am
Forum: Computer Programming
Topic: Recommendations for free web hosting
Replies: 14
Views: 25962

Re: Recommendations for free web hosting

no, I don't. It's seems to be pretty permissive, though. Geocities was a PITA - they were sooo restrictive.
by philba
Thu May 28, 2009 8:52 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Solid State Hard Drive Spec's
Replies: 13
Views: 9768

Re: Solid State Hard Drive Spec's

By the way on the reliability front. I know a number of people that work at Dell in their notebook line. They tell me that the top 3 failures were: hinges, screens and something else. HDD failures were something like #6 and a very small percentage of all failures. On defrag - you don't need to defra...
by philba
Thu May 28, 2009 7:37 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Solid State Hard Drive Spec's
Replies: 13
Views: 9768

Re: Solid State Hard Drive Spec's

I'm pretty sure the SSDs that are HDD replacements (i.e. SATA devices) have decent wear leveling. In general, I don't see much benefit - HDDs are pretty fast and surprisingly reliable. There are special cases where they make sense but definitely the mainstream. On top of that, HDD technology keeps g...
by philba
Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: kronos web site sucks!!!!
Replies: 102
Views: 97632

Re: kronos web site sucks!!!!

Wow, you go through all that effort to use your easypic. I sure don't get it. PICKit2 + SBB + misc parts gets you just as far. I guess there is money to be made in hand holding. Oh well, enjoy your way.